by Linda Seed
“Brandon?” she called into the space.
“Go away, Lacy! I don’t want to talk to you!”
Brandon’s voice sounded muffled. Was he crying?
“Just … come on. Let me in, and we’ll talk, and—”
“What is there to say? You were hugging him!” She heard movement from inside the room, and then Brandon’s face appeared in the two-inch space between the door and the jamb. “Do you mean to tell me you’re not having a fling with him?”
Lacy paused, considering what to say. This was the moment. She could convince him that she was innocent, or let the entire relationship go to hell.
She had a choice.
“Well?” he demanded.
“I … You’re right. It’s been going on a few weeks. I’m sorry, Brandon. I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
If it was possible for him to compress his lips even more tightly, he did it, so that the lips themselves disappeared and all that was left was the skin around them, white with pressure.
“Give me back the ring,” he said.
“Oh.” Lacy pulled it off of her finger and poked it through the door, and he snatched it out of her hand.
“And your key card.”
“What?”
He didn’t answer; he just held out his hand for the card.
Not knowing what else to do, she held the key card through the door, and he grabbed that, as well.
“Where am I supposed to sleep?” she said.
“I don’t know! Ask your boyfriend!” The door slammed so fast that Lacy had to yank her fingers out of the way to avoid getting them smashed.
She stood in the empty hallway, looked at her bag, and looked back at the door.
“Brandon!” She knocked again.
The door opened two inches, the slide bar still in place.
“What?”
“I … I’m pretty sure I left my jacket in there.”
A couple of seconds later, her jacket emerged through the crack in the door, the fabric poking through inch by inch until she had the garment in her hand. Then, the door slammed again.
Lacy picked up her suitcase, pulled out the handle, and began wheeling it down the hallway and back toward the elevators.
She was free.
But she was also abandoned more than four hundred miles from home without a room and without transportation.
Ah, well. If your friends couldn’t help you when your ex-fiancé left you stranded in Las Vegas, then what the hell were they for?
Chapter Eleven
Lacy, her friends, and their significant others held an emergency meeting via phone and text, since some had arrived in town and some had not, to figure out an action plan. First, Daniel tried to get another comped room, but that didn’t work out; the hotel had unexpectedly filled up when a plumbing problem at the place next door had caused the guests there to seek refuge at Eden.
When that didn’t pan out, Jackson, Ryan, and Will agreed to do rock, paper, scissors via text—a procedure they’d worked out long ago in response to a disagreement over where to eat lunch—to decide who would give up his hotel room for Lacy.
The idea was that one of the guys would bunk with Daniel—the only one of the men who wasn’t there with a partner—so that Lacy could take his place in his original room. That would result in Lacy sharing a room with one of her friends, which the women all agreed was the optimal situation given her fragile emotional state. Nobody thought that a woman who’d just broken her engagement should be alone overnight with a minibar.
Jackson lost the game, due to an untimely selection of “scissors” during a sudden death round against Will. So Lacy moved in with Kate, who’d checked in an hour earlier, while Jackson, grumbling about the lack of opportunity for Vegas sex, took up temporary residence with Daniel.
The second part of the plan addressed how Lacy would get home. She could have caught a ride with anyone, since they all had space in the backseats of their cars. But all of the couples planned to stay the entire weekend. Daniel, who’d already been in Vegas for more than a week and was, frankly, getting sick of it, would be heading out the next day after the unveiling of his ceiling fixture. Since Lacy had neither the budget nor the heart to continue with the trip after all that had happened, they decided that she would catch a ride home with Daniel.
With all of that worked out, the next item on the agenda was to tend to Lacy’s emotional state. Once everyone had arrived and checked in, the women gathered in Kate’s room and sent the men off to do whatever men did in Vegas. There was a little grumbling from the guys, but it was mostly for show; they could see the need for Lacy to be with her friends at a time like this, and besides, who wouldn’t enjoy a guys’ night on the Strip?
“Okay, so he saw you hugging Daniel. There was nothing going on. Surely Brandon can understand that, right? You’ll talk to him. This can be fixed.” Kate was sitting on the bed next to Lacy, looking concerned and earnest.
“She’s right,” Rose said. She was also on the bed, sitting propped up against the headboard with her feet on a stack of pillows to relieve her swollen ankles. “I mean, the guy’s a stiff, but he’s not stupid. He’s not going to let you go over a simple misunderstanding.”
“He always struck me as a little bit stupid,” Gen put in. Kate and Rose glared at her, and she put her hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry.”
“I might have … It’s possible that I told him I was sleeping with Daniel.” Lacy avoided eye contact, focusing instead on the white linen comforter.
“What?” Kate and Gen said in unison. Rose simply stared at her, too stunned to speak.
Lacy shrugged miserably. “Well, he accused me of it. And it just seemed easier than arguing. And … and it was easier than telling him that I couldn’t marry him.”
The three women stared at Lacy in silence, until Gen finally recovered herself and said, “Go on.”
Lacy gestured wildly with her hands as she spoke. “We had a fight on the way here. In the car. He doesn’t even like me! He belittled my job, and my trailer, and the books I read. And … he said I spend too much time with you guys and my family. He wants me to change everything! He wants me to be this … this person I wouldn’t even recognize! By the time we got to the state line, I wanted to punch his stupid face in.”
Kate, who had been listening raptly, slumped in relief. “Oh, thank God.” Gen and Rose high-fived each other.
“What? Wait, you’re high-fiving? My life is falling apart, and you’re high-fiving?” Lacy’s voice rose in indignation.
“It seems to me your life isn’t falling apart at all,” Gen said, unable to conceal a grin. “It seems to me that it’s in pretty good shape for the first time since you started seeing him.”
If Lacy were being honest with herself, she had to admit that she didn’t feel as bad as she would have expected. In fact, what she felt was … light. As though a burden she’d been carrying had at last been lifted.
“You guys really couldn’t stand him, could you?” she asked sheepishly.
“We tried. For you,” Rose said.
Lacy could see that was true. They’d warned her, and they had made their concerns known. But they had been willing to go through with it all—the engagement party, the wedding, including him in their lives—to make Lacy happy. She’d never felt more love for her friends than she did at this moment. How could she ever distance herself from them for a man? How could anyone think for a moment that she would?
Tears filled Lacy’s eyes, not in grief over Brandon, but in gratitude for the women in her life.
“I love you guys,” she said. Kate and Gen enveloped her in a hug, while Rose, who had trouble moving these days, reached out and rubbed her upper arm.
When they finally pulled apart, misty-eyed and choked up, Kate said, “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for the whole weekend? I’ll be a lot of fun.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t afford it without a comped room, and I can’t put
Jackson out for more than one night. Plus, you guys all need your Vegas couple time. And anyway, I’m just not up for it. All I want to do is go home and hide under the covers for a while.”
“Then that’s what you should do,” Gen said in a soothing voice. “Let your mom spoil you a little.”
Lacy straightened in alarm. “Oh, God. My mom.”
She didn’t have to elaborate; they all knew what she was thinking. Nancy Jordan had been more excited about Lacy’s wedding than Lacy herself had ever been. To her, it meant safety and security for Lacy. It meant stability and happiness. It meant a beautiful wedding, and it meant the promise of grandchildren. Now, all of that was lost.
“How am I going to tell her?” Lacy said helplessly.
“Text message,” Rose said decisively. “Today. Right now. That way you don’t have to see her face or hear her teary voice when she hears the news, and by the time you get home, she’ll be mostly over it.”
“You know, she’s right,” Kate said.
On one hand, it seemed a little cowardly and insensitive to break that kind of news over a text message. But on the other hand, Lacy could see the benefits. And anyway, if this was some kind of tragedy—and Lacy had to think it really wasn’t—then it was Lacy’s tragedy, not her mother’s. She couldn’t make her life decisions based on what made her mother happy.
“Somebody give me my phone,” Lacy said.
After the text was sent, the girls decided that if Lacy was only going to have one night in Vegas, it was going to be a good one. So they ordered room service, then grabbed a cab to the nightclub at the Hard Rock Hotel for dancing.
They didn’t mention Brandon again.
While all of that was going on, the men gathered in the lobby at Eden to plan their next move.
“I just know Jackson’s going to suggest strippers,” Daniel said with a wry grin.
“God, no.” Jackson shook his head sadly. “Kate would kill me. Not metaphorically, either. With actual blood and mangled body parts. Then there’d be the question of where to hide the corpse.”
“Okay, then,” Will said. “Blackjack? Play some slots?”
They went to the casino and settled in for some video poker. Within a half hour, Daniel hit a straight flush for a five hundred dollar payout. Most people would have put the money right back into the machine, but Daniel wasn’t an idiot like most people. Instead, he cashed out and consulted with the others.
“It’s found money,” he told them. “I think we should spend it. What do you guys want to do?”
“We could see a show,” Ryan suggested.
They considered that, then rejected it, reasoning that the women would be disappointed if they were left out.
“I’ve got an idea,” Jackson said.
Daniel should have known that Jackson’s idea would involve food. His plan was to blow the whole five hundred—and then some—on a five-course meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant where Jackson knew the chef. Daniel had never spent that kind of money on a meal, even when you divided it four ways, but since he didn’t have a better idea, he agreed.
The restaurant in question was a French place inside the MGM Grand. The dining room was huge, with purple velvet curtains cascading from the ceiling to the floor; purple velvet upholstery on the tufted banquettes; and a crystal chandelier so big it reminded Daniel of the one from Phantom of the Opera.
With their destination in mind, they’d all gone back to their rooms before leaving Eden to put on jackets and ties, and now Daniel tugged uncomfortably at his as they were escorted to their table and took their seats.
“Frog leg fritters?” Will said, peering uncertainly at the menu. “I’m glad someone else is paying for this.” He adjusted his glasses and squinted at the small print.
“Sea urchin,” Daniel said, zeroing in on another menu item. “I’d be glad someone else was paying for this, too.”
“Listen,” Jackson said. “It’s your jackpot. If you don’t want to do this …”
“Nah, nah.” Daniel waved him off. “I’m game. I’m just kind of … out of my element.”
“Me too,” Ryan agreed. “I can’t even pronounce this one.” While Ryan could certainly afford a restaurant of this stature—the Delaneys were flush with Central Coast land wealth—his family tended more toward casseroles and chili cookouts.
“La soupe folichonne,” Jackson said, leaning over to look at where Ryan was pointing on his menu. “It’s herbs in an aromatic broth.” At Ryan’s blank look, he said, “It’s soup, basically.”
They all decided that the best course of action was to let Jackson order for them. When the waiter came, Jackson placed one order for himself, Daniel, and Will, and another for Ryan, who was the only vegetarian cattle rancher any of them knew.
Jackson ordered a bottle of wine for the table, and when their full glasses were in front of them, they started to deconstruct the events of the day.
“So, this thing with Lacy,” Ryan said, kicking off the conversation. “You mind telling us how, exactly, Brandon caught you two in a clinch over in the bar at Eden?” Ryan’s dark eyes were mischievous, and a half smile quirked his lips.
“Ah, jeez.” Daniel rubbed at his eyes with one hand. “That was just … She was upset. She was shaking. I was comforting her. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“She was upset because of the bar fight. The one where you punched someone in the face,” Will provided.
“Yeah, well …” Daniel said.
“Generally speaking, if I find out that one of my friends punched somebody in the face, I’m going to think it’s Jackson,” Ryan observed mildly.
“Well, Jackson wasn’t there, and the guy had his hands on Lacy,” Daniel told them, squirming a little under their scrutiny.
“Here’s to punching assholes in the face,” Jackson said. He raised his glass in a toast.
“I’ll drink to that,” Ryan said.
Daniel grinned sheepishly and raised his glass. “I’ll tell you, though, I kinda wish the asshole I punched was Brandon.”
“Maybe next time,” Will suggested.
They drank their wine and pondered that.
“Seems to me it all worked out,” Jackson said after a while. “I mean, Lacy’s not going to marry that guy, and that’s got to be a good thing.”
“Yeah, but …” Daniel shrugged. “She’s sad. And that kind of sucks, even if it is for the best.”
Ryan grinned and leaned back in his chair. “What are the chances that hug in the bar was more than just you trying to comfort her?”
“Well, jeez. I don’t know.” Daniel’s first instinct was to flatly deny it, but that would have been disingenuous. The truth was, he couldn’t begin to understand everything that had been in that embrace. He’d been trying to comfort her, yes. But his need to do so came from something more than kindness, something more than basic sympathy. Her distress over the guy in the bar had made Daniel ache with the need to protect her. And then, when she’d stepped into his arms …
“You ought to think about it,” Ryan said. “You two would be good together. I could really see it.”
“Yeah?” Daniel said.
Jackson made a grumbling noise and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“What?” Will asked him.
Jackson glared at Daniel. “She’s practically my sister-in-law. If you make a move, and you hurt her, I’m gonna have to kick your ass. And you’re my friend, so that’s gonna be awkward as hell.”
It seemed to Daniel that if he made a move and he hurt her, he would deserve a good ass-kicking. Jackson would be welcome to it.
Chapter Twelve
The unveiling of Daniel’s ceiling fixture was scheduled for two p.m. the next day, a Saturday. Daniel wore a suit; he had very little need for a suit in his daily life, so he felt uncomfortable as he fiddled with the shirt collar in the hotel lobby before the event.
“Stop fidgeting, for God’s sake. It makes you look like a kid dressed up for church,” J
ackson told him when they’d all arrived for the event.
“Do I look okay?” He combed through his hair with his fingers as he peered into a mirror mounted on the wall behind a huge flower arrangement.
“You look fine.”
He found his gaze drifting across the room to where Lacy was chatting with Kate. She was more dressed up than usual, in a pair of black pants and some kind of turquoise top that draped down at the neckline to show a tantalizing amount of cleavage.
He pushed thoughts of Lacy aside, because this wasn’t the time to go there. He wondered whether it would ever be wise to go there; his heart would be safer if that was a journey he never made.
The unveiling was a lot like any other art opening. White wine and hors d’oeuvres for the invited guests. A speech by the hotel manager praising Daniel and his art work, and then talking about the owner (a celebrity billionaire who wasn’t present) and his magical vision for the hotel. After the first thirty seconds, it sounded to Daniel like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon: wah, wah-wah, wah wah.
He smiled politely, nodded modestly at the right moments, and grabbed a glass of wine at the first opportunity to take the edge off.
He looked at all of his assembled friends: Jackson and Kate; Ryan and Gen; Will and Rose. And, of course, Lacy. He felt humbled that they’d done this. They’d come all this way. They’d made an effort. For him. Who the hell was he, for them to go out of their way like this?
Daniel was asked to say a few words, and of course, he’d prepared for that. He took the podium that had been positioned under the tarp that covered his work, and cleared his throat to speak. He looked at Lacy first. He tried not to, but his eyes seemed to be drawn to her by some irresistible force.
He took a deep breath and said the words he’d planned for the occasion. Words like honored, and privileged, and inspired. And then they released the tarp, which fluttered to the lobby floor like fall leaves.
There was a collective gasp, followed by applause.
Daniel was so nervous, so pumped full of adrenaline, that he could barely hear what the people around him were saying to him. But he felt the pats on the back, felt the hearty handshakes. He saw the smiles of satisfaction.
