Blame it on the Champagne (Blame it on the Alcohol #1) - Fiona Cole Page 0,65
tried to get out of drinking at the last bar,” Rae whined.
“One of us has to get us home…hopefully soon.”
Rae rolled her eyes. “You know my driver will get us home. Just a little tappy-tap to my phone and poof, he whisks us away in a chariot.”
“And when will you be tappy-tapping? Before we’re throwing up our lunch from last year or after?”
“Definitely after,” Raelynn said with a smile and a wink. “That salad was a waste of time, and I want it purged from this temple.”
Nova tried to hold her stare, but her lips pinched, the first sign of her breaking and fighting off a smile. She shook her head and gave in, her lips parting around a soft laugh. “You’re crazy.”
“One of us has to be.”
Grabbing my shot glass from the bar top, I winked at Nova. A camaraderie of sorts between the two non-crazy girls completely in love with a wild one. She rolled her eyes but winked back, and neither of us mentioned how she didn’t actually drink the shot, but instead, lifted it in a toast with us and quickly slid it back to the bartender.
With the alcohol burning through my veins, mixing with the other copious amounts of drinks we’d had that night, I decided to ruffle Raelynn’s feathers.
Apparently, she noticed Nova’s full glass because she quickly snatched it back and glared without heat while she took the shot for Nova. I waited until she’d almost emptied the glass when I struck.
“Besides, Nova. She probably is hoping for an excuse to drunk text Austin, and he’ll come to her rescue. That way, she can grind all over him and say it’s just because she was drunk and not in love.”
Raelynn coughed hard, barely avoiding spraying us with tequila. She slapped the glass down with a thunk that matched the beat of the bass flooding the dark bar and glared over her hand covering her mouth.
Nova and I laughed.
“I. Am. Not. In lo—” she coughed, either from the alcohol still in her lungs or because Raelynn tended to choke over the word when it wasn’t with us. “It’s not like that between Austin and me.”
“Of course not,” Nova said, her words dripping with sarcasm.
I snorted because while Nova could look like a deer in headlights when she faced off with Raelynn, she always won with her sarcastic comments. She was a death by a thousand cuts, while Rae was a wrecking ball.
“So, you’re saying if Austin came in and offered to let you climb him like the tree he is, you would turn him down?”
She lifted an arrogant brow. “No, because I hope all of him is as big as a tree, and I never turn down something that can make me feel that good.”
Austin was Raelynn’s other best friend—the complete opposite of her. They met at a college party her sophomore year and somehow became friends, despite her best effort to sleep with him. I think Raelynn liked—and probably hated a little—that he was the first guy to not want to sleep with her. She was all city, and he came from a farm in upstate New York.
Their friendship was…intriguing, and Nova and I may or may not have a bet on them being married by the time they were forty.
“Besides, he’s visiting family and not in town.”
“Is he your date for the wedding?” I asked.
“Of course. Friends to weddings are perfect. And I’ve seen him in a tux once and, damn, that man fills out a suit better than anyone.”
“That poor man,” Nova laughed. “How he’s fended you off, I’ll never know.”
Raelynn shrugged, unapologetic of her objectification of her friend. “Three more shots,” she said to the bartender, eying Nova with a challenging stare.
This time she obediently drank, not even wincing. Deep down, we all knew how much Nova liked tequila. My rebel side sat closer to the surface than hers, but she still had one—and Naughty Nova loved tequila.
The lights flashed, and the club enveloped us in one remixed song after another without consuming our words. We stood at the corner of the long bar, swaying to the music, laughing, and talking. We had to shout a little, but not so much we’d be hoarse in the morning.
“Question,” I started, holding up my finger like I was preparing a declaration. Both girls laughed when I had to close my eyes and brace my hand on the bar for a moment because the alcohol hit me a little too hard. I shook it