I couldn’t keep their names straight, and I wasn’t even drunk yet.
I kept calling Tamás István. Or was that András? Oh, well. What did it matter? They were all hot with dark hair and eyes, and they knew only four words in English as far as I could tell.
American. Beautiful. Drink. And dance.
As far as I was concerned, those were the only words they needed to know. At least I remembered Katalin’s name. I’d met her a few days ago, and we’d hung out almost every night since. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. She showed me around Budapest, and I got generous with Daddy’s credit card on occasion. Not like he would notice or care. And if he did, he’d always said that if money didn’t buy happiness, then people were spending it wrong.
“Kelsey,” Katalin said, her accent thick and exotic. “Welcome to the ruin bars.”
I paused in ruffling István’s hair (or the one I called István, anyway). We stood on an empty street filled with dilapidated buildings. I knew the whole don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover thing, but this place was straight out of a zombie apocalypse. I wondered how to say “brains” in Hungarian.
The old Jewish quarter—that’s where Katalin said we were going.
Oy vey.
It sure as hell didn’t look to me like there were any bars around here. I looked at the abandoned neighborhood, and thought, At least I got laid last night. If I was going to get chopped into tiny pieces, at least I went out with a bang. Literally.
I laughed, and almost recounted my thoughts to my companions, but I was pretty sure it would get lost in translation. Especially because I was starting to question even Katalin’s grip on the English language, if this was what “bar” meant to her. I pointed a crumbling stone building and said, “Drink?” Then mimed the action, just to be safe.
One of the guys said, “Igen. Drink.” The word sounded like ee-gan, and I’d picked up just enough to know it mean, “yes.”
I was practically fluent already.
I cautiously followed Katalin toward one of the derelict buildings. She stepped into a darkened doorway that gave me the heebiest of jeebies. The tallest of my Hungarian hotties slipped an arm around my shoulder. I took a guess and said, “Tamás?” His teeth were pearly white when he smiled. I would take that as a yes. Tamás equaled tall. And drop-dead sexy.
One of his hands came up and brushed back the blond hair from my face. I tilted my head back to look at him fingernails scrape of her ”. His extst, and excitement sparked in my belly. What did language matter when dark eyes locked on mine, strong hands pressed into my skin, and heat filled the space between us?
Not a whole hell of a lot.
We followed the rest of the group into the building, and I felt the low thrum of techno music vibrating the floor beneath my feet.
Interesting.
We travelled deeper into the building and came out into a large room. Walls had been knocked down, and no one had bothered to move the pieces of concrete. Christmas lights and lanterns lighted the building. Mismatched furniture was scattered around the space. There was even an old car that had been repurposed into a dining booth. It was easily the weirdest, most confusing place I’d ever been in.
“You like?” Katalin asked.
I pressed myself closer to Tamás and said, “I love.”
Tamás led me into the bar, where drinks were amazingly cheap. Maybe I should stay in Eastern Europe forever. I pulled out a two thousand forint note. For less than the equivalent of ten U.S. dollars I bought all five of us shots.
Amazing.
The downside to Europe? For some reason this made no sense to me—they gave lemon slices with tequila instead of lime. The bartenders always looked at me like I’d just ordered elephant sweat in a glass.
They just didn’t understand the magical properties of my favorite drink. If my accent didn’t give me away as American, my drink of choice always did.
Next, Tamás bought me a gin bitter lemon, a drink I’d been introduced to a few weeks earlier. It almost made the absence of margaritas in this part of the world bearable. I downed it like it was lemonade on a blistering Texas day. His eyes went wide, and I licked my lips. István bought me another, and the acidity and sweetness rolled across my tongue.
Tamás gestured for me to down it again, so I did, to a round of applause.
God, I love when people love me.
I took hold of Tamás’s and István’s arms and pulled them away from the bar. There was a room that had one wall knocked out in lieu of a door, and it overflowed with dancing bodies.
That was where I wanted to be.
I tugged my boys in that direction, and Katalin and András followed close behind. We had to step over a pile of concrete if we wanted to get into the room. I took one look at my turquoise heels, and knew there was no way in hell I was managing that with my sex appeal intact. I turned to István and Tamás—sizing them up. István was the beefier of the two, so I put an arm around his neck. We didn’t need to speak the same language for him to understand what I wanted. He swept an arm underneath my legs, and pulled me up to his chest. It was a good thing I had worn skinny jeans instead of a skirt.
“Köszönöm,” I said, even though he should have been the one thanking me, based on the way he was openly ogling my chest.
Ah, well. I didn’t mind ogling. I was still pleasantly warm from the alcohol, and the music drowned out the world. And all my problems were thousands of miles away across an ocean. They might as well have been drowning at the bottom of said ocean for how much they mattered to me in that moment.
The only expectations here were ones that I had encou fingernails scrape1it { font-size: 1.5rsastraged and was all too willing to follow through on. So maybe my new “friends” only wanted me for money and sex. It was better than not being wanted at all.
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