Page 11 of January (New Orleans #1)

“Y ou’re here!” Jolie said excitedly the moment she saw Kyle approach the table. Then, she stood up and hugged her as if she hadn’t seen Kyle in weeks. “My new friends are here, too.” Jolie motioned toward three women who were sitting down at the blackjack table next to her.

“Hi,” Kyle said, waving at them. “Are you drunk?”

“Definitely,” Jolie said, giggling. “But I thought you’d be here a long time ago, so I had another drink, and now, I’m tipsy.”

“How much have you lost, exactly?” Kyle asked.

“None. I’ve made money, you bitch,” her sister told her, laughing. “I’m up a hundred bucks. Oh, hi, Melinda.”

Melinda laughed and said, “Hi, Jolie. Sounds like you’re having fun.”

“We are. If I break even, I’ll be happy, so I’m going to play a little longer. Want to join us?” Jolie looked at the table. “Oh, only one more seat.”

“It’s okay. I think I’ll just watch.”

“ I’ll join you,” Bridgette said, smiling at Jolie. “Hi. I’m Melinda’s friend, Bridgette.”

“Her girlfriend?” Jolie asked a little louder than was necessary.

“Uh, no,” Bridgette replied, laughing. “I’m single. She’s single. We’re just friends.”

“Oh, okay. Well, nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Bridgette said.

“She’s straight,” Kyle added to Bridgette. “Just in case you had any ideas.”

“Well, that’s a bummer, isn’t it?” Bridgette winked at Kyle.

Kyle lifted an eyebrow in her direction and replied, “Nope. ”

Bridgette laughed and said, “I’m not going after your baby sister, Kyle. Her friends, though, are another story entirely.” Bridgette turned back to Jolie. “Can you introduce me to your friends?”

“She’s harmless,” Melinda noted, leaning over against Kyle. “She’s really more of a relationship person, but she got her heart broken about six months ago and is looking to rebound. She’d never do anything with your sister, though.”

“Well, Jolie’s about as hetero as they come, but are you sure? She seems like she’s on the prowl tonight.”

“She is,” Melinda said, laughing a little. “But she knows we’re friends, so she wouldn’t do anything to make Jolie uncomfortable.”

“And you two never…” Kyle asked, turning to Melinda to check her reaction.

“Bridgette and me? No way. We’re just friends. Always have been.”

“I thought I might have picked up on something back at the bar,” Kyle admitted.

“No. But can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Have you always known that I was gay?”

“I didn’t know you were gay until you said it just now,” she replied.

“Touché. But the attraction to women thing; did you know it from the start?”

“No,” Kyle replied honestly. “I had my suspicions, but at the bar earlier, Bridgette mentioned her ex-girlfriend and then something about an ex-girlfriend you had, too, so I guess I thought that there was a pretty good chance that you dated women.”

“I do. Exclusively. So, gay,” Melinda said.

Kyle laughed and said, “Me too. Gay.”

Melinda watched as the dealer dealt the cards, and Kyle turned to check on Jolie. Bridgette had taken a chair between Jolie and one of her new friends and was now leaning over, talking to the other woman .

“Do you want to go play some cheap slots or something?” Melinda asked. “This table is five dollars a hand.”

“Do you want to maybe skip the gambling part and sit over there instead?” Kyle suggested, nodding toward the bar that overlooked the casino. “We could pick up the conversation we were having earlier, before Bridgette showed up.”

Melinda nodded in response, so Kyle checked on Jolie one more time before they went, and she smiled at her sister’s exuberance. She wasn’t sure she could remember the last time Jolie had taken any time off. It made her think of how Jolie had wanted to be a lawyer and had planned to go to law school, but it was too expensive, so even though she’d worked through her undergrad, she still wouldn’t have been able to afford it. Their dad couldn’t help out much, and while Kyle had offered to help her pay for some of her tuition, Jolie didn’t want to take her money. Now, it seemed they had enough of it, and she could finally go if she wanted to. Maybe Jolie wasn’t thinking about that at all, but Kyle definitely was. She wanted her younger sister to have everything she wanted in life, and if going back to school was one of those things, Kyle would help her get there.

“Are you okay?” Melinda asked when they sat down in a booth that gave them viewing access to the entire casino floor.

“Yes. Sorry. I was just thinking about Jolie.”

“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?”

“Not right now, no. In general.”

“Why?”

“We have this money now – or, we will when the dust settles – and Jolie is closer to our mom than I am.”

“You worry she’ll give your mom some of it?”

“I worry my mom will con her out of some of it,” Kyle said. “But that’s more about me and my messed up family. Tell me all about yours now.”

Melinda laughed and said, “You want to find out how messed up we are?”

“Yes, please; make me feel better about myself,” Kyle joked .

“It’s pretty boring.”

“I doubt there’s anything boring about you,” Kyle said just as the bartender approached and asked them what they wanted to drink. “Can I get an Abita?”

Melinda laughed and said, “I’ll have the same, I guess.”

“Two sisters and a brother,” Kyle offered when they were alone again.

“Huh?”

“That’s what you said the other day; that you have two sisters and a brother.”

“Oh, yeah. All younger,” Melinda said. “Me, my brother, Michael, my sister, Meredith, and my baby sister, Michelle.”

“All Ms,” Kyle noted.

“Yes, they went with a theme. Mel, Mike, Mere, and Mich. I guess it works.”

“So, you’re the oldest, too?”

“By about twelve minutes,” Melinda shared.

“You’re a twin?”

“Mike is my twin, yeah. It feels like we’re twelve years apart sometimes and not twelve minutes, given how immature he is at times, but after him is Meredith, who is twenty-three, and Michelle is nineteen.”

“Do they all live here?”

“No, I’m the only one now. My parents moved to Fort Lauderdale right after Mike and I left the house. Mike went to college at LSU, and he moved to Texas last year for work. Meredith is in graduate school at Miami, and Michelle just left for school at Florida State.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“I didn’t,” Melinda said. “Thank you,” she added when the bartender dropped their beer bottles on the table. “I got the job at the tour company, so I didn’t see the point in going to college when I’d already figured out what I wanted to do.”

“That’s pretty awesome,” Kyle replied, taking a drink of her beer. “This is good.”

“You should come back in the fall when they release their autumn beers. They’re better. ”

Kyle’s face fell when she, again, realized that she’d be leaving soon.

“Yeah, maybe I will.” She paused to take another drink. “If I could’ve skipped college, I would’ve, too, but I needed it for what I wanted to do.”

“Is it required for translators?”

“Not technically, depending on what you want to do with it later. But I went to a pretty bad public high school, and we barely had a language program, so if I wanted to be a translator, I needed more classes. I also wanted to get out of the house, so moving into a dorm allowed me to do that, and my dad helped pay for it then. Well, he helped a little. I probably could’ve skipped it and just studied for the language exams on my own, but to get credentialed, you have to pass those, and if I’d failed the exams, I would’ve at least had my French degree to fall back on, and I could’ve taught somewhere.”

“So, how does it work? Do you work for a company that assigns you jobs?”

“I own my own business. I’m listed on sites where people can check out my previous work and reach out. I actually have some work I should be doing right now, but I can do it tomorrow.”

“You didn’t take time off, like Jolie?”

“No. When she takes time off, she’s off the clock, so to speak. She gets paid for her vacation. I don’t.” Kyle took another drink and asked, “Do you think you’ll always enjoy giving tours?”

“I hope so,” Melinda replied. “But that’s not the plan.”

“What is the plan?”

“The owner that I mentioned before? When my parents moved away, she kind of took me under her wing. She owns the building, including my apartment.”

“That apartment is nice, by the way. I meant to tell you that before. I only saw it for a minute while you changed, but it’s great.”

“She rents it to me for, like, a third of what she could get for it, and she pays me well. She doesn’t have any children of her own, so she wants to leave the business to me one day.”

“Really? That’s amazing,” Kyle said.

“She’s been teaching me what I need to know for years, and the business always does well. Even post-Katrina, when it took a bit for the tourists to return, she’s set it up so well that it was fine. It wasn’t making money, but it didn’t come close to going out of business.”

“She sounds pretty brilliant. Can she teach me things?” Kyle asked.

Melinda took a drink and said, “If you stick around for a while, I’m sure she’d teach you everything she knows.”

“Maybe I will,” Kyle said.

“Don’t tease me if it’s not true,” Melinda replied.

“Hey,” Jolie said, bouncing around the booth and sitting down next to Kyle.

“Hey,” Kyle said, surprised.

“So, I just won five hundred bucks.”

“What?”

“I know. I can’t believe it, either, but I’m doing great.”

“You should stop now, then,” Kyle suggested.

“I’m going to buy my new friends and your new friends drinks to celebrate. Then, we can go, okay? Melinda, since I’m buying, do you want something better than that beer my sister probably bought you?”

Melinda laughed and said, “I’m good, actually, but thank you.”

“Okay. But top-shelf is on the table, if you want it.”

“Thanks.”

“Let’s move to a bigger booth,” Jolie said. “So we can all sit.”

“Oh. Everyone’s joining us?” Kyle asked.

“Yes, Ky.” Jolie stood, turned, and pointed. “There. I’ll grab the girls.”

Bridgette and the three women Jolie had made friends with made their way to the round booth that they all slid into .

“I guess we’ve been summoned,” Melinda spoke, sounding as disappointed as Kyle felt.

“I guess.”

Kyle knew that had her sister been sober right now, she would’ve understood that Kyle and Melinda were getting to know each other and would’ve left them in peace, but drunk Jolie wanted to buy everyone drinks and celebrate the money she’d won and was now spending. When Kyle slid into the booth, she realized that there was no space on the other side for Melinda, so she scooted over, giving her just enough space to sit down and cramming Kyle up next to some stranger that her sister was, apparently, now friends with.

“So, who’s drinking what?” Jolie asked.

“Sorry,” Kyle said to Melinda.

“It’s okay,” Melinda replied.

Kyle couldn’t exactly get comfortable, given how she was sitting, so she wrapped her arm around the back of the booth to give her a little more space and glanced at Melinda, who looked at the arm and smiled. She nudged Kyle a little, and Kyle smiled back. Well, if Jolie wanted to buy everyone drinks, and that meant that Kyle got to put her arm around a beautiful woman, she’d take it.

◆◆◆

“Why are you awake?” Jolie asked groggily.

“Because I’m working,” she replied from her seated position on her bed.

“But it’s before noon…”

“Yes. And only one of us got drunk last night,” Kyle said.

“Do you have to be typing right now, though?” Jolie asked, covering her head with her pillow.

“Yes, that’s how I do my work,” she replied, laughing at her sister. “I got you some regular coffee from downstairs, water, and an apple if you can keep it down.”

“I just need to sleep for another day, and I’ll be fine.”

“Why did you do this to yourself? ”

“Because I’m on vacation,” Jolie replied, removing the pillow and glaring at Kyle. “How did it go with Melinda last night?”

“You were there.”

“And I saw you with your arm around her.”

“You made us sit in a cramped booth.”

“But she’s into girls. You’re into girls. You seem into each other,” Jolie said, slowly sitting up.

“She’s great. I like her.”

“ Like her, like her?”

“Are we twelve?” Kyle asked.

“Are you annoying?” Jolie teased. “And are we going to the house today?”

“After I get this done, yeah. You up for it?”

“I’ll need a long shower and to down this coffee, but I should be. When will you see her again?”

Kyle saved her work and closed her computer.

“Is it crazy?”

“Is what crazy?”

“Melinda and me.”

“No, you look good together. Why would it be crazy?”

“Because I don’t live here. I’m leaving. She’s staying.”

“Oh, that.” Jolie stood up and ran her hands over her face. “Do you want to see what could happen?”

“I don’t know. We have fun together, and we kind of flirted a little last night before you interrupted us.”

“Sorry about that. I got a little carried away.” Jolie was stretching now. “Maybe you should just ask her out and see what happens.”

“Ask her out? Just like that?”

“Sure. Why not?” Jolie replied. “Look at it this way: if she says no, you’re going home, anyway, and you won’t see her again, so it’s not embarrassing or anything.”

“And if she says yes?”

“Maybe you’ll get laid while you’re on vacation. Lord knows I haven’t had any luck.”

“You’ve been hanging out with women the whole time you’ve been here,” Kyle pointed out.

“Yes, trying to meet men,” Jolie replied. “Or, one man, really. Preferably, one that could give me a decent orgasm.”

“Well, I’m not trying to just get laid,” she said.

“I know. You like her. Just ask her out, Kyle. If she says yes, you go out on a real date like a grown-up, and you see what happens. Maybe you’ll get a goodnight kiss or something. Who knows? A lot can be said about a make-out session and some under-the-bra action.”

Kyle rolled her eyes in response as her sister walked into the bathroom to take her shower. Then, she opened her laptop and got back to work, but she couldn’t stop thinking about that possible under-the-bra action with Melinda if she asked her out and Melinda said yes.