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I was living before.”
    “Were you living with
your family?”
    “Something like that.”
He looked down the road. “It’s coming.”
    Although the streetcar
was mostly empty when it pulled to a stop, it was nearly full by
the time Duncan paid our fare, and we walked on. He gestured for me
to sit in a seat next to a girl. “I’ll stand.”
    I wasn’t sure if he was
doing it because he wanted other people to find seats or because
for some reason he enjoyed standing, but either way I appreciated
having a seat. I still wasn’t used to the jerky stops and starts of
New Orleans’ most famous form of transportation.
    By the time the
streetcar reached Canal Street, it was filled to capacity. I
couldn’t see Duncan when I got off the car from the back. I hadn’t
even realized you could do that. He was waiting for me on the
sidewalk.
    “Where to?” I asked. It
looked like there was a party pretty much everywhere.
    “This way.” He took my
hand in his, but I didn’t fight it. Otherwise we probably would
have been separated by the endless crowds. I was really glad I’d
visited the quarter in the morning so I at least had an idea of
what it was like without thousands of people filling every nook and
cranny. “I want to take you to one of my favorite bars.”
    “Ok, cool.” I hoped
this one was eighteen and up too.
    We wove our way through
the crowds. I glanced into the rows of bars and clubs teeming with
people dressed in various degrees of costumes. Despite my
apprehension of hanging out with someone I barely knew, the
excitement seemed to be rubbing off on me. I found myself moving
along to the music spilling out of one club when we were
momentarily stopped.
    “Duncan!” A girl with
long blond hair yelled and proceeded to wrap her arms around
Duncan’s neck. She was dressed as a pumpkin, if a pumpkin was just
a skimpy piece of orange fabric. “Come dancing with us.” She was
visibly drunk.
    “Oh, hi.” He gave me an
apologetic look.
    I shrugged. It wasn’t
like we were on a date.
    “Why aren’t you dressed
up? It’s Halloween. You’re supposed to be dressed up.”
    He shoved a hand into
his back pocket. “How do you know that I’m not dressed up?”
    “Laurie!” The girl
yelled. “It’s Duncan, the stripper who did Debbie’s party last
week.”
    Wait. What? Did he
strip? Wow, that was pretty surprising. He wasn’t bad looking, but
I hadn’t met a male stripper before.
    Another girl ran over.
This one was appropriately attired. She had an awesome lollipop
costume on. She also gave Duncan a hug, so I decided to people
watch while I waited. That’s when I saw him. The gorgeous guy from
the bar. All six plus feet of his perfectness. This time he was
wearing one of those sleeveless white t-shirts that showed off his
muscular arms. But it wasn’t his muscles that jumped out the most.
It was his beautiful set of black wings. Now that was a
costume.
    He glanced up just as
he passed, and my chest tightened. He looked at me with curiosity
for a second before continuing on. Maybe he vaguely remembered my
face but didn’t know why. I wasn’t sure what would be worse, if he
remembered the humiliating moment, or if he didn’t.
    I suddenly felt
embarrassed of my cat costume. Were the whiskers too much?
    “Daisy?” Duncan called
my name and snapped me out of my daze. “Ready?” The girls must have
walked off while I was distracted because Duncan was alone watching
me. I wondered how obvious my ogling was.
    “Yeah, sure.”
    Duncan towed me along
until he turned into a dark and completely unappealing dive. This
was his favorite place? I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to
offend him. Maybe this was one of those hidden gems you always hear
about. Just to be safe I texted Reyna the name of the place as
inconspicuously as possible, Grounddiggers.
    “Who are you texting?”
Duncan asked as we walked through the entrance.
    Evidently I wasn’t as
inconspicuous as I thought. “Just a friend.” I’m