DRUNK drunk.
The kind of drunk where you’re leaning on each other, giggling about everything and nothing, with no real sense of direction but enough adrenaline to power through the wrong turns.
Our feet hit the sidewalk in front of my hotel as he helped me take off my wig, because of course I took it off as soon as we made it like a true heaux in her prime.
“Why you walking like your knees on strike?” he laughed.
“Because my ass has been clapping like an encore since noon!” I threw my head back, laughing. “That was cardio and core strength. Don’t play with me.”
We were wobbling back from an entire day of doing the most. Started with bottomless drinks at that ratchet-bougie trap brunch spot. Then bar-hopped our way into some hole-in-the-wall with a pool table and a man selling shots out of a backpack like a street pharmacist. Then back to Bourbon Street, where I was twerking on balconies, tables, and one very patient bouncer.
“I got five pictures with bottles balanced on my head,” I said, scrolling through my phone, cracking up.
“And three with random women slapping your ass.”
“It was consensual. You saw me nod!”
He laughed so hard. “And what about when you made that girl pour Patron down your throat off her elbow?”
I gasped. “That was my Mardi Gras baptism and I regret nothing.”
“You damn near drowned,” he said between wheezes.
“And still came up sexy!” I shot back, posing with a fake pout.
We were loud and sloppy and so unserious. It was beautiful.
But we knew it was time to call it quits when, at the last bar, he pulled me onto his lap during a slow bounce remix of “Nice & Slow” and we started making out like we didn’t have homes.
Then… he slid my hand down his pants.
“I can’t believe you made me do that with people around,” I said, reliving it.
He shrugged, smiling wickedly. “You looked too good. I blacked out for a second.”
“You damn near had me giving you a handjob at the bar. What if the camera caught us?”
“They won’t post it. They’ll just frame it,” he said smugly.
I smacked his chest and we burst out laughing again as we stumbled through the hotel lobby.
It was reckless.
It was wild.
It was everything my Heaux Phase needed to be.
We weren’t in love. We didn’t know each other’s middle or last names. But he was unlocking versions of me I didn’t even know I had the courage to release.
Vacation me was that girl.
Maison stepped out onto the balcony first, falling back into one of the cushioned chairs. His robe was still open just enough to make my mind wander.
I followed him out and without saying a word, I sat right in his lap. Like it was mine.
He didn’t flinch. He just wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. I could smell whiskey and spearmint gum on his breath. I could still feel our laughter from the street echoing in my ribs.
“I haven’t had this much fun in a while,” I said, staring out at the lights. “Like… a long while.”
