As far as he was concerned, everybody was getting what they needed on this trip. Everyone was going to Vegas a winner.
With three drivers, they pretty much went straight through, with pit stops for charging and meals being the only thing that slowed them down. Having stayed up most of the night before with a sore hip, Baz slept as best he could through most of Missouri and Kansas, but as the night crept up on them, he took advantage of having his fiancé at hand in the dark of the backseat. Elijah buried his face in Baz’s neck as Baz fondled him mercilessly under the protection of a discarded coat.
“Don’t, they’ll know what we’re doing,” Elijah whispered as he clung to Baz’s arms and fought his inclination to spread his legs for Baz’s wandering hand.
“They’re too busy singing.” Kelly had a Spotify playlist of his favorite Disney songs, and he had Autopilot on as he drove so he could croon to Walter, who was doing his best (and failing) not to look besotted with his husband. Baz took off his glasses, set them in the rear window, and made love to Elijah’s neck. He was too full of excitement for the trip, high on his determination this short getaway would be a game changer for them. “I want to fuck you, baby.”
Elijah clutched at Baz’s arm and trembled as he gave Baz full access to his junk. “It’s a long way before we get to the hotel.” He turned his head toward Baz, seeking his mouth but not finding it. “Do we have a hotel?”
“I’ll do a search after the next stop. We’re due to stop at the next Supercharger station.” He unbuttoned Elijah’s jeans and teased him through his briefs. “While we charge, you and I are finding somewhere private.” He nipped Elijah’s jawline near his ear. “But not too private.”
He spent the next half hour getting Elijah so wound up that when Baz gave Walter the keys and said he’d meet them in twenty minutes, Elijah didn’t fuss about what their travel companions would think, only followed Baz into the family restroom in the travel center.
“Take off your pants.” Baz helped the jeans over Elijah’s hips, running his hands over him while Elijah quavered with his pants around his ankles. Baz crouched behind him. “Hands on the wall.”
Elijah shuddered and gasped as Baz pressed his mouth to Elijah’s hole, licking him, getting him good and wet, making him crazy. Elijah glanced toward the door, nervous through his haze. “We’re going to get in trouble if they catch us.”
“Yes, we will. So you better do exactly as I say, and keep quiet.”
He wanted to torture Elijah for an hour, but his hip was pissed at the crouching, and he was reaching the dangerous point where if he hurt much more, he wouldn’t be able to come. So he lubed Elijah up, teasing him with his fingers for as long as he thought he could get away with, then fucked him. He had to put his foot on the toilet seat to keep his hip from being too angry, but they both managed a happy ending, Elijah christening the side of the diaper changer.
They indulged in a lingering kiss as they cleaned up. After grabbing coffee and soda from the convenience store, they returned to the Tesla to take their shift in the front seat. Walter had already tucked into the backseat with Kelly, and they were both half-asleep as Elijah settled in behind the wheel.
Baz popped two oxycodone as Elijah crossed the state line into Colorado. He took his sunglasses off and put some drops in his eyes, which made Elijah glance at him. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Baz tucked the drops into his bag. “Eyes a little sore. It happens.” He poked at the map on the dashboard display. “We’re making pretty good time. Should hit Denver around midnight.”
“Great.” Elijah shifted his hands nervously on the wheel. “So we’ll hit the mountains in total darkness.”
“You’ll be fine. I promise. Think of it this way: all you’ll see is the road.”
“Good point.” Elijah still grimaced though as he set Autopilot.
Baz captured his hand. “Hey. It’s all good. If the mountains trip you up, we’ll find somewhere to crash until Walter or Kelly can drive again. No stress, okay?”
Elijah relaxed his hand enough to let Baz thread their fingers together. “I know. I’m trying.” He ran his free hand through his hair. “It’s not really the mountains. One of my cousins asked to friend me on Facebook, and it’s been eating at me because I can’t figure out why she’d do that.”
“Well, I’d assume it’s because she wants to reconnect with you. Unless she was one of the abusive ones?”
Elijah snorted. “They were all abusive. Okay, she never said anything personally, but she always looked at me like I was a freak. I don’t want to connect with her. I still feel sick scrolling through the pictures on her page of all the happy relatives who wish Dad would have succeeded in shooting me. I can’t think of what she’d want with me.” He sighed. “But I can’t bring myself to delete her request or do anything. I hate it. I just wish they’d leave me alone. The holidays are bad enough without being reminded I’m an orphan.”
“You have my family, and the gang.”
Elijah’s fingers curled in Baz’s grip. “I know. But it’s not the same.”
There was no way for Baz to fix it, which he hated, so he sat in silence, holding Elijah’s hand, listening to the soundtrack of Howl’s Moving Castle as he stared up at the clear night sky through the glass roof of the Tesla.
Elijah’s balls were as good at handling mountain roads as Baz had predicted, it turned out. They never had to wake up Walter or Kelly, and while Elijah drove, Baz told him about the hotel he’d found online.
“There are some swank places on the Strip, but this place is slightly off the main drag. It’s a quirky kind of joint. Supposed to be run by mobsters until recently. The gay travel site I was looking at said it’s the most LGBT friendly casino and hotel in Vegas. Gave it ten rainbow flags, their highest rating.”
Elijah smiled in the darkness, his face lit in the soft glow of the Tesla dashboard. “I suppose the swanky suite is out anyway, with four of us and booking last minute.”
“Nope, the suites abound. I booked the Carter Suite for us, and Billy’s Suite for Walter and Kelly. Except I think Walter’s going to have a fit about the money.”
“He is, if you try to pay for it,” said a sleepy voice from the back. Kelly. “Me too. Book us a regular room. Allergen-friendly if you can get it, but Walter brought our own bedding, pillows, and a vacuum, so it’s all the same, really.”
They did have allergen-sensitive rooms, and Baz reserved them one, in addition to the suite for himself and Elijah. He swiped through some photos of the hotel and casino. “It looks pretty cool. Very retro. Hey, they have a ballroom and a theater. Wow, and quite a lineup of acts.”
“Can you send me the link?” Kelly asked. “I wouldn’t mind seeing a show.”
Baz texted him the website. “They have a New Year’s Eve party planned too, as luck would have it. Apparently this is common for them. They’re always having some kind of festival.”
“Got it.” Kelly thumbed through the website. “Hey, they have a resident drag queen!”
Elijah perked up at this, glancing at Kelly in the rearview mirror. “They do? Who?”
“Someone named Caramela. Oh, wow. She’s gorgeous.”
Kelly stayed awake for another half hour, poking around the website with Baz. They were only a half a day’s drive away now, and though they were all getting hella sick of the car, it was starting to get real. The oxy had at best taken Baz’s aches and pains to a dull roar, but he didn’t care because he was too excited. When they stopped for breakfast and a charge, the four of them sat at a roadside diner chatting animatedly over pancakes and bacon as they discussed everything they wanted to do in Vegas. Kelly had bacon and hash browns, red-faced because in addition to an extended conversation with the kitchen staff, as per usual Walter had double-checked with the waitress as the food arrived to make sure none of Kelly’s allergies would be sending them to the hospital instead of the casino floor.
Elijah grinned wickedly and held up his phone. “Giles and Aaron a
re absolutely green that they didn’t get to come. They said they would have totally been our drivers.”
“They aren’t twenty-one.” Baz wiped his mouth with his napkin. “They wouldn’t be able to go to most bars, and they wouldn’t be allowed on the casino floor.”
Kelly wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know if I want to gamble.”
Walter nudged him. “You can do a few penny slots. Or be my arm candy while I play poker.”
Elijah flicked gently at the bridge of Baz’s glasses. “You should play poker. They’d just think your glasses were part of your schtick.”
Baz stifled a wince at how that small gesture made his eyes throb. “Craps is more my game.”
They talked nonstop for the last leg of their trip, imagining the adventures they were about to have, looking up possible excursions on their phones. Even Elijah began to get excited. “I had no idea there was so much to do. Now I wish we had more than a few days to stay.”
“I wish I didn’t have to get back to work.” Walter was driving, or rather he was behind the wheel while the Tesla situated itself precisely in the lane. “But alas, I do. Kelly and I both have to be in Minneapolis by the fourth.”
They came over the crest of a hill, and suddenly there it was: Las Vegas. The city sprawled across the desert, a throbbing oasis in a sea of sand. Great grids of brown dotted with tiny shapes of houses until the Strip erupted, framed by the mountains in the distance. It would have been more impressive at night with all the lights, but two in the afternoon wasn’t anything to sneeze at either.
Baz had programmed the hotel into the navigation, but Kelly rerouted them in a detour of the Strip with a stop at the famous sign. They couldn’t find a place to park, but plenty of other people were slowing down to get a glimpse. Kelly managed to snap a picture through the moonroof.
“Okay, let’s see this hotel,” Walter declared, and they were on to their final destination.
Baz had a little misgiving about his choice as they took in the grandeur of the casinos on the Strip. He wanted to impress Elijah without overwhelming him, a fine line Baz was still learning how to negotiate. The smaller casino had seemed so much more them, though he’d admit mostly he’d seen “ten rainbow flags” and “resident drag queen” and leapt. Plus their suite had a view of the Strip. It also had a hot tub, the photo of which had Baz already thinking about how he’d get busy in it. But the Strip casinos were varying degrees of awesome too. Super-kitschy, elegant, modern—everything was there. As they drove by Bellagio, Baz kicked himself, thinking he should have booked there. He almost had, but they hadn’t had a suite available, and the pictures of the lobby made Baz imagine Elijah bitching about being out of place.
He wanted this trip to be perfect. He wanted it to make Elijah relax and show him that no matter what, Baz would always make everything okay.
As they pulled up to Herod’s Poker Room and Casino, Baz began to feel a lot better about his choice for their accommodations. It was elegant in a more traditional, understated way. It reminded Baz a little bit from the outside of his mother’s favorite old hotel in St. Paul, both the architecture and the quiet dignity of the bell staff. It was nice without being imposing. Small enough, too, that Baz could flash some money and probably get some VIP treatment.
He felt pretty good about his choice before they got out of the car, but what sealed the deal was what he saw as he exited the Tesla and handed the keys to the valet. Along the side of the building, just under the overhang, hung the Nevada flag, the US flag, and four bright, proud rainbow flags. When Elijah spied them, he visibly relaxed.
Baz did too. This was going to fix everything. Elijah’s nerves, his quietness, his lack of faith that Baz could take care of him.
He was sure of it.
THE CASINO WASN’T bad. In fact, the more he saw of it, the more Elijah liked it.
The four of them were ushered in by bell staff to the front desk, where Baz, with a whispered word, got them to the head of a line that hadn’t even been a line before. An official-looking hostess checked them in, assuring Walter, yes, the room was feather-free and had a sophisticated air filtration system, and they’d be happy to dress the bed in the portable dust mite cover and the sheets Walter and Kelly provided. In the meantime, a guy in a suit with a plastic smile came over and introduced himself to Baz as Rob, the hotel manager. He offered to have some chips reserved at the cashier, and said he’d be pleased to give him and his guests a tour of the casino while their suite was being prepared.
“Herod’s has been Las Vegas’s best-kept secret almost since its inception.” The manager gestured proudly at the casino floor, which wasn’t crowded but more nicely full of customers. “Once upon a time it was, as were so many casinos, a front for the mafia’s money laundering, but now the hidden rooms are little more than storage closets. Ethan Ellison, the owner of Herod’s for six years, has helped the hotel and casino stand out amidst the corporate glitter by harkening back to the old days—minus the mobsters, of course.”
Here the manager winked at Baz in a way that solidified Elijah’s suspicion the man was gay.
The tour continued with the manager telling them about recent renovations, the nightly shows on the restored theater stage, and of the casino’s famous poker instruction area, where green tourists could get the basics of what the game consisted of before they tried their hand at the tables. “In fact, we have our most infamous instructor working right now.”
The manager led them to a table on the far side, where a man in a T-shirt and jeans stood out amidst a sea of dealers in suits and bow ties. He looked to be in his late thirties, though he also struck Elijah as someone who would have a glint in his eye at ninety. He had dark hair and an expressive gaze, which he focused on his student. He was a combination of charm and attention, making women and men alike blush and eat out of the palm of his hand. Elijah wanted a poker lesson, if he could get it from this man.
He sprawled in his chair, cocky and carefree, as if he owned the place, and it turned out in a manner of speaking he did.
Rob gestured proudly to the dealer. “This is Randy Jansen, Mr. Ellison’s husband and a locally famous master poker player and favorite instructor on our floor. He’s won countless poker championships, and he’s often seen playing prop here at Herod’s if he’s not working directly with Mr. Ellison. Mr. Jansen, if you have a moment, may I introduce you to Mr. Sebastian Acker and his friends. Mr. Acker and his fiancé will be staying in the Carter Suite.”
The man leaned back in his chair and swiveled it to get a better look at them. He took them in swiftly, and Elijah got the impression they were being weighed and judged—and Rob’s heavy hint that Baz had money didn’t impress him much. Though Mr. Jansen’s gaze brushed over Baz, Walter, and Kelly quickly, it lingered on Elijah, and the poker player’s brow furrowed.
When Elijah squirmed uncomfortably, his perpetual fear of being called out for being the one who didn’t belong in the spotlight, Jansen smiled and rose, extending his hand to Baz.
“Pleasure to have you as our guests. I see Rob’s giving you the five-dollar tour.” His attention lingered on Baz’s glasses a moment before shifting his focus once again to Elijah, making him feel like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. “The suite was still empty as of yesterday, so this must have been a last-minute trip. Couldn’t wait to get out of the Midwest any longer? Wise plan.”
Kelly blinked at Jansen as he shook his hand. “How did you know where we were from?”
“It’s kind of my thing. For example, I can tell, sweetheart, that you’re in something steady such as business, but secretly you want to have this man’s babies and stay home with them.” As Kelly gasped, Jansen lingered over Walter. “Oh, but you’ve got a fire in you. Politics or law?”
Walter grinned. “Didn’t know I had to choose.” He turned to Kelly, as if he couldn’t hold back any longer. “Do you really want to stay home with our kids?”
Jansen laughed and clapped his shoulder before letting go an
d stepping back to put a hand on his table, where two middle-aged women and a quiet, grey-haired man regarded the exchange with interest. “Tell you what. I’m due for a break in a few minutes here. Why don’t the four of you have a drink on me in the bar, and I’ll come keep you company until your rooms are ready.” He raised his eyebrows innocently and nodded at the manager. “Unless you were into the tour and wanted to take a rain check.”
“Bar sounds good,” Elijah replied before anyone else could. He wanted to know what the casino-owner’s husband predicted about him.
He hoped what the guy saw was good.
Or at least not awful.
The manager, smile a little strained, led them across the casino to a small bar with The River emblazoned in lights over the door. The bar was full of people, but the manager led them to an alcove in the back, a round booth sectioned off with a velvet rope. After pulling red cording aside, Rob gestured for them to occupy the seat. As they settled into their places, a bright-eyed waitress came to take their order.
They all ended up ordering margaritas, and by the time they were half gone, Elijah had a happy, woozy feeling going on. It was nice to sit in a swanky booth, leaning on Baz while they chatted idly with their friends.
Kelly nudged Walter with his elbow, clutching his drink as he sought his husband’s gaze. “You know, I wouldn’t mind being a stay-at-home dad. I’d want to work at least a few years, maybe find something I could do part-time from the house, but I’d love to make my main job taking care of our family.”
Walter puffed up like a proud peacock and tugged Kelly’s fingers loose from the drink and drew them to his lips. “Then we’ll make that happen as soon as you’re ready for it.”
Baz ran a finger down Elijah’s nose. “Do you want kids too?”
Elijah swatted the finger away, but the question made his belly flutter. Did he want kids? Did Baz want kids? They hadn’t talked about it. Elijah wasn’t sure this was the place to start. He couldn’t get a read on his fiancé, though.
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