"Yeah, so what am I supposed to do? If you go to sleep, I'll be all by myself and what if I need to puke?"
Deanna took a deep breath of the metallic air and sighed. "Paige, what am I going to do if you puke? If you're going to puke, you're going to puke. I might as well be asleep so I can miss it."
The blonde girl fidgeted in the tiny seat and groaned. "You know I'm afraid."
"And you know I'm tired!"
"And you know I hate flying!"
"And you know I hate whining!"
"And you both know I hate bickering," Vivian interrupted the pair. She ran an impatient hand up into her curled brunette locks and sighed. "How long is this flight anyway?"
"Three hours to Detroit," Deanna grinned. "Then a two hour layover. Then a five hour flight to New Orleans."
Vivian shook her head and rolled her green eyes. "And why do you look so excited about this?"
"CEMETARIES!" Deanna shrieked, hopping up in her small economy class seat and clapping. "DEATH! SKULLS!"
Paige turned and glanced at her two best friends, her skin pale. "I don't feel so good, guys."
"We're not even moving yet," Vivian dismissed her claim and turned back to her magazine. Lucky. Vivian had a shopping addiction. Fuck it, they all had a shopping addiction. Henceforth why that had become such good friends.
Deanna grinned. "I'm going to sleep now. Good night."
"You can't leave me!" Paige pleaded, but Dee's brilliant brown eyes were already locked shut.
Vivian grinned. "She's not going anywhere, dumbass."
Paige frowned and turned back to the miniscule window of the Boeing. "I hate this."
"Shut up and go to sleep," Vivian demanded before disappearing into her magazine.
Paige frowned again, then sighed. This really sucked. She was afraid to fly and neither of her best friends gave a shit. In fact, Deanna was already fast asleep. Snoring. Great.
* * *
Her eye lids fluttered slowly as her mind raced. Her thong warmed. This was her greatest fantasy. This was hot. This was everything she'd hoped to find in New Orleans. And right now, it was playing across the backs of her eyelids.
The bar is smoke-filled and dirty. A dive bar. The definition of a dive bar. It's named "The Dive". The beer's the same as the upscale clubs, though, and far cheaper. This is where she wants to be. This is where she belonged. She had diverted from her best friends when they had gone across the street to the Flamingo Club. Yes, it was a strip bar. Not her style. She would just pass her time here, in this smokey oasis of dirt, grime, and great music. Yes. The jukebox was spinning Brand New. It was like an omen. 'Come to me, Deanna!'
"Here I am," she thought to herself. "Here I fucking am."
"Drinking?" came a deep question from just over her right shoulder. She turned and met questioning, bright chocolate eyes. "What's your poison?"
He grinned and she couldn't help but smile, herself. "Tequila."
"Hard," he smirked and it left and lewd tension hanging in the air. "The good stuff?"
Deanna yawned and opened her eyes. It was just a dream. But the stranger had been so seductively alluring. She didn't want to wake up. Before Paige could realize that she had stirred, she shut her eyelids and prayed she'd fall quickly back to sleep. The Flamingo Club, she forced herself to think. I want to be back at the-
The first male wasn't as tall, roughly 5'10". Husky. With shortly-cropped chestnut brown hair and exceedingly plush eyelashes of the same honey shade. His smile was always childlike in its outright innocence, but more a smirk in the possibilities that it hid. His best friend and partner-in-crime was taller. Over 6'. He, like the first male, had brown hair. Cut even shorter. His smiles hid no covert kinkiness, and instead, he was clearly a court jester. Deanna had lost herself in his eyes hours ago.
"Are you listening to what he's saying?" the second male questioned with a laugh. "You're not, are you?"
Deanna could not suppress a grin. "Of course I'm listening."
"No, you're not," the first male smirked. It was that delicious, promising look that said so much and yet so little.
Deanna shook her head defensively. "Yes, I was!"
"Then what's my name?" the man questioned her with a childish grin. "And what's his name?"
Well, that did it. Deanna hadn't been listening and now she was busted. What had the pair said their names were? Well, the first man- the talker and the smirker- he had said his name was something like David. Or Daniel. Or-
"I'm Paul," he said with a lopsided grin. "You didn't know that, did you?"
Deanna blushed.
"I'm Chris," the second man smiled. "But you can call me Monkey Head."
Chris and Paul erupted into laughter at this, and Deanna-
Deanna yawned.
"I SAW THAT!" Paige shrieked and began hopping up and down in her seat. It felt like the every passenger on the plane turned and glared at them before Paige calmed. Then she frowned. "I saw you yawn, Dee, I know you're awake! And you must have been having a great dream, because you were moaning for a while there."
"MOANING?"
"Yeah," Paige giggled. "You were moaning some guy's name. Umm, I think you said-"
Vivian rolled her eyes. "She said, 'OH PAUL!'"
Paige snapped her finger. "Yes! That was what you moaned. Over and over and over again."
Deanna tried to change the subject. "You look very calm, Paige."
"I like this flying stuff after all," Paige smiled and then began searching through her purse for some buried treasure. "They said that we were flying over the Grand Canyon and I thought that-"