Page 116 of Making Choices

“I mean, he’s gorgeous, but I haven’t ever thought about sleeping with him.”

“Because of Venom?”

“Yes. I guess.” Shaking my head as my body fills with anxiety, I splutter. “It’s not like that between us.”

“Because Venom’s a controlling mofo who didn’t allow you time to choose for yourself.”

“Just drop it, Nads.” Flustered, I run my suddenly shaky fingers through my hair, then I straighten my top. “Me and Slash are friends. Best friends. We tell each other everything. Trust each other implicitly. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“Okay. Okay.” Nadia pushes back to her feet. She holds out a hand to me. “Don’t have a conniption over it... I just find it hard to believe that men and women can be as close as you two without sex eventually entering the equation.”

“You’re friends with Cub, even though you’ve slept—” I pretend to gag as I allow Nadia to pull me back to my feet. “—with my brother a hundred times.”

“Oh, my poor, sweet, innocent little Cherub, I’ve fucked Cub almost as many times as I’ve fucked your twin.”

“What!” With a laugh, Nadia dances out of my reach when I swat at her. “No… you’re joking. Aren’t you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you the truth,” she sasses. When I hold my hands up and flick my fingers in the universal “bring it” motion, Nadia snorts. “Just warning you… men and women aren’t built to be friends, ’cause someone eventually catches feelings.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I guess you’re determined to find out the hard way.”

“Oh, piss off.”

Giggling, my best friend darts out of the VIP area toward the dance floor. After slipping my feet back into my stilettos, I follow her at a more sedate pace. This time, when the bouncers try to create a ring around us, I shoo them away. Club Mirage is smack-bang in the middle of Shamrocks turf. I want to lose myself in the crowd, feel the heat of the bodies gyrating around me as we let the beat take control. Forget about Zeke… and Nadia’s dumbarse comments about Slash. And some catty woman calling me a murdering whore isn’t going to stop me indulging those simple desires as safely as I can.

“Can you grab us a bottle of water each?” I ask the taller bodyguard once I’ve worked up a sweat. He quickly obliges. I pass one of them to Nadia, then I beckon her closer. “Meet me in the ladies room.”

We have a personal bathroom in the VIP area, so I head in its direction without waiting for my best friend’s agreement. I know she’ll follow me. Just like I know she’ll have something that’s technically illegal stuffed down her bra, and that it shouldn’t take too much cajoling to get her to share it with me.

“Oh, my God,” she exclaims when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. “Why didn’t you tell me that I’ve sweated all my makeup off?”

Curling my fingers over the shorter woman’s shoulders when I come to stand behind her, I press a kiss to the hair at her crown. Nadia halts her freak out over her face to tilt her head back so she can look up at me. I run one hand down past her collar bone, then I snag the little baggie I can see wedged in her cleavage. Shaking it out, I count three pills before she snatches it out of my grip.

“I’m not in the mood for your judgement,” she tells me. “It’s only MDMA. Pure as fuck, sourced directly from the man himself.”

“Hunter?”

“Yep. And he said it’s cleanly cut. A straight up high with an easy comedown. Nothing addictive. Just the best parts of a disco treat without any of the nasties.”

When I realise that she’s trying to justify herself to me rather than explain the positive properties of one of Hunter’s ‘mind-expanding” experiments, I cut her off. “Calm down, Nads. As much as I’m glad you’re making good decisions nowadays, the only thing I’m interested in right now is your willingness to share your stash with me.”

“You wanna get high?”

“Yep.”

Nadia dramatically looks around the bathroom. “This is one of those viral ambush videos isn’t it?”

“No, Little Miss Suspicious, it is not.”

Resting her butt against the basin, my best friend eyes me with caution. “I don’t get it... any other time you’d be judging me for needing chemical assistance to enjoy myself. Why the sudden about-face?”

“It’s like you said, we’ve spent so long coupled up that we’ve kinda missed out on all of the fun of being a single twenty-something.”

“When did I say that?”

I roll my eyes at her. “It was while you were plotting to make Zeke jealous... you remember the conversation we had after the funerals.”

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