by Ried Reese
She squeaks and jumps a little, snatching her hand away from the laptop she’s examining like it burned her. “Holy shit, Brandon, you scared me.”
“Sorry, sorry.” I hold up my hands in apology.
“No, it’s fine,” she says quickly. “I just set off an alarm here before and touching things kind of makes me paranoid now. What are you doing here?”
“Orders for House of Stars,” I explain. “I decided to break for lunch early and get this done.” I gesture at the laptops, trying to ignore the line of skin that appears between her tank top and shorts when she leans forward to check a price tag. “Looking for a laptop?” I ask casually.
“My old one is getting impossible.” Taylor’s eyebrows draw together and her face sours at the mention of it. “I’ve had it for years and it’s really slow and it shuts down randomly. I had a lecture this morning and it shut down in the middle, then jerked visually through the rest.”
“What else do you need a laptop for besides work and classes?” I ask.
“Nothing, really. I occasionally watch some Netflix. Everything else I do on my phone. Why?” She looks at me questioningly.
Of course, she caught that I’m leading up to something. She’s smart like that. “You might want to double check because I only heard this from Rick, but I think all the accountants are getting company laptops.”
“Wait, really?” A sparkle dawns in her eyes as she looks up at me still bent over the laptop.
“I think so. I’m pretty sure, anyway. I would suggest ordering one online, anyway. It’s usually cheaper.”
“I was just around the area, and I thought I’d take a look.” She straightens up and turns away from the laptops with a flourish in her step. “My old one will work until I check with Isabel. But hey,” she grabs my arm earnestly, “thank you for letting me know. I really, really didn’t want to spend the money on a new one, even if I am making more now.”
“You could have returned it anyway, but I’m glad I could help. Really glad,” I add, unable to contain a smile as her mouth curves into a happy smile. “I was hoping to see you today.”
“I have today off,” Taylor informs me, a blush stealing across her pale cheeks. “I know I said I’d see you at work today, but my brain wasn’t... working.”
“Then, will you have lunch with me? I still have about an hour until I really need to get back to work, and we could walk to that little coffee and lunch place down the street.” I wait with baited breath.
“Sure,” she says without hesitation.
I’m not a nervous person, but wondering all last night and this morning about how Taylor would react, speak or look at me next time we saw each other had gotten me worried like nothing and no one else can.
Now that we’re walking together and talking together, everything feels right in the world. I say something, and she responds quickly with an honest statement or a clever comment, just as she did before last night.
It’s like for her; nothing has changed. Has anything changed for me?
“This way.” I skirt a group of tourists arguing in Chinese, giving them a wide berth to avoid their expansive gestures. After we pass them, I slow and walk closer to Taylor so she can hear me over the chatter of what feels like the entire world out for lunch. “Vegas isn’t for everyone, I guess,” I joke.
“Try to look like you have no idea where you’re going. I’ve found that discourages most tourists from assuming you know where things are just because you don’t have a map in your hands.” Taylor splits away from me to avoid a spilled takeaway box of food on the sidewalk.
“But I don’t agree with you,” she adds, gesturing to the mixed groups of people we can see around us. “Those people were Chinese, there’s a group speaking Spanish, there’s an Indian family—they’re all here because they wanted to visit the Entertainment Capital of the World, and Vegas is meant for people like them. It’s meant to embrace everyone and offer something for everyone.”
Everyone who comes to Vegas does it for the first time once. I could have started up my business as an electrical contractor anywhere, but I chose to compete against the top companies for the electrical jobs that illuminate the Strip and the city around it. Hopes soaring and tool belt ready, I had expected so much from the city and myself—only to realize that making it in Vegas takes time and so, so many sacrifices. It took me two years to land a job with enough prestige to get me any recognition anywhere that mattered to me.
“Vegas embraces tourists. What about you and me? And Rick, and Cullen? And the dancers and the accountants in House of Stars? We’re all just Americans trying to make our way in the world. What does Vegas offer us?”
Taylor doesn’t respond as we turn into the coffee shop. She’s staring at the ground, so I take her hand to guide her away from her current collision course with a laden waiter and toward the stairs to the second floor.
She looks up, but she squeezes my hand rather than release it. “A challenge,” she says softly, and her voice rings with determination. “One that wouldn’t exist without tourists. Everyone in this city makes it what it is, and it needs all of us to be Las Vegas.”
I release her hand as she sits and sits on a chair across from her. “That’s incredibly insightful. And… beautiful.”
By her blush, I’m sure she realizes I mean the city—but also her. The way she thinks. The way she talks.
“Well, I can’t be pessimistic 24/7. I live with Gemma, after all, and she’s happy to exist 24/7, so we kind of rub off on each other and balance out.”
A waitress introduces herself and hands us menus, but I already know what I want. Taylor gives the menu a quick glance and orders a sandwich, probably so that the waitress doesn’t have to come back again and I can be on my way back to work sooner.
“So, what do you like to do?” Taylor asks when the waitress takes off toward the kitchens. “Like… hobbies. I’m going to guess you don’t spend all your time working or bar-hopping.”
I laugh. “I don’t bar-hop at all. Like I said, semi-regular at Spinner’s.”
“Then what do you like to do? Because I’m imagining you redoing wiring for fun on your off days,” Taylor teases, accepting her glass of water as the waitress returns with two.
“I usually just work out and watch something when I’m at home,” I relent. “I guess you could also say nutrition is a hobby of mine, but that kind of goes with working out.”
God, I love it when she looks at me like that. Her eyes roam across my powerfully-built upper body like I’m delicious enough to eat. It’s the same way I look at her.
“I can tell.” The tiny blush on her cheeks and waver in her voice tells me she knows she paused for too long and was caught staring. The open once-over she gives me next tells me she doesn’t care, and both reactions are so incredibly sexy.
Our food arrives, and for a moment we’re too busy arranging our plates and saying ‘thank you’ to the waitress to talk. Once I’ve taken a big bite of my Caesar salad and a sip of my water, I ask, “What about you?” Her eyes rise to me over her sandwich to convey her confusion. “Hobbies.”
“Oh,” she mumbles through a mouthful of food. Taylor chews deliberately, thoughtfully regarding the sandwich. “I guess dancing is sort of a hobby. Or a dream. Or both. I—I, uh, used to sketch and draw a lot, but I’ve been way too busy lately.”
Drawing? Why would she feel awkward about drawing? “You should pick it up again,” I tell her, watching the way her slender hands spin the sandwich around on the plate. I can easily imagine those fingers holding a pencil.
She shrugs. “I don’t have the pencils I used to, and I wouldn’t have time anyway.”
“I get you. I used to build RC cars and planes back in high school, and I know I don’t have time anymore.” Drawing is clearly… well, I don’t know if I would say it’s a touchy subject for her, but she definitely hesitated to tell me. Just for a second, but now that she has told me, she doesn’t hesitate to talk about it. Even so, I feel like I need to share so
mething I used to do in return.
“Really?” Her eyes sparkle with interest. “That’s a pretty cool hobby.”
“It’s what got me into electronics and put it in my mind to go to trade school after— well, after things didn’t work out with the Navy,” I finish.
“And now you’re a top electrical contractor working the Las Vegas Strip.” Taylor raises her hand and gestures out the window, managing to encompass the entire idea of Vegas in the motion.
“Top? No,” I disagree, laughing. “Maybe one day.”
“Maybe one day you’ll have your own building in the city— offices, storage rooms for equipment, company trucks— the lot of it.” Taylor winks at me and returns to her sandwich. “And you’ll need a sexy accountant, of course.”
Chapter Nine: Taylor
“So?”
I glance at Gemma. She’s standing over a pan on the stove, staring at me expectantly as she twirls a spatula in her hand. A bowl of pancake batter sits on the counter.
On the other, less productive hand, I’m sitting on the couch and refreshing my email every ten minutes or so. An assignment had been due last night at 11:59 PM, and I’d completely forgotten about it after lunch with Brandon and only remembered just now. The folder to submit the assignment is already closed, so all I can do is hope my professor will reopen it for me.
“Do I get some of those?” I ask as the smell of frying batter makes my stomach gurgle appreciatively, looking for a distraction from the screen.
“If you answer my questions. No, don’t argue,” Gemma orders. “We haven’t talked about this yet and I just finished my tv show.”
I flop down on the couch and shake my head. “What does that have to do with anything?” I snap. Manipulative little—
“I need a new drama, of course.” She grins and flips a pancake.
I sigh theatrically, but really, I’m glad she’s pressing me. “Fine.”
“So, you had sex with him.”
“No,” I say immediately, unable to stop myself from sounding sharply defensive.
She puts her hand on her hip and pursed her lips. “Girl, I saw that tear up the back of your skirt when you walked through here the other night. Don’t play games with me!”
“We didn’t! Well, sort of. A truck doesn’t have a whole lot of room for sex.” No. I will not blush.
“Oooh getting freaky in a truuuuckk!” Gemma singsongs at me. “Damn, girl. If I’d known you wanted to bring your man back with you, I could have found somewhere else to be that night. Given you two your privacy.”
Gemma does this thing that has irritated me since we met, but she doesn’t do it often enough to justify really being angry about it. She winks, but not like a normal person—she winks with her voice. I don’t know how, but sometimes, when she talks, I can actually hear her winking.
She’s doing it right now, and there’s no reason. She's not even subtle.
Instead of being angry about it, I sigh. “Mature, Gemma. I didn’t know it was going to happen, okay?”
“Mhm. Anyway, give me details. Did you go on a date?”
“I have no idea,” I say honestly, giving her the same answer I’ve given myself many times over the past couple days. “I can’t decide if Brandon was going out for drinks anyway and just happened to invite me along because I was running late, or if he was asking me out. We even went out for lunch yesterday and I meant to bring it up somehow, but we spent so long talking about everything else that he had to get back to work before I could.”
“That’s the kind of thing where you drop a clever little bit of conversation to find out without asking outright.” Pans clank in the kitchen and Gemma walks into the living room balancing the plate of pancakes, two more plates, butter, and syrup. “Also, that almost sounds like two dates.”
“You forgot forks.” I get up to fetch them. “And I know. It’s like I lose my mind whenever Brandon is around.”
“I don’t think you’re capable of losing your mind, Taylor.” Gemma gestures at me with two pancakes as I return.
“Or I lost it when I first saw Brandon,” I mutter, stabbing a pancake.
“Don’t take your anger out on my pancakes. What’s wrong with you all of a sudden? Did Brandon do something?”
“No, no,” I hasten to reassure her. “I just….” The email I drafted yesterday to ask for an extension to turn in homework scrolls through my mind. How had I forgotten to do such a simple assignment? “He’s a distraction, Gemma. A really distracting distraction. I already lost one job. What am I supposed to do if I lose this one?”
“You won’t.” Gemma’s voice rings with conviction. “You’re good at this, and you spend too much time already studying. You won’t give yourself breaks. Brandon is a welcome distraction, not a ‘distracting’ one.” She grins as she repeats the words.
“But I don’t need a distraction of any kind!” I insist firmly. “That’s one of the few things in life I don’t need.”
“Must I use Cullen and me as an example again?” She sighs as I shake my head stubbornly. “Look, just listen.”
I quirk an eye at her and she rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. Every time I was around Cullen at first, it was like I was getting a little taste. He’d touch me to show me how to make a dance move right, or he’d brush his hand against mine when he handed me something—things like that. It drove me crazy because I was so close to him, but not really with him.
“No, shut up, I’m not finished,” she silences me as I try to interrupt. “Then, neither of us could take it anymore one night at House of Stars. We—uh—used the screen room—” Now she’s the one blushing, but she’s not trying to hide it. “Anyway, it was really, really good. Not just the sex, but being that close to Cullen, finally, after so much skirting around our feelings.”
“And your point is…?” Actually, I think I understand her point just fine, but I don’t feel like giving her the satisfaction of knowing that her storytelling skills are decent.
“I wanted so badly to be closer to him that I couldn’t take my eyes off him or think about anything else.” Gemma smiles that dreamy smile that only romance can bring out. “You don’t see us all over each other at the club, do you? Before I knew I could be with Cullen, being around him was all I could think about. Now, I know he’s mine and I’m his and I can concentrate on becoming a Star.”
Gemma’s mention of Stars does nothing to better my mood. I shrug, knowing that if I say something now it’ll come out snappish.
“You’re overthinking,” she says quickly, seeing the look on my face. “When Cullen and I finally got together, all these things we thought were problems just… went away, or weren’t really problems to begin with. You got a taste of Brandon - quite literally it sounds like... You haven’t even tried to see what life will be like when you’re with him.”
“Really busy, that’s what it’ll be like. You and Cullen see each other every day at the club. That’s not going to change. But Brandon doesn’t work for Cullen. He’s just a contractor. How would things be when I couldn’t see him every day? Men have the attention spans of earthworms. A girl leaves their sight for a day, and they’re hitting on the next one that walks by.”
“That’s not fair, and you know it. Not all men are like that.” She shakes her head, serious for once. “I can’t believe I’m arguing for a man I’ve never met, but seriously. Don’t let thinking that things won’t work keep you from trying first.”
“I am trying,” I protest. “I’ve been getting to know him like you said.”
“And? Are you liking what you’re finding?”
“So far.” Before triumph suffuses Gemma’s face, I add, “But he doesn’t want to open up to me. I knew him, and now I know him, but I don’t know what happened in between. It isn’t as easy as just letting go of who Brandon used to be.”
Gemma stands up. “We need to get ready to leave.” She turns back as she reaches her door. “Just don’t decide who Brandon is on your own. Let him show
you.”
There’s another thing about Gemma that’s up there with voice-winking. She hates to lose arguments and she knows I’ll throw logic at her until the end of time, so she’ll say something cryptic or oddly insightful and just disappear.
Whatever. I actually do need to get ready to leave.
The shower sends warm, calming streams of water down my body. I rub soap into my skin, closing my eyes, and suddenly I’m with Brandon. He’s running his hands over me, his touch gradually moving lower and lower—
Snatching my own hands away from myself, I grab the shampoo with a sigh, half of annoyance and half of longing. Gemma is right. That night in his truck isn’t enough—I want more. More of Brandon.
Chapter Ten: Brandon
I’ve checked my email, glanced at the weather forecast, and finished any other little daily tasks I usually complete before I head to work in the morning. I’ve eaten breakfast, shaved, dressed, and all my tools are in the truck, ready to go.
An advertisement is holding me here, a hostage in my own kitchen. Plenty of reasons have made me late to work in the past, but never an ad. But, it’s not just any ad. A smiling, sexy accountant points to the name of the accounting firm she works for, using every inch of the small vertical rectangle of advertisement space.
What’s the name of the business? I have no idea because I can’t tear my eyes away from the sexy accountant.
“And you’ll need a sexy accountant, of course.”
I could have taken a video and played it back a thousand times, but still not remember it as well as the words had imprinted into my mind at that moment.
Many of the things Taylor says have a thin layer of sarcasm to them, and sometimes I have difficulty distinguishing between seriousness, genuine annoyance, and jokes. Her voice hadn’t even contained a hint of sarcasm when she made that little joke about sexy accountants. The words had been obviously, clearly, definitely, 100% a joke, and I know that.