Get Lucky (7 page)

T
he hotel pool
sparkles in the hot noon sunlight. Scantily clad women frolic, splashing each other, laughing. The desert air is warm but not roasting, especially underneath the shade of this umbrella. You’d think this’d be paradise, my own personal Xanadu of beautiful bodies and poolside cocktails. Unfortunately, the whole brush with the law problem earlier this morning has kind of taken the fun out of this for me.

Besides, there’s Julia. I’m remembering even more now. And that’s more than a little distracting.

The sun is damn bright, but at least I’m wearing my sunglasses, so my headache isn’t reaching epic proportions. While I sit with Mike in the shade, drinking a beer to try to get over my hangover before the ceremony, I focus. By focus, I mean I watch Tyler make a spectacular ass of himself. That’s been happening a lot on this trip.

“Cannonball!” he yells, leaping into the pool while a bevy of giggling women shriek and get out of the way, squealing playfully.

Squealing. My temples throb.

When Tyler surfaces, he swims over to the side of the pool and lounges there, cracking a lopsided grin. “Ladies. Who wants to get with a cannonball
maître d’
?”

I think he means
maestro
, but I’m not about to correct him. I don’t know what’s worse: that he’s saying those idiotic words or that the women appear to be falling for it. Two of them chat by him, giggling. One even runs her hand along his arm.

Has civilization come to this? Women throwing themselves at Tyler Berkley? Where did we go wrong?

“The hell, man. You need to lighten up. Why don’t you get in the pool?” Mike asks, looking over at me with a beer in hand. The sight of alcohol makes my stomach ripple a little, even as the (now lukewarm) taste of it is helping my migraine somewhat.

“Not feeling it,” I say, and pop a couple of Advil, which I’m sure is totally safe to take with beer.

I need it, though, partly because of this throbbing headache. Partly because since revisiting that strip club and remembering everything that went on in there, I keep thinking of Julia. Not the way she rolls her eyes, or how annoying I thought she was yesterday afternoon, but the feel of her skin, the taste of her lips, the way she sounded as I thrust inside of her. The way she dug her nails into my back, keening low in her throat as I fucked her, filled her.

See, right there. This is why I’m not swimming today. I don’t need to fantasize about last night’s hook up, pitch a tent in my swimming trunks, and then get in the water. This is a family pool.

Damn. I’m getting, ah, excited just thinking about it. As I pretend to deliberately hunch over, giving myself time to go limp again, Stacy walks over to us. Apparently last night’s party didn’t faze her at all. She’s in her hot pink bikini, towel around her waist, cowboy hat on her head.

“You boys awake at last?” she says, looking past Mike to me. Her forehead creases slightly. “You okay with the fuzz now?”

“Hilarious,” I say, taking a sip of really warm, shitty beer. “Like I said, it was just a few questions.”

I haven’t told them about the fountain. I will never, ever be able to talk to them again if they find out. Mike and Stacy are the type to never let a funny story die, even if it was twenty goddamn years ago. At their children’s future bar mitzvahs, I’ll still get regaled by stories of my illegal skinny dipping.

Stacy purses her lips. She’s not buying, but at least she’s not going to push it.

“Babe, we need to go for lunch soon. I’m starving,” she groans dramatically, hands on her stomach. Mike laughs and pushes up his sunglasses.

“You can really be this cool when you’re hours from the altar?” he asks, mock serious.

“It’s not an altar, it’s a chuppah in Las Vegas. No worries at all.” She brushes a hand through his hair. It’s a familiar, intimate, happy gesture that I have to look away from.

“Get Casanova in here, then,” Mike says, laughing as he watches Tyler pick up one of the shrieking girls and dunk her in the pool.

Stacy puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles, long and shrill. Everyone at the pool startles, and Tyler actually tips over, going underwater.

“Ouch. That’s at a level only dogs and future husbands can hear,” Mike says, taking her hand and kissing it. He fakes her out and pulls her down into his arms. She laughs wildly.

God, they’re so happy. They should remember they’re in public. Love should be secret and shameful, something you apologize for experiencing.

All right, even for me that’s a little harsh. But not by much.

“Dogs and future husbands are a similar breed,” Stacy says, kissing Mike. He grins.

“Tongues hanging out all the time? Fleas?” He kisses her chin. “Shitting in the house?”

“Scruffy and adorable. And yes, pooping indoors, but nothing a little training can’t fix.” She wraps her arms around his neck. “It’s why I love them. Dogs, I mean.”

“Good. I was afraid you’d say you loved
me
. I don’t know what I’d do with so much emotion.”

While they keep kissing and giggling and I keep ignoring them, I look over at Tyler in the pool. Stacy’s whistle did the trick; he’s sloshing over toward us, leaving the girls behind.

I should be like him, fucking my way around the greater Las Vegas area. Maybe get a penicillin shot beforehand, of course. Clearly I’m capable of having hot, random sex with strangers. But that one particular stranger . . . .

I can’t get Julia out of my head. Smart mouth and all, I wonder what she’s doing right now. I want to feel her underneath me. Last time it was pitch black in that closet; I want to see her eyes widen, her mouth open as she comes calling my name.

Or maybe I want to go upstairs and jerk off, because this hard-on situation is getting distracting.

“Hey. You.” Stacy nudges me with her foot. She’s seated on Mike’s lap, her arm around his neck. “Things seemed to go well with Julia Stevens last night, huh?” She grins.

In addition to not talking about the fountain, I also don’t want to go into the details of my blackout. That kind of thing makes you look sad in people’s eyes. So I simply nod.

“She’s . . . fun,” I say at last. Stacy snorts.

“Only you can say
fun
like it’s a disease.” She looks at me, thoughtfully arching an eyebrow. Whatever’s coming can’t be good. “Hey, Nate. Guess what?”

“I can’t even begin to guess,” I say, as blandly as possible. “Your mind is a mystery. You’re the Las Vegas sphinx.”

“If we were at the Luxor, maybe. Listen, buddy,” she says, leaning toward me. I have a bad feeling about this. “It’s my wedding day,” she says.

I get the feeling she’s winding up to ask for something.

“And?” I say.

“And I want you to call Julia and invite her to have lunch with us.” Stacy has that look in her eyes, the
I am prepared to fight and win
expression. She’s a Chicago social worker, which means she has a ton of experience with impossible cases.

Lunch. With Julia. I groan, showing Stacy how much I’m opposed to the idea by my body language. I don’t let her see the hard-on, though; I keep that under wraps as much as possible.

“Whatever happened last night,” I say, “whatever the hell it was in the moment, I don’t think this is a woman I want to get entangled with.”

Unless it’s upstairs right now, in my suite, entangled in the sheets as we fuck each other senseless. That kind of entangling would be just fine.

Jesus, what the hell is happening to me?

“I don’t think that’s true,” Stacy says, pursing her lips in a knowing smile. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what you want. It’s my special day. Bridal trump card, baby. Today, I get what I want.”

“It’s my weekend too,” Mike says, pulling his bikini-clad fiancée against his chest and nuzzling her neck. She giggles. Mike’s the only man alive who could make Stacy giggle. “Do I get a say in this?”

His tone’s light, but I know Mike’ll back me if I need it.

Ah, what the hell. Let me give Stacy something she wants for her big weekend, even if she has misguided, romantic notions about me and this girl.

“All right,” I say at last. “Because I care so damn much.”

“You’re a treasure,” Stacy drawls.

“I’ll call her,” I grumble, pulling out my cell. I think she’s got her phone at least.

Stacy cheers and takes a long chug of Mike’s beer. While he deals with his alcohol-swiping future wife, I wait as the phone rings once, twice. A strange feeling pulses through me; it’s both lightness and unease. She may not pick up. She said she was having a lunch meeting anyway. Maybe I won’t get to see her again. I can’t tell if that’s a relief or—

“Hello?” Julia’s voice is wary. “Who is this?”

My heart beats faster. Goddamn it, why am I acting like some high school loser calling up his crush?
Pull it together, asshole.

“It’s Nate,” I say. I clear my throat. There. Now I sound like a confident jackass. Exactly what I want. “Nate Wexler,” I add in a voice that is five octaves deeper than it was a second ago.

“Oh, good. Your number isn’t in my contacts. What’s up? Did you find my purse?” she asks. Very business, very professional. She doesn’t sound like she cares all that much.

What the fuck am I doing getting excited about this shit?

“Calling on behalf of Stacy. She wants to know if you’d like to have lunch with us,” I say. My tone’s casual. She can take it or leave it. Either way, doesn’t matter to me.

“Oh. I mean, I’m eating now,” she says, sounding surprised.

Right. Of course, she had a lunch meeting. I shrug.

“That’s fine, I can tell Stacy—”

“But I’m a hobbit. We believe in second luncheon. Where should I meet you guys?”

Is it my imagination, or does she sound eager? That thought pleases me more than it should.

“A hobbit?” I ask.

“Please don’t make me recite the entirety of
Lord of the Rings
to you. It’ll take several hours.”

“I know what hobbits are. Even I’m not that out of touch. We’re over at the pool,” I say, trying not to smile. The hell is wrong with me? “Can’t miss it. You’ll recognize Tyler making an ass of himself.”

Speaking of the buffoon, he pulls himself out of the pool and walks over to us, dripping.

“There’s a sight that once seen cannot be unseen,” she agrees.

Julia says goodbye and hangs up, and I take another swig of my beer as Tyler grabs a towel. My temples have stopped throbbing. Finally, my hangover appears to be lifting.

“Was that so hard?” Stacy says, giving me a damn smug smile.

“Not hard at all,” I answer. And it wasn’t hard. At all.

And that’s the problem.

“
S
o you skipped
out on the end of lunch with Meredith and your editor to go to another lunch with the guy you just now remember banging last night?” Shanna grins as we head into the restaurant. She throws an arm around me and squeezes tight. “I knew you were doing Vegas right.”

Then she slaps my ass. Our friendship is deep and true.

“Yeah, yeah. Just enjoy the free food, all right? If we’re all going out, I’m sure it’s on Nate’s, er, dime.”

Oh God, I nearly said
on Nate’s dick
. I nearly said it. I’m going to hell.

Shanna might suspect my near slip of the tongue, because she looks smugly pleased.

“Over here!” Stacy calls, waving to us with a lot of enthusiasm. At least
someone
at this table’s happy to see me. The restaurant is very high-end Thai, the kind with waterfalls running along fake rocks, bamboo wind chimes, and Buddhas sitting on golden lotus leaves. The table’s long, with most of the people we met last night chatting together.

Shanna and I sit down next to each other, and I’m doing everything but clutching her hand under the table. I didn’t just bring Shanna along to sample Nate’s largesse—
heh. Large. Stop it—
I’m bringing her along to act as something of a human shield. Because now that I’ve started really remembering last night’s encounter in the closet, I find that I’m . . . kind of excited to see him again. A little nervous as well.

Basically, I want someone familiar sitting next to me, someone to keep me grounded. Something that’ll stop me from lying on top of the table screaming, “Do me now, again, harder.”

That kind of thing can put people off their Panang curry.

“Julia, look. Sit down over here,” Stacy says, patting a chair right next to her. “I want to talk a little more about your books.”

Sure she does. Because sitting right on the other side of this chair is Nate, studiously avoiding my gaze. I hope he’s memorizing that menu, because he barely looks up from it. I already know it wasn’t his idea to bring me; my stomach sinks a little at the thought. I get the feeling Stacy is good at getting what she wants. Shanna gives me a wink.

“Go ahead. Sit with the bride,” she says, flashing me a smile. Ugh. Traitorous friend.
Et tu
, Shanna? With no one else to turn to, I walk around the table to take my seat.

“Hey stranger,” I say to Nate, keeping my voice light and bright. He finally tears his eyes away from the Thai peanut chicken lunch special. Good. I know how riveting it must have been.

“Hey,” he says, gazing at me. An involuntary thrill runs up my spine. Why didn’t I ever notice how sexy his voice is? It’s like baritone scotch, rich and smoky. His eyes, still that perfect dark blue, seem to pierce me.

Heh. Pierce.

Shut up, David Tennant.

I’m out of my mind. I clutch my napkin, determined to keep my raging hormones under control. But I can’t help how my eyes travel down his body, remembering the silk and steel feeling of him beneath my hands, and I imagine him naked. Despite how, er, intimately we know each other, so much of him is still a mystery. Didn’t see much in all of our action last night—at least, not that I can remember. I want to see him laid out under soft lighting, maybe in that lush hotel bed from last night. And while we’re dreaming, maybe I’m on top, riding him, taking him between my . . . .

“Are you drooling?” Nate sounds kind of mortified.

“Nothing. Er, the medication,” I lie, wanting to slam my own head against the table. I discreetly wipe my mouth. “My medication, for. Stuff.”

Shut up, Julia.

He hands me the menu.

“See what you like,” he says.

Oh, I think I do see something I like, you magnificent, arrogant jerkface.

I am not using my grown-up words today. Instead, I look over the menu and finally settle on some chicken satay skewers. I’m not that hungry. I ran out on a mostly eaten club sandwich and salad back at the hotel restaurant.

Now there’s nothing for Nate and me to do but . . . talk. Stacy, for all her pretense of wanting some girl chat, is talking with Mike and Shanna about something.

Stacy. You tricksy little hobbit.

“You made it back to the hotel okay?” I ask Nate, taking a sip of ice water. Ice. Ice is good. Ice cools down the throbbing libido.

“No, I was stranded. Left alone to fend for myself in the desert,” he says, his voice so cool and under control I nearly take him seriously. This man has an expert poker face. “So I opened up this restaurant, built it with my own two hands. At least now we can get quality Thai in the desert,” he says.

I laugh, and the lines around his mouth and eyes ease. He never seemed to like my laugh before. But then again, I never used to fantasize about him fucking me senseless, so there you have it. His sarcasm doesn’t bother me. Well, not as much as it did yesterday afternoon.

Sometimes you have to get to know people. Even if it’s biblically.

Nate pulls out his phone, buzzing in his pocket. He frowns.

“Shit. Work. Excuse me,” Nate says, pulling out his chair and getting up. He heads off, probably to go stand outside. Stacy winks at me.

“You two had fun last night,” she says.

Would it be really wrong to grab her, shake her, and scream,
“Tell me what we did because I remember almost nothing except doing a stripper dance and then fucking in a closet with a neon condom
”?
I think it would be wrong.

“I’m glad you guys have been, y’know, seeing so much of each other.”

Oh hardy har.

“Nate’s been a grouch for too long.”

“He was ever a not-grouch?” I ask. I’m trying not to sound as intrigued as I feel. The food arrives, and Stacy twirls some pad thai onto her fork. “I mean, you must’ve known him way young.”

“Pretty much. We all went to college together. Northwestern. Go Wildcats.” She grins. Oh man, I went to University of Wisconsin. We can discuss Big Ten rivalries later. “We graduated a decade ago, we were all friends since sophomore year. And I’m only now getting this one to commit,” she says, grinning across the table at Mike. He puts a hand over his chest, mock-wounded.

“I just wanted to wait until we could afford a condo. Was that a crime?”

Condos. Joking with each other over lunch. For the first time in a while, I feel lonely for Drew. Jerk though he was, he used to be my jerk.

“You know how he finally bought the ring and proposed?” Stacy asks me. Uh, is this a pop quiz? “Nate,” she says, answering her own question.

“Get out. Mr. Love Is a Battlefield? Mr. Grumpy Cat transformed into a human being? I’m surprised he didn’t hiss and turn into a pile of ashes when you showed him the ring.”

Nate tried to
help
his friends’ relationship? Nate the great divorce attorney was pushing for his friends to get
married
?

“He made Mike get the ring, haggled with the jeweler until he took down the price. Then he and Mike talked about where to take me to propose, everything. They decided on Wrigley Field, the very minute the Cubs lost. He knew it would cheer me up.” She smiles. “Nate pays attention to the people he cares about. He’s a genuinely good guy. I’ll admit, you didn’t see the best of him yesterday afternoon.” Stacy sighs. “Sometimes he can be a real asshole. I love him, and even I know it.”

“So does being an asshole just come with the lawyerly territory?” I ask.

Stacy smiles, but only a little. “He’s not usually this bad. I know he’s doing his best with this wedding, being the best man. But the love thing, seeing us celebrate it all weekend; I know it’s taking a toll on him.” She looks sad.

“What happened?” I ask. I smell a tragic back story. Actually, my stomach tightens just thinking about it. Is it bad that I’m curious?

“His girlfriend, Phoebe. She was almost his fiancée. Mike tells me Nate had his own ring, his own perfect spot to propose picked out. They’re both lawyers, met at U Chicago law school. Both really smart, really type A. It seemed like a match made in heaven.” Stacy shrugs. “And then she dumped him. Out of the blue. She told him on a Friday afternoon that it was over, packed her shit and headed out Saturday morning. There was a moving van waiting and everything when Nate woke up. She’d planned the whole thing. She was gone in twenty-four hours. I’d never seen Nate surprised before. Or crushed.” She sighs. “I didn’t like seeing it. He hid it fast, but those first few days.” She shakes her head.

“Jesus,” I whisper. “When did this happen?”

“Six months ago,” she says.

Holy shit. That wound’s probably still fresh, especially at a wedding. No wonder he’s been so pissed off.

“Then Nate kind of turned into robot lawyer man, and we couldn’t get him to even mention Phoebe’s name. He never talks about it, but I know it’s been eating at him.” She crunches a peanut.

“Why did she leave him? Do you know?” I ask, feeling that familiar knot in my stomach. Boy, do I know what it’s like to have abandonment issues. “There has to be a reason.”

“This was the part that really got to him. Phoebe told him she had finally met her soul mate. It was total serendipity. He was just some guy who lent her his coat at Wrigley Field one night. She told Nate the second she looked into this other guy’s eyes, she knew it was meant to be.” Stacy says it all with kind of a sarcastic bite, but I’m not so quick to make fun.

Isn’t that what I write about for a living? Two strangers meeting across a crowded room, or at a corporate meeting? Or—if I’m feeling kinky enough—in a Hungarian sex dungeon? Whatever the venue, I love to write about that moment of connection, eyes meeting, pulses elevating. That instant when you spy in someone else the missing piece of your soul.

Hell, how many times have I written the plotline of “she’s engaged to marry some bland doofus and ends up running off with her hot sports manager/corporate tycoon/rock star soul mate”? Normally, those “doofuses” are only guilty of not being the heroine’s perfect match. They’re usually sweet, kind, Bill Pullman in
Sleepless in Seattle
types. Why don’t I ever write what happens to those people after they’re dumped?

Why don’t I talk about their quest to find love again, when they’ve been so thoroughly shafted?

I really need to think about the damage I inflict on fictional people.

“I guess this puts things in a whole new light,” I say softly.

“Give him a chance to get better. Hey, even if it’s just a fun fling in Vegas, I think it’ll be good for you both.” Stacy takes a sip of her Mai Tai. “He’s a real catch. When we were in college, I had a crush on Nate before Mike. Don’t tell him that.”

“What about hot college Nate?” Mike asks, ears perking up like a fox whose fiancée is hitting on someone else.

“What about still-hot me?” Nate asks, sitting down, putting his phone back in his pocket.

While Stacy and Mike banter some more, I clear my throat. Maybe it’s the writer in me, but now that I’m imagining Nate as the stoic, alpha lawyer whose heart was shattered and who can never love again, I’m finding a way to relate to him better.

“We were just talking about . . . stuff,” I say at last. Brilliant.

Nate smiles. “Stuff’s very interesting.” He leans a little closer to whisper in my ear. My pulse elevates, but it’s pure business talk. “So. You didn’t figure out anything else? In terms of what felonies we committed last night, that is,” he says.

I try to grin, but it’s more of a tight wince. Why the hell am I so nervous around him?

“I’m pretty sure that if our crimes were anything mafia-related, we’d have been taken down by now and stuffed into the trunk of a car. And the yakuza don’t tend to frequent Vegas in the off season,” I say.

Nate shrugs. “I always admire a woman who’s up to date on the movements of Japanese organized crime.”

“Great. It’s one of my favorite subjects,” I say, getting a Mai Tai of my own. Why the hell not? Vegas, baby. “You never found my purse, did you?” I ask.

Nate sighs. “I searched every inch of that strip club. The guys let me in early. And by the way, you don’t want to crawl around on those floors,” he says, shuddering.

“You risked stripper gunk and dried jizz to find my purse?” I clasp my hands between my breasts. “You, sir, are my valiant hero.”

“Why did you have to bring up jizz when we’re about to eat?” he grumbles. But this time, he doesn’t sound so annoyed. In fact, he smiles.

“I’m all about shaving off calories when I can,” I say primly, dunking my chicken satay in the peanut dipping sauce. “Watching the Donald Trump campaign, for example. Great way for a three-day fast.”

“Oh God. I was so hungry,” he says, sounding pained and wincing over his food. “And now I don’t think I’ll eat again.”

“I’ll shut up,” I say.

“No, it’s all right. It’s nice hearing you talk,” he says, taking a mouthful of green curry. “You’re . . . funny.”

A compliment from Nate Wexler? I nearly faint.

“Sweeter words were never spoken,” I say lightly. But I can’t help studying the way his throat works as he swallows. He smells good, too, like chlorine and sun, and some rich, musky cologne. It kind of makes me hungry.

Chicken satay, work your dark magic to prevent my horniness from overpowering me.

We get through lunch, and I don’t want to murder Nate, and he doesn’t complain about what a pain in the ass I am. In fact, we share some laughs and stories from his college days. Far as I’m concerned, we’re a massive success. We pay the check, and then all head out to grab a cab.

Damn, I didn’t realize Mike and Stacy were getting married today. They’ve got a busy few hours ahead of them. Shanna and Tyler are still talking—he seems to be into her, though it could be because she’s a cute girl with a pulse—and Mike and Stacy have their arms around each other. Young love is a beautiful thing to witness.

“They look happy,” Nate says. Even he sounds gruffly pleased for them. “At least someone is.” His gaze darkens as he says it. He squares his jaw just a bit.

Pure rejected alpha pain, right here on display.

Should I bring up the
I know your tragic back story
angle? No, maybe not. Right now, we’ve just entered the realm of civility.