by Lexi Ryan
I might be offended if there was any scorn in Becky’s voice, but her evaluation of my sex life isn’t too far from the truth, so I let it slide. “I didn’t come to Vegas to screw a stranger. I came to spend time with you.”
“Can’t blame me for trying.” She turns up her palms helplessly. “Okay, one-night stands aside, when was the last time you let loose? For that matter, when was the last time you were in public without worrying someone was watching?” We both know that’s a rhetorical question, and she doesn’t wait for my response. “You can’t come to Vegas and not do Vegas. We’re here to have fun, and do you really think you can tuck a buck into a stripper’s G-string as Emma Rothschild, America’s sweetheart?”
I make a face. “Strippers? Really? That doesn’t seem a little skeevy and desperate to you?”
She shakes the wig. “It’s called fun. Have some.”
I sigh. Becky’s my best friend. We aren’t lifelong best friends like I hear people talking about—because spending your childhood in the spotlight and your adolescence in your mother’s shadow makes it hard as hell to develop meaningful relationships. We met in college, and she has been there for me through some of the craziest decisions of my life, including the rollercoaster of the last year. “Fine, but if I wear this wig, you have to get out of bed and work out with me in the morning.”
She slaps her butt. “And risk losing this?”
“You’re the one who picked out the dress I have to squeeze into next week,” I remind her. “If you’re going to have me sucking down liquid calories all weekend, I need a minimum of sixty minutes of cardio every morning.”
She wiggles her brows. “What kind of liquid are you planning to suck down?”
Rolling my eyes, I throw the wig at her chest. “Dear God, you’re the worst.”
“You love me.”
“Therein lies the problem.”
Chapter Two
Keegan
Bailey Green tosses her long blond hair over her shoulder as she hoists her glass in the air. “To Vegas,” she says.
“To Vegas!” everyone seconds, clinking their glasses together.
“May our nights be epic and our memories be blurry.” She gives me a pointed look before throwing back her shot while the rest of the group downs theirs.
Bachelor parties, for all their various manifestations, essentially fall into three categories. There’s the “skeevy strip club” kind where you spend the whole damn thing watching girls flash their bits and pieces for tips while spending way too much money on watered-down alcohol. At a couple of these, the groom was so obsessed with lap dances that I seriously worried about the future of his union. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve spent as much time enjoying strip clubs as the next guy, but Bailey is a former stripper and likes to regale me with tales of the things the dancers would do to the guys behind the scenes; let’s just say the magic has died a little.
Other bachelor parties fall into the “poker night with the guys” category. These typically happen when the groom is afraid of his bride and wants to make sure she knows he was a good boy and didn’t need the titillation of a dancer’s tits in his face to have a good time. There are a lot of variations on this one, from paintball to golfing to a literal poker night in somebody’s basement. Regardless of the location, the focus is on the cigars and bourbon and the groom gushing about how “lucky” he is until he gets drunk enough to bitch about how she won’t let him shop for his own shoes, let alone live his own life.
And then there’s the “anything-goes wild weekend,” which really should go without explanation, because what happens in the anything-goes weekend stays in the anything-goes weekend.
This weekend’s festivities were supposed to fall into the third category. I mean, Vegas. Need I say more? Or they were supposed to, until the bride and her entourage decided to join us. Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. These are my people, and what matters is what the groom thinks, and right now Arrow’s smiling bigger than a teenage boy after receiving his first hummer. His would-be bachelor party has turned into more of a college friends’ reunion than anything else, but since we haven’t all been together in a year, nobody’s complaining. Sebastian and Alex stayed home, opting for a quiet weekend with their new baby, but everyone else is here.
A week ago, the last three of our group graduated from Blackhawk Hills University, ringing in the end of an era. Before this, we haven’t been together since the other half of us graduated last May.
“Would you look at that,” Mason Dahl says. We’re at the bar at the nightclub in our hotel, crowded into a big circular booth. Mason’s opposite me and has been using his straight-shot view of the dance floor to scope out women and make Bailey jealous as hell. “Damn, she’s beautiful.”
The thing about Vegas is there are a lot of beautiful women. And the pretty women you might not notice anywhere else come to Vegas and vamp it up so much in short dresses and high heels that you can’t help but pay attention.
“Go after her,” Chris says, following Mason’s gaze. “She keeps turning this way.”
I shake my head but keep my mouth shut. There are four NFL players hanging out together in this booth. This isn’t the first time tonight it’s drawn female attention our way, and it won’t be the last. The oddity is that Mason even cares.
“I don’t think she’s looking at me,” Mason says. He raps his knuckles on the table in front of me. “She’s got her eyes on you, Keller. Black hair, long legs, curves from here to Seattle.”
“What can I say?” I ask, not bothering to turn. “My milkshake brings the girls to the yard.”
Chris snorts. “He’s cursed. The second he decided he didn’t want casual hookups, they all came running.”
“It’s a burden to be this irresistible,” I mutter before taking a long pull from my beer. A couple of years ago, I’d have been down for that, but now I’m a single dad who’s spent the last year trying and failing to make things work with his baby’s mother. I’m a business owner and an undrafted free agent who’s thanking his lucky stars he got picked up by an NFL team. These days, I’m more interested in a full night’s sleep than I am a hot piece of ass.
Mason grins. “You going after her or not?”
“And lose out on the first night with all my boys in eleven months? No way. You go over there if you’re so interested.”
Mason takes a long sip from his bourbon, and I don’t miss the way his gaze skims over Bailey before he says, “Don’t mind if I do.”
I’ve had just enough to drink that I’m about to tell them both to get over themselves and just get together already. Not a single person at this table believes Mason is going over there for any reason other than to make Bailey jealous. But before I can speak, someone laughs behind me, and I spin in my seat toward the sound. It was a big laugh—full and bright and just like…
I stop breathing when I land on a pair of familiar icy-blue eyes. “Damn.”
I’m faintly aware of Mason sliding out of the booth, but I can’t take my eyes off the girl standing beside the dance floor. The dark hair I don’t recognize, but the face I’ll never forget.
My eyes are playing tricks on me. That’s the only explanation. Being in Vegas for my buddy’s bachelor party is fucking with my brain. Watching Arrow and Mia together is making me think about that intense love that turns you inside out and makes you forget everything else around you.
It can’t really be her.
The woman in question bites the corner of her lip before sliding a pair of sunglasses onto her nose and covering her eyes. It’s her. She’s wearing a black wig, but I’d recognize that laugh anywhere. The eyes and the telltale nervous habit just confirmed what I already knew.
I instinctively look for her date, but she’s talking to a brunette, and the only men around her don’t seem to be with her.
Tearing my eyes away, I climb out of the booth to grab Mason before he can get any closer. “Don’t.”
He must see it on my face. “So sh
e was looking at you.”
“Probably.”
Mason slides his gaze down to where my hand is still wrapped around his arm, and I release it. If he’s wondering what was between us, he doesn’t ask. “Understood.” He takes his seat again, but this time he takes my old spot, giving me the side of the booth with the better view of Emma.
I take it without comment. Maybe I shouldn’t, because it’s masochistic as fuck to look at her, let alone watch her dance when I know she saw me, but I can’t take my eyes off her. I haven’t seen her in five years, and like a parched man after his first sip of water, I don’t want to do anything but take her in.
“Who is she?” Bailey asks behind me.
She’s Emma Rothschild, America’s sweetheart, the daughter of Oscar winner Miranda Rothschild. She’s the first woman I ever loved, and when I gave her my heart, she pulverized it. But I only reply, “Somebody I used to know.”
* * *
Emma
For the first time in five years, Keegan Keller is in the same room as me, but now, instead of being alone, we’re in a dance club with hundreds of other people. Now instead of being a couple of lovesick kids, we’re full-blown adults who’ve gotten on with their lives. He has a baby, a bar, and an NFL career, for Christ’s sake. He’s carried on just fine without me.
Not that I stalk him on social media or anything. That would be creepy. God, I’m pathetic.
When he turned around, I could have sworn he made eye contact with me, but the club’s flashing lights make it so hard to tell for sure. Once he started talking with his friends, it was as if I didn’t exist, so I made myself dance with Becky so I’d stop staring.
“I told you that wig looked hot on you,” Becky says as she sways to the music.
I didn’t want to wear this stupid thing, but I get the point. I can’t go anywhere as Emma Rothschild and just have a good time. I haven’t taken an acting role since I was sixteen years old, but according to last month’s People magazine spread, I’m “Still America’s Sweetheart.” Not that America ever asked me if I was interested in that label. “The wig looks ridiculous.”
“Tell that to the hottie giving you fuck-me eyes at nine o’clock,” Becky says before her tongue returns to its lewd molestation of the penis straw in her drink.
I arch a brow and start to turn, but she stops me.
“Don’t look now.”
Sighing, I take a pull from my drink. We have been in Vegas less than two hours, and Becky is nearing “dance on the bar drunk,” while I’ve not even touched buzzed yet. “At least tell me what he looks like.” Yes, tell me anything to distract me from the fact that Keegan is over there with a bunch of his football friends and may or may not know that I’m here. Tell me anything to distract me from the possibility that the only man I ever loved saw me again after five years and is choosing to pretend he didn’t.
“Tall, clean-cut, dark hair, shoulders that would make you think about being swept into his arms and carried through a doorway but would make me think about being pounded against the nearest wall. In other words, completely your type.”
I groan, barely resisting the urge to turn and look for myself. He does sound like my type. I’d like to say I don’t have a “type,” that I’m not that predictable, but hell, isn’t what Becky just described the “type” of most heterosexual females? “Nice smile?”
“I don’t know yet. He’s kind of got that broody thing going on. Oh, fuck, he’s coming this way. Play it cool.”
I shake my head. Not to worry. I haven’t gotten nervous about a guy approaching me since I was eighteen, I’m certainly not going to start tonight. I turn toward the hottie in question, ready to paste on my confident, don’t-you-wish-you-had-a-chance smile, but when I meet his eyes, my stomach lurches forward, flip-flops, and shimmies all at once.
His steps slow and then he drags his gaze over me, shakes his head, and closes the distance between us. “Emma.”
Is it normal to get turned on by the sound of your name coming out of someone’s mouth? I love the way he shapes his lips around the syllables and the way his gaze drops to my mouth as he says them. Christ. I’m pathetic. He steps closer—maybe because the bar is loud and we have to be this close to hear each other. Or maybe because, even five years later, he feels this pull between us as strongly as I feel it. “It’s really you.”
“Keegan.” I run my gaze over his face. That strong jaw. Those dark eyes. His dress shirt is unbuttoned at the top, and he’s rolled the sleeves up to his elbows. If there was better lighting, I’d totally take a minute to perv out over his forearms, because they’re a thing of beauty. “What are you doing here?”
He cocks a brow and lifts his beer. He gestures over his shoulder toward the booth where I spotted him earlier. “It was supposed to be a bachelor party, but the bride and her friends crashed it.” His lips quirk, as if he’s mostly amused by this. Wouldn’t most guys be annoyed to have their bachelor party usurped by a bunch of chicks? He drops his gaze to my skintight, low-cut tank, another Becky idea: “Want a wild weekend in Vegas? Dress the part.” “How are you?” He looks at my hand, inspecting my ring finger—or is that my imagination? “Did you and Harry ever…?”
Harry? As I stand here, I could recite his statistics from last season, the name of his bar, and tell him a half-dozen facts about his one-year-old daughter—thank you, Instagram—but he hasn’t even paid enough attention to my life to know that I stay as far from Harry as possible? “I’m… No. I don’t even live in California anymore.”
Something passes over his face. I’d give an ovary for better lighting in this place right now, because I can’t pinpoint the emotion and I want to know what he thinks about that—or if he even cares enough to think anything of it at all. “I just saw you and thought I’d say hello.”
“I’m glad you did.”
He’s changed. He’s more hard bulk and less softness than the summer we spent together, but it’s not just his body that’s changed. There’s something in his eyes that tells me he’s wiser now. He seems older than he is, and yet, for all he’s matured, his effect on me hasn’t changed at all. My stomach is a veritable flock of butterflies. Flock? Considering the ruckus they’re making in there, infestation might be a better word. My stomach is going wild, and at the same time my chest tightens because I want to sit down and have him tell me everything that’s happened in the last five years.
“Oh my God,” Becky says, throwing her arms in the air. “This song! Let’s dance!”
Without giving me a chance to respond, she grabs my arm and drags me to the center of the packed dance floor. I look over my shoulder toward Keegan, and he’s watching us. Watching me. A waitress circles the floor selling test-tube shots, and I buy two—liquid courage time—down them, and give her the tubes back before she walks away. I’m not sure what was in those shots—cheap vodka and some sweet stuff, I’m guessing—but I can feel it hit my system, and I dance. I dance because I’m supposed to be cutting loose this weekend, because it feels good to move my body to the beat and laugh with Becky. I dance because he’s watching, and that feels as good as the vodka hitting my bloodstream. Better. Nothing feels as good as his hot gaze on me, and memories of our last nights together warm me from the inside out.
“Crap,” Becky says, laughing when the song ends. “I totally pulled you away from that guy. Did he want to dance? You should totally dance with the hot stranger. He’s looking at you like he’d like to do you against the nearest wall and then drop to his knees and use his mouth to clean up his mess.”
I gasp and laugh at the same time. “Becky!”
“What? I’m just saying it how it is.”
Is he looking at me like that? Do I want him to? That’s crazy, crazy thinking. I let Keegan go five years ago, and when I did, I knew it had to be over. I needed to end things, and I did. With a man like Keegan, there is no going back.
“Should I get him for you?” she asks.
“What? Are you crazy?”
&n
bsp; “Or maybe you want to do the honors. We’re in Vegas, after all. Go over there and tell him you wanna be licked.”
“You’re insane!”
Laughing, she gives me a soft nudge in Keegan’s direction. “Give me a break and let me live vicariously through you.”
“You’re an impossibly bad influence.”
“If Zachary were here, he’d totally be on my side about this.”
I smile hard at the mention of her brother, my other best friend, but then the smile falls away. I’m not sure Zachary would approve of anything that would complicate my life as much as Keegan returning to it.
“Oh shit, girl, he’s coming over.”
I stop dancing and watch as Keegan maneuvers his big frame through the throng of swaying bodies and comes to stand with us.
It’s so crowded that he has to step close, and I can feel the heat rolling off his body as he lowers his mouth to my ear. Everything in me feels charged and ready for release. My body remembers him and instinctively sways into him. “I’m glad you’re doing well. I—”
I put my fingers to his lips. I don’t want to talk right now, because talking means rehashing sad crap I want to pretend never happened. Maybe because it’s been so long since I’ve seen him or maybe because I’m drunk going on trashed, I step close and lock eyes with him as I move my hips to the beat.
Chapter Three
Keegan
I came out here to tell her goodnight, to tell her I was heading out and to remind her to be careful. But the words died on my tongue the second she put her fingers to my lips and started dancing in front of me. I’ve had too fucking much to drink, and maybe I’m hallucinating, because I can’t believe what’s happening right now. This can’t be real. Emma Rothschild is close enough to touch, and she’s even more beautiful than I remember. She’s all curves and soft skin in that outfit, and even though it’s nothing like the outfits she wore when I knew her, I love it, because it shows her off. She’s relaxed and happy, her face tilted toward the ceiling as she rolls her hips to the beat.
