Under My Skin

05 | help me undress

TW: Mild sexual scenes towards the end of the chapter. Please do not read if you are underage or do not like descriptive sex scenes. The scenes will be marked with a set of stars so you can stop reading.

Chapter five:

"Shots! Shots! Shots!" The girls shrieked over the pounding generic pop music as the bartender brought around their third set of tequila shots.

Each girl coated the back of her hand with a heap of salt before downing the shot rapidly. They subsequently chewed down intensely on a chunk of lemon, poorly attempting to hide their disgust at the putrid taste of the alcohol.

Around them, the club was dimly lit with occasional flashes of light outlining the array of bodies swaying on the dance floor. The floor was barely visible amidst the ocean of bodies in front of them.

"Why aren't you doing shots with us, Blaine?" Hazel winced loudly, her head lolling from side to side with each word.

"Men don't do shots," Blaine replied seriously. He was beginning to regret agreeing to the night out. He could almost feel the alcohol coursing through his veins; he and his liver would regret this in the morning.

"Huh? Says who?" Indiya chortled, probably the least drunk of the three girls.

"You're not even on our level yet!" Hazel persisted. She had resorted to screaming over the table so she could be heard over the thumping of the music.

"I'm on my second zombie cocktail. Trust me. I'm getting there." Blaine reassured her, rolling his eyes as he talked. He'd have preferred to have stuck to his usual beverage of choice; beer but Hazel had told him that if he wasn't having shots, he'd have to have something else with a decent alcohol concentration.

Blaine's eyes shot between the three girls before him until they finally rested upon Ria.

What would Reid say if he could see her now?

The nape of her crop top had begun to roll down, exposing the voluptuousness of her bust. She had rapidly become increasingly intoxicated and had since stopped being self-conscious of the low-hanging top.

"Guys, I love you all," Ria murmured suddenly, her eyes blinking exceptionally slowly, the connection between the synapses in her brain being blocked by the alcohol in her bloodstream, "Really, I don't know...I don't know what I would do without you."

"Okay, so she's clearly had enough." Indiya chuckled, moving the cups in front of Ria far away.

"No!" Ria pouted, "more shots." She spoke in simple sentences as though she'd lost the ability to form a complete sentence and had returned to her primitive state.

"Shots!" Hazel mimicked her friend.

"Indiya, tell us." Ria suddenly spoke. "Why did you and Reid break up?"

Indiya appeared shocked by the sudden question. The shock of the question had returned her to a state of sobriety, "Okay, let's get more shots, then." She attempted a weak change of conversation.

"Tell us, Indiya. You guys were so cute together. And happy. It just doesn't make sense." Hazel continued sluggishly.

"The reason doesn't matter now, does it?" Blaine answered, noticing the tense atmosphere. The way that Indiya's shoulders straightened indicated her discomfort at the conversation.

"It was something and nothing," Indiya murmured, her mind encompassing a flurry of emotions. "All I hope is that none of you goes through that." Indiya glanced down, avoiding eye contact. "To give yourself entirely to someone for years and then for them to leave you and move on as if it was nothing. As if you were nothing. I cried to sleep every night after we broke up, while...while Reid was out finding himself a new girl. You don't know how it feels to try so hard to move on when you know that the person you love...loved didn't even care about you. They just wanted to find a replacement as soon as possible." She completed her sentence, dabbing a napkin to her eyes as they welled up with tears.