RISK & REWARD ✔️

92 | 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦

so sorry for my absence. classes r busy and i kinda hit a wall with where this story goes next in order to eventually wind up where it has to but i think I'm figuring it out. happy holidays. happy early christmas if u celebrate. new chapter xx

OUR NIGHT is not as eventful as I'd assumed it would be. Especially considering my partner's very, very obvious intoxication. I'd assumed the atmosphere, combined with Slade being drunk, would lead to a lot; maybe some drunk dancing. Maybe some excessive PDA.

Truth it, none of that happens.

Slade seems more concerned with hovering over my shoulder while I wander around. She's eyeing everyone we pass. When a man dressed in a sleek full-black suit offers me a glass of what looks like champagne off of a tray, Slade plucks it out of my hands and gives it the good old one-two sniff-sip test before she lets me drink it.

To summarize; she's paranoid. She's really, really paranoid. The guy from earlier has put her on edge; she's practically on top of me, from the moment we get into the casino to the moment we run into Sasha. Sasha, who is...immensely, immensely drunk.

It's funny; I've never noticed accents in peoples' voices, really, but since meeting Slade, I've noticed a lot about accents. One of the things I've noticed is that, when people with accents get drunk, their accent gets thicker. In Slade's case, it means she's got this sexy deep-city drawl to her words, and her voice drops.

In Sasha's case, it means I'm squinting and trying to fight my way through a mild intoxicated fog trying to understand what she's saying. I'm sure she thinks I've gone insane with the way I'm looking at her, face screwed up the way it is. She's changed. I think? Maybe? I don't really remember what she was wearing before, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the sequin-soaked pink sparkle-storm she's got going on now. Like Barbie, if she got drunk on way too much vodka and stuck solely to pink.

"Hey, lovebirds." I swear she's gargling the fucking words in the back of her throat and thinking it sounds like words. She's got a drunk smile on her face as she leers at us; she flips her hand between the two of us, wrist slack. "Y'gottat'thing?"

I blink at her. "Sorry?"

Sasha scoffs. "I said," she starts again, voice raising and syllables breaking down into a rather sloppy Americankindaish accent, "you got up to anything? Yet? Together?"

Oh. I swallow at the same time I feel Slade stiffen up. "No, we..."

"M'busy keepin", Slade cuts in, voice thick with that drunk Chicago accent, "hands off my fuckin' girlfriend, fuckin' small-dick ass muh'fuckin bitch—"

"Okay. Okay." I elbow her lightly in the ribs. She stops talking, but she does wrap her arms viceishly around my waist and start grumbling. "We aren't gonna—"

"Hands off?" Sasha's face scrunches up. "Someone touched you?"

"No, not like—!"

"Yes!" Slade knocks into me, and she squeezes my waist. Hard. "Yeah, someone fuckin' touched her. Asked her to dance for him, son of—"

"Slade!" I elbow her again, and I also look back at her this time like me glaring will do anything to her. "He was — it was just some drunk guy, not a big deal. He didn't do anything to me."

"But he wants to." Slade squeezes my gut so hard that I feel the drinks in my stomach curdle. "He wants to. Fuckin' creep, fuckin' handsy-ass bastard, fuckin—!"

"Slade, stop it!" I don't elbow her this time. I twist around and push her back, sort of half-writhing out of her grip. "Stop it, it wasn't—!"

"Woah, woah! Hold on, lovebirds, hold—!"