by Holly Rayner
I stare up at him, almost unable to blink in case he disappears, it seems so unlikely that he would have found us here. How does he know? Could he be in cahoots with Liz? Is it possible she told him we would be at breakfast and that’s why she was rushing us all down here?
No. No, I’m being crazy. Luciano must have known we were staying at this hotel, because this was where he saw me checking in yesterday. But why is he here now? He lives locally. What’s he doing at the hotel breakfast?
There’s only one possible explanation, and even as it occurs to me, I can’t believe it. I try to block out the sound of my friends hissing to each other about how hot he is, how amazing it is that he’s here, how if they were me they’d…
I focus instead on Luciano. He really came here to find me, after the way last night ended? We ended things on unfriendly terms. I hadn’t planned on seeing him again. In fact, if I’d glimpsed him across the room, I probably would have walked the other way to avoid more arguments. He’s exactly what I thought he was—a big-headed sexist—and that’s the last thing I want intruding on our girls’ weekend.
Except that, apparently, he didn’t get any of that from our last encounter. Because, here he is, looking at me expectantly, as if we had plans to meet up or something.
“Do you want to sit down?” Sandy breathes, her voice as awestruck as if a movie star had approached our table.
“He’s fine,” I say shortly.
Rhonda nudges me. “Be polite.”
“I see you ladies are just finishing up,” Luciano says, a smile spreading across his face. “I hope you enjoyed the breakfast? I often come by here in the mornings, when I want something really exceptional.”
“It was great,” Sandy agrees. “I’d eat here every day if I could.”
“I’d like to offer to pay the tab for the six of you,” Luciano says. He gives Sandy a little bow. “I understand we have a bride-to-be here—congratulations.”
“Wow,” Sandy says. “Thank you. That’s so—”
“Completely unnecessary,” I cut her off. “Thank you, but no thank you, Luciano.” I turn to my friends. “This is exactly what happened last night. You think he’s being nice, but he’s actually a manipulative, sexist pig. Do you know what he does for a living?”
“Not this again,” Luciano says.
“He’s a car salesman. His entire job is manipulating people who aren’t informed enough to make good decisions. Taking advantage of people. Do you know how many people come through my garage with completely crappy cars, telling me they can’t understand it, they just bought this thing a week ago, how can it be broken already?” I shake my head. “No integrity at all.”
“Dani, don’t you think you might be overreacting?” Sandy says hesitantly. “He’s not trying to get you to buy anything. He just wants to buy our breakfast.”
“We don’t need it,” I say, surprised at how harsh my voice sounds. “Did you know he didn’t think women could be mechanics? That’s what he told me.”
“That is not what I told you,” Luciano protests.
I plow on. “I’m sure he thinks women can’t pay for our own meals, either. He probably thinks we’re really lucky a man came in here to take care of this for us.”
“This is…” Luciano stammers. “I was just trying to do something nice.”
“Well, thank you, but no thank you,” I tell him coldly.
Looking dazed, Luciano turns and wanders off.
I watch him go. He lingers by the gift shop and looks back over his shoulder, as if he’s thinking I might have changed my mind and decided to chase him down. He’s in for a big disappointment if that’s what he thinks. I’m not going after him. I’m not even going to watch him anymore. I’m not. I wrench my gaze back to my friends.
“Wow,” Melanie says quietly. “You were really rude to him.”
I cringe. “You weren’t there last night, Mel. You didn’t hear the way he was talking when I told him I worked on cars. It was like he had never heard anything so ridiculous.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of anything as ridiculous as saying no to a free meal,” Rhonda says, a scowl on her face.
Melanie nods in agreement. “Seriously, Dani, whatever happened between you guys last night, I think he was just trying to make a nice gesture here.”
Before things can spiral any further, I pull out my credit card. “Let me get it. Better me than some sexist loser who thinks women won’t notice what a jerk he is because of his looks, right?”
“He was really good-looking, wasn’t he?” Melanie says, looking around the table for confirmation. “I mean, a total silver fox.”
“That’s not the point,” I argue, but no one is listening to me.
Frustrated, I turn my gaze away from my friends. To my surprise, Luciano is still standing by the gift shop. He’s no longer staring at our table—he’s turned away and is gazing out the wide entryway onto the bustling streets of daytime Las Vegas. I wonder why he hasn’t left.
Something tells me this won’t be the last interaction I have with him on this trip, and to my complete shock, I find I’m actually interested to see what he does next.
Chapter 7
Dani
When breakfast is over, we all head to the oxygen bar Liz promised. I’m surprised to discover just how good being hooked up to pure oxygen feels. By the time my turn on the machine is over, my hangover headache is completely gone and I’m feeling wide awake.
“Let’s go here!” Sandy says, tugging on my arm and pointing at a luridly decorated business a few doors down. The sign over the door reads “fortunes told” in hand-painted lowercase letters.
Liz eyes it doubtfully. “It doesn’t look very…reputable.”
“It’s a fortune teller,” Rhonda says, rolling her eyes. “What do you want, testimonials from satisfied customers? Let’s go check it out.”
She grabs Sandy and the two of them make their way, giggling, through the door. I follow them. Why the hell not?
Inside, the lights are dim and the air is perfumed and heavy. A woman sits at a table with a crystal ball and a deck of tarot cards in front of her. The sign propped on her table gives rates for various services.
“We’ll take six palm readings,” Rhonda says, fishing in her purse and handing over a fistful of bills.
The woman nods and gestures absently to a row of folding chairs along the walls. The rest of us take seats to await our turns while Rhonda sits opposite the fortune teller and has her palm read.
I’m the last to go. By the time I approach the table, the others have gone outside in search of frozen margaritas.
I sit down and extend my palm, and the fortune teller cups it in her own hand and strokes it with her bony fingers. It’s a little creepy, and I kind of want to snatch my hand back from her, but I force myself to sit still.
“Hmm,” she says quietly. “My dear, I see love in your future. True love, drawing ever closer. It will come when you least expect it, and…” she squints, pulling my hand closer. “It will come from an unlikely direction!”
I can hardly keep myself from sighing out loud. This again. Why is everyone on this vacation obsessed with my love life? I listened to the other girls’ fortunes and they didn’t get things like this. Not that I set any store in a five-dollar palm reader, of course, but why couldn’t I have gotten an exciting new venture like Melanie or a substantial windfall like Liz?
True love from an unexpected direction. For God’s sake, who’s going to let their head be turned by someone they’ve never met? Not me, that’s for sure. I’m thirty years old. If I do fall in love, it’s going to be slowly, carefully, considering every step I take. The smart way. Not recklessly, like a teenager.
I thank the fortune teller and step outside to find the others. They’re gathered on a corner in a circle, and when I approach, Sandy hands me a souvenir cup shaped like a high-heeled boot. Ice shavings spill out of the top.
“We got you a margarita,” she says. “It’s pineapple.
”
I take a sip. It’s good. Much more satisfying than that fortune teller.
“Thanks.”
“So, what did she say to you?” Sandy asks.
I roll my eyes. “It was stupid. She thinks I’m going to find true love. Probably noticed I’m not wearing a wedding band, if you ask me. It was obvious we’re a bachelorette party, so someone was definitely going to get the old love is on the way treatment.”
“So, you don’t believe it?” Sandy asks.
“Come on, Sandy. Of course I don’t. If that woman could see the future, she’d be working for the government, not working for change on the most impulse-buy-ridden street in America.”
“She said Ian and I were going to have a beautiful marriage and lots of children…”
“I’m sure you will,” I reassure her. “But not because she said so.”
“What’s going on?” Melanie has overheard.
Sandy turns to her. “The fortune teller told Dani she’s going to find true love soon, but she doesn’t believe it.”
“Hmm,” Melanie says. “Maybe it’ll happen even sooner than we think! What about the Portuguese stud? What was his name? Lucius?”
“Luciano,” I say, hearing a sudden tightness in my voice. “I’m not in love with Luciano. I can’t stand him.”
“Ooh, passionate,” Melanie teases.
“Melanie, for God’s sake!”
“Oh, the first sting of new love,” she sings, and dances away before I can swat her with my purse.
We go back up to the room at about two o’clock for an afternoon nap, all of us agreeing that we’re tired and would like to stay up late tonight. I crawl into the bed I’m sharing with Liz and am asleep before my head hits the pillow.
When I wake up, the sun is much lower in the sky and Liz isn’t next to me. I sit up and look around the room. The twins are still fast asleep on their cots. Rhonda is nowhere to be seen, but Sandy is out on the room’s balcony. Careful not to disturb the twins, I slip out of bed and join her.
“This city’s really pretty, isn’t it?” she says, looking out over it.
I can see what she means. The lights in the hotels and casinos are just starting to come on for the evening, and Las Vegas all lit up is really something to behold. It’s a sea of purples and golds and pinks, unlike any city I’ve ever seen before.
“Must be pretty intense to fly over,” I say, and she laughs. “Where did Liz and Rhonda go?”
“Rhonda gave her number to some guy who said maybe he could hook us up with tickets to a show tonight. He called her back about half an hour ago, and Liz didn’t think she should go meet him alone, so they both went.”
“Are we getting the tickets?”
“It sounds like it. I have no idea what we’re seeing, though.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “I just want to go to a Vegas show. I bet the inside of those theaters are crazy.”
“I wonder if you can drink in there,” Sandy muses.
I laugh. “Where can’t you drink in this city?”
“Good point.”
The door to the room clicks open, and I turn around. Liz and Rhonda are back, and I can see a fan of tickets in Rhonda’s hand. She grins and gives us a thumbs-up before turning to shake the twins awake.
Meanwhile, Liz joins us on the balcony. “We’re seeing a magician,” she says. “Is that cool?”
“I love magic,” Sandy enthuses.
“We’ll have time for dinner before the show,” Liz continues, “so I thought we’d go to a steakhouse Rhonda and I passed on our way back from picking up the tickets. It looks pretty nice. What do you think?”
“That sounds perfect,” Sandy says. “Come on, Dani, let’s go get ready.”
We all dress to the nines for our night out, as if we’re going to the opera in Rome instead of a magic show in Vegas. At the restaurant, we all order steak and lobster and talk to each other in vaguely British accents, as if we’re doing something far posher than a bachelorette weekend. I keep patting my hair, which is in an elaborate up-do created for me by Sandy, until she pulls my hand down.
“It looks fine,” she says. “Leave it alone.”
My shoes—black, pointy-toed stilettos—are on loan from Liz because, apparently, they looked absolutely perfect with my dress. They don’t feel like they were made to accommodate human feet. I totter down the sidewalk after we’ve paid and left the restaurant, struggling to keep up with the others and wondering to myself how far of a walk this is going to be. I’m not sure I can make it more than another block or so.
“There it is,” Rhonda says. She’s pointing across the street at a marquee with a huge digitized picture of a smiling man mounted above it. “That’s the guy we’re seeing.”
“Oh, he’s cute!” Sandy says.
Rhonda leads us to a crosswalk. The red light is flashing, signaling that the direction of traffic is about to change.
“Come on,” she shouts, and darts out into the crosswalk, running to reach the other side before the “don’t walk” sign comes on.
I sigh, hitch my bag up on my shoulder, and start after her, but running in these shoes is a fruitless endeavor. I’ve only gone a few steps when my ankle turns and my arms fly up, the ground rushing up to meet me—
But something breaks my fall.
I gather my wits slowly and realize I’ve been caught by someone; a pair of strong arms in a suit is holding me up. As I catch my breath, I get my feet back under me, testing my weight on my ankle. I glance up, bewildered but grateful, ready to thank my savior.
Luciano.
Luciano, again! Is he the only man in Las Vegas? Is he following me? Does he have a twin? How can he be everywhere I go like this? It doesn’t make any sense. How is it that I’m constantly running into him? How is it that we’ve been standing mere inches apart for the last thirty seconds without moving? How is it that I’m still looking into his eyes?
He takes my hand and I feel an arm go around my waist, and then he’s guiding me out of the street, still looking at me.
“How’s that ankle?” he asks. “Are you hurt? Can you walk on it?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Um. Thank you.”
“Not a problem.”
God, he’s still so close. I wouldn’t have to do more than lean forward a little to kiss him. Which is not a thing I should be thinking, but I feel like I haven’t stopped inhaling since I first looked into his eyes in the middle of the street. It’s like being back at the oxygen bar, having everything painful driven out of my head and replaced with pure ease.
And something strange is going on, because Luciano is still staring at me, and he’s not backing away. He hasn’t let go of my hand, even. Is he leaning closer? I can’t tell. It feels like the whole world has shrunk down to the tiny patch of pavement on which we’re standing…
“Dani! Hey, Dani!”
My tunnel vision shatters and noise rushes back in from all sides. I drop Luciano’s hand. Five women in formalwear are jogging toward me. I quickly step back from Luciano, putting some distance between us before Melanie gets too close. I know what she’ll say if she sees the way we’ve been behaving.
“Hey, Dani,” Sandy says. “We thought you were right behind us. Where did you go?” She looks up at Luciano. “Aren’t you the guy from breakfast?”
“Dani tripped in the crosswalk,” Luciano says. “I guess she’s more used to steel-toed boots than high heels.”
Is he mocking me? I frown. “Why are you here, anyway?”
His grin fades. “What do you mean?”
“What were you doing in this crosswalk? Why do I keep running into you everywhere I go? Are you stalking me or something?”
“Look,” he says, “I admit I was looking for you when I came to the hotel this morning—”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“But no, of course I’m not stalking you.”
“So, in a city the size of Las Vegas, I just happen to run into you three times in tw
enty-four hours? What are you doing here? You’re not going to this show, are you?”
“I live here,” Luciano says. He’s definitely scowling now.
“You live here?” I say. “In the crosswalk?”
“In that building,” he says, and points to a high-rise about half a block from the theater.
Instantly, I’m embarrassed. It makes perfect sense that he would be crossing the street here if he was headed to that building. I can’t believe I accused him of stalking me. What, like I’m the hottest girl in all of Las Vegas or something? Like he can’t find anyone more interesting than me, even if he is a creepy obsessive?
I open my mouth, about to apologize for the way I spoke to him, but Luciano is still talking.
“You know, you’re very rude,” he says. “First, you assume that just because I sell cars, I like to manipulate people. I offer to buy you breakfast and instead of accepting, or even declining politely, you use it as evidence of my manipulation and make a scene in front of your friends. And now, you trip in the street and I catch you—saving you from humiliation and possible injury, I might add—and you accuse me of being a stalker.
“I don’t owe you any kind of explanation for why I am where I am in my own hometown,” he continues, and I find myself wishing that the ground would just swallow me up. “You’re the one who isn’t from here. The hotel where you’re staying happens to be my regular casino. And now, you’re crossing the street toward the block that happens to contain the penthouse where I live. Don’t think for a minute that I’m the one intruding on your life.”
My apology is still on my tongue, but before I can speak, he turns and walks away toward the high-rise he indicated as his own. I stare after him, stunned by what’s just happened.
“Are you okay?” Molly asks, putting a hand on my arm. “That was harsh.”
“I’m fine,” I say, turning back to my friends. After all, I don’t even like Luciano. Right?
“Show’s starting in five,” Rhonda says. “We need to get inside, quick. Come on.”
I follow her in and we take our seats. But as the lights dim and the music begins to play, as the magician walks out onto the stage and gives us a boisterous greeting, the words of the fortune teller suddenly come back to me.
