She's Nothing But Trouble IV

"Where are you taking me?" Audrey said as I led her out of the hotel and onto 55th Street.

I hadn't thought that far ahead. Where do you go when your about to blow up everything you've been trying to hold onto for three years? Then it hit me.

"My place," I said, squeezing her hand and flagging a cab before she had time to pull away.

I opened the cab door and shoved her inside and quickly jumped into next to her.

"Slow down cowboy, you're going to get it."

"I'm not taking any chances," I said before turning to the driver and telling him to take us to 100th and West End.

He swung up 55th and started to turn on Sixth.

"No, take this to 10th and take that all the way," I barked.

If he took Sixth it would take us ten minutes just to get to Central Park West at this time of day and another seven or so to get up to Broadway. All the lights were in sync on 10th Avenue and we'd be at 99th Street in no time.

As he kept going up 55th I turned towards Audrey.

"Why would you do that in the hotel?," I asked. "Don't you know how easy it would be to get busted there?"

"I've done it there before. I'm careful."

"Next time just have the guy come to work, no one would even notice."

"Yeah, well I'm not looking to make a habit of it."

"Looks like you already have."

We turned right on tenth and she reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of ginger ale.

"Here, you'll all sweaty, take a sip and relax," she said handing me the bottle.

I took a big swig, which was a big mistake. It was ginger ale and whisky. I hadn't had a real drink in a long time. It burned going down and my head started to spin.

"What's wrong, it's not that strong," she said.

"No, just caught me off guard," I lied. There was a lot more to Audrey then I realized. She was one hot mess.

They say that every day you don't drink, your disease is doing push-ups and that when you pick up again it's like you never stopped in the first place. The progression continues even if the abuse doesn't.

They weren't kidding.

I took another big swig and then reached into her purse.

"What are you doing, just wait?" she said trying to grab my hand while motioning towards the driver.

I scanned the dashboard and looked at it his Hack license. Our driver, Esat Ajij, was on his cellphone babbling away in Arabic and could not give a shit about what was happening in the back of his cab.

"Hey driver," I said, "mind if I do a bump?"

Esat kept right on talking without missing a beat.

Audrey grabbed my ear and twisted hard. I turned my head towards hers and she pulled my mouth into hers.

It wasn't exactly how I'd practiced our first kiss in my head but it would have to do.