Wicked Ones {bxb}

{Chapter 19 - The Confessions of Kailan Tsai}

The sugar from the jello was irritating the lining of his throat, and Vincent broke into a coughing fit. To combat it, he tossed back another shot of vodka. Then another and another, and by the time he'd poisoned himself five-times over, a breathy voice brushed against his ear: "You look tense."

He recognized it immediately. It didn't take a glance in her direction to know it was Gigi. He could hear it in the modulated tone of her voice.

"What's the matter, handsome?" The music suddenly seemed so quiet, her smoky purr teasing his ears with it's husky, sensual tone. "Ahh, I see." She nested her high cheekbone against his shoulder, trailing his gaze to Kailan in the other room. "That's your friend, isn't it?"

Vincent swallowed the bitter contents in his throat, watching as the girls pampered the unwavering Kailan. He didn't look to be enjoying it, but he didn't seem to hate it either.

"Jealous?" Gigi asked.

"No," Vinny addressed her sternly, then he looked between the women for a brief amount of time. He'd seen them once before, but they were nothing special. "They aren't my type."

"I didn't ask if you were jealous of Kailan."

That's when Vincent froze. Then he turned to face Gigi. "How do you know his name—"

But she was gone.

He searched the crowd around him for the longest time, grabbing one brunette after another, only to find himself gaped at by unrecognizable faces. Eventually, he came to accept that she'd left the party—slithered away at a moment's notice, or disappeared into thin air. However she'd gotten away, it didn't matter now. She was gone, and this made one too many times that she so conveniently flown off the radar when Vincent had so many questions to ask her.

He sighed, and swiped a bottle from nearby, taking a swig straight from the neck. There was no sense in returning it to the table; it was nearly empty anyways, so he carried it with him as he edged through a bustling pit of people.

Most of the room was lost in a rhythmic dance, a throng of women grinding against one another, bare skin and smeared lipstick. Vincent had gotten so used to the college scene, he hardly noticed anymore. That, or maybe there were just one too many things on his mind.

"Vinny!" he heard his name called by one of the women he passed, but he acknowledged her about as much as the floorboards beneath his feet.

He needed a cigarette.

He pushed through bodies until he found the back door. Stepping through the sliding-glass, he found himself standing on a nearly-vacant patio. A few yards away, two girls perched themselves at the edge of the pool, kicking at the surface and passing sweet little secrets to one another. Other than them, he was entirely alone. It felt peaceful, liberated from the music at last. He slotted a cigarette between his lips and took a hunched seat on the bottom step.

Before he could even attempt—and fail—at lighting it, Kailan had stepped out of the house beside him, hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. "Need a hand with that?"

He didn't seem to be really focused on Vinny though, he was staring into the distance, tracing the raised, disfigured skin on his palm. When Vinny passed him the cancer-stick, Kailan blinked, slow and curious. If he didn't know any better, he would have just assumed this was any one of Vinny's trivial smoke breaks, but Kailan knew his friend like the back of his hand. Almost. At least, enough to spot the wanly look in his eyes when something was wrong.

"You alright?" he asked, no taunting smiles or mischievous glances. Only a genuine concern that stuck his gaze on Vinny indefinitely.

Vinny's attention was cast on the rippling waves of the swimming-water. "I'm fine," he said, but his head was a mess with the shouts of his thoughts, and the headache smacking against his temples was yelling at him loudest of all. He hushed them all with the shake of his head. "You should be back in there. Those girls were eating you up."