I TRIED TO FIND SLEEP again, but tonight it wasn’t happening. Too many thoughts and possibilities made it just as impossible as the dull roar coming from outside.
Fear kept me in my hotel room. Fear that I’d attract the wrong kind of trouble and wouldn’t be able to defend myself. Fear that I’d be recognized somehow. Fear that I didn’t know how to live, even when given the opportunity.
How pathetic is that?
Twenty-four years old, and I was completely clueless about life and scared to take the first step to living it. Maybe it hadn’t just been the gilded cage keeping me trapped, maybe it was me.
So, get out there. Live.
I peeked out the curtains of my balcony window and watched as the partiers milled about in the streets with drinks in hand, or exited one bar only to enter another.
I could go down there and have a drink. Step a few inches outside my comfort zone. Finally have a life experience not dictated by someone else.
Did I really want to do it? No. It would be easier to stay here, in my bed, where I could find another book to hopefully hold my attention. But something inside me told me I had to do it. I owed it to myself.
As I pulled back the duvet, a vision of the two naked girls who had been on this bed before me entered my mind—along with the guy who’d tossed them out of the room.
If I hadn’t been here, would Bishop have taken advantage of what they’d been offering? The one girl, Kitty, had made it sound like she’d already been with him once and wanted seconds.
Not that it mattered. The fumbling loss of my virginity with a hotel bellboy in a beach cabana when I was eighteen and on a trip to Spain with my aunt didn’t exactly put me into the category of women who would attract a guy like Bishop.
Why am I even thinking about this?
Probably because everywhere I looked in this room, I felt or saw his presence.
Well, that was one more reason on the “pro” side of getting out of here for a couple of hours.
Decision made, I crossed to the closet and considered my options. I hadn’t packed anything that screamed night out on Bourbon Street. Probably because I didn’t own anything like the girls wore out there.
I’d brought exactly one dress, and it was simple and black with cap sleeves and a square neckline. Otherwise, my choices were jeans and camis and cardigans. I couldn’t wear a cardigan on Bourbon Street, could I? It seemed like one of those offenses that could get you escorted out of the French Quarter.
But a dress? That seemed like too much.
Out of your comfort zone, E.
Without thinking any further, I stripped off my yoga pants and T-shirt and slipped the dress off the hanger.
As I stepped into it and zipped up the side, I examined my shoe options. Leopard-print flats would have to work because wearing my Sperrys with it would definitely get me laughed out of town.
A makeup touch-up followed, and after I clasped a necklace around my neck, I was done. Ready.
I left my room before I had a chance to change my mind.
When I pushed open the doors of the hotel and stepped onto the sidewalk, I couldn’t decide if I’d made the best decision of my life or a horrible mistake. I’d convinced myself that I could handle myself out here, but the noise was three times as loud as it had been in my room, and being on the street level made it seem more foreboding than it had from the balcony window.
Revelers dodged around me as I stood like an idiot in their way. One man knocked into my shoulder as he walked backward. His apology was muffled as he tripped over his feet, and I followed his line of sight to see a dozen women lifting their shirts for men on a balcony across the street.
The best description I could give it—tits and ass everywhere.
And I looked all prim and proper in my just-above-the-knee-length dress, flats, and understated jewelry. Terrible mistake, I decided.
I was two seconds from turning back to the hotel and retracing my steps to my room when I saw a group of girls around my age laughing and walking down the street. Greek letters were printed on the front of their T-shirts, and from the smiles on their faces and the drinks in their hands, they weren’t worried about their safety. I didn’t have numbers on my side, but I could get off the street and into a bar with a corner stool that would allow me to people-watch without being right in the thick of it.
That’s stepping out of your comfort zone? my inner voice said, mocking me.
“One step at a time,” I whispered to myself. “Small steps.”
Now, which bar? I turned and surveyed my options. So many of them looked alike. I let instinct be my guide and picked the one with music coming from open doors and windows only a few dozen feet away.
It seemed as good a choice as any, and I didn’t have to walk by any dark alleys.
Making my way inside the dark room lit mostly by neon beer mirrors and signs, I snagged a seat at the end of the scarred bar where it curved around and met the wall as a couple left.
The bartender wasted no time before stopping in front of me.
“What can I get you, hon?” Her blond hair was pulled up into a messy bun on the top of her head, and a deep vee cut in the black shirt showed off her generous cleavage.
I looked around the room to see what everyone else was drinking, and spotted a woman with a plastic cup of what looked like some kind of purple punch.
I nodded at it. “I’ll have one of those purple ones.”
“Ten dollars.”
Pulling some cash from my small wristlet, I handed it over and she turned to make the drink.
See, that wasn’t hard.
The drink was before me in less than two minutes, and I lifted it in a silent toast to this new chapter in my life. Salut.
It was grape deliciousness in a plastic cup. I had no idea what kind of alcohol or how much the bartender used because I couldn’t taste it. Someone could seriously put this drink in a sippy cup, and I would have thought it was for toddlers. Well, not quite. But that explained why it went down so fast.
The heat from the crush of people in the bar flushed my cheeks, and I officially decided that this was a good decision.
When I laid another ten on the bar and lifted my cup toward the bartender, she nodded, grabbing the money before going to work mixing another drink.
The second one I sipped a little more slowly, mostly because of the cute guy who took the stool beside me.
“Hey, I’m John.”
“Eden.”
“You here by yourself?”
Instinctively, I knew I should lie. Smart Girl Bar Rules 101. “My friends are dancing. I’m taking a break.”
“Yeah, it gets pretty wild here, especially during Mardi Gras.”
We yelled to each other over the music and the noise for a few minutes while he ordered a drink and told me stories of some of the crazy stuff he’d seen tonight. I ordered my third drink and he insisted on paying. I insisted right back that I could buy my own drinks. It started going down just as quickly.
He pointed out another drunk idiot, and I turned my head toward the street.
And that’s when I saw him. Bishop. Like an avenger just inside the bar, his tattoos lit almost neon by the lights, he shoved through the crowd toward me in the corner of the bar. His eyes locked on the guy next to me as I lifted my cup and sucked down another swig.
Before I could lower my drink to the bar, Bishop grabbed the cup from my hand and dumped it down John’s shirt.
“What the fuck, man?” John jumped off his bar stool as the purple liquid stained his blue-and-white-striped polo.
Rage. That was the only emotion I could make out on Bishop’s face.
“I saw you drop something in her drink. Don’t fucking tell me I didn’t.”
My eyes darted everywhere. From Bishop to John and then to the bartender, a wooden club clenched in her small fist. She looked between the two men, as if unsure who she should be threatening.
“All of you. Get the hell out of my bar.”
Bishop didn’t say another word before wrapping a giant hand around my upper arm and pulling me off my stool. As he dragged me toward the door, he turned back to John, who was now patting his shirt down with napkins.
“Get the fuck out of this town before I can track you down and show you what I do to guys like you. Piece of shit.”
The bouncer, probably attracted by the commotion, stepped to Bishop and looked down at me.
“You okay, miss?” He had to yell so I could hear him.
I nodded because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Was I okay? I thought so. My head was swimming and my legs were unsteady, but that was just the alcohol, right? I hadn’t been drugged. Had I?
“That piece of shit dosed her drink. I don’t think she had much, though.”
The bouncer immediately spun around and stalked across the bar toward John.
Bishop didn’t wait to see what the bouncer did before tugging me onto the street. Thankful for my flats, I stumbled along after him.
“Slow down. Please.”
I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and pitched forward toward Bishop’s side.
Shit.
He didn’t let me land on my face. Apparently, he was good at that. His strong arms wrapped around me, and he caught a handful of boob.
Holy shit. Bishop is touching my boob, was the only thought in my alcohol-soaked brain. My nipple peaked into his hand, which he yanked away before setting me upright again.
“What the fuck are you doing out here by yourself?”
I blurted the only answer that came to mind. “Living.”
That’s when my knees gave out, and I pitched forward into Bishop’s chest.