No Time Like Mardi Gras (5 page)

He deepened the kiss even as the phone on Teddy’s desk began to ring. It was annoying, but ignorable, even as the ancient answering machine picked up and the Lucky Gator’s outgoing message played.

Teddy’s voice was also the incoming message. The bar noise in the background was loud as Teddy shouted into the phone. “Dude, I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but I need change. I’m trying to run a business, for God’s sake.”

Jamie collapsed into giggles. “Busted.” With a satisfied groan, she pushed to her elbows and sighed as she reached for her clothes. “Did you say something about a fresh shirt?”

Silently cursing Teddy—but applauding his timing nonetheless—he dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. “Oh, yeah,
that’s
why I brought you back here. I got a little sidetracked.”

She took the shirt and slid it over her head. “Now we match.”

“Consider it a Mardi Gras costume.”

As he dressed, Jamie stuffed her ruined shirt and bra into the trash can and managed to untangle a few of her beads from the pile on the desk to put back around her neck. Holding the hopelessly tangled mound of remaining beads over the trash, she hesitated. “This seems wrong, somehow. I worked so hard to get them.” With a shrug, she dropped them in.

Dressed now, Jamie tried to push the strands of hair that had fallen out of her braid back from her face. “I don’t even want to know what I look like right now.”

“You look amazing.” Although Jamie rolled her eyes, as far as Colin was concerned, it was true. Her eyes were bright, cheeks pink and glowing, lips slightly swollen from his kisses. It was enough to make him decide to ignore Teddy’s eviction attempt.

But even as he reached for her, Jamie had the door open and reality rushed right in.

“So what are we going to do now?” she asked.

Go back to my place?
“Whatever you want.”

“You know, I’m kinda feeling like I should give the French Quarter experience another try.” She seemed to have a fresh burst of confidence—as well as a burst of energy he couldn’t quite claim for himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, maybe we should start on Chartres and work our way back up to Bourbon Street.”

It wasn’t quite what he’d hoped to hear, but she wasn’t heading back to her friends just yet and the night was still young.

This time Jamie followed him into the bar, only blushing slightly when Colin tossed the keys back to Teddy and Teddy gave her a knowing wink along with a couple of beers. “Great shirt. It looks much better on you than Colin. Y’all go have fun.”

Jamie looked up at him and smiled. “I intend to.”

THREE

Okay, now she
saw the attraction to the celebrations in the French Quarter. Maybe it was afterglow, maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t so uncomfortably conscious of Colin now—although she was still very conscious of him, it was different now and definitely
not
uncomfortable—but regardless of why, Jamie was truly enjoying herself and exploring that bit of her that was just a little on the wild side. There was an anonymity to being in a crowd of strangers that downright
encouraged
her to explore it. Anonymity was something she hadn’t had in a long time anyway, and it felt so damn good.

Colin’s mood seemed to have shifted, too. More sure of her now, his charm was on full display, and he’d quit his best behavior, leaving her to discover he had a very wicked—and sometimes dirty—sense of humor. He’d kept it under wraps most of the day, making her question her initial judgment of his bad-boy tendencies, but they were there. Oh, yeah, they were there.

But she’d worry about all of that tomorrow. Tonight, she had a bit of a buzz going, a gorgeous man on her arm and absolutely no reason not to enjoy them both.

The entire Quarter was heaving with people, but she felt a part of the crowd, a part of the experience. She danced to the music that drifted out of the clubs and bars into the street, caught beads tossed from the balconies above, marveled at the costumes on display and in between enjoyed the feel of Colin’s arms around her, the press of his body against hers and the occasional kiss he’d drop on her lips or neck.

It was the best night of her life and she was unwilling to let it end, even as Kelsey texted her repeatedly, wanting to go home now that she’d realized David wasn’t all she’d hoped he’d be. She’d delayed and stalled until Kelsey had gone home without her, and now Jamie felt a bit bad. But Kelsey had ditched her first—figuratively, at least, by fawning over David—so Jamie didn’t feel
really
bad about it for long.

Colin returned with their drinks and caught her frowning at her phone as she typed. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” She hit send and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. “Kelsey’s going home.” She was pleased to see disappointment flash across Colin’s face. “I told her I’d meet her there later.”

Colin moved closer, a finger hooking in her pocket to tilt her hips toward his. “There’s not a lot of later left of tonight.”

She smiled up at him in what she hoped was a seductive manner. “Then I really need to enjoy what there is of it.”
Now would be a good time for you to suggest we go back to your place, get a shower...
“What do you suggest—”

The question was interrupted by an earsplitting siren wail. She saw more than heard Colin curse as he grabbed her hand.

“What’s going on?” she shouted, wanting to cover her ears as the siren wailed on and a surge of people pressed toward them.

“It’s midnight. They’re clearing the streets.” Colin pulled her against his chest as he tried to move sideways through the crowd toward the sidewalk. More sirens and honking horns joined the din, and her head began to throb from the noise. Jamie peeked over her shoulder to see a horizontal line of mounted police officers visible above the crowd and the strobe of red-and-blue police lights as they moved down Bourbon Street, instructing people by loudspeaker that Mardi Gras was over and they needed to clear the streets.

She was tripping over her own feet, being jostled from all sides, and only Colin’s grip on her kept her from falling. The noise, the surge of people...it was the first time all evening that she’d felt scared, and she worried what would happen if she did fall. She gripped Colin’s wrist with her free hand and trusted him to get them both through the melee.

At the corner—Jamie wasn’t sure of which street—an influx of people caused a moment of gridlock. A girl bumped into her, and Jamie felt the heat of a lit cigarette against her arm. She jumped, trying to get away from the burn, and opened up a few inches of space between herself and Colin.

Those few inches, though, were all it took, as someone tried to move into the opening between them, forcing them farther apart. Colin’s grip on her wrist tightened as he tried to shove the person out of the way and pull her back to him. Now she was trapped: a surge of cross traffic pulling her one way as Colin was pushed in the other direction, and the idiot who’d started it all was pressing against the arm Colin held, causing pain to shoot up from her elbow to her shoulder as though she was being stretched on the rack.

She could barely see Colin’s head above the crowd. His lips were moving, but the sirens and crowd noise drowned the words out. Her grip on his wrist began to fail and while Colin’s grip tightened more, pressing her watch painfully into her skin, his hand began to slip, too, until the connection was broken.

Jamie had no choice but to go with the flow. Her ears were ringing, her wrist was burning and her shoulder felt loose in the socket. Unable to see over the shoulders of those around her, she followed the crowd blindly, figuring eventually it would have to break. It was a slow-moving crowd, but a very thick one, and with all of her attention required to remain on her feet, she lost track of how long she’d been in the surge. There was a scuffle to her right and she caught an elbow in the head, causing her to see stars, and she began to panic a little.

The panic actually motivated her and she began to elbow her way out of the pack, finally reaching clear air and less congestion. Nothing looked familiar, and the street signs didn’t help much beyond their distinctive style telling her she was still in the French Quarter.

There was no way in hell she was going back the way she came—even assuming it would be a straight shot back to familiar territory. About two blocks to her left, she could see a traffic light and figured that had to be Canal Street, so she headed that way.

Her head hurt, her ears were ringing, her heart was still pounding and her wrist was burning. She looked down to see that her watch was gone, the skin scratched and raw. It must have come off when Colin lost his grip.

Colin.
She nearly turned around, but good sense prevailed. The exodus from the Quarter would be nearly impossible for her to fight against, and if the police were clearing the streets, did that mean she could get in trouble by going back in? She really didn’t want to get arrested again.

Automatically, she reached for her phone, only to realize she’d never gotten his number. She hadn’t needed to.

She could go back to the Lucky Gator; surely someone there would know how to get in touch with him...

What am I doing?
It was bad enough she’d hooked up with Colin—who, now that she thought about it, she knew absolutely nothing about. She’d been enthralled and under his spell all day, but now that she was out of proximity, good sense came roaring back.

As if she didn’t have
enough
going on right now. This was not how she needed to start off in a new city.

It had been a fun day, one for the memory books, but it was probably best it had ended like this. She should take it as a sign, an omen, that like all the other Mardi Gras celebrations, it had ended at midnight.

After all, the last thing she needed right now was to get involved with anyone. A new relationship of any sort had to be way down the priorities list, as she had to focus on the really important things right now.

So she should probably just go home.

Canal Street was a relief—still crowded, but the crowds were smaller and contained to the sidewalks. Without Colin’s energy to feed from, weariness settled in on her quickly, and her feet began to drag. In front of a hotel, she stopped a cab driver who had just dropped off guests and begged for a ride home, offering triple the fare. When he finally agreed, she sank into the back seat with a sigh.

But what about Colin? He’d probably be worried about her, and she couldn’t just let it end like that. As the cab crawled slowly through traffic, she looked up the phone number for the Lucky Gator on her phone.

The bar noise was so loud on the other end, the person who answered couldn’t hear her, no matter how much she shouted—earning her sour looks from the cab driver. She tried three more times on the drive home, finally getting the answering machine on the fourth try. “I’m trying to get a message to Colin, um...” She searched her memory banks for his last name.
Sweet mercy, you had sex with the man and can’t even remember his last name.
“Colin, the bartender. This is Jamie, and I just wanted him to know that I’m okay and made it home safely. I’ll—” The machine beeped and cut her off.

She cursed, telling the machine exactly what it could do to itself in graphic terms, earning her another sour look from the driver. But he was easing to a stop in front of Kelsey’s building, and Jamie figured that the signs were piling up, unable to be ignored. She paid the driver with the emergency fifty she’d stashed in her sock that morning and climbed the steps with heavy feet.

Only to find that her key had been lost somewhere in the Quarter, Kelsey wasn’t answering the bell and her phone went immediately to voice mail. Near tears, Jamie sat on the stoop and dropped her head into her hands.

Oh, yeah. This had to be a sign.

* * *

Rainstorm Games had a carefully cultivated image as an exciting and dynamic company on the cutting edge of gaming. They had a wall full of awards celebrating their creativity and innovation, but on days like today, Colin missed those days when he and Eric had been holed up in that tiny hellhole of an apartment, building worlds for fun, but not necessarily profit.

Not that he didn’t appreciate the profit—he did, very much so—and he was proud of the success they’d had, but some days were just frustrating.

Memory leaks were notoriously hard to find, but that didn’t change the fact that they needed to find this one pretty damn quick.
Everyone
at Rainstorm—from him and Eric down to the newest intern—was going blind examining code. If they didn’t release a patch soon, a horde of angry trolls—trolls
he’d
designed—was going to descend upon his office and feed him to the dragons as a sacrifice. This was not a problem he needed running up to the official launch, and the clock was ticking.

Frustrated, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

“Trouble in your post-apocalyptic dystopian zombie paradise?”

He looked up to see Callie in his doorway. “The zombies are fine. It’s
Dungeons of Zhorg
that’s glitching.”

Callie shook her head in mock sympathy. “I just hate when that happens.”

“So do several thousand users,” he said, but Callie didn’t take the hint, making herself comfortable on his couch instead. He knew her well enough to know that the quickest way to get her out of his office was to let her say whatever she’d come to say. “What brings you by, Callie?”

“I was in the neighborhood. I’m on my way to scout a possible wedding location in the graveyard.”

Callie specialized in planning themed weddings—the more out there, the better. “The graveyard? How romantic.”

She shrugged. “The bride wants an Anne Rice,
Interview with the Vampire
–type feeling, but elegant.”

“And yet that still doesn’t tell me why you’re here.” Although they’d ended badly ten years ago, Callie had rebuilt her life pretty much from scratch, and
that
he had to respect. Now they were in a good, but weird, place—or at least he assumed it was weird, not having any other ex-girlfriends he would now call friends. Regardless, it wasn’t the kind of friendship where she would just drop by unannounced and for no reason.

She leveled a hard look at him. “I’ve got a big favor to ask you.”

“Now is not a good time to ask me for favors. My plate is rather full at the moment.”

“I know, but you know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

There was a fine line between being the kind of guy who was there for his friends and being a complete sucker. Why did he have a feeling he was about to be asked to cross it? “You can ask, but I don’t guarantee I’ll be able to do it.”

“I need you to take over
The Ex Factor
for a few weeks.”

She had to be kidding.
The Ex Factor
was one of the most popular items on Callie’s all-things-love-and-weddings website. For some reason he’d never really understand, a column where he and his high school ex-girlfriend offered he-said-she-said advice to the lovelorn had proven wildly popular, and that popularity had helped Callie grow her fledging business into a success. He was glad he’d been able to help. “Absolutely not.”

“Please, Colin? I want to go to that bridal show in Houston, and that plus everything else means I won’t have a lot of spare time. I can prewrite and load some other posts, but I’ll need someone to monitor the questions sent in for
Ex Factor
and answer a few.”

He tried to appeal to her logic. “If you’re not writing your side, it’s not really an
Ex Factor
anyway. Put it on hiatus until you get back and caught up.”

“It’s too popular to put on hiatus. And it’s a major promo tool for me. I might actually lose business if it goes dark for weeks. I’ve worked too hard to risk that.”

Callie knew exactly where to aim. He’d gotten over the emotional part of their breakup years ago, but he’d lost respect for Callie when she’d blown that scholarship. Her determination to build her business and the way she’d done it had really been what had helped repair their friendship. He didn’t want to see her lose the ground she’d fought to gain. And damn it, she knew that. “You do realize I’m trying to launch the new game, right? We’re a little busy.”

“You don’t have to do it all yourself. You have Eric and a staff to help. I’m a one-woman show. I’m begging you.” She arched an eyebrow. “Do you hear that? I’m actually
asking
for your help.”

That was an old fight, one he was really tired of. He was supposed to wait until she asked for help before—as she put it—“butting into her life.” But at the same time, she acted as though asking automatically meant he had to do whatever she was wanting. “Can’t you just get one of your friends—one of your
girl
friends,” he corrected as Callie’s eyebrow went up, “to guest blog for you?”