Drowned Out Love *ON HOLD

5. Just My Luck

POV: Trin's

When I got outside I'd noticed the car wasn't there, which Etric explained was because we should take a short walk around town before heading back. It actually sounded like a really good idea because I didn't get out much. I was walking in the back of our group so people couldn't get all that good a look at my face. We were walking down one of the main streets and no one cast us a second glance because we were walking along casually enough. I noticed some kids up ahead in a park and that made me smile inwardly. They looked to be having a lot of fun.

As we pass by them the ball they are playing with comes our way. With how watchful the others are being, I'm surprised they didn't see it. It rolled across the road a few feet behind us and so I decided I would take it back to them. I didn't say anything to the others because it would only take a second and I would catch up to them.

I pick up the ball and walk across the street to hand it back to the little girl that was walking to retrieve it from me. She was probably eight years old and smiled a large toothy grin, which was even cuter because she was missing a tooth. She says thank you and walks back to the other children. I was about to turn around and walk to the others when I raise my head to look at the trees and I am mesmerized by everything. It smells like fresh rain and the scenery is breathtaking so I just stand there let my senses take everything in. After a moment I come back to reality and realize I must look ridiculous. I continue walking in the direction we were before I got distracted, but I didn't see the others. Wow, for being my guard detail they were oblivious.

I walk down the road looking down side streets trying to see if I could find them. I wasn't gone for that long so they couldn't be that far away. Could they? I walk down the road and decide to go into a business so I can call Etric or one of the others.

I stop outside a bar and figure why not and I walk in. however, as I walk through there are a few intoxicated palace guards are headed out. Just my luck, they notice me but don't recognize me. I just ignored them until one of them grab my wrist and pulled me to him. "Oh, don't be shy darling. I don't want to be mean." he leers at me and leans closer to my face.

" Let go of me," I say clearly with the tone of voice that says I'm not messing around. However, he is either stupid or too drunk to care. One of his friends then says "Come on deary only the princess has stood in your shoes," and I realize they don't recognize me at all. What does he mean by only the princess has been in my shoes? I intend to get the answer so I ask flirtatiously "What do you mean by only the princess." I glance around the bar and no one has noticed yet.

"Oh you know our little princess gets lonely so who do you think she confides in," is he really insinuating that I have slept with this guy. Now that I know what kind of guy I'm dealing with I decide to flirt a bit more because there is no way I can get out of his tight grip. I have a feeling it's going to bruise.

"Oh, so does the princess know you're here with me. I mean would she mind because the last thing I want is for her to hate me." I bat my eyes a little and he loosens his hand and brings his other around my waist. Crap, that was two steps in the wrong direction.

He goes to plant a kiss on my jaw right next to my ear and I panic. What do I do? What do I say? I can't fight them. I'm alone so I say what comes to mind a seductively as possible" I don't even know your name and I mean you could at least buy me a drink first." That gets him to chuckle and respond "Alright I'll play along."

So we walk up to the bar and he has a tight grip around my waist. Crap I don't know what to order I just need to buy time until I can do something. I guess my face expressed my worry because the bartender through me a quizzical glance and asked, "What can I do for you?"

That helped a lot actually because I said, "I don't know exactly. What do you have?" He turned and grabbed a drink menu then handed it to me and in order to look through it the vise around my waist loosened a bit. To my benefit, the bartender kept looking back and forth between the man and myself. Then he notices that I was only pretending to look at the menu, which was kind of obvious because it was still closed. So he asked " Is something wrong?" which snapped what's his face out of his trance.

He snapped back "Nothing" and I cast a glance that said otherwise. With that, he looks the guy dead in the eye and says, "Let go of her." His grip gets tighter around my waist causing my back to straighten up. I glance around the bar without moving my head and I see his friends had claimed a booth over by the door and the only people that had noticed were other employees and a few other customers at the bar.

One other man that works there starts walking our way and I figure out now or never so I demand "Let me go, now," it was a scary calm in my opinion and he just looked at me. So I grabbed his wrist with my nails digging into his skin and peeled him off of me. When I let go of his hand with a shove, he went to strike me, but the employee that was walking our way grabbed his hand and pushed his chest to the counter. Causing me to take a step back into the bartender who had walked around to lend aid if need be. However, he startled me and I froze partially out of embarrassment.

He seemed to know he'd startled me and he put a hand down on my upper arm to help steady me. "Sorry, I umm," I couldn't think of what to say. He just smiled and said, " You don't need to apologize. Are you okay?"

I was a bit flustered and I couldn't put any coherent thoughts together. Then I remembered why I was in the bar, to begin with. "Yah I'm fine. Is there a phone I could borrow."? At that, he said, "Yes," and he dug around in his pocket handing me his phone. He opened it to the dial pad for me and I typed in Etric's number. Apparently, they knew each other because his contact information came up and I hit dial.

When he answered the phone he didn't sound like he was in a very good mood "Dude, now isn't really a good time." and before he could hang up I said "Hey, umm... yeah whoops." like I child that just got busted and tried to play it off.

"Trin? Where are you? What happened?" and then I was bombarded with questions. At the same time, Carolyn walked through the door. I avoided his questions by saying "Carolyn's here," and hung up. I hand the phone back to, crap I didn't know his name. So the next thing I said was "Thanks for letting me use your phone...?" Leaving it as a question and hoping he would get the hint and said " Grayson but most people call me Gray."

"Gray," I say testing his name. It fit his personality well at least what I knew about it so far. Carolyn had spotted me and was on her way over to me and she said "Your here. What a relief. It's probably best if we head back to the palace." With those words, several of the people that were listening in looked our way. She noticed instantly and said "As a Lady in Waiting we should be on time. However. Since you are new the princess will probably be a little more lenient." at that I nodded. I turned to thank Gray and I saw the royal guard looking pale and afraid because if I were a Lady in Waiting for the princess then I would have leverage against him, so I nodded at him too and as I turned by Gray again I smiled. For a second time in one day, I hadn't had to force it.

We left the bar with people whispering amongst them selves behind us. Probably about me, but I didn't care today had been a lot of fun.