Waking Up in Vegas

by Stephanie Kisner

  For the first time in my whole damn life.

  “Tack,” she began slowly, “Where this goes is… nowhere. I’m leaving. Relocating. Moving away.”

  “Not if I can help it,” I muttered under my breath.

  I should have known her supersonic ears would pick that up.

  “Really? How do you plan to stop me?” She shrugged and shook her head. “And why? It’s only because you can’t have me that you think you want me. And I refuse to be that insignificant. I had a life before you, and I’ll have a life after you. This,” she waved her hand between us, “was fun, but lust is not a relationship.”

  Karma really is a bitch in a spiky leather collar and stiletto heels.

  Chapter 15

  *Free Fallin’*

  Yesterday morning, I said hello again to celibacy and lukewarm showers. Can’t say I missed either one of them, although the chilly water has come in handy because I refuse to rub one out for relief. The premise is that all the sexual frustration will keep me focused on changing her mind–and if it doesn’t work out that way, I’ll be too focused on my failure by then to notice the backup in my balls.

  That’s the theory, anyway.

  Our last two shifts have been a consummate disaster. We were friendlier on our first, awkward morning together. Case in point: yesterday, after a commercial break (which included a spot for Cialis, of all damn things), I flipped my mic on before I cleared my throat, because I was so effing distracted.

  Jen scowled at me just because, then reached up to hit her own microphone switch to start reading the traffic report. No laughing over my mistake, no chit-chat, and no opportunity for me to say a damn word when she was done. She finished with a Now back to the music and I had no choice but to hit play.

  I was still in charge of the song list, though.

  I played Motley Crue’s ‘Without You’ and hit her with an intense look of my own. My look, however, was an attempt to mentally will her to listen to the lyrics.

  Who am I kidding? If I could control her mind, we wouldn’t even be in this standoff.

  She must have picked up at least some of my unspoken plea, because she pushed off her headphones and glared back at me. Not an unusual response, based on our entire morning, actually. She’d been glowering at me since I woke her up. I still don’t know why she was so mad about that. The dogs were really happy to see her once they were done squabbling over the trail of bacon I’d lain out all over her bed.

  ‘Cause there sure as hell wasn’t any way in the bright blue fuck that I’d be kissing her awake anymore.

  The morning droned on like a Presidential debate until I couldn’t take another minute. I set up a handful of songs and signed us off for the day just so I could get the hell out of the booth.

  Jensen popped off her stool, stuffed her headphones into their cubbyhole, and left with her coffee mug still sitting on her side of the counter.

  Too bad for her that I was her ride home.

  ***

  Dear Journal,

  I’m supposed to have something written in here because Dr. Cooper’s going to check. So hey, Doc, if you’re reading this, you can just stop here, notice that there are words below, and let me have some privacy.

  Jensen is planning to move to Phoenix.

  I’m planning to prevent that.

  How? I haven’t the foggiest.

  Flowers are trite and stupid (even if I went the overkill route and sent a vase every day), and if I were a woman, something that wilts and dies wouldn’t give me much confidence about placing my faith in a guy. Besides, I always send flowers as a goodbye after a weekend, short-circuiting any possible discussion of ‘maybe more.’ So if I sent some to Jen, it could backfire and jinx everything. Besides, it’s not like she could keep them anywhere private—she’s living in my damn house. So if she wanted to get all sentimental and squishy over them—or worse, throw them out—I’d know. And she’d know that I know. So just… no.

  When I tried the whole talking thing, she dismissed our “relationship” as basic lust. Yeah, I admit that I wanted to do her a hundred million different ways, but she’s more than a beautiful body to me. I swear, if she were just a pair of arms to hold me and a brilliant head to talk to and laugh with, that would be enough.

  I’m turning into such a pansy—somebody please fucking shoot me. Now.

  She was wrong when she said that I only want her because I can’t have her. I wanted her from the moment she laughed at me, less than five minutes after I met her. Maybe I should tell her that.

  No, that’ll just reinforce her whole ‘lust’ argument.

  But it wasn’t the provocative sound of her laughter that got me. It’s that nobody has ever been less intimidated by me than she is. I need that in my life. I need her in my life.

  Quit reading, Doc. Close the notebook already.

  Now, back to how to change her mind.

  Maybe I could rally our morning-show audience to campaign on my behalf.

  No, then that would be the listeners asking, and not me.

  I could maybe get the boss on my side, see if he’d tell her the timeslot fell through.

  Nope. He’s not happy with me right now as it is. He wouldn’t lie for me.

  I could offer to transfer to Phoenix, too?

  No. She’d never believe I’d follow through, and I don’t know that Cirrus would let me leave the city, anyhow. It would affect ad rates too much, and Vegas is a huge market-share for the company. So even if I made the proposal suggestion, it would more than likely not happen. Forget quitting my job outright—having no income is not the greatest way to prove myself to her.

  Crap. If this were a movie, all I’d have to do is stand outside in the driveway and hold a boombox over my head, blasting a Peter Gabriel song. Or put the kibosh on the corporation trying to buy her indie bookstore. Or abort the sale of the car factory, thereby saving the entire town from being wiped out. Or pull her out of her lowly existence as a prostitute. (Okay, fine, you caught me. I do gravitate toward chick-flicks when there’s nothing else on.)

  So what sort of grand, cinematic gesture will get her to realize that I’m falling for her, and more importantly, make her believe it?

  *

  “What did you end up doing? Anything yet?” Dr. Cooper finished reading and slowly closed the notebook, staring at me in that weird, unblinking way I was becoming familiar with. It meant he was actually interested in what I had to say, instead of just marking time in here–like I’d been doing prior to last Friday–until my six-week sentence was over with.

  “Shit. You actually read it all? Ass-hat.” Although I wasn’t surprised. Nor offended, really. I was in uncharted waters here and some advice would actually be welcome. I just wasn’t sure the words of wisdom should be coming from him. “I’m not a big-gesture kind of guy, and I know Jensen well enough to know that she probably wouldn’t believe it, anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  That laser-stare was back in his eyes, so I shifted mine to the shelves of hardcovers behind him. “Because it’s not my style.”

  “What is your style, then, Tack?”

  I blew out a breath and started cataloging the book titles I could make out. They were all medical texts. Boring. “I don’t have one. All this relationship stuff is new to me.”

  Dr. Cooper sat back and assumed his clichéd steeplefingers. I’m beginning to think he learned psychiatry from watching movies. Or maybe there’s a whole semester on hand gestures in Shrink School. “So what feels right to you to do right now?”

  “I don’t know–I already told you that. Anything big and planned-out would come off as weird. Until these last two days, whenever we were together, we were just easy with each other, y’know? Like Monday morning in the shower—before she dropped her bomb—I drew cartoon characters on her back in the soap bubbles.”

  “And?” He leaned forward, aiming his fingers straight at me.

  “And what? She tried to guess what I was drawing. If she was wrong
, I didn’t tell her what they were. Even after we got out, she kept shouting guesses while she put her makeup on.”

  “Tell me why she was shouting.”

  “Because I was in the kitchen, adding coffee to her mug of sugar so I could bring it to her in the bathroom. The shower went a little long and we were running late.”

  “We were running late?” He sat up and the fingers followed, rotating ninety degrees like they were on a string attached to his chin. Strange guy.

  “We started carpooling to work. And I didn’t give her some excuse about saving gas–I came right out and told her that I wanted to spend every possible minute in her company. Four hours after I said that, she’s taking a job offer a couple hundred miles away.”

  “You know, Tack,” he said, accentuating every syllable with a point of his tented fingers, “my sense is that you don’t have to do anything grandiose and clichéd.” Look who’s giving me advice against being a cliché. I rolled my eyes but he was too deep into his sermon to notice. “Showing someone you care is as much in the little things as in the big ones. Sometimes even more so.”

  He droned on–I’d never realized before how much he sounded like Ben Stein–and it took everything I had to not get up and wander around his office. “Love is in the details, the actions you take to show that you’re thinking of her happiness and comfort…” I know he carried on for a while longer, but once he said the L-word, my ears closed up in self-preservation.

  After another ten minutes of blah-blah that had me nodding and not listening, I agreed to not do anything huge and foolish.

  Yet.

  I still had no insight into Jensen, but I at least had an outline for myself.

  I’d just be myself. Screw my recent lovesick puppy routine–it was the original me that hooked her, and it was high time I went back to what worked.

  I’d already resigned my position as Vegas’ Most Highly-Sexed Man, but the new, downtrodden pansy-ass version wasn’t working out too well, either. If even I didn’t like him, I couldn’t expect her to.

  Armed with a loose collection of ideas and no real plan, I shot Jen a text to let her know I was stopping at Von’s for a few things on the way home.

  “Were they out of your usual?” Jen asked, pulling the bag of Gevalia Mocha out of the grocery sack. “Not that I’m objecting. This is my favorite.”

  That was precisely why I got it.

  “Just trying to make our mornings go a little smoother.”

  She sniffed the little vent-hole on the bright yellow package with a sigh, then plopped it down next to the coffee pot as she turned to face me. “A happier Jensen is easier to deal with?”

  I stopped unloading the Von’s bag and stared at her until she noticed the silence and met my eyes. “You, my dear, are never easy to deal with. Especially when you’re hopped up on sugar and caffeine.”

  I caged her against the counter and leaned in close. “You tend to throw my crap right back in my face.” Bringing my lips a breath away from hers, I felt her sway into my body. I was feeling a little off-kilter, myself. “That’s one of the things I like most about you.”

  I pushed off from the counter and took a step back.

  She mumbled, “Tease,” and that one simple word pushed me right over the edge. I was back against her so fast it made my own head spin. Her eyes went wide and my voice rasped, “I’m right here, sweetheart. All you’ve gotta do is reach up and grab me. But I’m warning you,” I dropped my head to her hair and muttered into her ear, “this time, I’m playing for keeps.”

  She whimpered but instead of meeting me halfway, she tucked her chin into her chest and whispered, “I can’t make that promise, Tack.”

  My hands itched to peel off her clothes and use my body to convince her to stay. Instead, I stepped back and stalked down the hall to my office.

  As excruciating as it would be, I made the decision to remain strictly hands off. Until she came to me and said she was staying, there would be no more shared showers, no more sneaky kisses in an alcove at work, no touching at all. I still had eleven days to chip her determination into dust.

  I hoped I could hold out that long.

  ***

  Well, screw me sideways. How do I make her understand that Tack-and-Jen today is not the same as Tack-and-Jen from last week? I must not have made myself clear in the kitchen when I withheld that kiss. Because as soon as we retired to the living room, she flopped down onto the couch and used me as a footrest. I laid my forearm across her ankles, but only because there wasn’t any place else for it to go. I heard a contented little sound from her end of the couch, but I refused to read too much into that. She could have just been comfortable. And then, as usual, when she fell asleep on the couch, I carried her to bed.

  Her bed.

  I got lucky; she’d left the covers in a tangle when she got up today, so getting her settled under the blankets was a breeze. She might not be happy come morning to find she was still in her jeans, but there was no way I could trust myself to strip them off of her.

  And, again, I hung out in the doorway for a while, staring at my version of Sleeping Beauty, before going to my own sleepless bed.

  When four-forty-five rolled around, I tried waking her with noise at first, and then by turning on the lights. It wasn’t until I brushed my lips over her forehead that she stirred, and I only did that because I’d run out of ideas. Gentle shaking hadn’t done a thing, and neither had getting Lita to jump up on the bed. Repeating yesterday morning’s dog-treat-orama was out of the question.

  It’s not that I was trying to be considerate, mind you–we were simply out of bacon.

  She sighed and tried to pull me in for a proper liplock, but I backed away, reminding myself that I wasn’t going to settle for being temporary.

  She left the bathroom door open while she showered. I guess it was supposed to be some kind of invitation, but the only RSVP she got was the smiley face I drew in the steam on the mirror before closing the door.

  She was a little quieter than normal while she did her makeup and hair, and the usual massive amount of sugar in her coffee was nearly doubled as she stared at me instead of her spoon, moving from sugar bowl to mug so many times that I lost count.

  She didn’t say a thing, although she looked like she was working herself up to do so.

  She knew what I wanted; it was time for her to figure out what she did.

  On the drive in to work, her hand did a slow slide across the console until her fingertips brushed against my ribs. I bit back a groan and decided to let it continue. For now. She played her fingers up and down my side like she owned me; when I didn’t pull away, her touch grew firmer.

  I was not about to start our show with yet another boner.

  When her hand skirted the waistband of my jeans, I grabbed it and rested it on the console between us.

  She laced her fingers through mine and I let them stay that way.

  We were by no means back to normal, but I wasn’t a complete idiot. I craved her skin any way I could get it.

  But the overtures have to be hers from here on out.

  And the clothing absolutely must stay on.

  Chapter 16

  *How You Remind Me*

  The weekend loomed like a stormfront, and was about as welcome. How was I going to handle two days of uninterrupted Jensen without getting her naked and breathless underneath me?

  Don’t lecture me about how much time Jen and I already spend together, alright? Saturday and Sunday don’t come with four hours of forced civility in which there is no temptation to rip her clothes off.

  Although… truth be told, there’s actually a ton of temptation to get her naked and do the horizontal shimmy in the broadcast booth. But I don’t do it because I’m kind of keen on drawing a paycheck and not being homeless.

  And don’t suggest I hang with my friends. They’re all attached, in one way or another, so my being the lone single guy would bring nothing but busting my chops. There’s no way in hell I cou
ld bring Jen with me, either; once she was off living her life in Phoenix, their ribbing (or God help me, sympathy) would be even worse.

  It was only Thursday afternoon, but already I was wishing for a mini-coma with a wake-up timer set for Monday morning.

  “You’d better call me back, you jerk. Don’t think I won’t drive back from Arizona to sue your hiney in court.” Jen hit a couple of buttons on her phone and looked like she wanted to hurl it at the wall.

  I’d missed the beginning of her call while I was out lighting the grill for steaks, but it didn’t take a genius to know who she was trying to reach. “Landlord still not answering? And seriously, hiney, Jen?”

  She scrunched up her face. “It won’t help my cause to tell him what I really think of his lying ass.” Her expression uncrumpled into a slow, evil smile that would have done the Grinch proud. “I’m saving that for when I have the shredded sales contract and my deposit back in my hands.”

  “It’ll happen. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

  She snorted. “Leg? I’ll put the bastard in a wheelchair if he tries to screw me.”

  And now screwing and Jensen were in the same thought bubble.

  Christ.

  After dinner, when she snuggled into my side on the couch to watch a movie, I used every ounce of self-restraint to keep from pinning her to the cushions and making her forget her own name.

  ***

  “I honestly can’t figure her the fuck out, Doc.” As loathe as I was to waste an hour with this guy, my job sort of depended on it. And, I was coming to realize, so did my sanity lately. He was the one person I could talk to about Jen; then again, he was the only one who knew. “One minute she’s saying all we have between us is lust and she deserves more than that, and the next minute she’s flirting on-air or falling asleep on the sofa, cuddled up on my shoulder.”

  Dr. Cooper chuckled, kind of high-pitched and creepy. My eyes widened and I couldn’t help the double-take, concerned that he’d morphed into a geisha over there on the other side of the desk. I sent up a quick prayer that the guy never laughs in my vicinity again and wiped the horrified look off my face.