We all waved awkwardly, and then somehow managed to fit into the moon shaped booth. “When are you getting married?” I asked Cat.
She smiled. “Next week. You?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Congrats.” She reached for a bottle of vodka on the table. “Let’s do a shot to celebrate.”
I grinned. “Sounds good.”
“Do you live in Vegas or just here to get married?” Autumn asked me as Cat poured us the shots.
“Brooke and I live in New York, and Jenna and Kym live in Boston.”
“East coasters? I used to live in D.C.,” Joss stated.
“And Florida. We grew up together in Miami.” Cat slid each of us a shot of the clear liquid.
“I’m born and raised here in Sin City, and this one”—Autumn hooked her thumb toward Tessa—“is from California.”
“How do you know each other if you’re all from different places?” Brooke asked.
Our new friends looked at each other and smirked. Autumn raised her shot glass. “Let’s take our shots and then I’ll tell you how all of us—except Cat—got the male escorts of Saddles & Racks to commit.”
I couldn’t believe I was getting married. You’d think that after watching my best friend go through a nasty divorce, I’d be a bachelor my entire life, scared of going down the same path. But I’d always wanted to find the one who made me happy and accepted me for me and not for my looks, and I’d found the perfect woman to marry. Getting divorced wasn’t in my thoughts. Nicole had been my light in the darkness even when we were going through our miscarriage. We were both depressed for months after we found out she lost the baby. But every time I looked at her, I knew she was my one and only—the one who would bring me happiness. Nicole was the one I wanted to spend forever with. Hell, she was exactly the woman I was looking for. She was the reason why I’d booked the singles cruise that had changed my and Easton’s lives.
I smiled to myself as I ironed my button-up, long-sleeved, blue shirt. Who would have thought that getting Easton to go on a singles cruise with me would lead that man, who had no intention of ever settling down again, to find the perfect woman—a woman who had caused his heart to open again? We sure the hell hadn’t. But now, he was engaged too.
“What are you smiling about?” Easton asked, shrugging on his own button-up, long-sleeved shirt. His was black, though.
I glanced up at him and then back down to the ironing board. “Who would have thought that the next time we would share a room together, I’d be getting married?”
He chuckled slightly. “At least we have bigger beds in this room.”
“Yeah.” My grin widened as I remembered the twin beds on the cruise. When Nicole and I had gone to the tiny room, we’d had to push the beds together. Of course, we fell through them because we were going at it hard, which also made the condom break.
And then she got pregnant.
Would we still be getting married if she were pregnant, or would we have waited until after the baby was born? Who knew? What I did know was that I couldn’t wait to tell her in front of our friends and family that I was going to love her until my last breath. However, I didn’t expect my parents to be there. I’d called and left my mother a voicemail message, but she’d never returned my call. She didn’t even send a fucking pigeon to tell me that they were coming to see their one and only son get married.
I glanced up to see Easton staring at me. “What the fuck are you frowning about now?” he asked.
I shrugged and then set the iron right side up. “My parents never called me back.” I grabbed my shirt off the ironing board. “I was hoping they’d at least come to my fucking wedding.”
“They still might.”
My gaze met Easton’s as I stared into the full-length mirror, buttoning my shirt. “They won’t.” I never understood why my parents hated me so much. Looking back, I was a good kid. I even got a scholarship to Florida State for baseball and graduated with a business degree. My father wanted me to turn pro, but that was never in my cards because I didn’t want that life, and over the years, we slowly lost touch. It had been over five years since I’d seen them, and that was the night Easton and I opened Halo.
Over the car horns and the hustle and bustle of New York City, I heard my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn’t sure why I was nervous. Tonight was our soft opening for Halo, and only our friends and family were coming. But Easton and I had put everything into this bar, and we needed to succeed. I’d invested more money than Easton, but I was okay with that because he had to take care of his daughter, Cheyenne, and needed all the extra money he could get. I also knew that in time, he’d pay me back. We’d been friends since we could talk, and I trusted him with my life.
“Ready to open the doors?” Easton asked, coming into the upstairs office we shared.
“Yeah. Do you know who’s here already?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t want to look. I want to open the doors and watch the people rush in.”
I grinned. “Like Black Friday?”
“Like they’re so fucking thirsty they need a drink—stat.”
We chuckled. We’d invited everyone we knew. I’d met a few people when I’d moved to New York from Florida and worked at a high-end clothing store after college. When I chose to move to the outskirts of New York City, where Easton and his family were, and not back to California, I did it because that was where my family was. Of course, I had my parents in Cali, but Easton and his folks treated me like a son, and honestly, I wanted to live close to my best friend.
“Do you think my parents came?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t they?”
I shrugged. “You know my father has been weird since I wasn’t scouted to play pro.”
Playing professional baseball would have been a dream, but it wasn’t my dream. It was my dad’s dream to have his son play for the Angels or whoever. My dream was to have a life not on the road. I didn’t care that I could make thousands of dollars playing a game. I wanted a family like Easton had—kids I could teach to be a good people and help them follow their dreams. That was why, when I played baseball in college, I didn’t try to outshine anyone. I just wanted to graduate and find the one woman to spend my life with.
That had yet to happen, but I was working on it.
“I don’t know why you weren’t scouted. You’re almost as good as me,” Easton teased.
I rolled my eyes. “Baseball wasn’t for me. Doesn’t mean I don’t miss it.”
“I know.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “I miss it too, but now we need to get in the black, or we’re fucked.”
“Bars have a high markup on alcohol. As long as people are coming in through the door and ordering drinks, we should be good.”
“And that’s why you’re the business brain in this, and I’m the looks.”
I shrugged him off as we both chuckled. “I might have never modeled, but I can get any woman I want.”
“Women always hit on bartenders. We’re about to be in a sea of pussy.”
“Not if we don’t go open the fucking doors.”
“Right,” Easton agreed and turned for the stairs. “Tonight, we’re going to get our feet wet. Tomorrow night, the real fun will begin.”
We walked down the stairs and into the main bar. We’d hired a few barbacks and two other bartenders to rotate with us. Tonight we had everyone here getting the hang of things and testing a few cocktails we’d created.
“Everyone ready?” I asked as we stopped in front of the wood door.
“Hell yeah,” Easton exclaimed while the others cheered.
I swung the door open to see a crowd of people standing on the sidewalk. Cheers immediately erupted, and my mouth hurt from smiling so wide. This was it. We’d officially opened the doors to Halo, and there was no turning back.
Easton greeted everyone. “Tonight, the drinks are on the house. In exchange, we ask that you fill out a comment card at the end of the night. There are snacks and shit for
you to enjoy, so please come in, listen to some music, and get tipsy.” Everyone clapped and praised us as Easton and I stepped to the side, letting everyone in.
The last two people to enter were my parents. A part of me had felt as though they wouldn’t show since my father more or less hadn’t spoken to me since I’d graduated from FSU. To be here, they'd had to fly in from California, and I’d offered for them to stay with me, but they’d declined.
“Avery,” my father greeted with a curt nod.
My mother hugged me. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered, still embracing me.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I had to see it for myself—see how you threw away a good opportunity to play baseball so you could waste your life as a bartender,” Dad mocked.
I balked. “Waste my life?”
Easton stepped forward, ceasing the conversation that was about to turn into a fire. “Doug, tonight’s supposed to be a celebration, not the two of you rehashing the same damn argument. Come inside, and we’ll get you a drink.”
Dad scoffed. “I only drink Macallan.” That wasn’t true. I’d seen my father drink beer and other alcohol before. He was clearly being an asshole.
“Well, lucky for you, your son made sure to stock a bottle of Macallan 12,” Easton replied.
Dad’s brown eyes turned to me. “At least you did something right.”
I looked to my mother, who was looking down at the concrete sidewalk. She never stepped in when Dad was in one of his moods, and he was always in one of his moods. Even when I played the game he loved so much, he still treated me as a burden. That was probably another reason I hadn’t gone back to live in California. I honestly hated being around him. Didn’t mean I didn’t love him, though. He was my father.
“Let’s step inside, and Avery will get you that whisky.”
I had no idea that the night of our soft open would be the last time I’d see my parents. And they were very much alive. I tell everyone that they’ve never visited me in New York because that was better than saying they didn’t want anything to do with me after they realized I was more or less a bartender and not a professional baseball player.
“They’ll come,” Easton stated as we continued to get dressed in our Vegas hotel room.
“It’s been over five years since they walked out the doors of Halo and never looked back.”
“If they don’t show, I’ll never mention them again.”
“If they don’t show, I’m having your parents officially adopt me.”
Easton grinned. “They’d like that.”
We took an Uber to the Royal Resort just off the Strip, and after indulging in a steak dinner at The Barrymore, Easton and I took an Uber to the Palms Casino Resort.
“You really want to go to the Palms and not just drink on the Strip?” I asked Easton, who was sitting next to me in the backseat of the stranger’s car.
“I’ve heard celebrities like to go there, so I thought we could check it out and then work our way back to the Strip.”
“You want to meet a celebrity?”
He shrugged. “I mean, who doesn’t? I thought it would be cool to maybe run into one.”
“And what?”
Easton shrugged a shoulder again. “Tell them you’re getting married.”
I chuckled. “And invite whomever to be a guest?”
He rolled his eyes. “Nah. I just figured that you wouldn’t want to go to a strip joint or a club, and this was a good way to get free drinks.”
“So we’re gambling?”
“When in Vegas, right?”
“Right,” I agreed. “But we could have done that on the Strip.”
“We’ve done the Strip before.”
It wasn’t our first time in Sin City. Before Easton moved to New York, and while I was in college, we’d take a weekend or two to party every summer. Hence, why he got divorced—he did whatever the fuck he wanted to do, and Dana got sick of it. I knew he was older and wiser now and would never do anything to hurt Brooke. If he did, he’d have to answer to Nicole, and that wouldn’t be pretty.
The driver pulled up to the front doors of the hotel, and we slid out and walked into the smoky casino.
“What do you want to play first?” I asked.
“It’s your night, man. I’ll just do whatever you want to do.”
“Slots? We can play a penny slot and wait for a waitress to come around with our drinks.”
“Cool,” Easton agreed.
We walked around, looking at the multi-colored lights and machines. I was trying to find a spot that didn’t have someone smoking right next to me and where a waitress was taking orders.
“Is that … Is that a shark?”
“What?” I asked, looking at Easton.
He pointed toward a bar to our left, and in the center of that bar, it looked as though a shark was encased in a tank. It wasn’t moving, and the tank wasn’t much wider than the head of the beast that had its mouth open.
“Yeah, that’s cool.” We walked closer to the sleek, white, marble bar, both of us taking in what I assumed was meant to be art.
“Maybe we should get one for Halo?” Easton joked. At least I hoped he was joking.
“Right. We’re just going to go out into the Atlantic Ocean and catch one?”
“I’m sure that shark, Mary Lee, is still swimming around out there.”
“Mary Lee?” I chuckled. “You want to go catch a sixteen-foot great white?” Currently, Mary Lee was the most famous shark. Researchers had captured her so they could put a tracker on her and follow her whereabouts. The last I’d heard, she’d gone silent, but they assumed it was because the battery in the tracker died.
“I’m teasing, man, but it does look sick in the middle of the bar.”
We continued to slowly walk along the side. The shark was cut up into three pieces, and each piece was in a giant glass box. The bar was in a circle, and from every angle you could see all of the beast.
“We should get a drink here,” I suggested. “Maybe we can pick up some new drinks to serve back at Halo.”
Easton nodded. “I like your thinking.”
We didn’t really see anything new and exciting on the menu at Unknown—with a thirteen-foot tiger shark as a focal point, the place didn't need a standout name because people were drawn to the giant ass shark—so Easton suggested the slots again.
I nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t come to Vegas to pay for overpriced drinks when I own a bar.”
“Agree.”
We walked back toward the center of the casino floor, trying to find a good spot to sit. The machines were tighter than jeans after Thanksgiving dinner, but slots were one of those games we could pretend to play, only hitting the button when a waitress walked by.
“I’ve yet to see a celebrity,” I mentioned.
“We were sitting at a bar for a half hour. Not like we were scouting the place.”
“By the way you were talking, I’d assumed the place would be crawling with A-listers.”
“They’re probably in the high roller room.”
I bobbed my head slightly. “They probably are.”
“Should we check that room out?”
“Do you have money to play there?”
“Do you?” Easton countered.
I didn’t have a lot of money on me because I’d left most of it in the safe in the hotel room. After Nic and I said I do, we would spend one more day and night in Vegas and then I was taking her on our honeymoon. She didn’t know where we were going. It was going to be a surprise, and I was excited to see the smile on her face when she found out.
“I have some money,” I stated.
“Me too.”
“Then let’s walk over there and see if anyone is there. If not, we go back to the plan of drinking by the slots.”
Without hesitation, we walked in the direction of the high roller room. Apparently, some guys go to Vegas for the strip clubs or to get drunk at clubs. But Easton and I? We had other
plans. I had no desire to go to a titty bar or spend twenty bucks for drinks at a club. I just wanted to hang with my best friend and then tomorrow marry the love of my life. The girls, on the other hand, were clubbing. Girls could do that. They could go into a club, dance with each other and have a good time. I couldn’t picture Easton and me dancing together.
We walked into the dark room that had black walls, crown molding, and an elaborate chandelier hanging over four blackjack tables. Adjacent was a room with slots, and to the back of the room was a private bar. For some reason, I felt as though I didn’t belong in the room. It wasn’t because I was poor—far from it. Halo was thriving, but betting an enormous amount on a single hand wasn’t me. And because Easton had been my best friend our entire lives, I knew it wasn’t him either.
As I scanned the tables, I realized no one looked familiar. “I think it’s just you and me tonight,” I stated to Easton.
He nodded. “Looks like it. Let’s do this the cheap way.”
I chuckled, and we both exited the glamorous room. The older I got, the more I just wanted to relax. Maybe it was because of the year I’d had. I felt as though Nic and I had both grown as people over the last few months. Losing a baby had taken a lot out of me. That was why Nicole was my light at the end of my tunnel. To some, the light reflected death, but to me, the light was my forever.
A cheer erupted near the card tables, and I turned to see a group of people standing near the craps table. “What’s going on there?” Easton asked.
We moved closer, and I saw the craps shooter. “Is that …?” Jason Black, the star of Nicole’s favorite show, How to Get the Girl, was playing craps.
Nic was going to be so jealous.
“See.” Easton slapped me on the arm. “Told you celebrities hang out at The Palms.”
“The girls are going to hate us.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, they are.”
I dug into my pocket and pulled out my phone. After taking a quick picture, I hesitated. Should I send Nic a picture of her celebrity crush now or should I show her after we were officially married? I decided not to send it.
The Halo Series Boxed Set Page 80
