That was where I enjoyed being.
And I enjoyed being in that place with Colin.
13
Colin
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more from Elle.
But I’d be lying too if I said I wasn’t enjoying these early evenings together hanging out after work, getting to know each other more.
I supposed I wanted her to see what we could be as friends. Maybe then, when she was ready, she’d know I was the guy to turn to.
The only one.
Patience was all I needed, and I had that.
Along with knowledge. Elle loved gangster movies.
So I knew where to take her Thursday afternoon.
We returned to old downtown, where we wandered through the crowds, soaking in the neon and lights, the exuberance of the summertime atmosphere, and not once did I feel a lick of envy for the twentysomethings bobbing around with long, tall plastic glasses full of liquor in their hands. Nope, I was a happy son of a bitch as we walked through old-time Vegas, then up the steps of the museum that documented the history of the mob.
“I believe you’ll get a kick out of this,” I said to her.
Her eyes lit up. “I’ve never been here. Always wanted to go.”
“I know,” I said, feeling pretty damn proud.
She raised a brow in question. “You do?”
I shrugged, grinning. “You mentioned it once when you were watering Frank,” I said.
She stopped on the steps. “And you remembered?”
“I pay attention.”
She set a hand on my arm. “You do.”
Two simple words. But they sent a charge through me as she wrapped her fingers around my forearm. The combo did me in, and a new wave of desire rushed through me. I locked eyes with her, and for a few seconds, she seemed to lean in, to inch closer.
Were we on the cusp of another almost kiss?
Maybe it would be more than almost this time.
It felt like that with the way she stared, how her breath seemed to ghost across her lips.
Shoes clicked on the steps.
“We’re closing in thirty minutes,” the ticket taker at the entrance said in a monotone, breaking the mood.
And that was that. No kiss, almost or otherwise.
“We’ll be speedy,” I said, and we walked inside the stone building and strolled first through exhibits on famous “made men,” both in the mob and popular culture, perusing photos of some of the most notorious Mafiosi over the last one hundred years, like John Gotti. Next, we checked out an installation of movie posters.
“Is there anything better than a mob movie?” I asked, and Elle nodded in perfect agreement.
“Love them. Casino. Epic. The Departed. Fantastic. Road to Perdition. Chilling.”
“Eight Men Out. Proof that the mob had its hands in everything. Even fixing the World Series,” I said.
“Everything,” she said, enunciating each syllable as she echoed my sentiment. We stopped at a huge framed poster of Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci. She pointed. “Goodfellas. Best mob movie ever.”
“Best closing lines ever too,” I added, and we turned to each other, speaking in unison. “I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”
I raised my hand, and we knocked fists. That sent a charge through me, knocking me back to the lust zone. Hell, maybe this hanging out as friends would be tougher than I thought it’d be.
But maybe not for Elle.
“Isn’t it amazing,” she said, “how being a regular joe was Ray Liotta’s worst nightmare? He dreaded not being a gangster, and somehow you felt for him when it happened. You sympathized with his plight as a regular schnook,” she said, her voice rising in excitement.
I gestured to the poster for The Godfather. “I don’t even know what it is about the mob. They do horrible things and live a life of crime, and yet sometimes we root for them in movies. It makes no logical sense.”
“Look!”
She grabbed my arm and tugged me to a series of sepia-tinted photographs of Vegas through the years, highlighting famous moments in the city’s history and the role of the mob in each milestone. What would she look like in one of those old-time flapper dresses?
Or out of it . . .
Okay, fine. That was on me.
I could not let my dirty thoughts wander every time she touched me the slightest bit.
Focus, Colin, focus.
“It’s just crazy to think how much of this town was built on crime,” she said in awe as we stared at a photo of the Flamingo Hotel when it opened in 1946. “‘Operated by noted mobster Bugsy Siegel,’” she said, reading the plaque.
I tapped the wall next to an image of the Sands Casino in the ’60s, a home base for Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack that was owned by a New York mob man. “And it spread far and wide. Some of the biggest hotels in the city were owned and operated by this wild combination of Mormon businessmen and the mob, so they could have a legitimate appearance on the outside, and money laundering and street muscle on the inside.”
“The whole notion that there is this underbelly of crime everywhere, all around us, blows my mind,” she said, pressing her fingertips to her forehead and miming an explosion.
I nodded in agreement. “Handouts, corrupt cops, men on the take, informants, and guys in suits circulating around town every day, weaving in and out of casinos. Looking like me, or like one of my brothers, or just anybody.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Is this your way of telling me you’re in the mob?”
I affected a wise-guy smirk. “Dollface, it’s time you knew the truth. You want to know who I really am?” I pointed to an interactive screen on the far wall that read Mob Nickname Generator.
“Ooh, I’m finally gonna learn my gentleman friend’s real name.” She rubbed her palms together as we reached the screen.
I tapped it, and we chuckled at the rubric the screen asked us to fill in: name your racket, with options like money laundering, casino skimming, and blackmail; what’s your role, such as capo, soldier, business associate, or corrupt judge; and what is your mob era, with choices like Prohibition, the Swinging ’60s, and the modern era.
Elle went first, entering her picks, then reading her status report. “Ooh, I’m a mob girlfriend. Men buy me things, and who am I to turn them down? They parade me around town and take me to dinner, and my name is Elle ‘Moneybags’ Mariano.” She snorted. “Ha. I wish.”
“My turn,” I said, and together we decided I’d be a corrupt politician, and I read the results aloud. “I just take what’s offered to me, okay? Nothin’ wrong with that. The mob slips me a few things now and then—some cash, a free meal, a bottle of my favorite bootleg whiskey. What’s the big deal? I’m Colin ‘Scotty’ Sloan.”
She tapped my chest, and I braced myself. “Colin Scotty Sloan, you are one handsome fella,” she said in an over-the-top floozy accent. Her proximity made an instant impression on certain parts of my anatomy.
Maybe I was a bad friend.
But I had to be a good one, because the woman wasn’t ready, so all we had was this—playing, flirting in some small fashion.
“I’m gonna take you out for that fancy meal you deserve, Moneybags,” I said with a wink. “Show you off as mine.”
And a wish.
How I would love to show her off as mine.
“Oh, I like that, Scotty Sloan. I like it very much.”
But that wasn’t in the cards tonight, and I had to wonder if it ever would be.
Or what it would take to get her there.
When we left, I walked her to her car. “I had a really great time,” she said, and her voice was soft, sweet.
But with a hint of resignation.
As if a great time was all she’d ever allow herself.
“Good. You deserve it, you know?” I said, but it was a question, because I wanted her to know. She hadn’t told me everything. She hadn’t told me much at all about how her
son’s father died, but I knew he’d battled addiction too. Battled and lost. Part of me wondered if that was in the back of her mind with me.
“I don’t know if anyone deserves anything,” she said, a little sad now, wistful. “Well, of course you don’t deserve to have lost your dad.”
“And you don’t deserve to have gone through some crazy shit either. Like with your ex.”
“But I chose him,” she said, her voice tight, strained. “I chose Sam.”
“Elle,” I said softly. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
Her voice was tight with rebuke. Self-rebuke. “I made the wrong choice.”
So that was it. She was afraid of making more bad choices. “You think I’d be one?” I asked.
“No. But I think I don’t know how to make smart choices. So it’s not about you, I promise. It’s me.”
That I understood far too well. Self-doubt. Self-blame. I got where it came from. Choices have consequences. Every single one. I’d made some terrible choices when I was younger, and even though those days were far in the rearview mirror, I understood where she was coming from. “Listen, I get it. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I’ve made the wrong choices too. When my dad was killed, and then my mom went to prison for it, I was lost, so damn lost.”
Her eyes edged with sadness. “Of course you were.”
“And I turned to liquor for comfort. I was thirteen, and I made some dumb-ass choices.”
“You were thirteen, just a kid,” she said sympathetically.
I shook my head, a small laugh escaping. “Nope. I’m giving you the straight talk now, Ms. Community Center Director. And the straight talk is this. We all mess up. And I messed up big time. I fell into the wrong crowd. I had friends who were Royal Sinners,” I said, disgust on my tongue. “A guy named Danny Nelson was my best friend at the time, and his older brother TJ was in the gang. He got alcohol for us, and we’d get wasted. Then painkillers. Then speed. And here’s the thing. I was friends with those guys before my dad was killed,” I said, swallowing past memories.
A familiar pang of guilt washed over me as I remembered those friendships. The wrong crowd. The crowd that had played a part in my father’s murder. Maybe not directly, but I wondered again and again if my friendship with guys connected to the gang had led to my mom reaching out to a shooter who was part of the Sinners.
The thought made my gut churn. Made me feel like my blood was tar. Was I responsible? Had I played a role?
I focused on my breathing, on tricks I’d learned through meditation, letting go of those ideas. And I focused on Elle.
But she was focusing on me. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“And it’s not your fault. What you went through with Sam,” I said. “It’s life. It happened. But it’s not your fault.”
She gave me a soft smile, then whispered, “Thank you.”
I wished she’d forgive herself.
Not because I longed for her.
But because she was a friend.
I lifted a hand, tucked a strand of hair over her ear, and leaned in to wrap her in a hug.
When we separated, she was smiling. “You’re a good one, Scotty Sloan.”
I hoped so. Hell, did I ever hope so.
14
Elle
Fun.
That was good, plain fun.
That was basically the best night I’d had in ages.
I shook my head in amazement as I slowed my car at a red light on my way to pick up Alex. He’d texted that he’d gone to a friend’s house near ours, so I was picking him up there.
“Fun,” I said out loud, as if the word was a new concept.
In many ways, it was to me. I hadn’t had that sort of evening in . . . well, many years. Sure, I always had a blast doing roller derby, but that was more of a necessary outlet, my own therapy to handle living with an addict. And, yes, my son and I had gobs of fun playing zombie games, going bowling, and challenging each other in Pac-Man at the roller rink after my matches.
But adult fun?
That had been eons ago. Like maybe the Paleolithic period. Getting knocked up as a teenager didn’t give you many opportunities for fun.
The last several nights, though, from the game of poker to the zip line to the museum visit . . . every single second was lovely, and a small part of me already longed for more like it.
I never thought I’d have a bad time with Colin, but I hadn’t imagined we’d have such a good one. It made perfect sense that we’d jell, I reasoned, as the light changed and I hit the gas. The two of us had clicked from day one.
We’d chatted easily when we first met, sharing a similar view on the value of community service, the importance of being role models for youth, and the benefit of giving kids a chance to have fun too. But tonight I’d learned we had even more in common, little things like our shared affection for mob movies and our fondness for the history of Las Vegas.
But there was something else too.
That moment by my car.
When he seemed to simply get me.
When he understood my walls.
My boundaries.
Could I forgive myself for having loved an addict? But Sam was more than an addict, and the time with him had been more than destructive.
It had nearly shattered my family.
Forgiveness wasn’t the issue.
It was choice.
How to live now.
How to protect the ones I loved.
Because I didn’t trust myself.
So I was better off alone.
Yet Colin seemed to sense that. I’d never told him all the details, but he gleaned where I was at, what I allowed, what I didn’t allow.
And he didn’t judge one way or the other.
Then there were the little moments. The way he tucked my hair behind my ear, the tender words, the playful touches.
They made me . . . zing.
Like the zip line had.
As I turned onto the next street, my chest tingled at the memories of the last few nights, and of that almost kiss.
The man was direct and patient, and he seemed to embrace that I needed time.
But how much time? How long would he wait? Would I ever be ready?
I didn’t know.
Admittedly, a quiet part of me wanted more of him. A part I rarely acknowledged. Try as I might to keep him in the friend zone, being friends with him only made him more appealing. But I had to stay strong.
I pulled into the driveway, cut the engine, and walked to the door. My girlfriend Janine answered, since our kids were buddies. “Hey, girl. You look happy.”
I smiled. “I had a nice night with a friend.”
She arched a brow. “A male friend?”
I shrugged playfully.
“Details.”
I shook my head. “Nothing happened. We’re truly just friends.”
She leaned in closer. “But you want to be something more. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Who has time for that?” I asked, dodging the issue.
“Make time for that. If he’s a good one. Is he a good one?”
“He’s great,” I said, but that already felt like too much talk about men, so I shifted to roller derby chatter, discussing the Fishnet Brigade’s game plan for our match next Friday. “And I will be on fire, blocking for my Cool Hand Bette,” I said, using Janine’s skate name.
“Excellent. I’ll pick you up and drive?”
“It’s a plan.”
She leaned in closer. “And you ought to think about plans with the good ones.” She leaned back, shooting me a saucy look. “The great ones.”
I laughed it off, focusing on Alex as I drove him home. “How was the volunteer reading program?”
“Super cool,” he said, then proceeded to tell me about a second-grader he worked with, and the whole time, all I could think was the sound of my son’s voice was magic.
It was moonlight.
It was everything good in the world.
And it warmed my heart.
Alex glanced over at me, offering up a smile. “What were you up to? You look like you had a good time.”
I blushed. Did I look that way? Was there something obvious to everyone in my expression? “And what is the look of a good time?”
“You’re all super smiley.”
I laughed at his teenager-y way of putting it. “I hung out with a friend at The Mob Museum.”
“Oh cool. I want to go there.”
We chatted the rest of the way home and through dinner, and I found myself wondering if fun was such a bad thing.
When it was time for bed, Alex said, “You were in a good mood all night. Maybe you should go to The Mob Museum more often.”
Or maybe I should spend more time with Colin.
It wasn’t exactly permission, but maybe in a way it was.
I could be a good mom, and maybe have a little more fun. Was that such a bad thing?
Maybe Elle “Moneybags” Mariano did deserve some fun.
I pondered the idea of fun the next day as I worked, and through the night too.
And on Saturday morning when I rose, that piece of me that had longed for more tugged at my heart again. I didn’t entirely know what it wanted. I wasn’t even in tune with the language it was speaking. But something compelled me to go.
As I peeked out the window, the sky had turned the shade of dark blue that comes before the sun rises.
I pulled on shorts, a tank top, and a pair of my white roller-skating socks with the row of red skulls around the knee. I confirmed with my mom that she’d be here soon, since she was hanging out with Alex today.
I checked on my sleeping boy, dropped a kiss on his forehead, and took off to surprise Colin.
This was going to be fun.
15
Colin
This was a perfect dawn. Calm, quiet, and beautiful.
The craggy canyon rocks loomed larger as I drew closer to the lakeshore. The cool waters were still and serene, reflecting the soft rays of the rising sun that peeked over the horizon.
My Sinful Longing (Sinful Men Book 3) Page 6
