"You know you can't keep on hating him, right?" Olivia questioned her as she noticed her friend's unfriendly gaze towards a certain man.
"Why can't I? I could hate a person for simply breathing the wrong way. Of course, I could keep on hating him," Hannah rebutted in defense before she took a sip of the cocktail she had to calm herself.
Her voice was soft—dangerously soft, like silk wrapped around a dagger. Olivia sighed and rolled her eyes, but deep down, she understood. She always had.
Years of friendship had taught Olivia the truth of it. Hannah's hatred wasn't rooted in pettiness—it was protection. Protective fury disguised as disdain. Because when it came to her twin sister Shaine, Hannah was more than just an older sibling. She was her shield. Her sword.
She had seen how deeply Shaine adored that man. How she chased him with wide, hopeful eyes for eight long years, only to be treated like an afterthought.
How could someone as proud, beautiful, and strong as Hannah Salvador bear to see her gentle, radiant sister trampled by someone so... undeserving?
The scorn she held wasn't just anger—it was heartbreak wearing a battle mask.
Before the mood could sink further, a groan pierced through the tension.
"Ugh, enough with the tragic drama already! Why are you two still sober?!" Alliana, already tipsy and leaning against Frost's shoulder, flailed dramatically.
Compared to her and Frost's flushed, playful states, Olivia and Hannah looked like sentinels—calm, clear-headed, and quietly brooding.
"Well, for starters, someone has to make sure that we will be able to go home—" Olivia reasoned, but it was immediately cut off by her boyfriend.
"Who said we're going home?" he asked, casual as ever, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which made the lightly irritated Hannah frown even more.
"Well, unlike you, 'Mr.-Son-In-Law-Of-The-School-Owner', some of us still have to attend class tomorrow," she said. Her words were meant to awaken her cousin's brain, but instead, her words only made her friend blush furiously.
"W-what do you mean son-in-law?! My dad said I'm still too young for that," Olivia stuttered as her entire face turned red down to her neck.
Seeing his girlfriend turn into a tomato, Frost laughed gleefully before he wrapped his arm around Olivia's waist to pull her closer to him.
"Yes, my baby is still too young for that," he teased, purposely misunderstanding the meaning behind the girl's words, which made his girlfriend's face turn even redder, almost as if it would explode.
As if she were annoyed, Olivia slapped her boyfriend's chest before she buried her face in it to hide from Alliana's and Hannah's gazes.
Her punch didn't hurt Frost, though, and instead, he only laughed even more.
Not wanting to embarrass the thin-skinned girl, Frost didn't tease her any further. Instead, he turns to face Hannah before proceeding to explain even further.
"There are rooms available on the fourth floor of this club for their VIP clients. We can just rest there instead of driving home. That way, everyone could sleep sooner, and you can still go to your classes tomorrow," he explained, and that's all it took to convince Hannah to drink to her heart's content.
"Sounds to me like you are a frequent visitor in this place, my prince. To be a VIP in this club, I wonder how many nightly visits it took," Olivia said after recovering from her boyfriend's teasing.
This made Hannah and Alliana roll their eyes as if they were so fed up with what was happening.
"That was before our relationship began, my princess. I was such a scumbag before," Frost exclaimed before his lips enveloped Olivia's soft ones.
As if to prove his loyalty to his girlfriend, Frost refused to let go of Olivia's lips, even though she began to lightly push his shoulder away due to a lack of breath.
"Enough, you horny rabbits! I don't want a niece or nephew anytime soon," Hannah said, stopping the two from mooching each other's faces.
Now that she knew that they could just book a room to sleep in, Hannah let herself have fun, and in no time, the four of them drank shot after shot of various alcoholic beverages while chatting with one another.
The majority of their conversations revolved around the silly mischief they did as children before it became a topic about which of their exes was the best.
That almost caused a feud between Frost and Olivia when a certain ex was mentioned.
The topics they talked about were nothing worth remembering, and they didn't take it seriously, but none of them cared since all of them were having fun and laughing.
★★★★★
Almost three hours later, while the four of them were still having a great time together, they were completely unaware that in a somewhat secluded part of the club, where only a few people were quietly drinking among themselves, Shaine had picked a fight with someone she probably shouldn't be messing with.
The Salvador family's little princess had her heart broken once again by the same man she had been chasing after.
She had just been humiliated—again—by the man her heart had followed for eight years.
Eden. He is cold, distant, and unreachable, but for Shaine, none of those matters. However, tonight, when she approached him, all he did was glance at her with indifference and mutter, "You're a nuisance. Leave."
That was all it took to shatter her.
And now, she drank like someone trying to drown a ghost.
Unable to bear the pain that the man has caused with his words, Shane lets herself get inebriated for the first time in her life, to the point where she can no longer think properly for herself.
Vodka. Whiskey. Absinthe. She didn't care. Glass after glass, handed to her by an unbothered bartender, vanished down her throat like water. Her soft hands trembled, but she kept drinking.
She remained silent during the entire time that she was drinking, like a broken-hearted fool whose entire world had been ripped apart, detached from everything else, when, out of nowhere, she suddenly grabbed a man who was passing by in front of her table.
She clenched her fists around his collar and glared at him as if she wanted to kill him. He is clearly a stranger, but due to her excessive inebriation, she mistook him for Eden, the person she most desired to meet.
"Hey, you. Why are you so mean to me? Don't you know that even a beggar has his pride?" Shaine grumbled to the stranger named 'Eden,' with her dark green eyes glaring daggers into his amber ones.
The unknown man was about to tell her to let go of him since she was clearly just a drunk lady, but before he could even say anything, a deafening sound of her palm hitting his cheeks echoed loudly in the area, attracting everyone's attention and stunning them.
The entire remote area was originally silent due to its relaxing ambiance, but at this moment, the silence that was surrounding them turned deafening.
"That's for breaking my heart once again, psycho!" she cursed, breaking the silence she had caused.
Almost instantly, the peaceful atmosphere in the area vanished.
The man's amber eyes became sharp, and it turned even darker as he glared at her, which made the two men who were standing behind him sweat profusely, almost scared out of their wits.
None of them knew what to do, nor did anyone dare to react recklessly when they saw how dangerous the man who had been slapped and insulted appeared to be.
The area became deafeningly quiet once again, but it was disrupted by a voice that echoed in the room when someone suddenly called her.
"Hannah," a man in a sharp suit who had been quietly drinking his glass of whiskey in the far corner of the room, called her out of nowhere, mistaking her for her twin sister, Hannah.
The man in the suit stood up from his seat and calmly approached them.
Even though he witnessed how the entire commotion began, he felt the need to protect the delicate lady when he sensed the impending danger that was threatening to befall her.
The people around them are eager to watch an entertaining show, so they openly turn their heads back and forth to watch what's happening between the man that Shaine had just slapped and the man in a suit.
However, when the onlookers received a spine-chilling glare from the two men, they all continued to drink, pretending to mind their own business, but their focus remained on the three, waiting for drama.
"Please excuse my friend. She drank a little too much"
***🦋***
Author's Note
Uh-oh! Who did she just slap, and who is that mysterious man who stepped in to help her? What's going on between them, and what happens next? Are you just as curious as I am? Well, don't leave yourself hanging—turn the page and find out what unfolds. Trust me, you're going to love what's coming. I promise, you won't be disappointed. Happy reading, cuties!