Chapter Four

It took Gray's eyes a moment to adjust to the dark interior of Cat O'Connor's Pub once the heavy wooden door closed behind her, cutting off the brassy sound of the jazz band playing on the street outside. She didn't spot Carmen during her glance around the crowded room, so Gray made her way to the corner of the long bar.

"What are you having?" a bartender asked without lifting his eyes from the martini he was pouring.

Gray scanned the chalkboard menu behind him. Spending most of the afternoon trying on various outfits and practicing icebreakers in the bathroom mirror had only served to increase her nerves. A cocktail sounded like just what she needed. "What's in the Alligator Tears Punch?"

"Vodka, pineapple juice, Midori, and sweet and sour," the bartender rattled off.

It sounded too sweet for Gray's taste. "Just a whiskey Coke, please," she requested instead.

After grabbing her drink, Gray turned around to look again for her date and noticed someone waving at her from a booth near the door. Gray walked hesitantly toward the booth, speeding up as she recognized Carmen's face.

"Hey. Carmen, right? I'm Gray," she said, extending her arm for a handshake and, second-thinking the overly formal move halfway through, transitioning to something between a wave and a salute.

"Just in time!" Carmen said, sitting up straighter. "Miguel just came around for team sign-ups, so he'll get started in a few minutes." She nodded at a tall man at the bar in a backward baseball hat with a clipboard in hand.

"Cool." Gray realized she was still standing as a group of four tried to squeeze past her. "Um, mind if I join you?"

Carmen smirked. "Wouldn't be much of a date if you didn't."

Gray laughed stiffly, then slid into the booth across from Carmen. With an arm slung across the back cushion, a cropped sweatshirt showing a glimpse of her midriff, and her blond beachy waves falling across one eye, Carmen looked effortlessly cool. Gray knew this was where she should pull out one of those icebreakers she'd tested earlier, but the only one she could think of now was What was your high school mascot? What was she, a robot helping Carmen reset an online password? Would she ask her to identify photos of fire hydrants next? Gray pinched her thigh under cover of the table in a desperate attempt to get over her nerves. What was wrong with her? She had had no trouble charming strangers when she was with McKenzie! Maybe there was something freeing about flirting when she was in a relationship. The stakes were lower since it wouldn't lead anywhere. Talking to dates while single was turning out to be a whole different ball game.

Luckily, Carmen seemed oblivious to Gray's internal struggle. "We're team Lez Get Information, by the way."

"Was ‘Put Your Freakum Guess On' taken?" Gray said. Ugh. Why were puns the only thing her brain could produce in awkward moments?

"No, but I like where your head's at," Carmen said. "We have a legacy to uphold. We've finished in the top two teams for the past forty-nine consecutive weeks, and I'll be damned if we don't make it to week fifty."

Gray's eyes shifted toward the rest of the room. "Are there, uh, more people joining our team?"

"Not this week," Carmen said with a sigh. "Trina is sick, the Sophies had to leave town for a funeral, and none of our backups were available."

"The Sophies?"

"My friends, a couple, both named Sophie. Classic lesbian shit." Carmen took a sip from the bright-green drink in front of her. "Anyway, that's where you come in. What are your strongest trivia knowledge bases? Mine are sports, especially the Olympics and geography, and I've been working on U.S. presidential history. Oh, and I'm fluent in Spanish and Portuguese."

Gray was suddenly thankful to have a structured activity for her first date. Sure, trivia wasn't a particularly sexy choice, and she was getting more friendly teammate vibes from Carmen than a romantic spark. But actually, that was perfect. She had plenty of time to try out the sexier side of dating on her next eleven dates. For now, Gray just needed to get her feet wet.

She took another sip of her drink as she considered her own trivia strengths. "Um, I'm pretty good on movies and music, especially the nineties forward. Videogames too. I work in PR, so I'm pretty good on national brands and Fortune 500 companies. And food, since…" Gray trailed off. She knew food because she'd tasted so many of McKenzie's culinary experiments, not to mention the hours of cooking shows and YouTube videos she'd heard in the background while she played Halo. But if she wanted to follow Cherry's rules, no ex talk was allowed. "Just because, I guess."

"That's good," Carmen said, nodding. "We may only be a team of two, but that's a nice spread of topics. Fifty weeks, here we come!" She clinked her hurricane glass against Gray's whiskey Coke, then chugged the last of the green liquid inside. "Can I buy you a drink? The Alligator Tears Punch is to die for."

Gray's first drink was still half-full, and the cocktail had sounded too sweet before, but it seemed uncouth to turn down Carmen's recommendation. "Sure," she said. "Thanks!"

Carmen wandered off with her empty glass and Gray took the opportunity to text Cherry that everything was going great, along with a couple of thumbs-up emojis. The pub around her was cramped, due both to the sizable crowd and the beer signage, old tap handles, and Irish flags covering every inch of the redbrick interior walls. She couldn't help but think that McKenzie would have hated this place, its overly decorated walls, its in-your-face vibe, although she would have loved the trivia part. McKenzie and Gray were always at their best when they were on the same team in a competition. Gray was craning her neck to examine the high shelves along the top of the walls, which seemed to be filled with some kind of dusty collectibles, when Carmen returned with two violently green drinks in hand.

"Checking out the Pub Club pint glasses?" Carmen asked as she set a hurricane glass in front of Gray.

"Is that what they are?"

"Well, kind of." Carmen slid into the opposite side of the booth from Gray. "Once you've joined the Pub Club and tried one hundred unique draft beers, you get to pick a pint glass to put on the wall up there. But there was a bit of a debate about what counted as a pint glass and what didn't, so they finally landed on a very broad definition: anything that can hold a pint of beer and fit on the shelf." She turned to look at the ledge running along the opposite wall from their booth. "See, there are plenty of traditional pint glasses, a bunch of antique glassware, a whole section of beer steins over there. But also"—Carmen began pointing around the shelf at some of her favorites—"a baby bottle, a conch shell, a rain boot, and that up there? That's a water gun."

Gray examined the strange assortment. "Do you have a pint glass up there?"

"Yep! It's…" Carmen scooted to the end of the booth farthest from the wall and pointed at the shelf above them. "That brown ceramic one there? It's an antique ram's head tiki glass. I found it at some vintage store in the Garden District and figured it was perfect, since I'm an Aries."

"Me too!" Gray said, almost forgetting the whole reason they'd connected on Mercurious in the first place. "Are you, uh, into astrology?"

Carmen took a slurp of her drink and swallowed. "Yeah, who isn't?"

"Right." Gray paused. She didn't really know much about astrology, at least not beyond what she'd recently learned from Madame Nouvelle Lune. Was she the last queer person on Earth to jump on the astrology bandwagon? Unless she wanted to talk about her astrological dating challenge, which was decidedly against the rules, Gray needed to change the subject. She cleared her throat and took a chug of the Alligator Tears Punch, then immediately cringed.

"Strong, yeah?" Carmen asked, somewhat misinterpreting Gray's expression.

"Mm-hmm," Gray said, swallowing again to clear the syrupy taste from her mouth. It felt rude to criticize Carmen's favorite drink so early in the date, especially when she'd bought it for her. Determined to keep the evening on track, Gray took another long chug. At least she could get it over with quickly.

A short, high-pitched screech sounded from the pub's speaker system. Gray and Carmen turned to see someone with a microphone in hand at a tall table near the front of the room. "Hello, everyone, and welcome to Sunday night trivia at Cat O'Connor's! I'm Miguel. If you haven't signed up and you want to play, you've got about thirty seconds to hustle up to this clipboard and get your team name on it." He waved the clipboard in the air before stepping away from his microphone to place it on the bar. "All right, let me hit you with the rules."

Miguel dove into a description of what to expect, clearly using the same memorized script from many weeks of trivia. The game would consist of five categories, each worth twenty points, for a total possible score of one hundred. It would start with a jack-of-all-categories round, followed by ten questions on a theme, then an image-driven round, another theme, and finally a music round.

Gray's head was swimming with all of the information Miguel was so quickly sharing, but Carmen seemed completely unfazed as she scribbled "Lez Get Information" across the top of the first-round answer sheet that seemed to have appeared at their table out of nowhere.

"Get your pens ready, it's time for the jack-of-all-categories round! Question one: Which three U.S. presidents were quadrilingual, or fluent in four different languages? You get one point for each president you get right."

"Dang, that's hard," Gray said, but before she could finish, Carmen was already writing down an answer on the first line of the answer sheet.

"Jefferson for sure, he was known for being into languages." Carmen stopped writing and tapped the end of the pen against her chin. So far, she'd seemed to have a certain air of nonchalance, but Gray noticed that there was an intensity to her now that the questions had begun. This was Carmen in her element. "I'm pretty sure John Quincy Adams is right too, since he did a bunch of diplomatic work and translated stuff for fun. Weird guy, that JQA. But the third one, that's where I'm stuck."

"Doesn't Obama speak Indonesian or something?" Gray asked quietly.

Carmen shook her head. "Conversationally, and no other languages."

Gray held up her hands, admitting defeat. "This one's all yours." She settled back into the booth, tousling her dirty-blond hair in a way she hoped looked devastatingly handsome since she couldn't actually make herself useful.

"I'm thinking it's one of the older presidents," Carmen continued, musing under her breath, "unless it's a Roosevelt, but I think they both just knew English, French, and German. No, probably someone who knew Latin and ancient Greek or some other dead language. Van Buren spoke Dutch as his first language, maybe him?"

"Moving on to question two," Miguel's voice rang through the speaker system.

Carmen quickly jotted down "John Quincy Adams" and "Martin Van Buren" as the next question was announced. The round flew by with Carmen taking the lead and Gray hardly fitting in a suggestion edgewise. Before Gray could blink, Miguel was collecting answer sheets and Carmen was leaning back in the booth, confidently sipping her Alligator Tears Punch.

Feeling intimidated by Carmen's trivia prowess, Gray nervously sucked down the last of her own punch and then cleared her throat. "So you're from Alabama, huh?"

"Tuscaloosa," Carmen answered. "My parents are still there. I went to Vanderbilt for undergrad, then moved here to get my MBA at Tulane."

"Go back often to visit?" Gray asked, attempting to ride the conversational wave.

"Few times a year. It's not too long of a drive. What about you?"

Gray swirled the half-melted ice cubes in the bottom of her hurricane glass. "Oklahoma. Tulsa, to be exact."

"What brought you to New Orleans?"

"Oh, you know…friends in the area, work, good timing?" Gray rambled, trying to find an explanation that didn't send her down a rabbit hole directly toward her life-changing breakup.

"Cool, cool." Carmen paused for a moment, and Gray noticed the intensity return to her eyes. She leaned in conspiratorially. "Okay, so I feel pretty good about round one. We'll know for sure in a few minutes. But I think we got at least fifteen points, hopefully more like eighteen."

Gray nodded, feeling like she was little more than window dressing for their trivia team.

"But between that presidents question and that one about South American rivers, I think we've got a leg up on Smartacus."

"On who?"

Carmen jerked her head toward a tall table where six people were laughing and chatting over pint glasses of beer. "Our competition."

Gray didn't have a chance to size them up, as Miguel interrupted to read out the correct answers. Carmen had gotten a near-perfect score; her only mistake was naming Martin Van Buren instead of James Madison on question one.

Miguel reeled off the scores for six teams from the first round. "In third place, we've got team Panic! At the Pub Trivia with fifteen points. Team I Am Smartacus is in second with eighteen points. Winning by a hair is team Lez Get Information with nineteen points."

Carmen beamed while team Smartacus exchanged high fives.

"Now, who's ready for round two? I don't know about y'all, but now that March is almost here, I'm feeling a little March Madness. The category is: spring sports seasons."

"Yes!" Carmen cheered under her breath.

Knowing she had little to contribute to the topic, Gray busied herself stirring the watered-down remains of her whiskey Coke with her straw. Miguel read out the first seven questions of the category and Carmen answered them just as quickly without even asking Gray for input. But on the eighth question, Gray's ears perked up.

"How many players are on the field in fast-pitch and slow-pitch softball?" Miguel read from his tablet. "Each correct answer is worth one point."

Carmen held her pen above the answer sheet and began narrating her thought process. "There are nine players per team in baseball, right? So it's probably similar to that."

Gray leaned toward the table. "Nine players in fast-pitch, ten in slow-pitch."

Carmen looked up at Gray for the first time since the round began. "You're sure?"

"One hundred percent. I went to college on a softball scholarship." That scholarship was what had allowed Gray to break off from her parents after a disastrous coming-out process. Plus her ass had looked amazing in the softball uniform pants, as McKenzie had told her more than once.

"All right, then," Carmen said, looking a little impressed. She scribbled down the answer, then looked back up to examine Gray. "Nice one."

That tiny compliment echoed in Gray's head as Miguel asked the last two questions of the round. Sure, she'd done little more than nod her agreement to the rest of Carmen's answers for the round, but it felt good to beat her teammate to one correct response.

With the second round completed, Carmen hopped up to turn in their answer sheet and returned to the booth with two new glasses of Alligator Tears Punch. She slid one across the table to Gray. "Cheers to softball scholarships."

Gray clinked her glass against Carmen's and took a sip. It went down a little easier the second time around. They had another opportunity for a toast a few minutes later, once Miguel revealed the answers, and they found they'd achieved a perfect score. That put team Lez Get Information at thirty-nine points, followed by team I Am Smartacus at thirty-five, and a new team in third, Hoops There It Is, with thirty points.

The third round proved surprisingly lucky for Gray. The category was weapons, something Gray wouldn't have considered a strong point until Miguel started clicking through the images on screens around the bar. As it turned out, most of the weapons from Gray's favorite videogames were inspired by real devices. Carmen quickly realized Gray's advantage on the topic and passed over the answer sheet and pen, which Gray accepted with a sense of great responsibility.

With Gray's confidence boosted and Carmen recognizing Gray as an asset to her team, conversation flowed more naturally. That might have also been thanks to the punch, Gray realized when she stood up and found the room tilting around her. Maybe Carmen was right about it being strong. "Where's the restroom?" she asked, trying to steady herself against the back of the booth.

"See those frosted doors that look like phone booths?" Carmen asked, pointing toward the back right corner of the pub. "Those are the bathrooms. Confusing, I know."

Gray carefully made her way to the faux phone booth doors, returning just as Miguel was beginning the fourth round. Carmen caught Gray up on the score. They'd only missed one weapon, but Smartacus had gotten a perfect score, putting them only three points behind team Lez.

The fourth category was famous museums, and Carmen seemed to grow more tense as their lead shrank, picking apart a cardboard coaster and leaving pieces of it scattered across the table. "We just have to nail the music round. You said you're pretty good at music, right?"

"I'm all right, especially if it's more contemp—"

Gray was cut off by Miguel's voice over the speakers. "Get those final answer sheets ready, because it's time for the music round! Category is: movie musicals."

Carmen made a sour face, then looked hopefully at Gray. Gray shrugged. "I used to really like Moulin Rouge?" she said.

Carmen groaned. "Smartacus has a theater nerd on their team. We're toast."

A few songs from jukebox musicals like Across the Universe and Mamma Mia! proved easy to identify. Both Carmen and Gray were relieved to recognize the opening notes of "The Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But the other show tunes were harder. Even if they recognized it, they couldn't nail down which musical it belonged to. At the end of the round, Carmen delivered their answer sheet and they nervously awaited their final score.

"I'm going to be so pissed if that round broke our streak before we hit fifty weeks," Carmen said, wrapping a strand of blond hair around her finger.

"Well, I looked around at the other teams during that last round, and team Panic! looked totally lost and confused. I think we're a safe bet for second, at least," Gray said, hoping it was true.

"The Sophies will never forgive me," Carmen said, as if she hadn't even heard Gray.

"Hey, I think you did a pretty incredible job, considering you were the only original teammate here to represent," Gray said.

That got a tiny smile from Carmen. Finally, Miguel's voice filled the room, revealing the correct answers. They ticked off their points on their fingers, coming up with twelve to add to their score and bringing them to a grand total of eighty-five.

After announcing the scores of the six teams with the fewest points, Miguel paused, adjusted his backward cap, and allowed the anticipation to build. "In third place, winners of four Cat O'Connor's bottle openers and a hearty pat on the back…Panic! At the Pub Trivia!"

The group cheered from the end of the bar, seemingly unbothered that they hadn't managed to snag first place. Gray breathed a small sigh of relief, knowing she hadn't broken Carmen's fifty-week record of being in the top two, but Carmen looked just as on edge as before.

Miguel waited for the applause to subside. "Now, I Am Smartacus and Lez Get Information have been separated by only a few points the entire game, but that last round mixed things up a bit…"

"Dammit, they won," Carmen said under her breath, seeming to deflate. Gray reached across the table to grab Carmen's hand, a touch that felt awkward but, Gray hoped, a bit consoling as well.

"…putting I Am Smartacus and Lez Get Information in a tie at eighty-five points each!"

Carmen and Gray gasped in unison at the news.

"In the event of a tie," Miguel said theatrically, "the teams in first go into a tiebreaker round, where they have thirty seconds to list as many items in a category as possible. I'll bring fresh answer sheets to both teams, then I'll announce the category and start the clock."

The other first-place team was already huddled up and whispering, throwing occasional looks at Gray and Carmen's booth. Gray felt her heart racing. They could still win! She wasn't sure when she'd become so invested, but she was in deep now.

Once Miguel dropped off their answer sheet, Carmen pulled it in front of herself. "I can write. Unless you're, like, a really intense speed writer?"

Gray shrugged. "You go for it."

Miguel returned to the mic stand and fumbled with his phone. "Okay, I've got thirty seconds on the clock here. List as many items as you can from this category: Books of the Bible, Old Testament only. Go!"

Before Carmen could finish saying "fuck," Gray had pulled the pen and answer sheet from her, immediately scribbling down "Genesis," "Exodus," "Leviticus," and "Numbers."

When Carmen saw Gray spelling out "Deuteronomy," she whispered, "Skip the long ones! Write the short ones first!" Gray nodded, penning "Joshua," "Judges," and "Ruth."

"Ten seconds left!" Miguel announced.

Taking Carmen's advice, she skipped to the shortest books she could think of: 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Ezra, Esther, and Job.

"Time's up!" Miguel said.

Carmen swung the paper around to face her. "Barely legible, but still counts." She ticked off the books listed, counting silently, just before Miguel swooped the sheet away from her. "Fourteen," she whispered to Gray across the table. "You're sure they're all right?"

"Absolutely sure."

"Good," Carmen said, nodding. "I'm glad you're here. I would have bombed that category. I've only ever stepped foot in churches for weddings and funerals." She paused, eyeing Gray across the table. "How do you know the Old Testament so well?"

"Twelve years of private Christian school," Gray said with a shudder. "I try to forget most of it, but the song they taught us to memorize books of the Bible is actually pretty catchy."

Carmen smirked. "Well, it came in handy tonight." She scooted closer to the wall and patted the booth next to her. "Want to come around on this side for a better view when Miguel tells us who won?"

"Sure!" Gray left her side of the booth and sat down next to Carmen. With their hips brushing against each other, Gray suddenly remembered that this was a date. Not just a fun trivia night with a friend. A date. The only first date she'd been on in the past decade. And whether it was the thrill of competition, the buzz from the boozy punch, or actual chemistry with Carmen, Gray was enjoying it. She rested her arm along the back of the booth, her hand grazing Carmen's shoulder, and was pleased that Carmen leaned into her touch instead of backing away.

A rustle of papers drew Gray and Carmen's attention back to the high table by the bar. Miguel held the microphone to his mouth. "All right, we have a winner. Coming in second place and winning twenty-five dollars off their tab tonight, drumroll, please…"

Customers around the bar contributed by beating their hands against their tables. Carmen grabbed Gray's knee, and Gray felt something flutter in her stomach.

"I Am Smartacus!"

The competing team groaned as Gray and Carmen looked at each other, realization dawning.

"And coming in first, winning fifty dollars off their tab, with a crucial fourteen books of the Old Testament, Lez Get Information!" Miguel announced.

"We won!" Gray and Carmen screamed, throwing their hands in the air as the pub cheered around them.

Before Gray knew what was happening, Carmen had grabbed her face in her hands and pulled her into a passionate victory kiss. Gray's body reacted instinctively, wrapping her arms around Carmen's bare midriff and tasting the essence of Midori on her tongue. Miguel finished off his post-trivia script, but Gray didn't hear a word of it through the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. Nothing else mattered but the feeling of Carmen's skin and the adrenaline running through her veins.

After a minute, they pulled apart and the look shared between them felt like it might catch the room on fire. Carmen took a jagged breath. "I want you. Now."

An image of sparkling decorative tile and cool mood lighting appeared in Gray's head. "The bathroom."

Carmen all but pushed Gray out of the booth, then grabbed her hand and pulled her through the crowd of people waiting at the bar to close their tabs. Before Gray could blink, they were behind the faux phone booth door and had their hands all over each other. Carmen tugged off Gray's jacket and slung it across the sink. Brushing aside Carmen's hair, Gray sucked at a spot on Carmen's neck, then reached under her cropped sweatshirt to release the clasp on her bra with one hand. The strapless bra tumbled to the ground, and Carmen evened the score by tugging Gray's black V-neck over her head and just as expertly unhooking her bra.

Feeling the cool air of the bathroom against her skin, Gray paused, one hand cupping Carmen's breast under her shirt. "Wait, are you sure you want this?"

"So sure," Carmen panted, unbuttoning Gray's jeans. "You?"

Still riding the wave of their win and certain she would combust if Carmen stopped touching her, Gray nodded. "Very sure."

Their mouths met again, Carmen kissing forcefully enough to push Gray's bare back against the cool tiled wall beside the sink. Carmen unzipped Gray's pants and dove a hand into her boy-cut shorts, already damp with anticipation. With her mouth finding one of Gray's nipples, Carmen stroked a finger down Gray's center, drawing a moan from Gray's lips. Carmen's fingertip circled Gray's clit and Gray closed her eyes and cried out, "Oh god, that's good," forgetting entirely that anyone might be able to hear them. Carmen slid a finger deep into Gray, still rubbing against her clit with the side of her thumb, and it took Gray only a moment longer before she came.

Gray ran a hand through Carmen's hair, then pulled her in for a kiss. With a twist, Gray changed their positions so that Carmen was against the wall. She pulled Carmen's sweatshirt over her head and pressed the heated skin of their torsos together, grabbing Carmen's ass with both hands and then running her palms up her sides until they reached her breasts. Circling her thumbs around Carmen's hard nipples, Gray elicited a shiver from her date. One hand continued caressing Carmen's breast while the other slid into the stretchy waistband of her leggings. Carmen leaned into the touch, pressing eagerly against Gray's fingers.

As Gray met Carmen's need, Carmen pressed her face into Gray's neck, suppressing a moan by biting the tender skin beneath her ear. Within a few minutes, Carmen cried out against Gray's collarbone, tightened her grip on Gray's back, and then released it. They held each other for a moment longer, catching their breath.

Removing her hand from Carmen's leggings with a gentle stroke up her torso, Gray stepped back. "Wow. That was…wow."

"I love winning trivia," Carmen said with a devilish grin.

"Same."

A pounding on the door caused them both to jump. "Hello? Anyone in there?" a booming voice said from outside the bathroom.

Jumping into a flurry of motion, Gray called out, "Just a second!" She pulled her T-shirt over her head and buttoned her jeans while bumping against a similarly frenzied Carmen. Gray pulled her jacket from the sink and turned on the faucet. "Just washing my hands!" Carmen and Gray hurried to scrub their hands and adjust their hair and clothes.

Right as Gray reached to unlock the door, Carmen threw out a hand to stop her. "Your bra!" Carmen pulled it from where it had landed above the paper towel dispenser and passed it to Gray, who jammed it into her jacket pocket.

With a grateful nod to Carmen, Gray unlocked the door and stepped into the low-lit pub. Luckily, it seemed their interrupter had found a vacant stall elsewhere, and no one was there to raise an eyebrow at the two of them leaving the bathroom together, hair ruffled, cheeks reddened, and clothes slightly askew. Carmen followed Gray back to their booth by the door, both avoiding eye contact with any nosy patrons.

Carmen eyed their mostly empty glasses still at the table. "Shall we finish our drinks?"

"Sure," Gray said, feeling a bit dizzy from the bathroom rendezvous. She dropped into the booth and sipped the last of the Alligator Tears Punch.

It only took one long slurp for Carmen to empty her glass. "Guess I was thirstier than I thought," she said with a wink. "I don't have class on Mondays, so I'm not in a rush. Do you want another round?"

"Mondays?" Gray said, realization dawning. "Wait. Shit. It's Sunday." She lit up the digital watch on her wrist. "Jesus, it's already almost midnight? Fuck me."

"Again?" Carmen said. "Sure, I'm in."

"I wish," Gray said. "But I've really got to go. I totally lost track of time." She pulled her phone from her pocket to call a rideshare. How had she so completely forgotten that she had work tomorrow? Gray had thought the evening couldn't last more than an hour, two tops. But then she'd gotten so wrapped up in the competition that she hadn't even looked at her watch since the first round of trivia started.

A driver around the block accepted her ride, and Gray looked up at Carmen apologetically. "Sorry I have to run. This was fun. Really fun."

"Thanks for helping me keep team Lez Get Information at the top for another week," Carmen said, seeming unbothered by Gray's swift exit. "Maybe I can text you next time we have another vacancy and need a Bible scholar?"

"I'm sure my Sunday school teacher would be thrilled to hear you call me that." Gray stood and zipped her jacket. "But yeah, text me. Oh, should I close the tab?"

"No need. It's covered since we won."

Gray dug a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet and dropped it on the table. "For the tip, then." She leaned down and pressed a kiss against Carmen's cheekbone. "See you around, Carmen."

Carmen grinned. "Welcome to NOLA, Gray."