Labor of Love (3 page)

“Yeah. Missed opportunity.” Jenna sighed. “So, okay, I'm fine now. I've vented. What are y'all gonna order?”

That was the thing about Jenna. She never stayed angry, never held grudges. She probably would have even forgiven her boyfriend if he had ruined her prom night. I was discovering that I held a grudge awhile longer. I wasn't certain if it was an aspect of my personality that I really liked, but at the same time, I thought being too forgiving could be a fault, too.

I just really didn't understand where I went wrong with Drew. We'd always gotten along. We'd never fought. We'd never gotten on each
other's nerves. I'd thought he was the one…until he wasn't.

“Well, duh?” Amber said. “Shrimp. We have to order shrimp. Boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, sautéed shrimp, shrimp scampi, shrimp cocktail, butterfly shrimp—”

I laughed. “Enough already. We get it.”

We heard the footsteps echoing on the stairs.

“I think we're about to have company,” Jenna said.

“Unless our server is an alien with multiple legs,” I teased.

“Very funny.”

“Well, at least putting us up here wasn't personal,” Amber said.

The hostess walked into the room, three guys following behind her.

“Hey, we know them!” the tallest guy said.

Amber gasped. I felt my mouth drop open. Jenna's eyes widened.

They were the guys from the bakery.

W
hat were the odds? That with all the different restaurants in New Orleans, they'd pick the same one as us?

Astronomical.

The hostess told them the same thing she told us, to sit anywhere they wanted, and I halfway expected them to say they wanted to sit with us. They didn't. They took a table at the far end of the room. Once they started talking, we could hear only a low rumble.

“Bummer,” Jenna said under her breath. “I thought maybe they'd ask to sit with us. Maybe we should—”

“Are you ready to order?”

The server stood there, and I hadn't even
seen him come in. I'd been paying too much attention to Red Cap and trying not to freak out. Maybe they were stalkers. Maybe they'd been following us all along and we'd been too distracted looking at petunias on balconies to notice.

“Who wants to go first?” the server prodded, obviously in a hurry. He crouched down, put his pad on the table, and started tapping his pencil impatiently against the pad.

We each ordered fried shrimp. When the waiter walked over to the guys' table to get their order, Jenna leaned in. “What do you think it means?” she asked.

“What?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes to the side, toward the guys. “That they're here.”

“Either they like seafood or they're huge fans of
Forrest Gump
.”

“I think it's a sign,” Amber said. “We should have done a tarot reading. Then we'd know for sure.”

“You don't even believe in stuff like that,” I reminded her.

“Maybe I'm starting to believe. You have to
admit that Saraphina got more things right than she got wrong. I mean, really—did she get anything wrong?”

I wasn't exactly sure how we could judge that. We were assuming a lot of things…like this Red Cap was my Red Cap. Maybe he wasn't.

I jumped when I heard a chair scrape across the floor. I'm not usually easily spooked. Nerves of steel, like Superman. But, okay, maybe I was just a little unsettled by how our day was going.

I looked over. The server had left. The guys walked to our table.

“We were wondering,” Tall Guy said, looking at Jenna as he spoke, “do you know how much a polar bear weighs?”

Jenna looked at us, looked back at him. “No.”

“Enough to break the ice.” He grinned, and Jenna grinned back at him.

The other two guys were shaking their heads.

“Seriously,” Tall Guy said. “We were talking. We're new to town, don't know anyone,
and fate seems to be working here. Three of you, three of us. Running into one another again. What can I say? It seems like destiny.”

Did he really say destiny?

“So what say we share a table,” he suggested.

“Okay,” Jenna said, nodding so rapidly that her head was almost a blur.

The guys moved a chair out of the way, then shoved the closest table against the empty side of ours. Without hesitation, Tall Guy sat next to Jenna. No surprise there. Red Cap and the remaining guy exchanged glances. Finally Red Cap sat next to me, which left Amber sitting across from the third guy.

“I'm Tank,” Tall Guy said.

Jenna released a laugh, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. It's not a funny name. It's just, were you—are you—in the military or something?”

“Nah, not even close. It's just a nickname, better than Theodore.”

Her eyes widened. “Your parents named you Theodore?”

“Yeah, what were they thinking, right? Family tradition. You gotta hate 'em, though.”
He pointed to Red Cap. “That's Brady. And Sean.”

Jenna introduced our group.

Looking at me, Brady touched the brim of his cap. “Like your hat.”

“Like yours, too.”

“I thought I noticed you looking at it earlier. You a Chiefs fan?”

I shook my head. “Texans.” I wasn't really into football, but I believed in hometown loyalty.

“You from Houston?”

“Yeah. Well, actually, Katy, but most people don't know where—”

“We know where Katy is. We go to Rice.”

Okay, so they
were
college guys. Rice University is in Houston, and Katy is about thirty minutes west of Houston.

“Talk about your small world,” Brady said, smiling.

“Yeah, really.”

He looked past me to Amber. “You know, we should change seats. That way you can talk to Sean.”

Amber looked startled, probably because Brady had already stood up.

“Oh, yeah, sure, okay, yeah.”

Brady dropped into the chair that Amber vacated. Jenna didn't even seem to notice that she had a different person sitting on the other side of her. She and Tank were talking really quietly, with hushed voices. It was strange seeing Jenna with a guy who seemed totally into her. I mean, I'd never understood guys not giving her attention, but still…

“So, you're from Katy,” Brady said, drawing my attention back to him.

“Yeah,” I said. Did he ever stop smiling? And why did it irritate me? Because I didn't want to like him. This summer wasn't about hooking up with someone. It was about doing good works.

Although I had to admit I was flattered that he was showing interest.

“Where do you go to college?”

I released a self-conscious laugh. “Actually we're high school juniors…or we were. We'll be seniors in the fall. I'm never sure what to call myself during the summer. You know? Am I what I was, or what I'm going to be?”

Why was I going on and on about nothing? That wasn't like me. But then, what was these days?

His smile grew. I wanted to reach out and touch the corner of his mouth. Strange, really strange. I'd never wanted to touch Drew's mouth. I'm sure it was only because the psychic had mentioned Brady's smile—correction. She'd mentioned a guy with a nice smile. I didn't know for sure if it was this guy. There were probably hundreds of guys who wore red Chiefs caps over their sandy blond hair.

He removed his cap and combed his fingers through his hair, before tucking his cap in his back pocket. Drew's hair was black, short. Brady's curled a little on the ends, fell forward over his brow. It seemed to irritate him that it did, because he combed it back a couple of more times, then shrugged. “My dad would get after me for wearing a hat indoors,” he said. “So, anyway, I'll be a sophomore in the fall.”

Even though he was blond, he was really tanned. I figured he liked the outdoors. Drew, even though he was dark, was pretty pale. Not
vampire pale or anything, but he much preferred staying indoors.

“At Rice,” I reiterated.

“Yep. We're practically neighbors, and here we meet in New Orleans. What are the odds?”

“Five million to one.”

His brown eyes widened slightly. The psychic didn't mention that he had really nice eyes. A golden brown, sort of like warm, fresh pralines.

“Really?” he asked.

“No, I was just throwing out numbers. I have no idea.”

He laughed. Need I say it? His laugh was nice. Everything about him was nice. And it made me uncomfortable because I didn't want to like him, not even for just one night. Because if we spent time together tonight and I never saw him again, if he didn't ask for my phone number…quite honestly, it would hurt. And it would add to all the insecurities that I was already harboring, because I had to have at least one flaw, maybe more. There had to be some reason that Drew abandoned me for someone else. Something had to be lacking in me.

If I'd been brave, I would have asked Drew. Why'd he do it? What was wrong with me? But part of me didn't want to know the truth, wasn't ready to face whatever it was that was wrong with me.

I actually hadn't talked to Drew at all that night after I discovered him cheating on me. I just took my cell phone off the seat, walked away, and called my dad to come pick me up.

“You okay?” Brady asked now, jerking me back to the present—which was a much nicer place to be.

“Oh, yeah. I couldn't remember if I left the iron on.” It was something my mom said when she didn't want to talk about whatever it was she'd been thinking about. It made absolutely no sense and was a stupid thing to say. Still, I said it.

“You iron?” he asked incredulously.

“It's obvious you don't.”

He looked down at his wrinkled shirt. “Yeah, my duffle bag was pretty stuffed, and we wanted to get in as much sightseeing as we could today.”

“So you're just here for the day?”

“Nah, we're here for the summer. Volunteering, building a house, I think. Tank's got the details, I'm just along for the ride.”

“That's the reason we're here, too.”

There were lots of volunteer and rebuilding efforts in the city. The odds that we were going to be working on the same project could've
really
been five million to one. I was sure it wasn't happening.

So I began to relax a little. What was wrong with having fun—just for tonight?

 

“Do you believe in love at first sight, or should we walk by again?”

We all groaned at Tank's corny pickup line.

Sometime between the time that the server brought our food and we finished eating, we all seemed to have become friends. Or at least comfortable enough with one another for Jenna to tell Tank that she thought his line about us being their destiny was pretty corny. So the guys had started tossing out their repertoire of worst pickup lines—just to prove that Tank's hadn't been that bad.

“I hope you know CPR, 'cuz you take my breath away,” Sean said. He had a really deep baritone voice that sounded like it came up from the soles of his feet.

Jenna and I laughed, but Amber looked at him like maybe she was wondering if he was serious.

He wasn't very tall. But that worked. Because neither was Amber. Not that it needed to work, because she had a boyfriend.

“Do the police have a warrant out for your arrest?” Brady asked. “Because your eyes are killing me.”

I laughed.

“No, seriously,” he said. “You've got really pretty brown eyes.”

“Oh, that wasn't a line?”

“Well, yeah, it's a line, but I do mean it.”

“Oh, well, in that case, thanks. I think.”

Were we moving into flirting territory?

“You must be tired,” he said, “because you've been running through my mind ever since I first saw you.”

“Is that a line?” I asked, not certain if I
should laugh again.

“Not really,” Tank said before Brady could answer. “We were kicking ourselves for not introducing ourselves to y'all earlier. I'm glad we ran into you again.”

I watched as Jenna's cheeks turned pink. “Yeah, we're glad, too,” she said.

When the server brought our bill, the guys insisted on paying for everything. Which was so nice and unexpected. I mean, they looked more like starving students than we did.

As we left the restaurant, Tank said, “We're going to hang out on Bourbon Street. Want to come?”

Jenna didn't hesitate. “Absolutely.”

Even Amber seemed up for it, which left everyone looking at me. What choice did I have? I shrugged. “Sure.”

No way was I going to wander around New Orleans at night alone. And it had gotten dark while we were eating. Besides, I'd heard about Bourbon Street, and I wanted to experience it.

It was obvious Jenna was really interested in Tank. They were even holding hands already.
I'd expected Amber to walk with me, but she was still paired up with Sean, talking to him as we headed over to Bourbon Street. Apparently she wasn't worried about what Chad might think, or maybe she was okay with being with a guy as a friend.

Maybe she was right. What would it hurt if tonight—just tonight—I was a little wild and crazy? If tonight, I had fun with a guy? If tonight, I pretended my heart hadn't been shattered?

Brady took my hand. His was large, warm, and comforting. But still, I jerked a little at the unexpected closeness.

“So we don't get separated,” he said, as though he wanted to reassure me that nothing heavy was going on between us. “There's usually a crowd on Bourbon Street.”

“I thought you were new to town.”

“I am, but I know things.”

S
everal blocks of Bourbon Street were closed to traffic. The area was a mash of bodies, noises, and smells. I hadn't expected one of those noises to be the
clip clop
of horses' hooves or one of the smells to be manure.

But the police were patrolling on huge horses, and big horses left behind big business.

“Watch out,” Brady said, slipping his arm around my waist and hauling me to the side before I stepped in something I absolutely didn't want to. He laughed. “I think my shoes just became disposable.” Although we'd missed stepping into a big mess, the street was trashed.

“Mine, too. Definitely.”

I smiled up at him, not sure why I suddenly felt very comfortable around him. Maybe it was the revelry surrounding us. Maybe it was everyone shouting and laughing and having a great time. The attitude was contagious, something I wanted to embrace.

I was suddenly very glad to be sharing all this with a guy. Not even Brady particularly, just a guy. Because it seemed like the kind of partying that required holding hands and being part of a couple.

People were acting wild, crazy, totally uninhibited. Dancing, yelling, hugging, kissing, laughing. It wasn't all because of the drinking going on. Sure, some people were drinking freely in the streets, weaving in and out of the crowds. I'm certain a lot of them were drunk on booze, but many were simply drunk on having a good time.

When everyone around you doesn't care what anyone else thinks, why should you?

A guy bumped into us, staggered back, and raised his fist in the air. “Rock on!”

He swerved away, hit a lamppost. “Rock on!”

Brady drew me nearer. “That dude's going to be seriously hung over in the morning if he already can't tell the difference between a post and a person.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

I didn't know why I asked that. It was rude. But I think I was looking for a flaw. He couldn't be this perfect. I wanted him to be not so nice.

He grinned. Obviously he didn't take offense at what I'd said.

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it might incriminate me.”

“What are you—a law student?”

“Architecture. We're all architecture majors. It's part of the reason we're here.”

“To help rebuild.”

“That, and to appreciate what remains.”

He made it sound so noble, so…un-Drew. The only thing Drew had appreciated was the spotlight, which hadn't bothered me at the time, because it had made him—made us—seem special. I'd never considered him self-centered or selfish, but now I wasn't so sure.

Brady and I walked in tandem, following
Tank and Jenna. Their height made them easy to keep in sight.

The street didn't have a shortage of bars, which you'd probably expect of a street named Bourbon, although the name didn't really refer to booze. At the time New Orleans was founded by the French, the French royal family was the House of Bourbon and
Rue Bourbon
was named to honor them. Yes, I'd spent a lot of time on Wikipedia, looking up facts that were probably only interesting to me. Which is why I didn't share that one with Brady.

We stopped just outside a corner daiquiri bar. The huge doors were wide open. People walked in, got their drinks, and strolled out. Behind the counter were several huge vats of frozen drinks, so it didn't take very long to get served. The tables inside were crammed with people watching a baseball game on the TV hanging on the wall.

“I don't get that,” Brady said.

“What?”

“You've got all this stuff happening out here, and people are in there watching TV. I can
watch TV at home. Why come here if that's what you're going to do?”

“Maybe New Orleans is their home.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe they're huge baseball fans.”

“Still. I believe you gotta experience life, not watch it.”

He looked at me like he thought I should agree. I didn't know what to say. Up until this summer, my experiences were pretty limited. I didn't want to get into an experience-listing competition.

“I'm making a run,” Tank suddenly said.

He went inside, leaving Jenna on the sidewalk. She had her cell phone out, pointed it at me, took a picture, and winked. For her MySpace page, no doubt. As proof to Drew that I'd totally gotten over him. Moved on.

Who knew pictures could lie?

It was only then that I realized I was still nestled snugly against Brady's side. I didn't want to be obvious about easing away from him, which meant that I stayed beside him because there was no way to move away without being obvious.

So, okay, maybe I was just looking for an excuse to stay close. The weight of his arm around me felt really nice.

“You're not going to get something to drink?” I asked.

He grinned and winked. “I'm not going in to
buy
something, but yeah, I'll have something. Tank's the only one who's twenty-one. I might get carded if I tried to buy it, but I don't usually get carded once I'm holding it.”

I wondered if that was part of the reason he kept stubble on his chin, so he'd look older. It was considerably darker than his hair. It gave him a rough, dangerous look. Which gave me a thrill. To be with someone older, someone who looked like he could be trouble, someone who wasn't Drew.

“Sounds like you have a system,” I said. There I was again, being snide, trying to find that elusive flaw. What
was
wrong with me?

“I believe in partying hearty. And tonight we're pedestrians, so the only crashing that will take place is when we hit the beds.” He gave me his sexy grin. (Did he have any other kind?) “Who am I hurting?”

Tank came out with a frozen red drink.

“Strawberry daiquiri,” he said. “They give a free shot of Sex on the Beach, but I couldn't bring it out, so I was forced to drink it myself.”

“But you're always willing to make the sacrifice,” Brady said.

“You bet! Let's party!”

We started walking up the sidewalk, stepping into the street when the crowds were thick on the sidewalk outside the bars that had entertainment. Music wafted out through the open doors. I wasn't familiar with the tunes but hearing them live made me want to follow their rhythm. I thought I could probably become a fan. Expand my musical horizons.

When we passed through some shadows, Tank passed the drink back. Brady took it and offered it to me. Okay. I wasn't old enough, but I didn't want to seem like a prude, either. I compromised and took a very small sip. It was tasty, so I took another. I was pretty sure all the alcohol was on the bottom and I'd lifted the straw up some, so I was drinking from the
middle. The alcohol-free zone. Sounded reasonable to me. Not that a cop would buy into my reasoning.

A vision flashed through my mind of having to call Mom and Dad to bail me out of jail. Wouldn't that be just great? I wondered if that was how things worked for Saraphina. Pictures just flashed through her mind and they could mean nothing, something, everything. How did she know which ones mattered?

Brady didn't bother with a straw. He just gulped down some frozen concoction. We passed another bar, and Tank went inside.

I looked around. “Where's Amber?”

Jenna turned in a slow circle, then shrugged. “I don't know.”

“She and Sean ducked into one of the bars we passed back there to listen to the music,” Brady said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

How had I missed that? I hadn't seen Amber and Sean slip away. I guess maybe I was paying too much attention to Brady. But sitting down and listening to a band sounded like a terrific
idea. One way to keep my shoes semiclean anyway. But then, I also wanted to see everything there was to see out here, too.

“We can go back there if you want,” Brady said.

He didn't say it with much enthusiasm. I didn't know him well enough to read between the lines, but I had a feeling that he wanted to keep walking. I didn't know how I knew that. I just did.

“No, I'd rather explore.”

“Great! Let's at least go to the end of what they've got blocked off. See what other stuff they've got going on. Then we can head back, find the bar they're in.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“I'm known for my plans.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. That's what architects do. Draw up plans.”

He gave me a smile that seemed to say I was part of those plans. Or maybe I was just reading things into his expression that I wanted to be there. Maybe he was really talking about
blueprints. Although part of me was hoping for the more personal meaning. We were having a good time. And I suddenly wanted to have a good time. A really good time. Show Drew that I was finished moping about him. Have Jenna post a hundred of those pictures for him to see.

Tank came out of the bar with a yellow frozen drink. “Banana,” he said, boldly offering it to Jenna.

She took it without hesitating.

We started walking up the street again.

“More?” Brady asked, holding the strawberry daiquiri toward me.

“Uh, no, but thanks.”

I felt like a total downer, but my parents had let me come here because they trusted me not to get into trouble. Trust was a heavy burden, a double-edged sword. Too many clichés to name. But I didn't want to do something the first night that would have me back home the second.

Brady finished the daiquiri, crumpled up the plastic cup—why do guys always feel a need to crumple whatever they've been drinking out
of?—and tossed it in a nearby trash can.

“We need to get you some beads,” he said.

I was pretty sure he wasn't talking about buying me any that were hanging in the windows of the many shops.

Guys stood on balconies, dangling beads, and yelling at girls walking by. Whenever a girl lifted her top, a guy would toss her a strand or two. Unless he was totally wasted, in which case the beads landed on nearby trees or shrubbery. Beads were pretty much all over the place.

“I've decided not to do
everything
the first night,” I said. “I want to leave something for later in the summer.”

Brady chuckled, leaned near my ear, and whispered, “Chicken.”

Okay, maybe I was. I'd never even lifted my shirt for Drew.

“Don't look so serious,” Brady said. “I'm just teasing.”

“I guess I don't know you well enough—”

“To share what's underneath that tee?”

“To know when you're teasing,” I corrected.

“There is that.”

He released his hold on me, which I realized felt strange. Not to have him holding me. I almost felt bereft. But that didn't make sense. I'd just met the guy.

He moved so he was standing near a balcony. Waving his arms, he was yelling up at the people leaning over the railing. I'd seen only guys on the balconies, but this one had girls, too. Probably in college. When Brady got their attention, he laughed and pulled his T-shirt up and over his head, then he swung it around like a lasso.

Someone bumped against me. I barely noticed.

Brady was buff. Nothing at all like Drew.

I'd tried to interest Drew in various charity runs. He'd always been willing to sponsor me if I was participating, which I'd thought was nice, but I had a feeling that Brady actually ran. And worked out, and engaged in outdoor activities. Based on the bronzed darkness of his back, I had a feeling he spent most of his time in the sun.

I watched as dozens of beads dropped
through the air. Brady snagged them. He was hamming it up, dancing around, strutting his stuff. The party girls were whistling, dropping more beads, inviting him up.

Brady was being crazy, dancing around, having fun, not caring what anyone thought.

I started laughing. He hadn't struck me as being quite so uninhibited, but it was all in the spirit of New Orleans. I think everyone around him was having as much fun as he was.

I was really, really glad that I was there, involved, part of the madness.

Brady turned toward me, holding up all the strands of beads, smiling like some returning explorer who was delivering gold to his queen or something. He dropped them down over my head.

Then, grinning broadly, he wrapped his fingers around them, pulled me toward him, and kissed me.

Right there in the middle of Bourbon Street, with people pushing past us and music filling the night.