Page 3 of Bourbon & Blood

Alina…

Moving day.

You would think I would be happy about it, and in some ways; yes, I was, but in others…

“Hey, you, are you okay?” I looked up at Dorian, smiled and heaved a big sigh. Dorian was a good guy, a fellow bartender down in the Quarter at the bar we both worked at, and hey – he was here to help which automatically made him a good friend. There were friends, and then there were friends who would help youmove.And the friends who would help youmove? Well, they weregold.

“Yeah, just a little bit in my feelings, you know?” I asked.

“Ah, yeah,” he said, crow’s feet fanning out from his eyes as he smiled. He was younger than me, which was to say mid-twenties, to my late-twenties – so only a few years, but he looked older.

Of course,everybodylooked older than me. I pretty much looked like I was perpetually sixteen due to my petite size, but most people I guess were too nice to say it. I tossed one of my thick red braids over my shoulder and heaved a big sigh.

“It’s just my first apartment, and I’m gonna miss it,” I whined. He laughed and put an arm around my shoulders, giving me a sideways hug.

“Yes, but on to new adventures, right?” he asked, giving me a little shake.

I rolled my eyes.

“I mean, I’ll certainly be closer to work, and itisa smaller place,” I said.

“Cheaper, too, and away from Patrick,” Maya said, coming up to us and making a face. She was a Creole Queen – light skinned, sure, but with a glorious crown of curls and a descendant of some distant cousin of Marie Laveau, New Orleans’ Voodoo Queen herself. Or so the “legend has it” and the rumor mill liked to say. Maya had a flair for the dramatic though, and let the rumors run rampant. She laughed at all the silliness with me and was an absolute riot about it. She was my best friend and we were – what she liked to call – sisters of the heart.

I sighed and nodded. Patrick Cahill was my very ex-boyfriend and had wound up being a cheater and an absolute dog.

I felt a wave of nausea roll through me at even the mere mention of his name.

“Sorry,” Maya said with a shrug of her perfect shoulders. She was trying to break into modeling, and if she could, she would go so very far. She was beautiful in that way that wasn’t quite real, you know?

“It’s fine, but can we please just relegate him to ‘the nameless one’ or something?” I asked meekly.

“Sure,” Dorian said and let me go. With a gusty sigh, he asked, “You ready to tackle this couch then?”

I groaned.

“No,” I said. “But let’s do it.”

We wrestled the three-seater overstuffed thing all the way down from the third floor and over to the moving van.

“Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on!” Dorian cried, and I panted and braced my end, my arms shaking with fatigue as I pivoted and tried to rest it against my hip – Dorian yelling from the other end, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Don’t shove it in yet!”

“That’s what she said!” Maya called over the back of the couch where she steadied it.

I snorted and yelled back, “I’m not! I’m just trying to—” The weight was just gone, like magic and I startled and whirled, looking up into eyes that were wall-to-wall midnight. I blinked, my mouth falling open in shock as the big, and I do meanbig, bald, and heavily tattooed man looked down at me. His face was impassive and hard as stone. He jerked his head to one side and I moved out of the way, my feet feeling like they barely touched the ground as a shiver went down my spine.

And no, I wasn’t cold. There was no such thing as being cold in New Orleans, standing outside on the summer sidewalk.

“Alina, you got it?” Dorian called. He straightened up and said, “Oh, hey. Thanks, man.”

The big man holding the end of my couch up off the ground with one hand didn’t take his eyes off me, as though he was committing my face to memory.

“Uh, right,” Dorian said after a protracted silence that was interrupted not only by Dorian but by the subtle laughing and chuckling out of three more bikers standing nearby, watching the strange spectacle as a cicada screamed in the near distance.

The big man in the leather vest finally tore his eyes off me and looked to Dorian, raising his chin as though to silently ask if Dorian was ready.

“Yeah, put it in,” he said.

Maya snorted and said again, “That’s what she said.”

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