Waking Up in Vegas

by Stephanie Kisner

  “I’m sorry,” he said, although he looked anything but. “This is normal behavior for the fairer sex. It just surprises me that–you’re what? Twenty-nine?–that you aren’t used to it by now. I forget that your longest relationship has been a three-day weekend.”

  I bristled–that wasn’t entirely accurate. There was a woman (whose name escapes me) that I’d met on the Friday before Memorial Day, and she didn’t get the goodbye flowers until the Tuesday after. However, and of much more importance, we’d been discussing Jensen and the idiot had to go and utter sex. The context surrounding the word wasn’t relevant–the images bloomed like Pop-Up Video.

  Fan-fucking-tastic.

  I throttled my thoughts and made a conscious effort to stay on topic. “I don’t live in a bubble, Doc–I know how women are. I’m intentionally never around when the confusion and conflicting behavior starts. It’s painful to watch. I just thought she was… different.”

  My favorite tenty-fingers popped up, right on schedule. “She is different, Tack. Different enough for you to care about her, and different because you care about her. But if you think she’s sending mixed signals, it’s nothing compared to what she’s doing to herself.”

  I blew out a loud breath. “She’s still leaving.”

  “You didn’t honestly think that smileys on a steamy mirror and telling her that you objected to her leaving would make her stay, did you?”

  Well, yeah. A guy can hope. “I’m not that stupid.”

  As far as you know.

  “Like we talked about last time,” he said, starting with the bouncy steepled fingers, “it’s the little things that make or break a relationship. Keep up with the small gestures that say she’s always on your mind.”

  “She is. So that should be easy enough.” Unlike how damn hard it was to not slap my hands over his and smash those clichéd fingers into the desk top. Maybe next session I should wear mirrored sunglasses so I can glare at him incognito.

  “And then give her some time, Tack. She’s working through it in her own mind, too.”

  I only had nine days. There wasn’t much time left to give.

  Six months ago, if you’d have told me I’d choose staying home over going out on a Friday night, I’d have clocked you upside the head. Then again, I also never conceived that I would have any sort of reason to stay home. After all, I went out for the poontang, not the dancing.

  Yet there I was, sitting on the floor, playing Shots Chess with Jen. The rules were simple enough–if one of your pieces got captured, you had to take a shot. Every time she tipped her head back to down one, I snuck one or two of her white game pieces back onto the board so she’d keep losing them. I think she’d had too much Jameson’s to realize that I only had one of her knights and a pawn off the board.

  Maybe she was frustrated, like me, or maybe she just wanted to get blind drunk.

  Also, like me.

  After all, she’d wanted to play Strip Chess, and I had to nix that in a big hurry. I needed to prove that what we shared was more than lust, and that wasn’t going to be possible if either–or both–of us had no clothes on.

  I was only wearing sweats and a tee. Losing just two pawns would have left me totally naked, and no fucking way was I going to sit on the scratchy carpet of my living room bare-assed and trying to hide the Jensen perma-rection. Don’t ask what possessed me to ditch the Calvin Klein boxer briefs with my jeans earlier. If I even had a reason. I couldn’t possibly tell you what it was now. There was too much Irish whiskey whizzing around my brain.

  She moved her bishop and slurred out, “Sheck. Now you hafta tack off your shirt, Take.” Jen was pointing at me with her empty shotglass.

  It took me a minute to process that she’d put my queen in check, and when it sank in, I scowled. “Takin’ off my shir’ss not in the rules.”

  “Iddis now.” I think she tried to wink at me, but don’t quote me on that. Her face wouldn’t hold still in my vision. Must’ve been the angle; I was on the floor and she was sitting miles above me on the couch. “An’ since I made ‘em up, I can shange ‘em.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  No, seriously.

  I wanted to argue my side, but when I tried to think of the words, all I got was a blank chalkboard.

  I went back to trying to make out which piece was my queen. “I doan like your chess board. The pieces woan hold still.”

  “Iss not them. You’re drunk, Tick.” Jen grabbed the bottle and poured herself another shot for no reason.

  I focused on the tallest black chess piece in the sea of shorter white ones. At least, I think they were shorter. They were definitely white, at any rate. While she was knocking back her shot, I snatched what I hoped was my queen off the board.

  “I saw that, you cheeder!” Jen dropped her shotglass and launched across the table, tackling me into the carpet.

  My fingers itched to tickle her, but we’d been down that road once already, and it left me with the bluest balls this side of Smurf Village. Besides, she was on top, and if she started squirming, we would end up playing Strip Chess.

  Instead, I plucked the white king out of her cleavage, brushed aside the pawn and bishop that had landed on my chest, and looked up at her laughing face.

  I could stare at that view for days. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were merry, and she wasn’t looking at me with that mix of sorrow and longing that I’d been catching in her unguarded moments these last few days.

  Were her parents pressuring her to move? Jensen was a caring and amazing person, and I just couldn’t see the people who’d instilled that in her doing a one-eighty in their old age, guilting her into giving up her independence. I wished, not for the first time, to speak with them and discover why she wanted to flee.

  Because I had a sneaking suspicion that this was an exodus and not a career move. Was Las Vegas that scary? Hell, was I?

  I’d already talked myself out of reaching out to her folks; I could have, since Jen had called me from her parents’ landline last weekend and, until yesterday, I had the number buried on my incoming calls list. I lost track of how many times my thumb hovered over the icon to return the call. I was so tempted to ask them for insight. But demanding answers from anyone other than Jensen still would not solve the fundamental issue–I wasn’t a good enough reason for her to stay.

  So I’d wiped out my entire calls received list.

  This was one struggle I needed to win or lose on my own.

  Jen was still straddling my waist, and though her eyes remained laughing, her giggles had died down to a few drunken hiccups. I slid my hands up her arms, coaxing her down to my chest. As I enclosed her in my arms and she nestled her head under my chin with a sigh, I was struck again by how perfectly she fit, like that space was built just for her to snuggle into. And, drunk as I was, I still knew no one had ever matched me like she did.

  Saturday stretched out before our hung-over asses, filled with nothing to do and not much motivation to do it. I had a little prep work to finish before the JT Blackwood interview on Monday, the morning sun was already melting the sidewalks, and Jen, for the first time ever, looked like total hell.

  “Bacon and Pepsi,” she grumbled as she shuffled into the kitchen in her bathrobe.

  “Huh?” I looked up from contemplating my lukewarm mug of java and dragged a hand through my damp hair with a wince. God, even my scalp hurt. I had managed to snag the shower first, and steamed myself with every last ounce of hot water, but it hadn’t seemed to help.

  She was draped over the open refrigerator door by that point. “We need greasy. I know it sounds funny, but grease and sugar always gets me fixed right back up.” Her hair was sticking up every-which-way as she blearily scanned the contents of the meat drawer. “Are we out of bacon?”

  Hearing her say we soothed my head in ways the shower hadn’t. “I gave it all to the dogs the other morning. Sorry.”

  Jen snorted and said, “I see you left out the part where they ate the bac
on off my bed while I was still sleeping in it.” She tossed out an exaggerated sigh and went on, “We have to go out, then.”

  She was talking in serious shorthand today, and my brain still hadn’t recovered enough to translate.

  But whatever. I was showered, and if the lady needed bacon, I would drive to Von’s in the Las Vegas supernova sunshine and risk lifelong blindness to get her some. Maybe if I wore sunglasses over my sunglasses…

  Watching her spin away from the fridge made me dizzy. “Gimme fifteen minutes to shower and get dressed. Caesar’s okay with you?”

  I struggled with the mud between my ears to recall if any supermarket was named after a casino. I guess bewilderment broadcast over my features, because Jen said, “The breakfast buffet, you dork,” as she moved past me and out of the kitchen.

  The shower had done more for Jen than it had for me. She flounced through the casino door as I held it open, and kept right on going. I caught up in a few long strides, muttering under my breath, “Pigs won’t be extinct by the time we get there, Jen.”

  On the other hand, by the time we walked through the entire effing casino to reach the back-corner buffet, there was every possibility that I’d be heaving all over the pretty patterned carpet.

  I’d been okay with the driving, since the sun had been in the rearview–and it hadn’t been flashing, like every damn machine was doing on the miles-long casino floor. Add in Jen’s quick pace and the god-awful racket of a gazillion video slots and the stability of my stomach was in dire jeopardy.

  I still didn’t know what to do about the Grand Gesture idea, but I was absolutely certain that horking my breakfast into her lap was not on the list of things to consider. This greasy-food cure of hers had better work.

  My belly chimed in with a hopeful rumble as the smell got stronger and the restaurant came into view.

  So, of course, that was the moment we were cornered by some fans.

  “Hey, it’s Tack and Jen! Wow, you two do hang out together.” The guy was exiting the buffet with a girl and another couple, and held out his hand in greeting.

  I took it and chuckled, telling him I was surprised he recognized us since we looked like we’d just rolled out of bed. He popped a curious eyebrow at that, and I felt compelled to clarify. “Not that way. We’re both suffering from a bout of the cocktail flu.”

  He laughed at that and the sound made me feel like Jensen was already out of my life.

  Did people think it was unfathomable that we actually might be a couple? Or did they just assume that I never could be half of pair?

  Jen thanked him for listening, and we talked for a few minutes about the upcoming Slanker Knox interview, his favorite bands, and music in general. As the chat wound down, one of the women told Jen she was a ‘breath of fresh air from the usual morning testosterone-fest’, and while Jensen blushed, I said I couldn’t agree more.

  As they walked away, I heard one of the women stage-whisper, “Well, that was unusual. Last time I bumped into Tack Morgan, he was a self-absorbed asshole.”

  The other one replied (not even bothering with the hushed voice), “I give all the credit to Jensen.”

  Yeah. So did I.

  After scarfing down two platefuls of almost every offering on the steamtables, I had to admit the grease-and-sugar cure had its merits. The hangover was finally lifting and my gut was pleasantly full of porkfat and maple syrup. My arteries, on the other hand, were probably hardening into concrete.

  As we sat at our table, nursing mugfuls of the warm dreck that Caesar’s tried to pass off as coffee, Jen was looking at me in a way I couldn’t decipher.

  “What?”

  “What, what?”

  “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “Was I staring?” She sipped at her mug and made a face at the liquid inside. “I hadn’t realized.”

  I countered with a smirk. “Bullshit. ‘Fess up, Jen.” Because I was totally off-kilter, and I didn’t know if the blame belonged to last night’s Irish whiskey or the sharp look in Jensen’s eyes.

  “The truth?” she said, rolling her coffee cup between her palms and watching the contents slosh around. “I was a little surprised by you with the fans earlier.” She glanced back up at me and lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

  “I’m always nice to listeners.” I considered taking another sip from my own chipped mug, just for something to do with my hands, but decided I liked my stomach too much to inflict that on it.

  “Well, duh. You’re always nice. But that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you be genuine. Tack Morgan, human being, interacting with the rest of us mere mortals. It was refreshing.”

  “It was the hangover. I’m too wiped to live up to their celebrity expectations today.” The lie popped out on instinct. I wasn’t ready to admit to her that the effects were all her doing. Hell, I’d just barely acknowledged it to myself.

  “Mmm-hmm.” She was still looking at me like a bug under a microscope.

  This time, I did choke down a mouthful of brown awfulness, just for the excuse to break away from her eyes.

  I guess I grimaced, because Jen said, “I can’t believe you actually swallowed that.”

  “Me, neither.” I smiled and, wonder of wonders, my face didn’t fall off. If I’d have tried doing that pre-breakfast, I’m pretty sure it would have shattered and fallen into my lap.

  She tossed a five onto the table for the guy who’d cleared the dishes. “Let’s go home.”

  Jen referring to my house as home was an even better tonic than the food had been. I reached for her hand to help her out of the booth, grinning like an idiot.

  “Tack, is that you?” a regrettably familiar voice rang out from behind me.

  Dear God, no.

  My smile evaporated.

  I turned to face the one person capable of making me feel worse than my recently vacated hangover.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Her greeting to me out of the way, I was now invisible and she turned to Jen, plucking up the hand of hers I wasn’t holding. “It’s so good to see you, Miss MacKenzie.”

  “Please, call me Jensen, Mrs. Morgan.”

  “Then I insist that you call me Ramona.” She turned to me; I guess I’d reappeared in her radar. “What brings you out so early?”

  “It’s almost noon, Mom. We were out of bacon, and liked the idea of someone else cooking it.”

  Her brows shot up at the we, but thankfully, she didn’t pounce on it. She returned her gaze to Jen, with the strangest smile on her face. “I had the same thought, actually. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come into the building ’til four.”

  I resisted the urge to snort. My mother lived and breathed her job; she loved it here. I’m not sure she even bothered to have food in her house anymore, since she could eat for free any time she wanted.

  “It’s good to see you, Mom, but we were just heading out. I have some research to do for an interview on Monday.” She was looking at me oddly and giving off the weirdest vibe. We needed to escape before she said something truly embarrassing. Because if I hung out too long, she definitely would.

  “He’s always all about his job,” she said, leaning conspiratorially toward Jen. “Make sure he takes a little time to enjoy himself, eh?”

  Jensen laughed out, “I’ll try.”

  Okay, now my skin was absolutely crawling; they hardly knew each other and they were ganging up on me. Besides, the way I’d prefer enjoying myself was not something for my mother’s ears.

  I tugged Jen’s hand. “We should go.” I bit off the endearment that tried to slip out. My mom certainly didn’t need any more ammo.

  Chapter 17

  *Man In The Box*

  The ease of the morning was gone, thanks in no small part to my female parental unit.

  I couldn’t completely blame my mother for the difficulty, though. When we got home, instead of cozying into my shoulder on the couch, recuperating with whatever comedy was on HBO, Jen headed straight for the garage, hell
-bent on sifting through her possessions to separate her stuff into Take Now and Take Later piles.

  Meanwhile, I wanted to make just one gigantic stack of Not Fucking Leaving.

  I whittled away half an hour, daydreaming that I padlocked every entrance to the garage and flushed all the keys down a toilet to Timbuktu. It would have been a piece of cake to pull off once she was asleep.

  I eventually talked myself out of it.

  It wasn’t easy, either.

  So Saturday bled into Sunday, and things were still off between us. And much as I wanted to fault Jensen, out there sorting through her stuff for the second day in a row, I knew where the blame actually belonged.

  Squarely on my head.

  I don’t handle rejection well. In my defense, I’ve never been through it before.

  To paraphrase my latest Las Vegas Magazine Sexiest Man write-up, I’m quite the catch. And I can agree with that sentiment, even though I’d spent all of my adult years avoiding being caught.

  You’d think, now that I was all but on my knees begging her to reel me in, that she’d be happy to do it. But no.

  I had to want the one woman who could take me or leave me.

  The stupid thing was, she already had me.

  The sad thing was, she didn’t want to keep me.

  The pathetic thing was…

  Well, me.

  I heard her out there in the garage, talking to herself. Sometimes she laughed, a few times her velvety rasp got a little louder… but I couldn’t make out a damn thing she was saying.

  Not even when I put my ear against the door that separated the garage from the kitchen.

  In sheer frustration, I retreated to the bedroom that served as my home office. I had research to do before JT Blackwood showed up for his interview tomorrow.

  That’s the excuse that I gave Jensen, anyway, when she breezed in for a drink and came looking for me. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that hearing her out there was driving me up the wall.

  Nor that it was getting harder to resist punching a hole through the damn plaster.