by Schow, Ryan
Georgia answered almost right away.
“Hello?”
“It’s Brayden,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You sound preoccupied.” Rather she sounded asleep, or almost dead, or so dang bored the lack of entertainment was eating holes in her psyche.
“Nope. Not at all.”
He drew a breath, blew it out. “You need to work on your conversational skills, love.”
“I know.”
No hesitation.
For a long time he said nothing, making a point, and finally she broke the silence and said, “My mother doesn’t understand me. I don’t think she ever will.”
“I don’t understand you, Georgia.”
“She’s afraid of me.”
“We all are.”
And then more silence. Was she taking it all in? Considering the implications of the things he was admitting to her? Or was her robot brain computing the next piece of conversation to spit out like pieces of data? Maybe he shouldn’t have called.
“Listen,” he said, “I’m going to call someone else, someone that can hold a conversation—”
“How’s Abby?” she said quickly, like she didn’t want him to go.
Finally, some life!
“She has the same winning personality gene you have,” he said, getting annoyed. The girls he hung out with in Vegas, at least they were bubbly, flirty and fun.
“It’s not my fault,” Georgia said, her voice softer now, not so mechanical. Like she knew her problems but couldn’t change them. She was right. He needed to cut her a break.
“I know, I’m sorry. It’s just, I haven’t gone through what you’ve gone through with the whole genetic transformation thing, and after everything I’ve seen, I’m glad to just be me.”
“But she’s okay? Abby?”
“Physically, yes, but she’s got no memory of us. She’s a blank slate just trying to remember a life she claims was never hers. She was making eyes at her father, for Christ’s sake! Can you believe that shit?”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh?’” he stammered. “Really? That’s all you have to say when I say she’s ogling her father is ‘oh?’”
“I’m not good on the phone,” she said.
No, of course not, Brayden was thinking. Not with all your emotions shut down because some psycho geneticist decided you would be better suited starting things on fire with your mind than being any kind of a real human being with genuine feelings.
It wasn’t her fault, he reminded himself.
“Look, why don’t you come stay with me for awhile?” he said. He had no idea why he said it, he just knew he really liked her and felt bad for how things turned out. Maybe what she needed was not the familiarity of home but an understanding friend.
“Okay.”
He suddenly came alert. “Really?”
“Yeah. I hate it here. It’s like a mausoleum I want to burn down every day.”
“Good,” he said, thinking about how she kissed him at the airport before leaving. It was a good kiss. “When?”
“Honestly, Brayden, I could get in my car and head for the airport right now. Just grab the first flight out.”
“Then do it. Pack up and go, if your mom lets you. We’ll have a great time out here.”
“My mom will definitely let me go. She still hasn’t forgiven me for setting her favorite plant on fire. And she won’t stop talking about my brother. Like she wishes I was the one who died because, to her, he could do no wrong, even though I remember him doing dumb shit all the time.”
“She doesn’t wish you were dead, Georgia, you’re just…impossible to read these days. And the way you can yield fire with your mind, it’s kind of—I don’t know—it’s a bit disconcerting.”
“I know,” she said.
He was hoping to hear something in her voice. Defeat maybe. Or embarrassment. Maybe even anguish. Instead, her voice was flat and disappointing. Like she didn’t have a soul.
He felt bad for thinking it, but what was he supposed to think? You can’t keep tinkering with a person’s genetic structure and expect everything to be forever cherry.
“Let me know what time your flight arrives and I’ll pick you up.”
“Okay.”
“This is where you thank me and say you’re excited to see me, Georgia,” he said. If she wasn’t as hot as she was, if she hadn’t been the way she was around him at Netty’s—not shy, willing to take her clothes off in front of him and kiss him and not complain—he might enjoy her company. But this kind of conversation? If this kept up, it was going to kill him.
“Thank you, Brayden,” she said, monotone. “I’m really excited to see you.”
The other line rang over and he checked the caller ID. It was Aniela. “I have a call coming in. I have to take it, Georgia. Just text me with your flight info and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
“Okay, bye.”
He clicked over, felt himself relax. “Aniela, sweetheart, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Where are you?” she said, casual, eating something while she spoke, but in a sexy way, not a gross way.
“Closer than you think, my dear.”
“You’re in Vegas?” she said, excited.
“Yeah, sugar, I’m at the Wynn.”
“You’re at the Wynn, in Vegas?” she said.
“Just got in this morning,” he lied.
“I’m coming over,” she said, giddy. “Wait, what room?”
He gave her his room number, then she said she’d see him in thirty minutes. Aniela was right on time, down to the minute. The first thing she did was kiss him on the mouth. It was a fierce peck on the lips that tasted scrumptious. When she saw the boundless views of the strip, she was like, “Sweet Jesus, how are you paying for this?”
He felt guilty kissing her when what he was thinking of most was sex with Netty, and Georgia when she was naked. God, that girl had an amazing body! Then again, they all did in their own ways.
“I’m a whale,” he said, even though he had never bet a dollar on anything in his life, much less high stakes poker, or whatever it took for a casino to consider you “a whale.”
“You’re no whale,” she teased.
Mesmerized, she sauntered out on the balcony overlooking the strip, couldn’t peel herself from the view. The arid desert wind ran its warm fingers through her hair, and he couldn’t stop staring at her body. She was curvy and flawless, a summer girl all the way. We’re talking pink tank top, cut off and lightly frayed Jeans shorts. Think gorgeous, bronzed shoulders. Sumptuous legs. And, oh my God, he thought, her ass was practically the best he had ever seen. He joined her on the balcony, not sharing her opinion on the views at that hour. He hated Vegas in the daylight.
“Really, how are you affording this?” she turned and asked.
She held his gaze, not once pulling her eyes from his. He didn’t even blink. She had no idea he came from money. No one in Vegas did.
“I’m shagging the hotel owner’s wife, Mrs. Wynn,” he teased. “It comes with its advantages.”
She turned and went back inside, running her hands along the seams of the furniture, checking the stock in the mini fridge.
“First off, you’re not shagging the owner’s wife—”
“Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before,” he challenged.
“True,” she conceded.
“What’s so urgent that you wanted to see me?”
“Nothing. But when you said you were in town, I got a little carried away. For some stupid reason, I missed you. More than I thought.”
“You’re not falling in love with me, are you?”
She burst into laughter, then said, “Hell no!”
“Good,” he replied with a grin. “That would be awkward.”
The thing about Aniela was she was always so calm and collected, nothing like the way she was now. Who is this girl? He wondered if she was drunk, or high, but when they kissed earlier, he tasted only the cand
ied taste of her lips. No alcohol. No smoke. No stink of weed.
He wondered if she was into more serious drugs, but he had never once heard any of the guys he hung out with, or her, talk about drugs. They were all about reputation and confidence, and getting laid.
“So, seriously,” he said, “you missed me?”
“I did.”
“But, you can have anyone you want.”
“I can’t have you, even if I can. Maybe that’s it. We always want the things or people we can’t have.” She said it in a sexy sort of teasing voice, her smile radiant, seductive.
“You had me, though,” he said, suddenly confused. “Before I left.”
“I had you, but I didn’t. You’re in love with Abby, not me,” she said. Then quickly, she added, “Not that I want that. I don’t.”
He couldn’t help thinking, this is Netty all over again. He should stop telling other girls about Abby. He needed to stop obsessing over her.
“Relax, Aniela. I totally enjoyed you. And Abby, she’s not…I mean, there’s something…sorry, I don’t know how to put this other than to say she is not herself and it’s not anything I expect to change anytime soon, so—”
She came up to him, that look in her eye, the one she taught him, and she ran her hands over his head suggestively then started kissing him.
“Don’t talk about her around me,” she said, needy, demanding.
His pulse doubled.
Tripled.
She was kissing him and kicking off her flip-flops. Kissing him and getting out of her shorts and underwear. Kissing him and taking off her tank top and bra.
Then she was naked, and he was like, holy shit, is this really happening again? He thought it was a one time thing with her. A moment of weakness on her part.
Apparently not.
He couldn’t stop comparing this situation to his affair with Netty. How both were unanticipated, and how being with two women in twenty-four hours was not like him. Then he remembered something Titan said: “You’ll meet the love of your life tonight, and you’ll deserve her, so take her, but don’t stick around like a lovesick puppy because the next love of your life is right around the corner.”
Inside of five minutes he and Aniela were going at it, but the whole time he couldn’t fully give himself over to her because he was wondering, why me? She had her choice of men. Easy. Titan and Romeo, they said she didn’t sleep around, so why him?
Because chicks dig scars and unavailable men.
Or perhaps it was because he wasn’t afraid to be real around her. And vulnerable. She had seen him cry. Seen him pick up and leave town for a girl who would never give herself to him, or love him. Maybe girls appreciated that sort of thing. Maybe they liked the idea of a hopeless romantic more than they liked a guy with scars. And maybe, just maybe, the combination of the two was lethal.
“Your body is incredible,” she said, tearing fingernail trails down his back. The sting of drawn blood made him think, what’s a few more marks?
She rode him with ferocious intensity, and then she came and it was an ear piercing affair that rang his motherfreaking bell. He barely hung on. When she was done, he rolled her over and took to her, driving, driving, driving himself into her, his ravenousness unrestrained. Since she liked it painful, he nibbled on her lips, gripped her hair and gripped it hard, bit her neck. Then they both went, almost at the same time. And he thought of Netty. Then he thought about what a whore he was becoming.
It’s only after you’ve come that you start to hate who you’ve become. At least, that’s how it was for him. And right now, he totally hated the direction his life was taking.
3
He told Aniela he was picking up Georgia at the airport later on and she suggested dinner, or at the very least, drinks.
“How about drinks and dinner on me?” he said. Before they were lovers, they were friends.
“I can pay,” she said.
“I know, ding dong. But I want to. You were unbelievable and surprising this afternoon, and your company pleases me.”
“I’m not Julia Roberts,” she teased. “This isn’t Pretty Woman.”
“I get it, you’re not a hooker. I just want to do something nice for you because you’ve done so many nice things for me.”
“Fine,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving him a half smile that was completely disarming. “Thank you.”
They decided on Ghostbar, which was fifty-five floors high overlooking the Vegas nightscape in the Palms’ Ivory Tower. The bar/lounge was packed with people talking, mingling and standing in front of the fourteen foot tall floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.
Aniela said, “I’m going to head outside and see who’s here. Get me a Colorado Bulldog?”
From his time with Becky, the red-headed future divorcee/bartender in training, Brayden knew exactly what that was: one cup crushed ice, one point five ounces jigger vodka, one point five ounces jigger coffee flavored liqueur, one twelve ounce can of cola and one ounce light crème.
It was basically a White Russian with coke.
Aniela smiled and disappeared into the very good looking, very hipster crowd. He headed to the bar, smiling that smile, feeling himself becoming one with the club. The colors were blacks and whites and fuchsias. The hardware was stainless steel. Floors were part light-colored tile, part dark hardwood planks. The chic, minimal focus on color really drew the nighttime brilliance of the strip inside the club. There was a reason it got “Remodel of the Year” in 2013 and “Vegas Nightclub of the Year” in 2014.
He sidled up to the bar, then saw a sight he never expected to see again.
“Oh my God, hi!” the bartender said. Her red hair and gorgeous face only made her incredible body that much more attractive. She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth and said, “Brayden, my darling, you look incredible!”
“Becky,” he said, his face breaking into a gigantic smile. “You’re doing it. You’re bartending.”
“Divorce papers are signed. I’m officially single and employed.”
Everyone along the bar was looking at them. Sharing their reunion. Wondering about the guy who got a kiss from the smoking hot bartender. The ginger who was single and living her dream. His first true Vegas romance.
“Whatever you want, it’s on me. But only if you don’t disappear on me again. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said, his heart double-pumping in his chest.
“It is sooo good to see you!” she said.
“Only in Vegas, right?”
“Only in Vegas,” she said, beaming.
“What are the odds?”
“They’re in our favor is what they are,” she said, writing her number down on a napkin for him.
Their interaction was brief, but in Vegas, at a club like that, it was an eternity. People needed to drink. They needed to. She handed him the napkin and, over the noise, she said, “Now, on to drinking business.”
“I’ll have a Colorado Bulldog and…surprise me on the other. A drink we didn’t work on before. Something totally unexpected.”
“I love it!” she said, seductive in the way he knew her best. “Give me a minute.”
Her face was even more beautiful than he remembered. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t high or sloshed. When she started sampling her own drinks, when she needed to check their consistency and be able to describe them to future patrons, it meant her getting blind stinking drunk on her own samples. The sexually depraved shit that woman used to say when she was tanked…
When she came back, which was quick, she gave him a white drink in a tall glass (the Colorado Bulldog) and another amber colored drink in a smaller glass.
“This little gem is a Jamaican Zombie,” she said. “Both light and dark rum, apricot brandy, lime juice, pineapple juice, orange juice, passion fruit juice, and powdered sugar. It’s yummy.” She grinned and it ignited something deep within him. An instantaneous need. Carnal wants. Flashes of their time and their debauchery toget
her—the good times, not the times when she was passed out drunk or wasted on cocaine—they made him lust after her all over again.
“Wow, I know that look,” she said with knowing laughter in her voice. And then she said, “I’m off at two. Pick me up then?”
He could only nod his head yes and try not to drool. It didn’t matter that Georgia was going to be here by then. Or that he was out with Aniela. There was something so sexual about her, something about her that was reborn and revived, and her eyes…OMG, he thought, they were crystal clear, salient, not red and dilated at all. Perhaps she wasn’t always the party girl he thought her to be.
Maybe she was different.
Hopefully…
Either way, at two A.M., it seemed he would find out.
4
Dinner was in the Wynn. Society Café Encore. Anywhere else in the world, Victorian arches and columns and box-beam ceilings painted white, along with heavy draperies and turn-of-the-century style furniture, would be considered fine dining. As in suits and ties, as in little black dresses. But not in Vegas. There, at the Wynn, that kind of décor was considered casual dining.
So they dressed casual, and they ordered casual.
As in the Bacon and Bibb Salad for the lady (house pepper bacon, cherry tomatoes, blue cheese crumbles, lemon vinaigrette and the blue cheese dressing), and for the gentleman, Steakhouse Sliders (filet medallions smothered with peppercorn steak sauce, caramelized onions & mushrooms, topped with blue cheese and served on white rolls, along with, of course, a tidy helping of Society Fries).
The patrons at Society Café Encore weren’t as sexy as it they were at Ghostbar, but people came to Society to eat and Ghostbar to be noticed and to eventually get laid, or find a future ex-husband or get piss drunk and socialize. Point was, Brayden didn’t do anything but focus on Aniela. Whose eyes were now giving nothing away. Was it silly he wanted to know exactly what she was thinking? No. She just said she wanted love, and that he could give it to her.
“I know it’s not polite to ask, but how old are you?”
She said, “Twenty-nine.”
“Really?” He didn’t think she was any older than twenty-five.
