by Jess Bentley
Mick started to ask for a name, any one of their names, but he reconsidered. Eighteen? Thank God she was eighteen, but still. That was the sort of scandal he, and Watterson Gaming, didn’t need.
Better to drop the entire thing. No matter how indescribably good she looked, and felt. He was almost old enough to be her father.
“How old do you think he was?” Tara asked. She seemed more obsessed with the mystery man than even Ayla was, as they lay on the sectional in Ayla’s living room late the next morning.
“I have no idea,” Ayla answered. Maybe thirty?”
“You are so bad! Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?” Tara teased.
“I think he might be from England or Australia or something. He had a little accent.”
“Stop. Stop it right now. Just how jealous do you want to make me?”
“I know it’s dumb, and I know there’s no way in the world that I’d know yet, but I think I am,” Ayla said. “Pregnant that is. Shit.”
“We’re going to fix that,” Tara reminded her. “Natalie has a friend who has a friend who can get you that pill for free.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to ‘fix’ anything,” Ayla insisted. “If I am, I am.”
“Your parents will freak the fuck out,” Tara said, wide-eyed. “You’ll probably have to move in with me or something. If it’s a girl, you have to name her after me. If it’s a boy, I don’t know, name him Scald. Scald Murray.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Ayla replied. “I’m not naming my child ‘Scald’.” Ayla furrowed her brow. “I had a great-uncle in Texas, Grandpa Murray’s brother, he died when I was in elementary school, third grade, I think. His name was Preston. I always liked that name. Preston Murray.”
“That’s not bad,” Tara allowed. “But we can agree on Tara for a girl, right?”
“Whatever,” Ayla laughed.
Tara looked at Ayla, the expression on her face solemn.
“Seriously though. You’re not pregnant. There’s just no way.”
Mick was back to work the next day, reporting to Winston that he ought to avoid Scald. He’d noticed some of the drug-dealing that was destined to get the club raided eventually, and although that alone wasn’t so unusual, he embellished it a bit to make sure he wouldn’t have to return to the club in a professional capacity.
Work and working out kept Mick busy, but he kept finding his mind wandering to the girl in the blue dress. In his spare time, he visited area malls, hoping he might happen upon her, on the off chance she was a local. Where else might young, beautiful women hang out? He’d recognize her angelic face, or her sinful body, anywhere. He just knew it.
He even considered touching base with one of his old intelligence buddies to track her down, but such an allocation of resources would be frowned upon by higher ups and would certainly be looked upon unfavorably by his own superiors.
It seemed she was destined to become a memory; doubtlessly the fondest kind of memory, but a memory, nonetheless.
Chapter 7
“Come in, sit down for a minute, this won’t take long,” Randy, Ayla’s boss’s boss, said, with a smile. “I know you have to get down to the belt soon to get started.”
Ayla returned his smile with a nervous one of her own. She’d come to work early, as he’d requested, despite being up later than she expected the previous night. The novel she’d been reading, which she only wanted to get deep enough into to get to one of the “steamy” sections, was too good to put down, so she’d finished it after her bath. She was exhausted. But it was Thursday, so she was on the downhill part of the week. One more day and it would be off to Southern California.
“It’s about your attendance,” Randy began. He shuffled some papers on his desk, pulling out one with her name at the top and lines highlighted in different colors; days she’d been late and others she’d left early. “I know you have your son, you know I have three boys of my own, I can sympathize. But I also have people I report to, and work that has to be done every day. And by done, I mean completed. Emergencies are one thing, but when you’re leaving early too often, it stretches everybody else. It puts me in a bind. I want to work with you, to make it as easy as I can for you, heck, for everybody, but when I let you slide, other people think they can slide, and pretty soon half the people on the belt are ducking out early, or trying to. Am I making sense?”
Ayla nodded. Randy had been more than fair with her, and he was making perfect sense.
“Jeff was livid when he came in here after we got finished yesterday. I mean furious. You know he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, and he had to finish loading your trucks. Save me from having to listen to him bitch and moan anymore, okay?”
Ayla laughed, relieved.
“I don’t want to do any discipline on you, so consider this an unofficial verbal warning. And hopefully you have your childcare situation straightened out?”
“I do,” Ayla confirmed. “I promise. I really, really need this job. I would never do anything to jeopardize it, if I could help it. Thank you, Randy.”
“Thanks for your hard work,” Randy replied. “Now get down there before I have Jeff in here looking for you.”
Ayla’s day went without incident, although Jeff just scowled at her when she got overwhelmed with work, rather than offering any of the support he provided to others doing the exact same job.
Lupe showed up as scheduled, Desiree left for work on time, and between the two of them, they armed Preston with enough Spanish to continue his progress toward becoming bilingual.
Even Teri was on her best behavior, an almost-bearable version that rarely showed up at work.
That evening, after putting Preston to bed, Ayla sprawled out on the sofa next to Desiree to dig into a pint of mint chocolate chip that she’d managed to keep hidden from her son in the back of the freezer.
“Behind the frozen broccoli,” Ayla bragged to Desiree. “Vegetables are like Kryptonite to him. He won’t even touch the bag; he might accidentally absorb something healthy by osmosis.”
Desiree laughed and began to surf through the channels with the television remote.
A commercial ended and went into a teaser for the evening news, and just as Desiree went to check the next channel, Ayla stopped her.
“No, no, no! Don’t turn it! Oh my God!”
Desire dropped the remote onto the ottoman and held up her hands as if she’d been holding a venomous snake. “What, girl?”
Ayla had set her ice cream down and picked up the remote. Her hands were shaking. She pressed the button to rewind seven seconds, then she pushed the pause button. “That’s him. Right there in back. That’s him. Holy shit.”
Desiree studied the image. Two men in suits, stood in front, shaking hands. A young guy she recognized as some sort of local casino executive, the man next to him an older Asian fellow. They stood in front of a Watterson Gaming banner, with a small group, three men and one woman, off to the side, in the background.
Ayla walked over to the television and pointed at the tallest of the group, a rugged, broad-shouldered man with closely-cropped dark hair, just graying at the temples.
“That’s Preston’s dad. I swear. I’d never forget him.”
“Are you sure?” Desiree asked. “I mean, what are the chances?”
“Shh, let me hear what they’re saying,” Ayla insisted.
Nightly news anchor Rikki Randle narrated the clip: “Tonight at eleven, our lead story is the announcement of Watterson Gaming taking their local casino empire overseas. Where and when will their project break ground?”
She went on to discuss an update on the search for a local missing person, an elderly Alzheimer’s patient who had wandered away from his nursing home and disappeared.
Ayla muted the TV.
“I swear on everything, on Preston’s life, that’s him. That’s Preston’s father. He must work for Watterson. What do I do?”
Ayla had rewound it back and frozen the screen
. She got close to the glass, studying it for a clue.
“I don’t know, Ayla, if you’re totally sure,” Desiree started.
“I am!” Ayla insisted.
“Okay, okay, let me finish,” Desiree said. “We have to figure some way to get you to talk to him, I guess? I don’t know. But look at him. He looks like a movie star. He must have a wife and kids somewhere. What do you think he’s going to say if you show up claiming Preston is his kid?”
Desiree joined Ayla right in front of the screen, to get a better look. Ayla was gazing intently at the man in question.
“Shit, Ay, he does look like Preston.”
“I know, right?” Ayla asked, wiping a tear from her cheek.
“I don’t know anybody at Watterson, I mean the place I work is small potatoes next to them, but some of the old-timers where I work retired from bigger casinos and wanted something smaller, slower-paced. Somebody might know who he is. Or know somebody who might know,” Desiree said, rubbing Ayla’s back.
“Let me get my laptop,” Ayla said, leaving the room for a moment and returning with her computer slung under her arm. The two friends sat down on the couch and brought up the Watterson Gaming web site. After doing some digging, they came up with Winston Watterson, the president of the company, as the man who was front and center on the television news story.
They searched for the Watterson board of directors and anyone else they could think of who might have been standing behind Winston, but the only one they found was a woman named Robin Chuang, who was “Director of International Development,” or some such. The mystery man remained a cipher.
It wasn’t long before the evening news aired, and the lead story, indeed, involved Watterson Gaming’s announcement that they were entering the lucrative Asian market, beginning in Macau.
Winston Watterson made a brief statement, but Ayla heard none of it. She was focused on the man over Winton’s right shoulder in the black suit. He was handsome and intense, eyes sweeping from side to side.
“I bet he’s security. Or a bodyguard, or something,” Desiree announced. “Look at how everybody else is relaxed and smiling; they’re excited about the announcement. But your guy is stone-faced. Except his eyes, they’re darting all over the place. Looking for danger?”
Ayla nodded. “Yeah, you might be right,” she agreed. “He was big… It would make sense if he was a guard or something.”
“How does that help, though? It’s not like you can just call up Winston Watterson, or send him an e-mail, and ask him who his bodyguard is, right?” Desiree asked. She commandeered Ayla’s laptop and punched Winston’s name into a YouTube search and checked on Google Images.
Several times, they found Winston with the same shadow; the handsome man in the black suit. The guy who looked like a grown-up version of Preston. Very grown.
“He’s with him all the time, and always in that black suit. He’s definitely his bodyguard,” Desiree offered. But the knowledge brought them no closer to the man’s identity. Nowhere was his name mentioned.
“This is so crazy,” Ayla muttered, going through the pictures. “I thought I’d never find him.”
Chapter 8
Mick hated asking for time off. Winston never took vacations anymore, although business often had him traveling, squeezing in a day or two of leisure when he’d find himself in, or near, an exotic locale. Some of his staff had even started referring to him by the nickname “World Wide,” as it shared initials with his own first and last name.
“I’ve been looking at the calendar; any idea when it might be good for me to take a trip home to visit my mum?” Mick asked his boss.
Winston looked up from his phone as the limo they shared rolled slowly through evening traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard.
“Oh, back to the U.K.?” Winston asked.
“Yeah, Sheffield,” Mick replied. “She’s been down lately. Anniversary of my brother’s passing is right around the corner. It’s tough on her.”
Winston nodded. “I wish she’d consider moving here. From what you tell me, it’s just her there, surrounded by all those ghosts. The desert might do her some good. But, yes, of course, just tell me when you want to go, I’ll have a Watterson jet ready for you.”
“Nah, it’s alright, mate, those private jets are nice, but a little, ah, ostentatious for me. I’m just a simple lad from Sheffield. I’ll splurge for first class, though.”
“Have it your way, Mick. But if you ever do convince her to relocate, I’ll have a condo ready for her. As near, or far, as you want it to be.”
“Thanks, boss,” Mick replied. He enjoyed the camaraderie of the new, more mature Winston Watterson much more than the playboy he used to babysit. “I’m afraid the only thing that would get her to move here would be grandchildren.”
“Well, then you’d better get started!” Winston chided. “When is Las Vegas’s most eligible bachelor going to settle down, anyway?”
“That would be you,” Mick answered. “I’m a scarred-up old pensioner, just about. Nobody’s looking for me, or especially to have kids with me,” he assured his superior. “They all want to be part of the Watterson fortune, anyway. If any woman were interested in me, I’d assume she just wanted to get close to you.”
“Oh yeah,” Winston laughed. “Women hate military guys. Especially ones covered in muscles. Getting dates must be a such a challenge.”
“Feh,” Mick waved him off. “Dates aren’t the problem. Nobody would want to put up with me for a second one. I’m not exactly Mr. Sunshine.”
“Who needs a second date? There are enough beautiful women in this town to take a different one home every night for ten years. And by then, a whole new batch would move in to replace even them. Live a little.”
Mick shook his head. “Not my style, mate.”
“Suit yourself,” Winston replied, as they pulled into a rundown shopping complex a few blocks east of the Strip, an area that was, surprisingly, home to perhaps the finest Thai restaurant in America— Lotus of Siam. It was one of Winston’s favorites, and he’d invited his guests from Macau to join him there for dinner.
Mick enjoyed the larb served there, the best he’d had outside of southeast Asia. Larb was a sort of chicken salad he’d first tried in Laos when he spent a few weeks there on the trail of a group of North Koreans who’d been suspected of abducting Thai women and taking them back to Pyongyang. A British woman of Cambodian descent had nearly been the victim of a kidnapping off the street directly in front of her hotel, which drew the attention of MI6.
A knife fight in an alley left two unidentified men (North Koreans by all forensic evidence), dead. Mick’s souvenirs of the scuffle were a cracked rib and a scar on his left bicep. On cold, rainy days, the rib ached a bit, but Las Vegas didn’t experience many of those kinds of days, so it worked out just fine.
The chicken larb at Lotus of Siam was authentic and delicious. Mick looked forward to a plate of it, followed by koi soy, the Thai version of steak tartare.
By the time dessert, sticky rice with mango, arrived at the table, the group was begging for mercy, having stuffed themselves with Thai and Lao delicacies.
Mick couldn’t help thinking that as much as being a loner had its downsides, the lifestyle he led now was pretty enviable.
But he still couldn’t help but think of the girl.
Across town, Ayla and Desiree dipped their hands into the large bowl of microwave popcorn between them on the sofa as they each searched their respective laptops for a clue as to the identity of Winston Watterson’s bodyguard.
“Let’s say we find him,” Desiree suggested. “What then? What are the chances this guy is single and just waiting for his baby momma to show up, child in tow, to invite him to join her life, and that of her son, already in progress? I don’t want to be mean, but what’s the best case scenario? A monthly check? I mean, if it’s really even him.”
Ayla looked up from her computer and pondered the question. “I don’t know. But I think… No, I
know, there was something between us.”
“Besides his big dick, as you’ve reminded me a million times?” Desiree asked.
“Yes, besides that. There was a connection. It just, everything happened so fast. Besides, there’s no way he could look at Preston and want anything but to be his dad.”
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, Ay,” Desiree said, offering a hand, which Ayla accepted. “Guys can be dicks. They don’t look at kids like we do. For a guy with his career and probably lifestyle, what would a six-year-old be? Right or wrong, he’d look at Preston as a burden, I bet. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. If you go into it with low expectations, some money would be nice, right?”
Ayla nodded.
“So, yeah, get some money to help with clothes and stuff for Preston. Set up a college fund. I just don’t want you to be crushed if he doesn’t want a role in his life. Or yours. Even if you can somehow prove he’s the father.”
Ayla pushed the popcorn around in the bowl, looking for the half-popped kernels in the bottom. “Yeah, that all makes sense. It does. But I just know that if I can get face to face with him, he’ll remember me. And he’ll love Preston. Preston deserves a dad.”
Ayla broke down. Desiree moved the popcorn to the ottoman and hugged her friend.
“I know, baby, I know,” Desiree repeated. “Life owes both of you a break.”
Chapter 9
Mick called his mother Bev, the next morning. She still had never gotten the hang of the time difference between England and Pacific time, no matter how many times Mick explained it to her.
“Mickey! Is everything alright? It must be the middle of the night there!” Bev replied upon hearing her son’s voice over the phone.