by Kimberly Fox
He chuckles as he turns to the bartender, and my lips curl up into a smile at having made him laugh.
“Ralph,” he says as the bartender is about to pour my drink. “Scrap the white wine spritzer. Give us two Lucky 7s.”
My chest tightens. Why can’t he just leave me alone and let me get my drink? The sooner I’m out of this bar, the better.
“Want to get lucky?” he asks with a heart-stopping smile.
I stare him dead in the eyes with a blank expression. “No, I want to get out of here.”
He chuckles. “Back to all that fun you’re having?”
I roll my eyes. It seems like all of Vegas won’t leave me alone until I have a drink. Fine, Vegas. You win!
“What’s in a Lucky 7?”
“Yes,” he says, rubbing his hands together in excitement now that he finally broke me. “It’s always different.”
“Huh?”
He points to the top row of bottles and my eyes fall onto his thick forearms that are creeping out of his suit. They’re covered in tattoos.
Good thing he’s not my type.
I lean against the bar so that my legs don’t give out on me.
“Count seven bottles from the left,” he says as Ralph the bartender grabs it. “Now on the second shelf, you count seven bottles from the right. Last shelf seven bottles from the left again. Mix them together and you have Lucky 7s.”
“I’ll be lucky if I don’t puke it up,” I say, crinkling my nose up in disgust.
He laughs. “It won’t be that bad. Probably. Ralph, what do we have?”
The bartender places two bottles in front of us as he quickly dusts off the third bottle. “Scotch,” the hot guy beside me says, reading the label. “And Kiwi Schnapps. Ew. What the hell is that?”
Ralph places the third bottle on the marble bar with a clunk.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, staring at it with wide terrified eyes.
“Insane-O Worm-O Tequil-O,” the man says as he picks up the old bottle and rolls it around in his hands. “I think the last time they served this was to celebrate the end of the Civil War. Where’s the worm?”
“He probably moved back to Mexico,” I say, leaning away from it. “I would too if I had to live in that bottle of acid.”
The man hands the bottle back and grins to Ralph. “Mix ‘em up!”
“No, thank you,” I say as Ralph opens the bottles. My eyes immediately start watering as soon as the bartender opens the Tequila. Even Ralph jerks his head back in surprise. “I’ll stick with my white wine spritzer.”
“Come on,” the man says at the bartender pours a shot of each bottle into two glasses. The color looks like raw sewage but doesn’t smell nearly as good. “You’re going to let me go to the emergency room all by myself?”
Ralph slides a glass in front of him and one in front of me.
“Ugh,” I say, jerking my head to the side to get away from the toxic fumes.
“It’s a good luck drink,” the man says as he lifts up his glass, grimacing as the smell hits his perfectly shaped nostrils. “I know you need some good luck.”
My meeting with Mack McMillan tomorrow morning flashes into my head. “How do you know I need good luck?”
“Everybody in Vegas needs good luck.”
I raise an eyebrow as I look down at the drink, sitting there full of future regrets. I do need some good luck.
“It’s called Lucky 7s for a reason,” he says, holding the glass up to me.
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. If anything, it may get Emily off my back. Hopefully she believes me about all of this, which she probably won’t.
He taps my glass with his and smiles as he looks me in the eyes. “Asses up.”
A river of burning lava scorches my throat as I gulp down the huge shot. “Geez!” I say, coughing like a first-time smoker as my eyes start watering like a broken fire hydrant.
I frantically wave my hand in front of my open mouth, hoping that some of my tears will drip into my mouth to soothe the intense burning. “So, that’s what a Molotov cocktail tastes like,” I say, gagging as it threatens to come back up.
The man isn’t faring any better, I’m happy to say. He’s wiping his watery eyes with the back of his hand as he takes a sip of his scotch to get rid of the horrible taste.
“It feels like a demon just blew a load in my mouth,” he says, sticking his tongue out as he coughs.
“See?” I say when the worst of the burning has settled. “This is why I’m anti-fun.”
“At least now you’ll have some good luck,” he says, waving the bartender back over. “Can you get the pretty lady a white wine spritzer? Actually, make that two. I need something to soothe my throat.”
“In a martini glass,” I call out to Ralph’s back.
I close my eyes as my stomach starts to gurgle. That shot was a bad idea. It’s time to go back to my room before it hits. I’m not used to drinking, and a shot like that might be enough to get me tipsy.
And I really don’t want to be tipsy in front of my boss. Mr. Wallace sees me as the model of self-discipline and control, and I’m never going to do anything to ruin that image he has of me.
“Two white wine spritzers in martini glasses,” Ralph the bartender says, handing over the drinks. “Now, who’s paying?”
“He is,” I say, pointing at the man sitting next to me. “You can pay for my drink now for putting me through that.”
He smiles as he pulls out a wad of cash, slides off two bills, and hands them to the bartender. “I never got your name,” he says as I take my drink.
I smirk at him as I walk away. “I know.”
He turns on the stool as I walk back to my table. “You can at least give me your name. You’re going to get lucky tonight, and it’s all because of me.”
I snort out a laugh. “Yeah,” I mutter to myself as I walk away from him. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”
7
Ralph the Bartender
Still three nights ago…
“Can I get a glass of beer?”
You can get a glass of shut the fuck up.
“Sure,” I say, giving the guy at my bar a wide smile even though I would rather throw the beer in his face. I’m on hour nine of a ten-hour shift, and my boss has been up my ass the entire time.
I just want to go home, smoke a joint, and play Call of Duty until I pass out in a pile of Cool Ranch Dorito crumbs.
I take a deep breath as I grab the beer from the fridge and hand it over. “Eight dollars.”
The guy peels off a ten from his fat wad of cash and slides it across my bar. I grab the bill and wait a few awkward seconds, hoping that he’ll say keep the change, but he just stares at me with big stupid eyes.
Ugh. I hate this job.
“Here’s your change,” I say with a big smile as I give him his two dollars. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a quarter and a dime. He tosses it on the sticky bar and leaves with his beer without saying another word.
“Asshole,” I mutter under my breath as I grab the shitty tip.
Just when things are going bad, my boss comes over to make it even worse.
“Can I get cut?” I ask, staring at him with hopeful eyes.
He rolls his eyes as he walks past me, ignoring my question.
“Asshole,” I mutter again when he’s out of earshot.
He stops and turns. Uh-oh. It’s never a good sign when his shoulders tense up like that.
“What’s this doing here?”
“Huh?” I turn to see where he’s pointing and take a breath of relief. For a second, I thought he found my stash of weed that’s hidden behind the bar.
“What’s that bottle doing out?” He walks over to the shelves of alcohol and grabs the old dusty tequila bottle off of the counter.
“I was just cleaning up,” I say with a shrug. I can’t tell him the truth because I pocketed the cash for the two Lucky 7s.
He holds the bottle up to the light and inhale
s sharply.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, feeling my heart start to race. I hate this job, but it’s all I have. I really don’t want to get fired.
“This expired four years ago,” he says, turning the bottle of Insane-O Worm-O Tequil-O around in his hands. “Look, the worm disintegrated. It turns into a narcotic and becomes toxic when it decomposes. It can really fuck someone up. Did you serve this to anyone?”
I swallow hard as I look down the bar to the place where the good-looking guy who left me a huge tip was sitting. The stool is empty.
“No.”
My eyes dart across the bar to the hot girl who was dressed like a sexy librarian—the uptight one with the fax machine up her ass. She was with him and had a drink of that poison too. I gulp when I see her at a table full of corporate drones, throwing her hands in the air and singing show tunes.
“No one?” my boss asks, eying me closely.
I shake my head. “No one.”
“Are you sure?”
I glance at her one more time and cringe when I see her with her shoe pressed against her face, talking into it like it’s a phone. The people around her look very confused.
“I’m sure, boss.”
He shakes his head as he takes the bottle and looks at the dusty shelves. “Go through the rest of the bottles and see what else is expired. I told you to do that last week.”
He walks away mumbling something about how nobody listens to him or something like that. I’m not really listening.
I’m too busy watching the librarian chick as she runs out of the bar with one shoe on her foot and one shoe on her ear.
Oh, well. I hope she doesn’t die.
I crack open a beer when my boss heads in the back and then duck down behind the bar to take a sip.
One hour to go.
Fuck, I hate this job.
8
Dahlia
“I wonder which one I’ll pick,” I say, grinning as I walk down the row of shiny new Ferraris.
Tyler grins beside me. “How about that one?” he says, pointing to a cardboard cutout of a Ferrari that’s on display.
“Not expensive enough,” I say with a smirk as I turn to him. “So many to choose from. Maybe I’ll get one in each color.”
“Ferraris are so last year,” he says, shaking his head as he stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Hyundai. Now that’s what all of the elite are buying this year. I can see you driving a nice used Hyundai Accent.”
I narrow my eyes on him. “And I can see you explaining to your parents why they’re not getting any grandkids.”
He gulps.
“Yeah. You’re not getting out of this one.”
I don’t even want a Ferrari. I just want to watch him squirm.
What am I going to do with a Ferrari in a small town like Summerland? Park it at the only diner in town next to a tractor?
This is all just to mess with him like he’s messing with me.
“Hello, Mr. McMillan,” a salesman says as he rushes over. He looks like he should be in a used car dealership—not a Ferrari dealership—with the white powder from his donut still stuck to his clip-on tie. At least I hope it’s icing sugar and not nose sugar, but this is Vegas after all, so you never know.
“Your father said you were going to be stopping by.”
Tyler shakes the man’s hand. “Nice to see you again, Harvey. I’m looking for a wedding present for my hot new wife.”
Harvey turns to me with a warm smile. “You definitely came to the right place. What are you driving now?”
“A bike.”
He laughs. He thinks I’m joking, but I’m not. It’s yellow and it has a big basket on the front. I love it.
Harvey smiles as he points to a sleek red Ferrari that’s raised above the others on a stage. “Let’s see what we can upgrade you with.”
I grin at Tyler as I hook my arm around Harvey’s. “Yes. Let’s go see.”
Tyler shuffles behind us as I look around with my chin in the air. “I need something with a large trunk. I’m going to be doing a lot of shopping now that I’m Mr. McMillan’s wife, and I need something that can carry my many bags.”
“How many bags are we talking?” Harvey asks.
“Yeah,” Tyler grunts from behind us. “How many bags are we talking?”
I glance back at him over my shoulder and grin. “A lot.”
Harvey slides his arm out of mine and darts to the front of the Ferrari parked on the stage. “This is our top model,” he says, smiling widely. “The GTB engine has six hundred and sixty horsepower at eight thousand rpm.”
“I don’t care about all of that,” I say, waving a hand at him. “I need trunk space for my daily shopping trips now that I’m Tyler’s hot new wife.”
Tyler steps up beside me as Harvey pops the trunk open. “As you can see it has plenty of space,” Harvey says, waving his hand into the empty trunk. “Even enough for a middle-aged man who likes to eat too many donuts.”
I laugh as he climbs in, happy that it is only icing sugar on his tacky tie.
“See?” he says, laying down inside the trunk. “Tons of room for bags. Enough for Armani, Gucci, Michael Kor—”
Tyler closes the trunk with a bang, interrupting Harvey’s sales pitch. I feel guilty for laughing at poor Harvey who’s locked in the trunk, but it doesn’t stop me from bursting out in giggles.
“You’re killing me here,” Tyler says, looking at me with narrowed eyes.
I clasp my hands together while I kick my leg out behind me and bat my eyelashes like I’m in an episode of I Love Lucy. “All in a day’s work for a pretty little wife.”
Harvey starts banging on the inside of the trunk. His muffled voice comes through between thumps. “Excuse me.”
“Are you going to let him suffocate?”
Tyler stares me down. “Are you going to let me go broke?”
“Are you going to make me break your mother’s heart?”
We stare each other down for ten heated seconds before he reaches down and pops the trunk back open.
Harvey climbs out, laughing nervously. “So, that’s the trunk.”
I keep my eyes locked on Tyler. “Good to know that I can fit a dead body in there. I might have to before this is all over.”
He smirks. “It’s not nice to threaten to kill your husband.” He turns to Harvey and nods his head. “We’ll take it!”
Harvey’s face lights up with a wide smile before he sprints away to get the paperwork.
A heaviness settles in my stomach as guilt crashes down on me. “Tyler, no,” I say, shaking my head. “I was just messing around. It’s too much.”
Tyler shrugs. “It’s only half a million dollars.”
“I don’t need a car,” I say, feeling both awful that he thought I was serious and honored that he’s willing to spend that much money on me. “And I certainly don’t need a Ferrari.”
“Well,” he says with a smirk as Harvey runs back, clutching the contract to his chest, “you’re getting one.”
I try to convince him otherwise, but he just ignores me as he signs the contract on the hood of the car and hands over his American Express black card.
And just like that—I own a Ferrari.
“I told you I didn’t want it.”
Tyler just smiles as he shoves the new key into my hand. “You told me you didn’t want the drink when we first met, but that didn’t stop you from taking it.”
“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “And look how that turned out. How do you keep making me do things I don’t want to do?”
“My charm? Good looks? Winning personality?”
I shake my head slowly as I study him. “No. That’s not it.”
“You can’t control yourself around me,” he says, walking around to the passenger’s side of my brand-new unwanted Ferrari. “Just admit it.”
I shake my head, but that must be it. What else explains me waking up naked in his bed? As much as I hate to admit it, Tyler does som
ething to my body. He has some kind of control over it on the most basic primitive level that my sane, conscious mind can’t reach.
But once I figure out how to turn it off, I’ll be back to being in control.
“Get in,” he says before his head disappears under the shiny red roof.
I take a deep breath and open the door of the car. Wow. This is not a car. A car is what I drove around town until the bumper fell off in front of the barber shop. This is a Ferrari. It’s a driving machine.
I’m surrounded by smooth leather as I slide into the bucket seat, moaning as it massages my ass cheeks like a master masseuse. My breath quickens as I glide my palms over the sleek red steering wheel. This is what heroin must feel like to a junkie. It’s what boobs must feel like to a teenage boy. Is it possible to have a love affair with a car? Because I’m in love.
“I told you,” I say, my words coming out in a breathless mess as I look around the interior of this dream machine, “I don’t need a—”
The words drop out of my throat when I see Tyler sitting next to me looking gorgeous in the beautiful car. He looks like this car was made for him as he leans back in the bucket seat, grinning as he watches me. He’s wearing ripped up jeans with a black polo that rides up high on his muscular tattooed arms. I wonder what I look like beside him. Can I pass as his wife, or do I look like his overworked maid? I guess we’ll find out at the party tonight.
“Just start the car,” he says, pulling out his sunglasses. God, he looks even hotter with sunglasses on.
“Fine,” I say as my finger hovers over the start button. “But I’m not going to change my min—”
The Ferrari rumbles to life when I push the button. It purrs like a wild tiger, sending heat rushing through me. My cheeks redden, and my body tingles as the seats vibrate under me, making the heat settle between my legs.
Yup. I’m definitely in love with this car.
“See?” he says, turning to me with a knowing smile. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re crazy if you think I’m keeping this car.” Please let me keep this car. How can I go back to riding my old, squeaky bike after sitting in this beast?
