by Julia Kent
Joe snorted, covering it up like it was part of sleeping.
I glared at him. Even if he couldn’t see me, I did it.
“You’re right, Darla,” I said loudly. “The only way to win is to make sure you put yourself out there and give it a chance.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
DARLA
There are slot machines in the airport in Las Vegas. Slot machines, people. You walk off the plane, down the long hallway to the gate, and bam!
You can start gambling. Hell, you can start before you even pee, because the slot machines are closer to the plane than the bathrooms. This is a city that makes its priorities very clear.
For someone who had barely left Ohio before I met Joe and Trevor, travel was still a heady experience for me, but Vegas was already setting off all my senses in that hypermobile way that made me shift to a higher gear, both inside and out. I mean, Concord, New Hampshire or Carlisle, Pennsylvania are nice and all, but Vegas is a whole ‘nother planet.
It smells like money in the airport. Normally airports smell like bleach, rumpled people, and coffee, so this was an upgrade.
I left my bags with Joe and ran over to a slot machine, jumping up and down like I already won.
“SQUEEEEEE!” I screamed, looking wildly around, the flashing multi-colored lights like air traffic control signals to my wallet.
“You’re excited by a slot machine?”
“I got slots that get you excited, Joe.”
He gave me a look that said he conceded the point and wanted a nice angry fuck right then and there as part of the terms of surrender.
“Give me some money. I want to play!” I asked.
“Why? The casino will have plenty of slots. Besides, they’re all rigged.”
“Funsucker.”
“I’ve got some fun you can suck.”
“Quid pro quo. Give me money for the slots, I’ll suck your fun.”
Charlotte happened to come over as I said that, her mouth twisted in amusement. “Can’t you two wait until we get to the hotel?”
“That’s what I said!” Joe barked.
I reached into my own wallet, which I knew was nearly empty. Okay, I had two bucks.
Trevor came over and slipped me a ten, pointedly looking at Joe. “Here, Darla. Have fun.”
“It’s not that I’m being cheap,” Joe protested, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.
“No. You’re being a jerk. Quit raining on her parade.”
I went over to the slot machine and looked for a place to feed money. None.
“You have to get tokens,” Trevor explained, pointing to a machine.
“Like at Chuck E. Cheese?” I asked.
“Exactly like that,” Joe said flatly.
Charlotte nicely took the ten from me, put it in the machine, pressed some buttons, and out came the tokens.
“You done this before?”
“Of course,” she said, giving Joe one of those big-eyed dismissive looks designed to put him in his place. “It’s good luck to do slots at the Vegas airport.”
“SEE?” I called out to Joe.
“I’m getting coffee,” he muttered, stalking off.
I inserted two coins and went to pull a lever.
“Where’s the lever?”
“You don’t pull levers. You just push buttons.” A manicured finger pointed, Charlotte’s amused grin making me feel comfortable with my geeky exuberance. “Push that button, and good luck!”
I pushed.
I lost.
“Play it out,” Trevor urged as I saw Liam and Sam go into the men’s room out of the corner of my eye.
I played.
I lost.
“That’s four bucks down,” I said, frowning. “Maybe I should quit while I’m only a little behind –”
Trevor’s hand covered mine where it rested on the slot machine. “No. It’s bad luck not to play that entire ten.”
“It is?” There seemed to be a bunch of unwritten rules when it came to Vegas.
“Yes.”
“Says who?” Joe appeared with a tray of coffees for the three of us.
“Says me,” Trevor said jovially, taking the coffee with the name ‘D-bag’ written on the side of the white cup. Mine said ‘Darla.’
Joe’s said ‘King.’
“Stupid rule,” Joe said before sipping, eyes darting around the cluster of slot machines. “Can we get out of here? I’m tired and want to take a nap.”
“Okay, Grandpa,” Trevor replied. “Let Darla play out. I’ve got a feeling about this one.” He pointed to the glowing button.
“You’ve got a feeling about everything,” Joe groused. “Slot machines are totally random. If you want to win, your best bet is to play the twenty-five-dollar slots.”
“Why?” I asked, wondering what the amount had to do with anything, but also slightly appalled. Twenty-five-dollar bets? That was a lot to lose.
“Because the odds are better. Don’t bother with one-dollar slots.”
“Someone has to balance you out, Mr. Dark Cloud of Doom.” And with that, Trevor urged me on, his fingers tickling my hand.
I played.
And I WON!
“I WON! I WON!” I screamed as the lights flashed and the machines beeped and whirled.
“Twenty dollars!” Trevor shouted, throwing his arm around me as I squealed and jumped. “You made twenty bucks on a six-dollar spend!” He kissed my cheek and grinned madly, throwing major shade at Joe while pushing a button on the machine.
It spit out a receipt.
“Here.” Trevor handed it to me.
“That doesn’t look like twenty dollars.” I eyed it suspiciously.
“You take it to the other machine and cash it in.”
“Welcome to Vegas,” I said, breathless.
“It’s a good sign,” Trev said, kissing me again, grabbing my boob.
“What’s that for?” I asked, laughing.
“Good luck. You’re on a roll, Darla. You should buy a lottery ticket!” he joked.
On a roll.
All those gambling videos I’d been watching started to flow together, the roulette ones the easiest to understand. Maybe Trevor was right. Maybe I needed to embrace this whole ‘everything’ll be fine in the end’ mentality.
Combined with asking the universe for what I really wanted, it might be potent. Empowering.
Powerful.
As I turned to take in the scene, my eyes caught the giant, glowing neon sign over a big archway that led out to the airport’s exit.
Welcome to Las Vegas, it said.
Like it was made just for me.
* * *
Joe
* * *
SO SHE WON TWENTY BUCKS. Who cared? That was one six-thousandth of what my trust fund would pay me that year alone, according to Mom and Dad. Good for Darla, but all the excitement over a stupid slot machine reminded me of that time she practically orgasmed over finding cherry cordial ice cream from some Ohio company at a store in Boston.
She got excited over the stupidest things.
Trevor was being ridiculous about that positive thinking crap, too. When did they all get to be so annoying? How had I spent three years with people who irritated me to the point of rage?
I drank my coffee and said nothing, barely able to tolerate the noise, the lights, the cheering. Sam and Liam were congratulating Darla, Liam’s arm around Charlotte’s waist. Trevor was chattering away with Darla about what to expect in the casinos. I was the only vigilant one, watching our bags, wondering if the baggage claim carousels had started, thinking about logistics while Darla mooned over a fucking twenty-dollar bill that I could have wiped my ass with.
If only she knew. If only Trevor knew.
That’s right.
I hadn’t told them.
And I wasn’t planning to.
Money changes people. In fact, when Darla had first joined us in Boston, a tiny sliver of my analytical mind wondered if she was there for our
money. Not that Trevor and I were rolling in it – but our parents were. By comparison to Darla’s life in Ohio, we were Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined.
I’ll never forget the look on her face the first time we went to Trader Joe’s for groceries. She kept asking to look at the shit we threw in the cart, checking the prices. By the time we were ready to leave, she froze, practically hyperventilating.
“You just throw whatever you want in there and buy it?”
“That’s how stores work,” I said slowly. I remember how Trevor and I looked at each other over her head, a dull panic transmitted between us. The woman had worked in a gas station – didn’t she understand?
“I know that,” she’d declared. “I just mean… how do you afford all this? And you buy all these frozen dinners, and sushi! Entire little sushi trays for more than ten bucks each! You must have more than two hundred dollars in that cart, guys.”
“Yeah?” we’d both asked, unsure about her point.
“But – how?”
“How what?”
“Are you just blowing money? How will you pay rent and electric and –” Her breathing had become erratic.
“Darla.” Trevor had stepped in, walking around the cart to touch her arm. So many people had watched us, making me self-conscious. If we couldn’t even go to the grocery store with her, I’d thought back then, maybe it had all been a big mistake.
“What’s wrong?” Trevor had asked gently.
“That’s more than Mama and I get in food stamps every month,” she had whispered, cheeks a furious red, a flush creeping up her neck.
A part of me felt like a warrior in that moment.
Another part was almost ashamed.
Shame wasn’t in my repertoire of emotions three years ago, though.
It was now.
I jolted, struck by insight, the kind that both hits you over the head like a massive, blunt blow and also rolls over you like storm cloud, cold and windy, blanketing your senses.
I wasn’t telling Trevor and Darla about my trust fund because I felt shame.
Why? Why the fuck would I feel ashamed of having money? I’d never experienced that before. Money was good. Money was great. Money gave me what I needed. People who figured out how to have money and grow money were powerful. They understood how the world worked.
I always wanted to be one of those people. I was born to that kind of people.
And now I was one of them.
Why wasn’t I jumping up and down, celebrating with my friends, with Darla and Trevor, sharing my good news?
I didn’t know.
That was the part that made me angry. I should have known. I should have either reveled in it or known why I wasn’t.
Instead I was standing at the Las Vegas airport, sucking down the rest of my coffee, glaring at my girlfriend who just threw six dollars away and then got lucky.
Lucky. Like me. Except instead of pressing the right glowing button on a machine, I got lucky when it came to genetics.
My money was entirely random.
Just like Darla’s.
TREVOR
There is a hum that begins in my bones in the days before a big performance. It’s a juicy feeling, the slow build of musical arousal starting with the fevered push of my blood through my veins, like my entire body is turning into one big hard-on as my mind turns into nothing but melody.
It’s divine.
Even Joe’s sour mood couldn’t chase it away, the thunder in the distance, the cleansing storm that races on the winds days ahead, coming for me. It’s the sound of my soul outside of myself, trying to find true north, eager to come home.
I open my mouth on stage and it fills me.
Completes me.
No law textbook, no case study, no mock trial ever made me feel this sure. Even Darla and Joe don’t have this effect. It’s a chaotic good that spirals around me like a double helix of pure joy, grounding me in the singularity of all time, all ecstasy, every drop of what makes us real oozing into me from the outside in.
Call it harmonic osmosis. Label it karmic symphony. Whatever words you use to describe it pale in comparison to how it feels on my skin, against the tip of my tongue, sliding along my vocal cords, stroking my cock as I perform for thousands of people, taking it all in and delivering it right back to the world through my portal.
My mouth.
My voice.
The only one I can hear when I am on stage.
Because it’s the only sound in the world.
“Oh my God, is that a roller coaster right there, next to the street?” Darla’s nose was smashed against the glass of the UberX we were taking to get to the resort.
“Yeah,” Sam said, smiling. “Isn’t it cool?”
“Are we staying there? I totally want to drunkcoaster.”
“Drunkcoaster?” he asked, giving Liam a help me out, bro look. Liam just shrugged.
“You know. Get drunk and ride roller coasters.”
“That’s a thing?”
“It is until somebody pukes and you get banned from Cedar Point. But man, the pictures you get from those overpriced photo booths are priceless.”
“Your idea of fun is really unique, Darla,” Sam noted.
“If by unique you mean sick as fuck, you’re right. Quit bein’ so diplomatic with me, Sam. Just call it like you see it.”
“Fine. I’m never going on a rollercoaster in a seat behind you,” he said with quiet determination.
Darla laughed, her breath fogging the glass in the chilly, air-conditioned interior. “That is rule number one of drunkcoastering: don’t get so drunk you forget to sit ahead of – and never behind – the weakest link in your group.”
“Vegas has more than enough fun, Darla,” Charlotte said. “We don’t need to resort to drunkcoastering.”
“Well, if we get bored some night, we can give it a whirl.” Darla pulled back and squinted out the window. “Like playing roulette,” she said with a breathy laugh.
“Right!”
“I have a foolproof method, you know,” she ventured.
“For what?” I asked, confused.
“Roulette.”
Joe groaned.
Darla nudged him. “Shut up. Just listen. It sounds too good to be true, but –”
“Oh, God,” Joe muttered. “Here we go.”
“Anyhow,” she said loudly, overriding him, “I can’t do it. My scheme is too complex.”
“Too complex?” I asked, even more intrigued. Darla was the type to jump first, check for a parachute later. That she’d already analyzed ahead and determined not to do something was a surprise.
“I’d need to stay here for at least two or three weeks, hanging around the roulette table, before I could really master it.”
“Yeah?”
“And I’d need to hide a computer in my shoe.”
“What?” I asked, caught off guard.
Joe snickered.
Darla nodded, as if a shoe computer were a perfectly normal topic to talk about. “Even that isn’t out of the realm of possibility –”
“It isn’t?”
“The hard part would be learning how to type with my toes.”
“Now you’re pulling my leg,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“You’re only figuring that out now, Trevor? Took you long enough,” Joe sputtered.
“I’m serious!” Darla insisted. “It can be done, if you memorize the number sequences, and –”
“It’s roulette!” Joe exploded. “It’s a game of chance! You cannot possibly beat the house! Stop watching these stupid YouTube videos and being taken in like a sucker.”
“I am not a sucker,” she said calmly, though the red, flushed skin on her chest started creeping up to her neck, a sure sign she was pissed. “I am working on expanding my knowledge of a new area.”
“One that suckers fall for.”
I whacked Joe, hard. He frowned and went back to finger fucking his phone.
Dusk was settl
ing in and all the bright lights were on, making the car feel like a spaceship. “It’s so bright!” Darla marveled. “So damn alive.”
So was I.
Meanwhile, Oscar the Fucking Grouch sat behind us, pretending we were all a bunch of naïve twits who got too excited over everything. Joe could take the most joyful event and pick it apart into nothingness. I’d shoved him in the back with most of our luggage when the eight-seater SUV had arrived, leaving the rest of the car’s interior for those of us who didn’t have a sucking chest wound in place of a soul.
If Joe ever won the lottery, his first reaction would be, “But now I have to deal with all the people who want something from me.” He wasn’t just a fun sucker, he was a fun Dyson.
Darla’s phone buzzed for the umpteenth time. The plane ride had been a nice change from being on the ground, because it meant Darla wasn’t surgically attached to her phone. But now we were back to business, though I was going to make sure we had plenty of time for fun.
Whether Joe liked it or not.
“An Eiffel Tower! A Ferris wheel!” Darla squealed.
“And a drunk bum puking on that tourist,” Joe said, flicking his hand to the right.
Instinct made us all look. Decency kept me from punching Joe.
“Is that Darth Vader carrying a glowing billboard on his back with naked titties all over him?” Darla marveled.
I followed her gaze and squinted. “Yes. He’s advertising a strip joint. It says, ‘May the foursome be with you.’”
“Massive trademark infringement,” Joe grumbled.
“The only fringe anyone at a titty bar worries about is the fringe on the pasties,” I countered. He stayed quiet.
“It’s endless!” Darla gushed as block after block of the Strip unfolded before us.
“It is. And it’s ours to explore.” I squeezed her shoulder, my fingers brushing a little side boob. God, she smelled good. We were road weary and hyper from the trip, the building excitement, and Darla’s slot machine win. That coffee Joe brought us gave me energy, but I didn’t need it.
What I needed was her. Sex. Physical touch to ground me, because my skin was threatening to peel off, taking tendon and muscle and bone, shredding me into a million tiny pieces so I could surf into the sun on the wind.
