Illicit ✔

one

Dedicated to Vee—because she read ALL THE PLOT & approved of it & pushed/encouraged me to do this when I wasn't super sure. You're an amazing friend & I'm super grateful to have you in my life! ♥

♥

♫ I'll never get over
Never get over not getting under you ♪
(Nick Jonas—Under You)

Coralie slammed the glass so hard on the counter, a bit of foam toppled over and splashed into the bowl of peanuts and trickled onto the customer's greasy, dirty hands. "Thanks, but no thanks," she said, extending her hand. "Cash or card?"

The drunken fool slouching on the barstool smirked as he dished out a few bills; but the other drunken idiot beside him slapped his hand.

"I-I got it, man," he thrust his sticky debit card into Coralie's palm, "keep that change for her tip." There was a certain malice to his tone, like he'd poisoned the money and looked forward to seeing her skin turn blue later, when pocketing said tip.

She rolled her eyes at the crumpled, damp wads of what she assumed were ones, and winced as she wrapped her fingers around the card. "Are you starting a tab?"

Both drunken morons moseyed off without answering her, so she swiped the card and charged a few other patrons with it, as revenge for their crudeness.

Calling me Queen Elsa—real fucking original.

"Was that necessary?" The delectable yet disdainful voice of Delilah came from the back-room. Appearing at the threshold, the overhead lights flickering over her tanned skin, she flipped her luscious raven locks to one side. "Come on, Cora." She huffed as she marched over to the sink and started rinsing off a wine glass. "He wasn't that rude, he just asked for your number."

"And I didn't want to give it. Staying celibate, remember?" Coralie groaned as she spun and leaned against the register, staring out into the abyss of cocktail-drinking debauchery. "What are you doing here?" She attempted to mimic the famous Delilah hair-flip; but her shorter and less than obedient ice-blonde curls instead fell over her sweat-slicked forehead. "Didn't you quit?"

"I did." Delilah set the glass down and grabbed a fistful of the foam-soaked peanuts, elegantly slipping them into her mouth. "But I told Rog I'd stop by for my last check, and you looked... overwhelmed."

Coralie peered out at the blurs of pink and blue and crimson-colored hair cramping before the counter. Vibrant green wristbands whizzed up and down, swishing and fist-pumping to the sick beat. Several sets of glazed eyes stared back at her, reminding her why some nights she hated living in the ever-spontaneous, ever-eclectic city of San Francisco.

"Please tell Rog to never host another night like this."

Delilah's high-pitched giggle pierced through the blaring techno music. "What, you don't like the DJ?" She licked her baby-pink glossed lips as she gaped across the way at the podium where DJ Drew's booth was set up. "You don't like his remixes?" She bobbed her head to the rhythm, but her wrinkling nostrils gave away her own displeasure.