Unconditional

Chapter 6

"Surprise!" Mal sung in an exaggerated tone, holding out a bottle of whiskey.

I stared at him with a confused look, raising an eyebrow. Um?

"What are you doing with that?" I replied deadpan.

He gave me a look before showing me the two shot glasses he had.

"You don't have to obviously, but I thought it'd be a nice way to end the night."

I lifted myself off Malikai's rug and shrugged my shoulders, "Alright sure," I reached my hand out asking to see the bottle as he handed it to me. Looking it over I add, "Where did you get it from?"

After a glance, I handed the glass bottle back to him.

"Dominic gave it to me for my birthday last year. I haven't opened it yet because as you know, I don't drink haha." Mal spoke with a small smile. "I guess it seemed fitting the day we stopped being friends for the bottle to finally be opened."

His normally light expression seemed a bit heavier than normal. It was clear to me every time he had a moment alone, his mind wandered to his now ex-friend.

On our way back from the aquarium earlier, he had asked me to stay over tonight, in hopes to not be alone. This led to us coming back to his place and hanging out for a few hours. Though not long after dinner, Sol and Avery were off to bed, leaving Mal and I to do as we pleased.

Eight PM rolled around and we went up to his room to hang out sitting around the floor table he had. After two or so hours, Malikai disappeared downstairs only to remerge with our previous surprise.

"Well let's see where this goes," I winked back at him before walking over to the circle rug in the middle of his room, sitting at the table once more.

As I situated myself, Malikai followed behind, setting the glasses down with a clank. His olive-toned hands gripped the top and popped the bottle open. With a swift motion, he picked the bottle up and began pouring us each a shot.

"Here goes nothing." Mal chuckled, looking over at me as he handed me one of the shot glasses.

The room temperature liquid burned down the back of my throat as I threw the glass back. Its intense tingling was felt down my esophagus and into my stomach. My face shriveled up as soon as it was down, my body lurching forward with disgust.

"Oh God, who would drink something like this?" I mutter out with a soft cough.

Mal's face had a look of discomfort as he set his own glass down, shaking his head and whipping his mouth in his hand.

"This doesn't even taste decent," he added before pouring himself another. Mal looked up at me with a small head nod and a shake of the bottle. I sighed and held my glass up as he began to fill it.

This process repeated itself, with 4-5 more shots over a span of 20 minutes before I finally gave up with a wave of the hand.

"Noh, no more," I murmur, shaking my head, trying my best to keep myself sitting up straight. "Mm, I feel like this was a bad idea..." I trail off before laying my head on the table.

I hear Malikai's cute laugh in the background as the feeling of something poking my head made me jump. Another laugh escaped his lips as I lifted my head.

"I didn't do it," he spoke quickly, yet in a slightly slurred fashion.

As I attempted to glare at him, my eyes strained to focus on which one to glare at. The room around me began to spin as I whined and crawled towards Mal.

"Meanie," I huffed, wobbling to grab ahold of his arm.

"Woah there, careful," He said softly, reaching out to steady me.