August sighed as Carmen dragged her inside the building. Of all the places she could possibly be in Orlando that night, this was one of her last choices of where to spend a Friday night. She’d made mention of this several times, being the person that she was. But Carmen, being the person she was, had ignored her.

The one thing August had been looking forward to upon entering the building was the air conditioning. Being summer, Florida was more than hot. Just standing in the humidity was torture enough. But she was disappointed. Due to the activity and massive amount of people, the temperature was almost just as horrible inside.

Her ears were filled with the sound of ghetto dance music. Some rapper was poorly belting out lyrics at a rapid pace. Needless to say, it wasn’t the genre of music she had in her CD player at home.

The dance floor was packed with people who did love this noise though. The girls were in various states of undress, with short skirts, skimpy halter tops, high heeled shoed types of ensemble. The smell of alcohol was everywhere. It had also lowered inhibitions on the dance floor, as no one seemed to be leaving anyone else personal space.

Ah, a club.

Carmen found one of the last available tables, which, to August’s relief, was in a corner further away from the speakers. There were multi-colored lights streaking the dance floor, but they were nearer the bar, so the atmosphere was slightly darkers.

“Why couldn’t you have gotten someone else to come with you?” she said, loudly enough for Carmen to hear her.

“Most people have gone home for the summer. Besides, you just got here yesterday.”

“Couldn’t we have gone somewhere else? I hate this kind of music. I can’t dance. We can’t drink.”

This was an 18 and over club. Although the majority of the populous was of age, we had some tuning 21 to do.

“Where would we go? The library?” Carmen laughed. “If you’d relax a little, maybe you’d actually have a good time.”

I know exactly how she feels, someone thought from a table over. He was sitting in the corner of the club, where the lighting could help disguise his identity. Like her, he’d been talked into it.

“Man, B, only you could come here and be drinking a Coke,” AJ rolled his eyes, taking a chug out of his own beer.

He’d been listening to the two girls’ conversation behind him, glad he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be here. But AJ had talked him into it.

“Wow, look at that babe,” AJ peered over his sunglasses, which were tinted a shade of blue to match his hat.

Brian just laughed. He didn’t consider any of these girls his type. Too many of them were intoxicated, and it was still relatively early. If their clothes said anything about them, then they were materialistic. And…

Well, he shouldn’t be judging all of these people he didn’t know. He was just in a bad mood, and had had enough of that type of girl to last him a lifetime. If he’d misjudged those he thought he’d known forever, how could he start making assumptions based on a visual first impression?

Brian adjusted the baseball cap over his head.

“Chill, dude,” AJ said. “No one’s going to recognize you. You’ve hidden us in the corner… Heck, look at Kevin. He’s dancing with some girl and she doesn’t even know who he is. There aren’t any twelve year olds here.”

He laughed, but kept his hat on. It’s true that this crowd wasn’t their target audience at the moment, but he’d been identified at way more peculiar places. You couldn’t be too careful. AJ took another few sips of his beer, obviously wanting to hurry up and finish so that he could start dancing with some girls like Kevin was. Brian started listening to the other table’s conversation again, trying to ignore his conscience, which was telling him that he was eavesdropping.

“You realize that I’m going to rub off on you, right?” Carmen said. “There may come a day where you’d rather go club hopping them… treehugging or something.”

August laughed. “Because what I usually do on Saturday nights? Hug trees?” She’d made a comment to Carmen earlier today about her using so many Styrofoam cups and throwing them out. Think of how much waste that was putting into the landfills?

“I’m just saying. No offense, because I love ya and everything, but I think you missed College Student 101.”

“You know you’re right,” August said. “I must have been chained to a hundred year Oak that day.”

Brian was absent-mindedly taking a sip of his drink when he started to laugh. The soda went down his throat one, and he started coughing.

AJ turned back to him. “You okay, Rok?” Smiling, he hit him on the back, as if food was lodge in Brian’s throat. But as AJ was on his third or so drink, he did this a little hard. The force caused Brian to drop the drink, which was still in his hand. It splashed onto his lap and then onto the floor. As he looked to see the damage to the floor, he could see the two girls in his peripheral. Speaking of first impressions, he thought.

AJ was laughing hysterically at him by this point. Brian was only relieved that none of the other fellas had witnessed this moment. Kevin was immersed in the music, Howie was either dancing or getting another drink at the bar, and Nick hadn’t come out tonight, probably due to Kevin’s continual reminder that sometimes he was too young to hang out with the rest of them.

August wiped her leg, where a few drops of the guy’s drink had gotten on her. There were two people at the table, but the one was blocking the other’s face. She could only see the side of his head and wavy brown hair coming out under his cap as he peered at the floor, but he looked strangely familiar.

“I’m going to go get some napkins,” Brian told AJ, ignoring his cackling. He stood up and turned, making eye contact with the brunette for the first time. He felt so stupid. Figures that the one sober guy in the club was the one being this clumsy. Face getting hot, he wanted to get out of her sight as quickly as possible.

In his haste, though, he slipped on the slick, soda covered floor. A few seconds later, he was facing the ceiling. There was no repairing this embarrassment. Realizing that he was now drawing other people’s attention, and not wanting this story on his to get out, he muttered a goodbye to AJ. AJ didn’t say anything in response, as he was clutching his side from snickering so much.

August felt bad for the guy. Funny as it had looked, she knew she would want to crawl into a hole and die if that had happened to her.

“Wow, what a clutz,” Carmen said. “Come on. Is there any way I can get you to come dance?”

“Ha. No. I’d have just as many people laughing at me as that guy did.”

“Alright. Well I’ll be back in two songs, okay?” Carmen asked. August nodded and immediately felt stupid to be sitting there by herself.

She decided to get a soda, but when she reached for her purse, she discovered it wasn’t there. When they’d gotten out of the car, August had still been trying to talk her into going somewhere else. The purse was probably still sitting in her seat, as August had been too distracted too grab it.

August grabbed Carmen’s purse, not wanting to leave it unattended and needing her car keys, and headed outside, after motioning to Carmen she’d be right back. Where did we park, she racked her brain. It hadn’t even been a half hour. She found that she was still feeling sorry for that guy and wandering where she’d seen him before.

She soon found the car, grabbed what she needed and headed back to the side door of the club, walking alongside the next door building. She noticed a bench by going this route, and saw the soda spiller sitting on it. There was a streetlight nearby, but it wasn’t close enough to rid all of the shadows. August was wondering if she could turn around and go the other way, but suddenly he was looking at her, too.

Feeling awkward, she asked, “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Slightly embarrassed, but I guess I’ve experienced worse,” he laughed slightly. He was pleased to note that she didn’t look like she recognized him, having initially been skeptical of whether or not she’d purposefully searched for him. It wasn’t often anymore that he got to talk to girls who didn’t already know who he was. Still, to be safe, he said, “So what are you doing out here?”

She held up her purse. “I wanted to buy something to drink.”

“Well if I wrung out my clothes, I could probably come up with a decent sized glass of Coke for you,” he flashed a grin.

Even the shadows couldn’t hide that beautiful smile. August smiled back and felt her heart beat slightly faster. He was really friendly, but the familiarity was all in his personality. And his tinge of southern twang didn’t hurt, either. She was sure they’d never spoken before, so why did she feel as if they had?

“Wait,” she thought about what he said. “You were drinking… Coca-Cola?”

Now Brian really laughed. “Of course. You think I seemed drunk or something? I’m naturally that coordinated.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Hey, what’s taking you so long… Oh,” Carmen came out and realized who August was talking to. “Wow, didn’t think you be the one of us picking up guys tonight.”

August rolled her eyes, but Brian noticed that she also blushed slightly.

“Anyway, I’m not having any luck with guys today, and I know you don’t want to be here. So do you want to just go?” Carmen asked her.

“Uh. Sure,” August said, trying to hide her disappointment. She was having fun talking to this guy, whoever he was.

“Nice meeting you,” Brian said, sorry that their conversation was cut short.

She told him the same and then followed her friend to their car. Brian decided to wait another a few minutes. He’d wanted to let him clothes dry some. He didn’t want to mess up the inside of his jeep with soda.

August buckled herself into the passenger seat of Carmen’s car. “Alright, my turn to pick a CD.”

“Oh, I wonder what it’ll be,” Carmen said sarcastically.

August had just gotten it earlier this month, the week it came out. She’d rarely listened to any other music since.

“When I said we could take turns choosing the music whenever I drove us somewhere, I didn’t realize that you were always going to choose the same freaking thing!”

August ignored her, dramatically singing, “Eeeee aaaahhh ha ha ha ha ha ha.” Turning to Carmen, she added the “Woo!” She practically had the album memorized already. She closed the CD case and started to put it in the side door compartment when she glanced at the cover. She held it up as Carmen started backing out of her parking spot. August stared at the guy second from the left. She tried to envision him smiling.

No way, she thought. She would’ve realized it, wouldn’t she? He’d look familiar, but he wasn’t famous. Where had his entourage been? His… body guards. Did someone like that just go out like a regular person on a Saturday night?

Of course, she’d never gotten a good look at his face. They both had the same brown hair, but so did lots of other people. Although, was he from Kentucky? And this guy had the country accent.

“Oh my gosh,” August said, still not quite believing it. No, it couldn’t have been. There was no way. She couldn’t be that stupid.

As Carmen pulled to the edge of the parking lot, her lights shined on the guy she’d been talking to. He was walking down the sidewalk, probably on the way to his car and looked before he walked by, to make sure Carmen wasn’t going to pull out. She waited for him before getting onto the road.

But August was thinking about when the lights had shone on his face. Hat or not, there was no mistaking who it was.

She’d been talking to Brian Littrell.