“We need to get home,” she says to her light-haired friend. “Let’s go.”

Well, that was too easy. A part of me wants to continue our internal war. I was having too much fun.

The light-haired girl’s upper-body sways a little as she stands from the table and takes Ashley’s arm.

“I’m not ready to go back yet,” she whines, holding onto the tattooed guy’s hand. “Let’s hang out for a while.”

“No, I’m outta here,” Ashley says while dragging her friend away.

“Oh, come on, babe!” Andre says, standing from the table with his hands out, palms-up. “Don’t be like that.”

“Screw you, Turtle!” She sneers and glances at me briefly. “I’m sick of your shit. You do this every time you come back here. Lose my fucking number.”

Andre’s mouth falls open, but he hardly looks hurt, trying his damnedest to suppress a smile. He reaches up and runs his hand through the back of his curly, dark hair. I notice a tattoo on the underside of his arm, close to his armpit.

Ashley and her friend argue all the way away from the table, leaving me alone with Andre and his other male associates. Suddenly, I feel exposed, being the only girl at the table.

“I hope that wasn’t my fault,” I say timidly.

Andre rolls his eyes and sits back down, resting his back against the chair with his legs splayed beneath the table.

“Nah,” he says. “She’s just that way. I’m just glad she’s not my girlfriend.” He raises a hand and moves his index finger around his head in a circular motion. “If ya’ know what I mean.”

I laugh and take another drink from my beer. “Yeah, she does seem a little out there.” Really, I think he’s a pig. Ashley may have been a bitch, but something tells me she has every right to be. They’ve obviously known each other for a while and it’s apparent he screws her over every time he sees her, in some way, shape or form. The only thing I see she’s truly guilty of is putting up with his shit.

“So you’re here on vacation,” Andre says, leaning over with his elbows on the table now. “Who did you come with?”

I smile timidly and fold both hands around my purse on my lap.

“Seriously,” he urges me, leaning in closer. “I’m still trying to figure out why you’re out partying by yourself.”

I pretend to try hiding the blush in my face. “Well, I came with my friend, Dahlia. But she was feelin’ like shit and didn’t wanna’ go out. She stayed back at the hotel.”

“Ah.” He nods. “Where are you staying?”

“The Sheraton. Over on Canal,” I answer.

He has to think I’m naïve and giving up such personal information so freely, I’m confident it’ll help with his assessment of me.

“That’s a bit of a walk,” he says. “All the way from Canal.”

“Nah, it’s not too far,” I say. “But I admit, I cheated. I walked some of the way and then hitched a ride on one of those bike chariot thingies.”

Andre tosses his head back lightly and laughs.

“Bike chariot thingie. That’s cute.” He points at me and looks at the guy with the tattoo on his wrist. “She’s cute.”

The guy acknowledges me with a short nod and peers back down into his phone, moving his fingers along the text screen.

“That’s David,” Andre says about the tattooed guy. “He has an unhealthy relationship with technology. I think his phone gets more sex than he does.”

I stifle a small laugh.

“Shut up, Turtle,” David says calmly and without looking up.

Andre smiles at me.

He points at the blond guy who brought the beers.

“That’s Joseph,” he says. “I don’t know him well enough yet to embarrass him. But give me a day or two and I’ll think of something.”

“What kind of name is Turtle?” I laugh.

Andre’s face falls just slightly. “It’s just a nickname. Dear ol’ Dad gave it to me when I was six.”

“Oh….”

He smiles. “Don’t worry about it. He’s still alive and kickin’. Just an asshole.”

David, the one with the tattoo, looks up from his cell phone briefly. I get the strangest feeling from it, like he doesn’t approve of Andre calling his own father an asshole.

Andre ignores him.

Don’t spend too much time chatting him up, I think to myself, knowing that Victor is waiting for me outside not far away. He can hear everything being said—hopefully over the music and chorus of voices—but I can’t hear him grumbling about how much time I’m wasting. I’m just pretty sure that’s what he’s doing.

“Hey, uh, do you want to get out of here for a while and go for a walk?” I ask. It’s a risk to show him that I’ve already put enough trust in him to walk outside alone with him, in such a short time. But I have to move this along and there’s no telling how long we’ll be in here, hanging out and drinking, before Andre feels confident enough that I’ll leave with him, and makes the first move.

He looks slightly surprised, but easily accepts my sudden change of personality. He stands from the table, straightening his black wife-beater tank down over the waist of his jeans.

“Hell yeah,” he says, taking up his beer in one hand and holding out the other to me. “Let’s go.”

He puts the bottle to his lips and drinks down the rest of it in one long gulp, afterwards setting the empty bottle down on the table. As Andre waves the other two guys goodbye, I suddenly feel his free hand rest against my lower back. And before we even make it out the side door and onto the patio, I realize how quickly his personality has changed, too. Like night and day, from fairly respectable gentleman to touchy-feely prick who has it in his head that he’s getting laid tonight and I’m the girl who’s going to be spreading her legs for him.

“Damn you are smokin’ hot,” he says and I inwardly cringe. “Are you sure you’re not here with a boyfriend. I don’t feel like getting my head beat in tonight.”

I look over at him on my side, walking so close to me that his hip is pressed against mine, and I turn on the seduction, letting a suggestive smile tug the corners of my lips.

“No boyfriend. I promise.”

I feel his fingers grasp my waist as he slides his hand away from my back and pulls me closer.

“Hey,” I say as I gently push his hand away, “slow down some. I’m not that kind of girl.”

He doesn’t take my refusal seriously and just pulls me closer, but I wasn’t exactly being serious, either.

“All right, all right,” he says with an air of surrender and his big smile still in-tact. “I’ll be good.”

We start to head in the opposite direction of where Victor is parked at the school and I stop on the sidewalk, looking both ways, pretending to be in some kind of contemplation about which way I would rather go.

“Come on, I’ll show you around,” Andre says, trying to pull me along with him.

“Let’s go this way,” I say, pointing in the direction of the school. “I haven’t been down that street yet.”

“We’ll make a loop around.” He secures his hand on my lower back again. I hate that he’s touching me like that. Or at all. “More stuff going on down this way.”

I swallow hard and then give in to him, worried that if I continue to push him about going in the direction that I want to go, he might become suspicious of me.

Giving him my sweetest coy smile, I head with him in the opposite direction.

We walk along the flagstone sidewalk, passing many tourists coming and going in every direction. I hear the sound of hooves trotting against the street out ahead and when we round the corner, a mule-drawn carriage slowly moves by. I look up at the street name just as we’re crossing and I say aloud, “Bourbon Street has just about everything.” I stop in front of a building. “Maison Bourbon. I’ve never heard an actual jazz band. Let’s check it out.”

Andre takes my hand and gently pulls me along and away from the building. “Sorry, but jazz isn’t my thing,” he says.

It’s not mine, either, but I wanted Victor to know where I was.

Minutes later, after two turns down considerably darker streets, the foot traffic is beginning to thin out. I continue to call out the street names or the name of a building, making casual comments about where we are and urging Andre to elaborate as I lay my clueless tourist act on thick. I don’t know where he’s taking me, but I have a pretty good idea of his intentions.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Not much farther.” He points ahead. “There’s another bar this way. Some friends there I need to meet up with real quick.”

OK, there’s no time for this…

Even if he’s telling the truth, I need to take control of this situation now, while we’re alone, before we’re right back in a crowded atmosphere which will make it harder for me to lure him where I want him.

I whirl around in front of Andre, stopping us both in the middle of the sidewalk; a broad smile on my lips, coyness in my eyes. “Wait,” I say, taking him by the wrist. I look to the side bashfully. “Why don’t we…,” I glance at the alley behind him, letting this new idea come to me as I go. I step up to him, coiling my fingers around the top of his belt which sits low on his waist. “Why don’t we go down there for a few minutes?” I grin suggestively, sliding my index and middle fingers behind his belt.

Andre’s eyes widen and his lips lengthen, surprised by my eagerness, but then the smile turns into a horny grin. He fits his hands on my hips and leans toward my neck, inhaling my scent, a low growl rumbling through his chest.

“What did you have in mind?” he asks, kissing the spot just below my earlobe.

I move to the side to make it seem as though I want him to follow, but really it was more to get his mouth away from my body. I smile back at him and say, “You’ll see,” and then gesture for him to follow me into the alley. I walk a quarter of the way into the darkness, passing up a small row of garbage cans and stop just beyond them. Andre is next to me a second later, his right hand propped against the stone building above my head.

I waste no time and start to undo his belt, fumbling the silver buckle with my clumsy fingers.

Fuck. I hope Victor heard me through the mic, dropping hints of my whereabouts.

“Damn, girl,” Andre peers in at me with a feisty grin. “You want to fuck right here in the alley? Never expected that, but hey, I’m not complainin’.”

I move away from the rock wall and push him around, shoving his back against it.

“All right, all right,” he says with mild laughter, “you’re the boss. Do with me what you will.”

I push myself toward him, closing six inches of space between us. “That I will,” I whisper to him and then jab my knee into his family jewels.

Andre yelps and doubles over. I spear my fingers through his hair and pull, forcing him forward. My knee collides with his face three times before he falls backwards against the wall, disoriented and bleeding from the nose.

“You bitch!” he spits out the words.

My fist soars at his face, hitting him so hard that his head springs back and snaps against the rock wall, knocking him out.

His unconscious body falls against the flagstones, knocking a nearby garbage can against the one next to it. The reverberating noise echoes through the thin alleyway, bouncing off the walls of the buildings on both sides of me.

“Victor!” I hiss into the mic between my breasts. “I hope you can hear me. Andre is out cold, but I don’t know for how long. Hurry!” I speak details of my surroundings into the mic.

Three minutes that feel like thirty pass when Victor’s car stops at the mouth of the alley, the brakes squealing to a halt on the street. He gets out leaving the door open and rushes toward us in an angry, rapt walk that sends a nervous shiver through my stomach.

“I’ve got it under control,” I say and I look down at Andre next to my feet.

Andre is already beginning to stir awake when Victor grabs him by the backs of his arms and pulls him to his feet.

“You were supposed to lead him to the parking lot,” Victor snaps.

Andre begins to struggle as Victor drags him toward the car.

“I said I had it under control,” I snap back. “You see I’m not the one that ended up on the ground.”

“What the fuck’s going on?” Andre calls out, trying to fight his way out of Victor’s arms.

Victor shoves him in the backseat, face-down, and plants his knee in his back as he secures his hands behind him with a plastic zip tie.

“Get in,” Victor demands.

I do as he says, rushing around to the passenger’s side and shutting the door.