For a small window of time Deacon Roth had been happy. He had been ecstatic. A man in his prime with a beautiful woman in his arms dancing the night away.
What other emotion could he have felt other than happiness. After all, he had been certain that by the end of the night he would have the gorgeous woman in bed with him. There had been no doubt about it in his mind, the way that she had been moving against him had made that very clear.
But then she turned around and the illusion had shattered.
"Roth!"
"Slater !"
Staring at her as people around them continued to dance. Deacon Roth could not help but shudder in revulsion.
"What on earth are you doing here, Slater ? Are you following me?" There was just no way that it could be a coincidence. After years of not seeing her, the one time he decides to just go out and be a little wild. She turns out to be the woman he chose, no way it could be a coincidence.
Standing before him, her eyes wild, Slater tilted her head to the side. Then she opened her mouth to speak. Deacon could see her lips moving but he had no idea what she was saying. And he realized with a bit of embarrassment that no doubt she too had not heard what he had been saying to her thanks to the loud music. He had barely heard her scream his last name after all.
With words proving to be useless, Deacon decided to go for an old school method of communication...pointing.
Index finger extended, he raised it in Slater's direction, then he pointed towards the exit, his message loud and clear.
Get out.
Slater, despite having a host of unlikable qualities such as being as stubborn as a mule, and constantly wanting to argue, was not an idiot. Even though she was no longer the CEO of Slater group, it seemed her intelligence had not dulled one bit because she instantly understood exactly what Deacon wanted from her.
Unfortunately, it seemed that even in her years away from her post, she was still as stubborn as always. Instead of nodding in agreement and making her way towards the door as other women would have done. Slater instead shook her head vehemently, and folded her arms over her chest. The action served to make her cleavage pop out a bit more, and Deacon very manfully resisted the urge to stare.
This is Slater, this is Slater...
He kept repeating over and over in his mind, using all of his energy to glare at her and once again point from her to the door. Slater, the difficult woman once again shook her head and this time she actually stomped her foot.
It was infuriating, and for once, Deacon wished that people had not formed a mini-circle around them.
It would have been satisfying to have Slater's little tantrum be interrupted by somebody bumping into her from behind. But thanks to their two very strong personalities, the club-goers even in their state of drunkenness had somehow realized that the two of them were not to be messed with, and had left a bit of room for them. Staring at Slater in frustration, Deacon ran a hand through his hair, then he blew out a breath counting to ten in his head.
His intent for the night had been to just let go for a bit, to not let himself be weighed down by all of his problems. Running into Slater had put a spanner in the works, but he had a choice to make.
At first he had thought that running into her had to be by design. But seen the way that she was ticked off. He got the feeling that she too had only come out in order to relax a bit.
She was at the club to enjoy herself and so was he, but the only problem was that the two of them had chosen to go to the same club and there was not a building on earth that was big enough to hold the egos of both a Slater and a Roth at the same time.
It just would not work.
But if Deacon chose to leave, then that would mean conceding to Slater. There was absolutely no way.
In high school whenever the two of them had had to face off against one another, be it on the debate teams or when playing chess, he had never once folded for her and he was not about to start.
But the prospect of dancing had lost its charm and it seemed that Slater also had no intention of going anywhere. That left Deacon with only one other activity... drinking, giving her one last unimpressed look.
Deacon went from pointing at her, to pointing at himself. Then he pointed towards one of the private booths. Without bothering to explain any further, he walked away from her. People naturally moving away from the chilly aura he emitted as he walked amongst them.
In the club's private room he found a group of friends, already drunk out of their minds. But even in their inebriated state, all that he had to do was name a figure, transfer the money to them and they cleared out without protest.
After that the staff descended, clearing out all of the garbage left behind by the previous occupants. In no time at all, Deacon was seated on his own, the table lined with various spirits for him to enjoy. The music was much lower in the booth than it had been out in the dance floor, and Deacon found that he could actually hear himself think in there. A development that he was not completely on board with.
And so in order to get rid of that, he decided to drink and drink until he even forgot that Haley Slater was in the same club as him. Deacon would have stuck to that decision too, but the moment that he poured his first glass, he found himself in the company of the very person that he had just gone to great lengths in order to get away from.
"Leave me alone, Slater. You refused to exit the premises, so I chose to get away from you, now go back out there. And allow me some peace,"
Slater, ever stubborn, instead grabbed a glass for herself and poured from the bottle that Deacon had just opened.
"To be honest, I really considered taking you up on your offer and leaving, but then I thought poor little Roth, all alone in the club, sad because I left him alone, I could not do that to you,"
Her tone was sincere, but the way that Slater bared her teeth at him in a fake smile said otherwise.
Downing his drink in a single shot, Deacon coughed as it went down, then he glared at her.
The expression intensifying when he saw the amusement in her eyes.
"If you are worried I will tell people that Haley Slater was all over me, then you have nothing to be scared of. I will not be saying anything to anyone about the unfortunate incident that just occurred,"
Swallowing down her own drink, it was Slater's turn to cough and when she looked over at him, her eyes were half shut, and her hand was over her chest. After letting out a pitiful sounding wheezing cough, she thumped her chest a few times before addressing him.
"Roth, out on the dance floor, you were the one who was all over me, after all you are the one who came all the way over there to chase away a guy when I had the situation under control,"
Deacon could not help but scoff at that, but she ignored him.
"The only way I see for us to erase this entire thing is to have a drinking contest,"
What?!
Before Deacon could even fully comprehend her words, she was continuing.
"After I drink you under the table, the two of us are going to continue on, like nothing ever happened,"
"In fact, we will go back to not seeing each other at all, just as we have done in the past three years,"
"So are you in, or are you chicken?"