I couldn’t open my eyes wide enough to take it all in. There were hundreds of people crowding the street, pouring in and out of bars, all of them dressed in costumes and their necks decorated with layers and layers of beads. It wasn’t even Mardi Gras, but I learned quickly that it didn’t need to be for everyone in that city to celebrate and show skin for plastic necklaces.
Emery grabbed my elbow and pulled me closer to him as we walked through a particularly crowded part of the street, his eyes on a bar in the distance.
“It’s like you’ve never been to a block party before,” he said, his mouth close to my ear.
I just laughed, my gaze not catching on one scene for too long before I was finding something else new. “I haven’t. This is… insane. There are so many people, and it’s so loud!”
“And smelly,” he added, and I laughed again. He wasn’t wrong.
Emery had to guide me the entire way until we got to the bar, especially since I was stopping at every street performer we passed along the way. There were saxophone players and flame throwers and magicians, voodoo doctors and bead vendors, and a group of religious protestors holding up signs that read, “Jesus Is Watching.” There was so much to look at that it was impossible to see it all, but I still tried, eyes wide as I took in everything for the first time.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” Emery yelled over the live music in the first bar we slid into. He had ordered a grenade, which made me fear for his life.
“I wouldn’t mind a water.”
His brows knitted together, a curious expression flashing on his face before he ordered me the water, taking the barstool next to the one I’d propped myself onto.
We turned in our seats, listening to the middle-aged man playing an acoustic guitar as he made jokes with a bachelorette party gathered around his tiny stage. It was curious that the bar was so packed and loud and yet felt so intimate and cozy at the same time. It was like we were all just a group of old friends, reunited for the evening.
I sipped on my water as the man on stage started his version of “Sweet Caroline.” My free hand was absentmindedly rubbing my left thigh, but I pretended I was just tapping along to the beat when Emery’s eyes would catch on my fingers. Sometimes it was phantom pains, other times it only felt like pins and needles, like my leg was asleep, and right now I had a combination of the two as my feet dangled from that barstool.
We weren’t there for long before two things happened at once, almost so in sync I thought they were planned.
One, an adorable brunette more than a little blessed in the bust area propped herself right between Emery’s legs, her chest directly in his line of sight as she leaned up to whisper something in his ear. I flushed red, tearing my eyes from the scene and back to the stage, but my view was blocked by a dark-haired, tattoo-covered man as he smirked down at me.
“Water, huh?” he said, appeasing my half-empty plastic cup. “I knew they went hard in NOLA, but no one warned me about girls like you.”
My cheeks heated double-time, and a nervous laugh shot from my lips as I took another sip.
He seemed to be about my age, maybe a little older, and he leaned one elbow on the bar to my right, effectively separating me from Emery and the busty brunette from the bachelorette party.
“I’m Vinny,” he said, reaching out a hand for mine. His entire forearm was covered in ink, and my eyes traced the lines of it as I slid my hand into his.
“Cooper.”
He grinned, tapping one of my devil horns once he dropped my hand from his grip. “What’d you do to earn these, Satan?”
I swallowed down the rest of my water, abandoning the empty cup on the bar and immediately reaching for my hair. I gathered it at the back of my neck before pulling it over my shoulder, hands fussing with the ends of it as I tried to play cool.
“I stole a backpack once.”
Vinny laughed. “I knew you were trouble.”
He asked where I was from, and I answered just as the overwhelming sensation that I was being watched washed over me. Vinny started in on a story about the one time he spent a night in Mobile, but not a single word of it registered, because Emery still had that girl between his legs, her back to me, her lips whispering God knows what in his ear, but his eyes were like laser beams on me.
There was no emotion behind his stare, his expression as smooth as a pond at night. One hand rested on the waist of the brunette practically crawling into his lap, the other sat wrapped around his drink, but his eyes were on mine, asking me something I couldn’t answer, or maybe telling me something I already knew.
I kept his gaze for just a second before snapping my attention back to Vinny, nodding and smiling as he continued his story. I could still feel Emery’s eyes on me, could see him in my peripheral, and heat crawled up my neck as I tried to focus on what Vinny was saying.
“So, you just in town for the night?”
I nodded. “Yup. Just passing through.”
Vinny leaned in a little closer, the distinct smell of whiskey on his breath. It reminded me of my dad, in the absolute worst way, and I fought against the urge to cringe. “What do you say we make the most of it, then?”
I swallowed, Vinny’s eyes flicking to my lips as he leaned in, and my heart picked up speed.
He was cute, but did I want him to kiss me? Did I want to make the most of the night with him?
My fingers paused where they were braiding my hair, and I looked over Vinny’s shoulder, seeking Emery, but he wasn’t there.
“Hey.”
I jumped a little at his voice, whipping around to look up at him. He towered over Vinny, standing at the front of my barstool now, not even acknowledging the man who stood to the right of it.
“You ready to grab a bite to eat?”
I nodded, relief washing over me as I turned my attention back to my new friend. “Sorry, the devil needs sustenance. Have a good night, Vinny.”
“Yeah, have a good night, Vinny,” Emery repeated, his jaw set like stone as he glared at the tattooed man.
Vinny stood straighter, putting distance between himself and the bar, eyes roaming over Emery, unimpressed, before finding mine again. He didn’t say another word before grabbing his drink from the bar and making his way back to the crowded dance floor in front of the stage.
Emery watched him go, a scowl set on his face until his eyes found mine again. His expression smoothed, and he held out a hand, helping me down from the barstool.
“How’s your luck, Cooper Owens?”
“So, you don’t drink,” Emery mused as I chowed down on the last of the Po-Boy sandwich dripping deliciousness over my hands. I didn’t even care how unattractive I looked as I chewed the last bite, dropping the wrapper in the trashcan outside of Harrah’s Casino before wiping at my hands with the stack of napkins I’d had shoved in my back pocket.
“Nope,” I murmured around the mouthful, wiping at the edges of my lips and dropping the napkins into the trashcan, too. Emery watched me with an amused smile, hands tucked easily into his front pockets. He hadn’t eaten anything, opting for another drink, instead, but it didn’t stop me from grubbing down. “Never have.”
“That because you’re not twenty-one yet, or is there another reason?” he asked, pulling the large glass door open for me to walk through.