Page 11 of March

Bryce didn’t press or rock. She just stayed there, allowing Sophie to dictate their pace. WhenSophiepressed into her, though, Bryce grunted a little into her mouth and pulled back to shift her lips to Sophie’s neck. Her thigh pressed into Sophie’s center, and Sophie hadn’t ever done anything like this before, but she didn’t want it to stop, either. Still, she knew that if they continued much longer, she’d be having an orgasm in this barbecause Bryce’s lips were sucking on her earlobe, and Sophie’s hips were moving into her on their own accord.

“We–” she tried to say something, but there was a noise.

There wasa lotof noise, actually, and it wasn’t music. Bryce must have noticed it, too, because she pulled out of the kiss and away from Sophie’s body. Sophie turned to see that there was a fight breaking out in the bar. Four guys were throwing punches and going at one another.

“We should go,” Bryce said.

But before she could hold her hand out for Sophie to take, more people joined in on the fight, so Bryce jumped up a few times as if she was trying to find them a way out of the pandemonium. Sophie looked around, too, and when she saw a possible exit path close to the bar, she was about to grab Bryce’s attention, but police officers had rushed inside the building, and people were now fleeing, trying to avoid being arrested. Sophie turned to her right, with people bumping and running around her, but Bryce was nowhere to be found.

She didn’t know what to do, so she tried to jump how Bryce had just done to see if she could spot her. Officers were breaking up the fight, but people were still running out of the bar, so she decided she’d run back upstairs. Maybe Bryce had ended up making her way there, hoping Sophie would, too. If not, Sophie could go on the balcony and try to spot the woman in the street. She rushed up the stairs, checking the crowd as she went, and then checked everywhere upstairs, too, before running to the balcony. She put her head on a swivel and looked down, but there were too many people running around and looking at what was going on inside the bar as more officers on their horses outside tried to corral the fighters, so Sophie simply couldn’t see her. Making her way back downstairs, she looked everywhere, but Bryce was gone.

Still, she waited. She took the chance that she might even end up arrested and stayed by the bar until the bartender told her that they were closing because of the fight and that she needed to go. Walking outside, she went up and down the street, hoping, silently praying that Bryce would reappear, and when she didn’t, Sophie called herself an Uber and waited on Canal Street. She hadn’t even gotten Bryce’s last name or her phone number. She’d had the most amazing night of her life with a beautiful woman, and she’d never see her again.

CHAPTER 4

“Care 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.

“Ididn’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 reallyinjail. 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 minutesaway. 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 whenIleft?” 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.”

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