You and Tequila

Chapter Ten

Emma softly closes the door behind her and breathes through every instinct that's screaming at her to run. She stares at her hand, trembling against the handle and listens to the sound of clinking glasses from across the room.

"Come to demand that I need your friendship right now, Miss Swan?" Regina mocks, her words silky soft, yet, all too dangerous and could easily wrap around her neck and leave her for dead.

"Ah, such a good friend, you know me so well."

Emma rolls her eyes, tucks her hands into her hoodie's front pocket and struts with all the confidence she owns into the elaborate hotel room. Even if she does feel her rank in society more than ever, like the poor little girl she has always been. All those insecure feelings crawl to the surface because this hotel room is twice the size of her apartment at home. It has a fucking piano in the middle of the room which sparks a pounding rage to thump under her skin.

Fucking Las Vegas.

She locates an agitated Regina, standing in front of a mini bar, angrily spinning off a cap from a bottle of Patrón. Little wisps of strands in disarray are struggling to free themselves from Regina's high ponytail that Emma had tied back earlier in the evening. Her skeptical eyes dart back to Regina's stoic face and she takes a tentative step forward.

"I thought no alcohol during tours?"

"I do believe I earned one after tonight. Do you want one or not?" She harshly spits, slamming two glass tumblers down without Emma's consent.

Emma rocks anxiously from her toes to her heels, over and over again as Regina pours the clear liquid with determination into the glass that probably costs more than the entire complex building Emma lives in. She watches as Regina slams the bottle down and snatches up one glass, coldly extending her arm. She tentatively steps forward, eyes cast down like she's not worthy as she accepts the drink.

Regina remains impassive, still bored even, while her eyes bore into the nervous woman before her. She presses the glass to her lips and hesitates for the briefest moment before she closes her eyes and tosses back half the glass. Emma winces, knowing how rough that liquid will burn on its way down, but she hurries to follow Regina. She gulps down her own glass, her chipmunk cheeks struggling to swallow the entire glass like her drinking buddy.

"Another?" Regina clips, already setting down her glass and recklessly unscrewing the cap until it flies off the bottle and rolls somewhere onto the floor, never to be seen again.

"Ugh," Emma shudders as the liquid burns a fiery path down her throat, through her chest and settles somewhere in her gut. "Um," she wipes the back of her hand over her mouth and grimaces at how un-classy she is appearing. "That was like a triple shot."

"Your point?" Regina icily retorts, her eyes never leaving Emma's rigid stance.

"I don't know," she mumbles, shrugging nervously and feeling all hot and prickly from the alcohol burning through her veins or maybe it's because of the intensity scorching from Regina's eyes right now. "Maybe we should sit down and talk, before our next drink..."

"I'm not in the mood to talk."

"Are you ever?" Emma muses as she takes a few steps forward, suddenly feeling braver than moments ago. Definitely before the tequila.

"Not usually." Regina steals Emma's glass and hastily pours out another drink that is no way acceptable to be claimed as a shot, or even a double. She shoves the tumbler back into Emma's hand and lifts her glass, clinking the rims together. "Drink up, Swan," she orders in such a low and provocative tone that Emma finds herself obeying immediately.