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“C are to explain?” Sean said with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You smell like you got dropped into a dumpster where they’d also tossed the horse poop on top and maybe, like, bags of vomit or something, too,” Megan added.

“Ladies, let’s back off for a second. Bryce here spent the past few hours in the slammer.” Kelsey walked around to face her. “Did anyone make you their bitch? Did you have a carton of smokes to trade?”

Sean laughed. Megan smiled in sympathy at her. Bryce said nothing.

“I had no idea you wanted to check ‘get in a bar fight’ off your bucket list,” Sean said.

“ I didn’t get into a bar fight,” she replied. “Idiots got into a bar fight. I was trying to find a way out of the bar for Sophie and me, and I got pulled into the crowd.”

“Okay. But how did you end up in jail?”

“I wasn’t really in jail. The officers just pulled a bunch of people aside into this alley and then took us to the station, where they sorted us all out. They ran out of space for everyone there, so before they could even ask the people who they shoved on a bus any questions, they shoved me back on another bus and took me to another station that, I guess, was about five minutes away. When they finally started asking the damn questions, they realized that I wasn’t drunk and didn’t know the guys who’d been fighting, so they let me go. They grabbed a bunch of people. I think some were just on the street, and some were inside the bar. Someone said something about a knife, or maybe it was two knives; I don’t know. I think that’s why they grabbed everyone. But, at no point was I in a cell.”

“Good because our trip is almost over, and I don’t have any money left for your bail,” Kelsey replied.

Bryce sat on the end of one of the two queen beds and said, “I lost her in the crowd, and then I couldn’t leave the station until they let me go, which took forever, so by the time I went back to the bar to find her, she was gone. I’m not even sure if it was the right bar. They all look so similar around here. I didn’t even pay attention to the name when we walked into it last night. It looked the same, but it was also nighttime, and now it’s daytime, so I don’t know. Why didn’t I pay more attention? Why didn’t I get her number?”

“The girl you were talking to when we left?” Megan asked.

“Yes. Sophie.”

“The one you were still talking to when I left?” Kelsey asked. “While her friend was hitting on me?”

“Her friend hit on you?” Megan asked, looking a little shocked for a minute before the sadness kicked in.

“Yeah. Jill. She’s cool. We talked for a while, and she’s funny, but yeah, I could tell.”

“She’s just one girl in a bar, Bryce,” Sean added as she walked to the bed she’d shared with Kelsey the previous night and grabbed a sweater off it.

“She’s not just a girl, Sean. You don’t even know her.”

“Yeah, and neither do you,” Sean retorted. “You spent, like, what, a couple of hours with her. Why are you pining?”

“I saw them,” Megan said with a smile. “You stared at each other how they do in romantic movies when they realize they’re in love at the end, just before the music swells.”

“In love?” Sean guffawed. “They met at a bar for, like, an hour.”

“Sean, come on,” Kelsey said as she sat down next to Bryce. “I’d put my arm over your shoulders to comfort you, but you stink. Maybe a shower or two or seven, and then, we can all catch up on your night in jail.”

“I wasn’t in jail.” Bryce stood up. “And I cannot believe what an idiot I was. Always get the phone number.”

“She lives here, Bryce. You’re on vacation. Did you want to hook up? You said you weren’t about that when–”

“Sean, calm down,” Kelsey interrupted. “Let the woman shower. She’s smelling up the whole room. The maid is going to search for the vomit we’ve somehow managed to hide if Bryce doesn’t get the stench off her soon.”

Bryce didn’t think she smelled that bad. She knew she’d been grouped together in some police van or small bus thing with mostly drunk people, and many of them had alcohol spilled on them or on their breath, but she’d been stone-cold sober the whole night, especially when she’d gotten pulled away from Sophie. She remembered yelling Sophie’s name over the noise. She had tried to tell her to stay there, not to go anywhere, but she’d known Sophie couldn’t hear her.

As she showered, she thought of their kiss and how Sophie had wanted her to go back to her place. Bryce would have. She’d said yes. She would have gone back there just to talk more without other people and loud music around them. She didn’t need sex with Sophie. Yes, she would’ve happily done that all night long, but she’d just wanted to keep talking to her, to keep kissing her, and to try to figure out what this was because it was the best thing that she’d ever felt in her life. Bryce’s entire body had tingled the moment she’d seen Sophie, and it hadn’t stopped until they’d been pulled apart from one another because of some drunk frat boys. Her lips were still somewhat tingly, and she wished she knew how to make them always stay that way until she could find Sophie so that she could recharge them, make them electric again, and light Bryce’s entire body back on fire.

“She’s just a–” Sean started.

“Sean, I mean it: stop,” Bryce told her when she walked out of the bathroom, finding Sean standing there.

“What are we doing today?” Megan asked. “We’ve got one more full day here.”

“Shit,” Bryce replied as she shook the towel on her head to try to dry her hair a bit.

“What?” Kelsey asked as she put her phone and wallet into her small purse.

“She doesn’t even know I’m leaving tomorrow,” she replied. “We didn’t get to that part. I was putting it off because I didn’t want her to leave, thinking there was no point, with us leaving in basically a day.”

“Not that big of a deal,” Sean said. “We are leaving. The most you would’ve had was one night.” She walked back into the main part of the room and sat on the bed Bryce had shared with Megan.

“Let’s go to Café Du Monde again,” Megan suggested. “We can have a late breakfast or early lunch.”

“I think that’s just called brunch, Megs.” Kelsey smiled at her.

“Brunch of beignets and coffee?” Sean asked.

“We could have that first and then go somewhere else for sandwiches.”

“So, donuts and then sandwiches? I like how you think, Megs,” Kelsey said and placed a hand on Megan’s shoulder.

Bryce looked over at Megan, who forced a smile when Kelsey touched her.

“I’ll skip it. I want to go find the bar from last night. I got all turned around with the cops and the stupid alley, but I want to find it and wait.”

“Bryce, she’s probably not going to be there. You know that, right?” Kelsey said sympathetically.

“Not when I get there, maybe. But if I wait, she could show.”

“What if the night was only awesome for you but not as awesome for her ?” Kelsey reasoned. “I’m not saying that to be mean. I’m just thinking that you don’t know her all that well. She’s a local, and it’s the kick-start of the tourist season. Maybe her thing is hooking up with tourists.”

“It’s not,” she said, shaking her head.

“How do you know for sure?” Megan asked.

“Because I know. You guys weren’t there. I’ve never–” She paused and looked over at Sean, who lowered her eyes to the floor, avoiding her gaze. “I’ve never felt this before. There’s something here. Maybe you guys should drive home, and I’ll fly back in a few more days.”

“What? Bryce, come on,” Sean spoke. “You can’t stay here just in case she happens to show up.”

“I can’t just leave.”

“Don’t you have that interview about your blog with that food magazine?” Megan asked. “It’s in person, isn’t it?”

“It’s a local magazine, so I can skip it or ask them to postpone.”

“You were so excited about this,” Kelsey said. “This is your first real interview.”

“Well, Sophie is the first woman I’ve been excited about in forever.”

“Bryce, come on,” Kelsey said as she sat down next to her. “Let’s just get some donuts in Megan here, and we can talk more. You have a life to get back to. It was an amazing night, and I get that you wish it would have ended differently, but maybe that was all you were meant to have: one amazing night to help you get ready for the woman you’re meant to be with or something.”

“That’s sweet,” Megan told Kelsey.

“Thanks,” Kelsey replied with a wink, causing Megan to blush.

Bryce stood up and said, “I’ll go for lunch, but I don’t know – this feels like more than one night with someone I was only meant to know for that long.”

She didn’t want to go get beignets, and she didn’t want sandwiches or to give up on finding Sophie, but her friends were probably right. They were being logical while she was being emotional. Bryce wasn’t normally an emotional person. She loved food and long drives in her car, and she loved her kitchen, which she’d been slowly redoing since she’d moved into the house that she had rented for cheap from her aunt on the stipulation that she’d remodel it bit by bit as long as she lived there until her aunt was ready to sell it. The kitchen had gotten the majority of her love and attention, but she’d not neglected the bathroom, which had been straight out of the 70s before she’d redone it with up-to-date features and a fresh coat of paint, removing the hideous patterned wallpaper. Given all that, and not for the first time, either, Bryce wondered how she hadn’t known she was gay before Sean. She wasn’t a contractor or a plumber by any stretch of the imagination, but she had the ability to watch a YouTube video or read some instructions, and suddenly, she could fix something or improve it.

She worked on the house for her aunt whenever she wasn’t blogging, going on her drives, or coming up with new recipes, and she found that it filled up her time well enough that she hadn’t missed dating or trying to find a relationship. Now that she’d met Sophie, though, as ridiculous as it had sounded, she knew what she’d been missing, so she wanted to make time for that, a relationship.

When they got to Café Du Monde, her friends talked around two small tables they’d pushed together as powdered sugar rained down on them from above instead of just being in the air and all over the ground at their feet. Bryce couldn’t focus on whatever they were talking about, though. She could only think about Sophie and how her eyes had glimmered in the low light of the bar, how it had felt to have her hand move through Sophie’s hair, and how good Sophie had felt pressed up against her body fully during their dance and again later, in their own little corner of the world. How had she managed to lose her? Bryce wouldn’t ever forgive herself; she knew that much. She wondered at what her friends had said. Was it meant to be one night? Was Sophie the kick-start she’d needed to find someone back home she was meant to be with? No, that didn’t feel right. In fact, it felt very, very wrong.