𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐟 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞

𝟏𝟕: 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐤 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐭𝐬

The bass was pounding through the walls, vibrating in my chest as I downed another shot. The lights in the club flickered in time with the music, casting everything in a neon haze. My girls were around me, dancing, laughing, and throwing back drinks like there was no tomorrow. And why wouldn’t we? We were young. We were hot. We were out here living.

I swayed to the music, feeling that familiar burn in my throat, mixing with the buzz that was settling in my brain. It felt good. I needed this. I needed to forget for a minute.

Beyoncé. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. About what she’d said on the phone.

“Do you even see a future with me?”

I scoffed under my breath, rolling my eyes as I took another sip of my drink. Of course I did. But she didn’t get it. She didn’t understand that I wasn’t about to change everything about my life just because we were together now. Like, yeah, I liked her—a lot more than I thought I would—but I wasn’t about to stop living my life. She had to get that, right?

The thought nagged at the back of my mind, even as I tried to push it away with another drink.

“Onika, you good?” Cassie yelled over the music, bumping my arm.

“Yeah, girl, I’m good!” I shouted back, flashing her a grin. “We out here living our best lives, right?”

She laughed, raising her glass in a toast before disappearing back into the crowd. I stayed behind, though, leaning against the bar for a second as I scrolled through my phone. The neon lights flickered across my screen as I hovered over Beyoncé’s contact. I hadn’t called her since our talk yesterday, and she hadn’t texted either.

Fuck. Was I supposed to?

I groaned, rubbing my temples. She was stressing me out for real. But she couldn’t expect me to be at home, just waiting around for her all the time. That’s not who I was. That’s never been who I was. I needed space. I needed fun. I was fucking nineteen, not forty.

But still, the longer I stared at her name on my screen, the more I felt that weird twinge of guilt. I hadn’t even told her I was going out tonight, hadn’t even checked in with her.

Fuck it. I needed to call her. I downed the rest of my drink in one gulp, bracing myself before heading towards the bathroom where I could actually hear myself think.

The bathroom was quieter, though the music still thumped through the walls. I leaned against the sink, the lights a little too bright for my drunk eyes, and hit her name. The phone rang once, twice, and then—

“Onika?” Her voice was low, a little hoarse. She sounded tired, like I woke her up.

“Hey, wifey,” I slurred, leaning heavily on the counter. “What’s up?”

There was a pause, and I could almost feel her irritation through the phone. “What’s up? Where are you?”

“I’m out,” I said, shrugging like she could see me. “At the club with the girls. Where you think I’d be?”