Darling Vile

~Chapter 7~

**Discretion Advised**

**Sexual Content**

~Nellie~ 

There was a whole lot of friction where the two were connected. Flesh meeting flesh. Moans of pleasure. I probably could have just backed out and no one would have ever known I'd seen what I was looking at now. But I couldn't move. I could only feel and it seemed my heart exploded in my chest, seeing him fucking her. 

What gave me away was when he shoved her face onto the table...very roughly, and I gasped. Nic's head turned and his gaze captured mine. He looked...different. Angry. It got my butt in gear. "Fuck," he hissed through clenched teeth. I didn't stick around to see if he stopped-not that I really needed to know. 

I ignored the nausea in my stomach and ran down the hallway. I was glad when the lounge was empty because the door slammed against the wall when I ran through it. Running away was dramatic but I needed to get as far away from that as I possibly could. 

Once I reached Cecily's, I slowed down and tried to steady my breathing. Graham was waiting when I finally made it outside. It was when we were halfway through the city and I had managed to calm my heart rate that I replayed it all in my head. 

How convenient, Graham kept a small waste basket in the backseat. The pretzels and water I had eaten on my break came up...then I cried, like an idiot. 

"What. The. Fuck." The next day I stood behind the curtain of a high-end boutique's dressing room. I was with Thalia and we were shopping for a gown to wear to Carmen's auction/masquerade. Charlotte had been confined to her bed this morning with a headache so instead of letting us raid the closet she had thrown her gold card my way. 

I slid the curtain open and stepped out. Thalia was sitting on one of the cushioned chairs just outside and had her eyes glued to her cell phone. "What happened?" I asked. 

When she looked up at me, her eyes went wide. "Oh wow, Nell. That's perfect." 

That was the gown; sleeveless v-neck with spaghetti straps and a back that laced up. The boutique owner described it as a mermaid silhouette with glitter-knitted fabric. It was very, very red. "You think so? Like, it isn't too much?" I asked her, running my hands down the front. 

"We're basically going to a ball. Nothing is too much. Get that one." 

I faced the mirror and turned from side to side. She was right, she usually was, and it was kind of perfect. "So...is everything alright?" I urged. 

By the way her face lit up, I could tell she was about to spill the tea. "One of the girls posted in the group chat that Suze was fired from the club. Fired...can you believe that? Especially since she was like kind of a manager." 

"The tea" slid down my spine, ice cold, and a sick feeling went through me at the mention of the blonde woman. When I woke up this morning after the disgusting discovery in Carmen's office, I figured hanging out with Thalia would be the perfect distraction...I needed to sear that image from my brain. 

"Group chat?" Anything to not talk about Suze. I could only vomit so many times in a twenty-four-hour period. 

"Yea. Some of us have a group chat. God, can you believe it? I wonder what she did..."