by Erin Zak
Suddenly, the temperature at the bar is stifling.
I snap myself out of the fantasy I’m having of her stripped down to tiny shorts and a bra, and I realize I have been completely busted. She’s watching me staring, watching me undress her with my eyes, and the smile of acknowledgment is…well, it’s so sexy. Her eyebrows are elevated, her arms are folded across her chest, her cleavage is…wow…and her smile is practically glowing with the acknowledgment.
“So you’re married to a man, hmm.”
I smile as I bring the drink to my mouth. Before I sip, I move it to the side. “I am.”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t a question. More of an observation.” She licks her full lips again, and my mind flashes to those lips latching onto my neck, my pulse point, my clavicle. “You’re sort of throwing me for a loop.”
“Sounds negative.”
“It’s not.” Her answer is quick, matter-of-fact, and she pushes off the counter. “Will you please not leave?”
I look around. “What do you mean?”
“It’s eleven. I need to go clock out. And…” She motions to her outfit. “I need to change. I’d like to…get a drink with you. If that’s okay?” She’s nervous, and it is endearing as heck.
There’s a small part of me—very, very small—that shouts at me to not do it. To say thanks, but no thanks, and head back up to my insanely large bathtub where I can touch myself and imagine someone other than her, maybe the woman I actually came to Vegas to woo. But as I’m watching, she takes her lower lip between her teeth and bites, and as much as I’d like to say I’m not a teenage boy with raging hormones, in that moment, I am ready to rip her clothes off. “I will wait.”
“Thank you. I’ll be quick.”
“Okay.” I watch as she spins to the left and heads toward the other end of the bar. The hem of her dress is sitting right below her butt, and as she walks, I wonder what she’s wearing under there. I know I’m a horrible human being. An hour ago, I was ready to take Willow to bed, and now I’m ready to do unthinkable things to this woman.
And I don’t even know her name.
Chapter Six
Francesca
I hadn’t brought clothes to go out in. Ripped skinny jeans and a loose-fitting, very worn and almost see-through white T-shirt are what I brought in because I thought, hey, if I go for a drink with Max, he won’t care what I wear. The outfit isn’t awful. In fact, I look pretty good.
I look at myself in the mirror. Sometimes, it’s hard to see the person I’ve become. I don’t hate myself at all, but there are days when I struggle to see what others say they see. I have a decent body. But I grew up with a mother who didn’t allow me to be pretty until I understood what it entailed and a grandmother who smacked empanadas out of my hand because I was going to get fat if I ate too many. I was made fun of in high school for being “too brown.” I was told my hair would never be beautiful, my complexion would always be oily, and my body would never be hard. So as I aged, and grew into everything I was given, I took all of my poor self-esteem and poured it into a job where the better I look, the more I get paid. The sexiest dress, the more time spent on my hair, and the more intricate my makeup equals more tips, more looks, more oohs and ahhs.
But nothing means I truly believe it.
Too many people I’ve slept with left the second it was over. Too many men have slapped me on the ass when I bring their drink quickly. And I have never told anyone about the time my first love slammed me so hard into the wall that it broke the drywall…all because I didn’t take a shower before he got home.
There has only been one person in my life who told me I was beautiful without me needing to hear it, only one person who said I was smart enough to do anything I wanted to do.
Only one person who promised to never hurt me.
Who I unequivocally believed.
She broke every single part of me when she left.
Willow Carmichael.
My friends get frustrated with me that I’m still so hung up on a woman who broke my heart. They were just as fooled as I was, though. Maybe that’s part of why it’s so hard to move on. When even the people closest to me had no idea I was being played, it’s makes the pill even harder to swallow. I hate how I let someone like her get under my skin enough to break my heart, which is ultimately what I’m still hung up on. I was so stupid for trusting someone like her, for believing anything she said. I should have known it wasn’t possible for me to be loved as hard as she said she loved me.
As I leave the employee lounge, looking to meet up with this woman, I know deep down I don’t really want anything from her. All I’m looking for is a little bit of fun. I want to talk to someone who doesn’t know me. I want to gaze at someone I probably will never see again. I want to relax and take a breath and forget how it felt to be told how gorgeous I was in one breath and in the next be told it was all a lie.
When I get closer to the bar, I take in how lovely she is as she sits there. The best part is she actually waited. She didn’t take off the second I left the bar. She’s still sitting on the stool, wearing a dress, red heels, and I feel underdressed for half a second before I realize it doesn’t matter.
None of this matters.
I’m going for a drink with her. I don’t want to go find Annabelle McDrunky at Caesar’s. And she’s beautiful. She’s very fun to look at. So why not? I lean against the Buffalo slot machine and take in the sight of her. Her blond hair is much longer than I thought; it’s halfway down her back, and some large curls are hanging in there. The new bartenders have served her another drink. A guy across the bar is ogling her. There’s a group of young girls next to her, and one of them is striking up a conversation. I smile, which is a strange sensation since I rarely smile these days, when she swivels on the stool. Her eyes find me, and she tilts her head and purses her lips as if she’s disappointed in me for staring or maybe disappointed she’s caught me.
Either way, I take the hint and make my way over to her. I snake a hand behind her as I get as close as possible and flatten my palm onto her back. “I can’t drink here,” I whisper. “Let’s go.”
She doesn’t question me, just grabs her purse and leaves three twenties on the bar top. She a good tipper. Another reason to dig her. “Where should we go?” Our heels click on the dark floor as we head to the Strip exit.
“Chandelier Bar at Cosmo.” I smile as I hold the door for her. The warm, dry Vegas air slams into us. “I know the bartenders.”
She laughs. “You want to be seen with a middle-aged woman, hmm?”
“Absolutely.” The walk is mostly silent, except for the few times I wave off homeless people, handing them tens as we walk. I always come prepared. Who knows what they’ve gone through?
I open the door to the Cosmopolitan for her, she says thank you, and I move up next to her. She smells lovely, and I wonder how many times in her life she’s been chased by a woman. None of this seems to be freaking her out.
As we approach the Chandelier Bar, I scan the packed crowd, looking for Diamond, my best friend of twenty years. Di is a stripper Friday through Sunday, but on Tuesdays through Thursdays, she’s a cocktail server. I finally find her, and she sees me. Her hand shoots up, points to the staircase to the right of the bar top, and I nod. The middle area of the bar is for VIP guests only. And tonight, I’m a VIP, or at least, I’m making it seem that way. I glance over my shoulder, reach back, and grab this woman’s hand. I realize I still don’t know her name, so I stop. “Holy shit.”
“What?” Her voice is coated with worry, and her eyes are searching mine. “Is everything okay?”
I laugh. “I have no idea what your name is.”
“Oh my goodness. I seriously…” She takes a deep breath, turns her head, and my eyes are drawn to the line of her neck down to her cleavage. She has wonderful curves, from the size of her breasts to her waist and hips. When she looks back, she is biting her lower lip, and something about the way she narrows her eyes before she purses her lip
s makes my stomach flip. “I thought something was wrong.”
“No.” I raise my voice over the bass of the music. I lean closer. Her perfume surrounds me, and fuck, if it isn’t intoxicating. “I don’t know what to call you.”
“Cecily.”
I pull back and smile. “Francesca.”
Cecily
After we sit, Francesca raises her tumbler with its generous pour of some fancy whiskey. She smiles, squints at me, then swirls her drink. I wonder if she realizes how sexy I find everything she is doing. “To, what? New friends?” she asks.
“Sounds perfect.” Actually, the longer I’m around her, the more I want to be in her very intriguing life. The life I led up until Willow was so straitlaced, and I kept up the appearance afterward as much as a person can while married to a man and having an affair with a woman.
“Tell me,” Francesca says over the music, which isn’t nearly as loud here as in the rest of the bar. “What kind of job sends you to Vegas alone?”
“Oh, yes, the dreaded questions about myself. Are you sure you want to hear about me? I feel you’re much more interesting.”
“Why? Because I live in Vegas? Believe me, this city is not all it is cracked up to be.” She glances around the second floor of the bar. “And besides…” She sips her whiskey. I cannot stop watching her mouth, and it is really becoming a problem. “It’s rare a woman as beautiful as you is wandering around alone.”
“Beautiful, hmm?” I find myself sliding into flirtatious without any reservations. Maybe it’s the third vodka I’m sipping on. I have no idea.
“Oh, please.”
“What?”
“You’re gorgeous. In a holy shit, who’s that woman kind of way.”
I giggle. Yep. Giggle. The sound is shocking. I do not giggle. I laugh, sure. I also chuckle from time to time. But giggle? I stopped giggling soon after I married. Life is too intense these days to giggle. Francesca seems to enjoy the sound, though, and her smile takes my breath away. “I don’t think we should discuss…”
“Hmm?”
I look at my drink. The bubbling of the soda water has caused the straw to float to the surface. That straw is exactly how I feel. Floating around wondering what the heck is going on. I take it in between my finger and thumb, pull it out, and bring it to my lips. I nibble on the end. I’m nervous and feel out of place. And I also need to stop talking. Not only should I not want to keep this up with someone who isn’t Willow, I also shouldn’t want to fall into another horrible transgression while not being completely separated from Luke. My mind flashes to his smile, his hair, his beautiful eyes. Why, oh why, can’t I just be in love with him? Everything would be easier. I would never think about Willow again. I would never think about unfulfilling sex. I would never think about lost babies and horrible nightmares and all the things which ruined me, ruined us.
Francesca reaches across the table. Her hands are lovely, her nails manicured with light pink polish with the nail on her ring fingers painted maroon to match her uniform. I wonder why she’s not wearing a ring. Is she really not tied down? Would it make all of this less stressful and easier if she was? When she nears my left hand, I clench it into a fist, and she stops abruptly.
“I only want to say that I didn’t mean to upset you.” Her tone, her words, her hand and fingers, how she’s still reaching out, all of it seems to relax me, and I unclench.
I let my pinkie mingle with her index finger. “You didn’t upset me.”
“Is it something you want to talk about?”
I can only shrug, which seems to work for her. She squeezes my pinkie the slightest amount before she pulls slowly away. A part of me longs for her to bring her hand back, to scoot closer in the half-moon booth. “Tell me about you,” I say softly. I’m not sure if she heard me. She’s not looking at me, but she sighs and turns so she’s staring into my eyes. Her eyes are the most beautiful brown I have ever seen, and I’m glad it’s not my turn to speak. I couldn’t find words if I was paid to.
“Where should I start?” She pulls a leg up. She’s discarded her black heels. I’ll never get over how some people can make ripped jeans and heels look so good, but man, she really does. “The beginning?”
I nod, the only response I can muster.
“Well, my grandmother came here with a man she thought she loved.” She leans forward. “Illegally, of course.” After she winks, she sits back and looks away. “Little did she know, she was going to meet and fall in love with my grandfather, who was her boss at the time. He owned the dry-cleaning business where she found a job shortly after she made her way here. He asked her to marry him, so she did, and they had two children, my mother and her brother, Claudia and Ciro. Twins, which is unheard of in our family. My mother married my father when she was eighteen.” She pauses and stares off into the distance, seemingly gathering her thoughts, before she turns back. “He was American. Well, his parents were from Ireland. He had the reddest hair.” She smiles. “If I do nothing with my hair, it has a lot of red in it.” She runs her hands through it, starting at the hairline. The color she has now is mesmerizing, but I can imagine her with reddish auburn hair, and the image makes my palms sweat. She bites her bottom lip. “I’m sorry. I’m not really good at talking about myself. Not a huge fan.”
“Why?” I finally find my voice. “You’ve got my attention.” Her eyes widen, and I smile. “I just mean, you’re very easy to listen to.”
She tilts her head. “Thank you.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, but I hear it clearly. “It’s a good way to get hurt, though.”
Her answer, the sadness behind it, the boldness in front of it, makes me hold my breath for one beat, two, before I breathe out through my nose. “You think I’m going to hurt you? You barely know me.”
“Exactly.”
The worst part is, I understand her completely. Oversharing is a great way to find yourself deeper than you’d like, and the only reason she can know that is because she’s been there before. Knowing I’m probably right makes me sad. The idea that she’s been hurt deeply has me feeling protective as well as confused. I don’t plan on seeing her again. These drinks, these longing looks, these gentle touches, will all be over tomorrow when I see Willow again. And I’m sure Francesca feels the exact same way. There’s no way she thinks this will go anywhere. We’re enjoying the night life, the ambiance, the feel and look of Las Vegas, where anyone can be anyone, and life speeds up as it simultaneously slows. So for tonight, I don’t want to hurt her, and I do not plan to, either. I don’t want her to get too close, but at the same time, I don’t want her to fear anything about me. Everything about Vegas is a contradiction, but we both know this. Don’t we? “I can assure you, I don’t want to get hurt just as much as you don’t.”
She seems to let my response roll around her brain a couple times before she responds. “My abuela and mother live close.” Her voice sounds how I imagine her skin feels, silky and warm. “I have three brothers.”
This time, it’s me who reaches across the table to touch her. My fingers land on the back of her hand, and I’m right about her skin. “You do not have to tell me anything else.” I rub lightly with two fingers. “Okay?”
She doesn’t move, except her eyes, which blink a couple times rapidly.
“Okay?” I ask again. This spontaneous date has gone from fun and flirty to real and heavy in the blink of an eye.
“I recently had my heart broken.” Her eyes have filled with tears, and she shakes her head while sucking in a breath. “Why am I telling you this?”
“I have no idea,” I say softly.
She chuckles and dabs at the wetness under her eyes, careful to not smudge her makeup. “There’s just…something about you.” Her voice, how it trails off, reminds me of coming up for air after swimming. The way the oxygen fills the lungs, and you realize you’re not drowning.
You’re okay. “I will listen if you’d like.”
She moves her hair over her shoulder, the perfect curls
holding on, even after all her fidgeting. “Maybe on the next drink.”
“Oh?” I drag my fingers lightly down the length of her middle finger. “You think I’m staying out?”
“Oh, come on.” She looks away, finds her friend across the room, and motions for two more drinks. “It’s Vegas. One way or another, I plan on keeping you up all night.”
Francesca
“You sure are sure of yourself,” Cecily says softly.
I laugh. She’s right. I do seem awfully sure of myself. But I’m freaking out right now. I have no idea what I’m doing. This night wasn’t supposed to end with drinks with this woman. I was going to go home. I wasn’t going to go find Straight Annabelle. I wasn’t going to do anything but pour myself a glass of wine and relax in my tub. But Cecily… “Do you want to know a secret?”
“Of course.”
I lean forward and lock my eyes on hers. “I am not at all sure of myself. Especially these days.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Well.” I smile and shrug. “There’s a huge difference between believing in yourself and knowing you’re good at your job. I mean, I know I can make money as a bartender. But this?” I motion between us. “This is not who I am. I don’t really engage with many people these days. I’m too…” Damaged. Scared. Heartbroken. Depressed. “Busy.”