Explicit ✔

twenty-one

♫ There goes my head again
You're too close to keep my common sense
Uh oh can't handle the suspense it's killing me ♪
(Sam DeRosa—321)

Dazed from her goodbyes with Michael, Coralie returned home and lounged on the couch, staring at the ceiling. What was she going to do? Chester and his hypnotic ways wouldn't leave her mind, Ryan's scolding echoed in her brain on repeat, and Michael's potential move to New York City troubled her.

At some point—she'd lost track of how long she'd been laying there—the door banged open, and Delilah waltzed in. Coralie craned her neck to see her carrying a few shopping bags, which she promptly threw to the side as she hurried to the sofa.

"Spill," she said, shoving Coralie's legs out of the way, forcing her to sit up. "I'm in a better mood now, so I wanna hear it. Everything you've been up to. Resume it all for me."

Coralie scoffed as she straightened up and sighted the bags—most of them from luxury stores. Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton—all places she went to when frustrated and needing to blow off steam. "Right, you spent Daddy's money, yeah?"

"Shut up." Delilah snapped at her and scrunched her perfectly tamed eyebrows as she scowled. "You have no room to speak whatsoever, Miss cheater and adulterer. But do bring me up to speed with all your nastiness. I need some entertainment."

What felt like hours later, and after popping a bag of popcorn and concocting some super strong mimosas, Delilah readjusted her slumped seating position and sighed. Coralie had detailed everything—repeating herself several times and witnessing Delilah's reactions up close and personal as she squealed, smacked her, and widened her eyes in shock.

"Fuck, man." Delilah swished the rest of her second mimosa and guzzled it down. "So to resume, once more, you're dating an angel who may move here, cheating on him with a pushy dick, and cheating on him with a poetry-spitting sex god." She giggled. "I'm totally repeating myself, huh? Yeah," she nudged Coralie as she stood up, "because you never listen to me."

Coralie tried to kick her as she backed away from the sofa. "Because you yell at me instead of being calm and helping me! You have no sympathy for my plight, but you're no better!"

"I am, because I figured my shit out, and before anyone got hurt," said Delilah, tossing her hair as she wandered into the kitchen. She reappeared with a bag of pretzels and her mimosa refilled. "You still have a lot to work on. And not only have you added Chester to the mix, like you told me before, but now you've slept with him! Crap!" She fell onto the couch, took a sip, dropped the pretzel bag to the floor... and grabbed Coralie's wrist. "But... okay, before I continue scolding you, I have to ask. How was it? With Chester? You've never had sex with him sober before. Meaning you've never been able to tell me how it was."

Coralie—still working on her first dose of liquored orange juice, her nerves too on edge for early drinking—cringed. "I know. And it was..." She blew out her cheeks, that heated at the recollection of their steamy, hot as heck sex. "I wish I could tell you it sucked, and it opened my eyes and I'll never do it with him again, but... it was good. Fucking good. Not tender like with Michael, or passionate like with Ryan, but... delicious. Kind of violent, you know? Like we were hungry for each other, like we had no choice but to devour one another to scratch our itch."