Dark Places

13 | i don't care who you fuck, luz

❝...but i'm brighter
when you make me fade.❞

☽

DRAKE MEDINA DOESN'T LET GO.

Nikki peers up at him lazily, tapping her nails on the bar to echo the beat thrumming beneath my feet. The faintest trace of amusement tugs her lips into a soft smile. "Oh, D, you've got dibs?"

His jaw clenches. "Yeah."

Dibs?

I snort. "Yeah, no. I don't think anyone here has dibs on shit."

They can both go fuck themselves, as far as I'm concerned.

"Mmm." He tucks me tighter under his arm, snickering lowly. "Okay, lo que tú digas, mami."

Grinding my teeth together, I wriggle out of his hold, but then I turn, and I still, simultaneously irritated and mesmerized, caught off-guard by how fucking perfectly the haze of red light paints his dark complexion. "Ay, vete al carajo," I snip. "¿Qué coño haces aquí?"

"Oh, culpa mía, Melo, I was trying to keep you sober."

Uh, fuck him.

It's been three years since I've needed Drake Medina to keep me sober.

Lazily, I twist and slink to the bar, a softer, slower song buzzing between us. Jonah. Nikki. Drake. The air is hot, static, electricity, crackling with uncertainty, and the noise is low, stifling, a pulse, lulling with an unpredictable pause, but as I snag the shot of vodka and tip it to my lips, knocking it back in one quick, impulsive motion, I can already see a dim disappointment, hear the echo of my heartbeat, and feel the fire in my fingertips. It lingers in a silence, flooding my throat, tightening, pooling in the pit of my stomach, a fiery sensation I'd missed.

Drake doesn't keep me sober.

Drake drives me to drink.

Siempre.

The aching hesitation, between songs, explodes, and with it, the lights spasm, an erratic flickering, flashing, fluttering, spiking my pulse, drawing my gaze back to him. "Well, Medina," I say with a dry smile, "that plan never did go very well."

Drake doesn't move, only stands and stares, his eyes burning, as streaks of light separate us, divide us into darkness, but then Drake is reeling me into his chest again, cursing under his breath, clamping a hand around my arm, and hauling my ass away from temptation, into an intoxicatingly smoky veil of strangers.

I let out a strangled shout, thrashing wildly against his grip. "¡Ay, cabrón! ¡Hijo de puta!"

"Vamos, Melo," he grinds out, yanking me harshly, and as I watch through fleeting, flittering seconds of dizziness, the crowd, swallowing shaky silhouettes, I can't find Jonah or... or Nikki.

Nikki, leaning in close, whispering, breathless.

Suddenly, I lurch back, breaking free with a haughty laugh. Of course. He freezes, for a millisecond, before swiveling to meet my gaze. His flushed cheeks seem to deepen under the violent veil of red. "¿Qué pasa?" I inch closer, a predatory pursuit, peering up into those dark, dark, dark eyes. "No me digas que estás celoso."

His silence, beneath the roaring, rushing tide of midnight music, is deafening.

"Oh, papi," I snicker. "Qué lindo."