“It’s fine.” The man withdrew deeper into the shadows.
Randy dialed it down a bit and went for quiet charm instead. “Quite a crowd. Little bit of something for everyone here, I’m thinking. You here by yourself?” Randy glanced down at the man’s lap and wasn’t surprised to see a golden wedding band on his left hand. “Or is the wife with you?”
His diagnosis of closet case was confirmed when the man looked almost startled as he glanced down at his hand. Yeah, you’ve got to remember to take the ring off if you’re going to cruise, sweetheart. Of course, it also helped to not be so damn scared you were about to fall off your stool.
“I’m by myself tonight,” the man said.
Randy wanted to ask for his name, but he thought he’d send the poor thing into shock. He was cute, in a sorry sort of way. He was the cleanest of the cleanest cuts Randy had ever seen. After another scan of the man’s outfit, Randy wondered if Presbyterian might be too generous. Possibly Baptist.
Or, God help the poor bastard, Mormon.
He ran his finger along Ethan’s ring absently, and felt a surge of empathy. “You played any table games yet?”
The man’s lips quirked in a nervous smile. “I—I play a little poker. I guess that starts in a bit.”
Randy motioned toward the main casino floor. “No, they’re playing right now. You want to go? I’d sit down with you, if you’re looking for company.”
Fuck, that came out the wrong way. But the man just smiled gratefully. “Thank you—that’s very kind. But I’m waiting for someone.”
“Are you now? I see I shouldn’t have let the grass grow under my feet.”
It was nice, actually, to see the nervous man relax, to see him warm up under Randy’s flattery. “No, sorry—it’s—” He stopped, rubbed his mouth and shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t—I don’t ever do this.”
“Let me help you through the niceties, then.” Randy extended his hand. “Hi. I’m Randy. Nice to meet you.”
Frowning, the man stared at Randy’s hand. At his pinky.
At his ring. Slick’s ring.
The music throbbed, the crowd roared, and the heat cooked, but for that moment, Randy heard nothing, and he’d never been colder in his life.
Crabtree came up behind him and patted him heartily on the shoulder. “Hello, Jansen. If you don’t mind, I need to steal Mr. Snow here. He’s due to start in the big game in fifteen minutes.”
Nick. Nick Snow. This guy was Ethan’s Nick.
Randy turned to Crabtree, wanting to ask him what the fuck this was about, but he found he couldn’t. He had no rage, no fury, no nothing, just a cold fear. Hurt cut across him when he saw the distance on Crabtree’s face, when he realized the old bastard had done this, had gone and found Nick and brought him here. Had let Randy sit here and make an ass of himself trying to make him feel welcome.
Snow kept staring at Randy’s hand. “Where did you get that?”
Randy pulled the ring off his finger and laid it on the counter. “Best of luck in the game.”
Then he turned around and got the fuck out of there.
Chapter Twenty-Two
ETHAN WAS STANDING near the fountain when he saw Nick.
At first he thought he had to be hallucinating, but Crabtree’s men were behind Nick, flanking him—herding him, Nick pale and terrified. Then he saw Ethan and lit up.
It all came back to Ethan in a great, warm rush.
Years. He’d had years with this man. Years of listening to his sorrows, joys, spending stolen moments which were, for the two of them, the highest of pleasures. No limos, no high rollers, no wild motorcycle rides across the Las Vegas Strip. They hadn’t been that kind of couple.
He had enjoyed being Nick’s secret, if he were honest. He’d enjoyed being his true partner, the one he came unglued for, the one he surrendered to. It had filled some sort of void within himself, the only rebellion he would allow in his ordered, careful life. With this man, he had flaunted the rules and strictures of society and found love. And it had been love. Ethan had cherished it. As he regarded his former lover, the demon fountain splashing behind him, the din of the casino surrounding them, he realized he still did and always would.
Ethan knew, too, this love was over.
Ethan turned to Crabtree. “I see you took your sweet time about coming back. What do you think?”
He felt Nick’s surprise, his pain. Yes. Yes, it does hurt, doesn’t it? I am sorry for that. But you might love your next lover better, and maybe even your wife, if you learn what it feels like, if you can learn to live with the pain you’re feeling now and still find a way to move on.
Crabtree rocked on his heels and nodded as he surveyed the room. “Quite nice. Quite nice indeed. All the old ways brought back, and some of them improved.” He frowned at Ethan. “But do all the dancers have to be so lithe, so genderless?”
“That is the idea.” Ethan kept watching Nick out of the corner of his eye.
Crabtree turned to Nick. “Would you and Mr. Snow care for a moment to reconnect before the big game?”
“Game? You’re putting Nick in your poker game? He doesn’t even know how to play.”
“I play a little,” Nick said. Oh, he ached, Ethan knew. See me, he begged. Nick was being torn apart in pieces, right here on the floor. Ethan didn’t like it.
He took a step closer to Crabtree. “This game ends now. Whatever you used to get Nick here, use it to get him home. This isn’t his world, and it isn’t his fight. It’s abysmally low of you to include him at all.”
“Ethan,” Nick said quietly, desperately, swallowing his pride and all but pleading with him, right there in the open. “Please, Ethan—we need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to say. If you want to apologize, that would be welcome, but if you add one little rationale for why you did what you did, don’t bother. What you did ended us, Nick, and you can’t undo that. You could possibly rebuild friendship with a lot of time and work and effort, but not now. Not tonight. I have more important things to do right now.”
Go home. Go home, be free, and live, Nick—take this pain and build yourself anew inside it, and find your own adventures. Find your own real life. Go in peace. Because despite it all, I do still love you enough to wish you that.
Nick withdrew, wounded, the last ties of the past snapping and falling away. Their true end, here before him. Letting that last regret go, Ethan started to turn away.
Then he caught a glimpse of something small and silver flashing in Nick’s hand. “What is that?”
Nick opened his palm, showing him the circle of silver. “Your ring.”
“It’s not my ring. It’s yours.” He looked up at Nick’s face in horror. “Randy. You got this from Randy. Where is he?”
“The man at the bar?” Nick closed his hand and withdrew it, anger and disbelief creeping into his expression. “You’re with him? You gave my ring to him?”
No. He took it. He won it, fair and square after carefully adjusting the odds. And now he’d given it away. Ethan turned to Crabtree. “Where is he?”
The gangster shrugged, but Ethan could also feel him watching carefully, reading every tell. “He left, I think. It doesn’t matter.”
Ethan wanted to shove Crabtree in the fountain. He wanted to grab the man by the collar and push his head under the water, to drown him, to kick him, to drive sharp objects into his throat, his heart, to fucking chop his penis off and stuff it in his mouth. Instead he pulled his wallet full of Crabtree’s money, the keys to his office, his business cards, and a handful of loose chips from his pocket. Then he tossed them into the churning water.
Ethan pointed at Nick. “Send him home. Give him a good alibi too, for his wife. But get him out of here.”
“Ethan!” Nick reached for him, but Crabtree stepped in and faced Ethan down, his gaze cold and unforgiving.
“Where do you think you’re going? You have a casino to run and a game to play.”
Ethan stared him boldly
down. “I fold. I’m not playing any of your games, Crabtree, because you don’t have the pot I want.”
Was that a ghost of a smile around Crabtree’s lips? “Oh, I think I do.”
“No, you don’t. Because it isn’t yours to give.” He scanned the crowd, but of course Randy was gone. He wouldn’t be anywhere in the casino. He’d be out there, somewhere, letting Vegas nurse his wounds. He ran his hand over his mouth, fearing he was already too late.
Crabtree grabbed his arm. “This isn’t a game you get to quit.”
Ethan shook him off. “Then you’ll have to rub me out, mob man. But if you ever loved him at all, let me find him first.”
He would never know how he found the strength to turn away from a gangster in his own casino and walk out, to stalk across the floor, leaving his former lover and the man who had openly threatened to kill him behind. All he knew in that moment was he needed to get out, to find Randy, that nothing else in the world was worth doing.
When Sam found Ethan, his armor cracked, and he melted a little in relief. “Do you know where he is?”
“I have a pretty good idea.” Sam led him toward a side exit. “Come on. I rode Mitch’s bike in today. I’ll drive you.”
RANDY STOOD AT the railing of the Stratosphere observation deck and looked out as dusk came over Sin City, trying not to let any of the tourists around him see as his heart broke into pieces that tumbled, one by one, over the edge.
Ethan would leave him eventually. He’d known that, known it ever since he picked the ring up off the roulette table, this couldn’t last, because nothing did. But when Nick Snow—not a villain, not an asshole, just a quiet, ordinary man so plain he was almost mousy—had stood there, looking back at Randy, he’d realized he had screwed up. He’d looked at Nick Snow and realized he wanted Ethan forever.
Randy leaned forward on the rail so he could reach up with his hand and pinch the bridge of his nose.
How? How had he ended up here after all this time of trying not to, of working not to get involved? He hadn’t hurt like this when Mitch left him, and he’d thought that was bad. Now he was so torn up inside he could hardly stand upright—and Slick was still here.
What the fuck was going to happen to him when Ethan was gone?
You’ll go on. If he leaves you, you’ll go on. You’ll hurt, but you’ll survive. You’ll bleed awhile, and then you’ll rebuild yourself—just like he did. Because you’re strong too, Skeet. You’re strong too.
There was pressure building at the back of Randy’s eyes, a pressure pinching his nose wasn’t going to stop. Fucking hell. He was not going to start fucking crying on the fucking observation deck. He fucking was not.
But he did cry. It was all this fucking therapy shit. All this digging up the past, all this feeling. He wanted to go back to where he was strong and cocky and piss-on-the-world, I-don’t-need-it Randy Fucking Jansen, everybody’s favorite bastard. This was what happened when you let yourself want stupid shit like having somebody forever. It was a fucking impossible bet. There weren’t even any odds.
You never got anybody forever. He’d known since the day he’d come home from school and found out Uncle Gary was gone. Now he was losing again, because when Ethan left it would really fucking cut him open. But there wasn’t anything he could do to get away from it. Not anymore.
Randy stood at the railing, wind whipping up around him, the screams of the riders and the murmur of the tourists surrounding him, and he hurt. He tried to unpack it, but it wasn’t tidy, this pain. There was no one person or place that caused it, no demon to exorcise, not by a single name. There was just pain, all thirty-some years of it, piled on in flakes and dust and bricks on top of itself. All the things which had hurt him he hadn’t let get through, the Great Fucking Wall of Randy.
Randy opened his eyes, blinked out the wet and salt, and looked out onto the city and thought, fucking hell, jumping would be a lot easier than dealing with all that shit. Because he only had to jump once. This crap would come back, over and over and over and fucking over again.
But sometimes it wouldn’t be crap.
He wasn’t yet willing to say it might even be good most of the time. It was Slick’s goddamn fucking wheel. Red, black, with some green thrown in to fuck you up. Or craps, where a seven could happen at any time. The odds were always going to favor the house, though. There was no getting around that.
But maybe, maybe if he wasn’t hauling around this stupid wall, maybe if he could muck out some of this pain—maybe the game wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Ethan would be there to play awhile with him, and maybe not.
Maybe sometimes it would be fun to let fate play it out, to feel the rush when the wheel and the dice and the cards went your way, not because you were smart or clever or you knew how to bluff but because fate felt nice that day. Maybe it would be fun to show up with nothing and leave a king.
Or at least to have fun trying for it.
Randy laughed softly and wiped at his eyes. Well, he knew where to find the fucking therapist, didn’t he? And this time Sam could go along and hold his hand for a change.
He could do this. He was going to love Slick as long as he was here. He would survive. Because, yeah. He was strong. That’s how Uncle Gary had raised him.
Randy opened his eyes, looked out over the city, which was leaving the rosy glow of dusk and taking on the full mantle of night, and he tried out a smile.
“Randy.”
Ethan rushed onto the platform, his heart written all over his face. Randy wiped at his eyes as discreetly as he could.
“Hey, Slick. Aren’t you supposed to be running a casino?”
Ethan crushed Randy desperately to his chest. “I thought you were going to jump.”
The words, stupid as they were, were sweet and like a balm over the open wounds of Randy’s heart. He kissed Ethan’s cheek. “You’re the drama queen, not me. Besides, they’ve got a rim for just that reason. By the time anybody got out there, security would be on their ass. No jumping at the Stratosphere.”
Ethan trembled as he crushed Randy tighter. “I thought I’d be too late. I thought either you’d jump, or Sam would be wrong and you’d be somewhere else, somewhere I couldn’t find you, and I couldn’t stand it. I should have told you. I should have told you every time I thought it, and I kept dying over and over again in that fucking elevator, thinking I wouldn’t get to.”
“Slow down, baby. Easy, easy. I’m here. What is it you need to tell me?”
“That I love you.”
Oh, Randy knew he was a sap because those words made him fly every time. “Baby, you’ve said that already. And I love you too.”
“There’s more. There’s everything I feel when I look at you, everything that gets caught in my throat—I need to tell you, because it’s more important than anything, more important than the fucking casino, than what Crabtree will do to me for leaving in the middle of his game. I need to tell you, Randy, that I—” He paused for breath, looked absolutely terrified for a moment, then rushed on. “I need you, Randy. I completely, utterly need you. Obviously I can physically live without you, and probably emotionally too, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. I keep trying to be strong without you, to show you, but it’s not the same, and I don’t want to try anymore.”
Were they still standing on the deck, or had they floated up into the sky? Randy didn’t dare look away from Ethan’s beautiful, terrified face to check. “Ethan Ellison, you are strong. You’re strong in a way that has nothing to do with me.”
“I don’t care. I want to be strong with you—and I have to tell you, because I fucked it up in the limo—Randy, I don’t want to go. I wanted to be strong because I didn’t want to be dependent. I wanted you to see that you didn’t have to carry me, that I wouldn’t fuck up again and bet on black and get carried away by fantasy—but I can’t. Not yet. Maybe never. But nothing in the world will ever be as good as life is with you.”
He pulled his hands out of Randy’s and closed them des
perately around Randy’s face.
“I don’t want Nick. I don’t want the casino. I don’t want anything but you. I won’t kill myself if you don’t want me back forever, but I’m going to want you, Randy. Until I die.”
In that moment, that beautiful, amazing moment, the round observation deck of the Stratosphere tower was not only a tower but a wheel, spinning and spinning on the bright blue ball of the earth, with odds that should make you run away. But this time—this fucking time—the ball didn’t just land on black. It landed right on his goddamned fucking number.
Randy took the beautiful man in front of him into his arms, bent him backward over the rail, and kissed the living shit out of him.
When they broke apart finally, Randy grinned down at Ethan, who laughed breathlessly, bracing himself against the edge of the rail.
“That was my fantasy, you know.” Randy pressed his hips a little harder into Ethan’s. “So, thanks.”
Ethan tilted his head and gave him a funny look. “To have me run up here like an idiot and babble incoherently?”
“To have a big old hot, romantic kiss on the rail of the observation deck. I think about it every time I come up here, in fact.” He sighed happily. “Except now I won’t wish. I’ll remember.”
“Do you think there’s any way to keep Crabtree from killing me for running out? Because I’m kind of wanting more than a few more hours with you.”
Randy suspected this was the outcome Crabtree had hoped for all along. “I bet we can work something out.” He took Ethan’s hand, then lifted it and kissed it. “Come on. Let’s go back.”
Sam waited on the interior deck, but he came up to them, grinning, when they came through the doors. “Everything’s okay?”
“Aces, Peaches.” Randy slipped his arm around him too, a man on each side. “We’re aces.”
It was a nice ride down the elevator, with lots of snuggling, and Sam beamed as they wandered through the lobby shops. “Mitch should be here anytime now. He said he was just pulling into town and to watch for him at the casino.”
Double Blind Page 33
