by Loren, Celia
Upon waking, Kellan immediately sensed an unfamiliarity in his surroundings. The air smelled sweet—like pancakes and lavender lotion, with undercurrents of something he recognized but couldn’t place. Old Spice? Dirty laundry? A pairing of both?
He was bound in a quilt, pinioned flat as hospital corners in a twin bed. The room he was in contained a sewing machine and heaps of multi-colored fabric. The blinds and curtains were drawn, so he had no means of knowing what time of day it was—much less where he’d landed. A shooting, crystalline clarity came: it was Sunday. Sunday, the day after the tournament. Yesterday, he’d finished the evening...well, somewhere on the Sunset Strip.
But this wasn’t the motel he’d checked into. His guitar was nowhere to be seen. It was very clearly a person’s home he’d landed in—though from the looks of it, this wasn’t the sexy boudoir of an obliging lady of the night. Abruptly, he placed the smell that had evaded him before—teenage boy.
There was a clattering noise from beyond the closed door, then a muttered, “Oh, shit.” Kellan struggled to place the voice. For an unthinking second, he imagined it was Romy Adelaide outside the room, cooking him breakfast. He might’ve died and gone to heaven! But no, heaven would surely be free of the splitting, thumping headache that he was slowly waking to, the flat, sickening pain of an impending hangover that now strode across his mind. He felt sloshy and precarious, like the inside of an uncooked egg. He hadn’t been this hungover in years.
The feeling reminded him of those earliest days on the road with The Prattle, before he’d made the resolute decision to clean up his act. That life—his life—seemed so laughable now. Distant. The stuff of someone else’s memory. To the current Kellan, there was only the immediately tangible: the frightened look in Romy’s eyes. The flick of her elegant wrists as she passed him cards. The Sunset Strip.
The door burst open. Though the figure on the threshold was flanked by an upsetting light, Kellan determined 1) “it” was a lady and 2) she was older. Warm. Probably a Mom.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” the woman trilled, proving his second theory to a tee. Adjusting his eyes to the light, Kellan drank in the full spectacle of her—she was tiny, but trim. Someone who worked out, who took great care of a petite but lovely figure. Her eyes were moist and large. Her hair was a crackly bottle auburn—not unlike his own mother’s—but she wore it high and tight on her head, in a bun. She had the effervescence of a former beauty queen. And on closer inspection, his hero wasn’t so old. Perhaps early forties. Time had done a number on her posture, that was all.
“Where am I?” Kellan managed, feeling the iron-y taste of yesterday on his tongue. In answer, the woman procured a glass of water from a bedside table and passed it to him. He drank quickly.
“Don’t go so fast. Can’t have you getting sick again, can we?” Kellan’s cheeks flushed—again?
“Where am I?” he repeated slowly, chugging all the water in one gulp and passing the glass back. “And who are you?”
“I’m Paulette,” said the woman cheerfully. “Owner and proprietor of this here lovely ranch house. And you, my friend, are a drunk I took in. Y’hungry?”
The thought made him sick again. But Kellan forced the nausea away; now he was too curious.
“Why did you do that?” he whispered, grasping again for the water. Paulette grinned down at him.
“You reminded me of a man or two, after my own heart.” Her voice seemed so utterly sans malice. And could it be true? Had he been saved by the last wholesome person in this whole godforsaken city?
“Thanks, Paulette. I really appreciate it.”
“Is it a girl?”
“Excuse me?”
Paulette pulled up a pile of mismatched prints and sat down heavily. “You were in a real state last night, champ. I just wondered...was it about a girl?”
It hurt too much to think about, and with a hefty hangover, the ache seemed to double. Skittering visions of Romy kissing his older brother raced through his mind, tripping over and across flashes of her face in high school. Seeing Paulette’s waiting, open face, Kellan elected a response: “Yes. There’s a girl involved.”
“You want some advice?” Gosh, she moved quick. There was a spitfire intelligence to this mystery angel. Kellan realized how long it had been since he’d spoken to anyone intimately. With an unsourced pang, he thought of The Prattle. He had only been a week away from their company, but he already missed his friends on the road.
“Sure.”
“You have to move on,” she said now, slowly, in a dulcet, soothing Mom voice. “Any woman who makes you feel this way—like you’ve got no control over the world, no reason to make meaning in it—she’s no good for you. And wait, I take it you’re something of a romantic?”
“Why do you say that?” Kellan snapped. He tried to keep the edge from his voice, but the hangover was descending like a zeppelin over all his thoughts.
“Your hippie hair, sweet pea,” Paulette said. She leaned forward to ruffle his damp forehead. Her touch was cool and careful. “And all the calluses on your fingers. I’m guessing...a musician?”
Without waiting for a reply, she cackled at her rightness. So, Paulette was a woman who liked to be right. Good to know.
“I guess I’m a little romantic, sure. Who isn’t?”
“Well, that can be a burden. People very rarely live up to a romantic’s astronomic expectations. We’re all just humans, crawling around in the muck, wanting the things it occurs to us to want.”
She stood then, and regarded her charge with a steely gaze. “So don’t fly off the handle for a single human, okay? No right-thinking woman will respect a guy who can’t take care of himself, anyways. Who can’t hold his liquor.” She smirked, as she turned to walk out of the room. Kellan was left to contemplate her words.
“When do you need me out of here?” he thought to yell at her retreating back. This was the first of a dozen more questions that sprang to mind; who was she really? How had she found him? What had he said last night that enabled her to be so magically perceptive this morning? He was disappointed that this practical inquiry was the first thing to fly from his mouth. But Paulette just grinned again.
“Stay as long as you need to. Company’s just fine with me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was just as before: Romy rose in the morning to Zaida’s ferocious knock, and took the money. She contemplated her sleeping lover, tangled up in the expensive sheets. It seemed too good to be true. Were they possibly...free?
“Bryson?” Romy whispered, shaking his plush arms. “Wake up. Bryson!”
“Mmm.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting our things? Hightailing it out of here? Bryson?”
He creaked his eyes open. They were caked with well-deserved sleep. “Romy,” he said slowly, reaching for her.
She recoiled. “I should have known. Goddamnit, Bryson!”
“What should you have known? You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”
“I know that—” Romy found herself blinking back angry tears. “—I know that I’ve just spent this whole week being manipulated. Not just by Lefty, or Zaida, who I knew I couldn’t trust...but you. And your brother. Jesus.” She sat heavily in a far armchair. Bryson rolled up, fully awake.
“Shhhhh, keep it down!” he hissed, whispering now. “Remember we're in their hotel.” I didn’t mean to manipulate you,” he said quietly. His voice betrayed his shame.
“You come over to my house, you teach me how to count cards, of all things! You tell me this is all this big escape plan, to get me out of here, to save my life and then you throw all these curveballs! When are we really leaving?”
“Another week, okay? We can leave right after that...just one single week!”
“Why? WHY? Is this just about the money to you?” A grim silence landed in the space between them. Romy failed to suppress a noisy sob. She hid her face.
But Bryson had enclosed her in his arms—his huge, strong a
rms. He rocked her as she cried, slowly sapping her of energy, the will to fight with him. How was it that he had this calming effect, always?
“I know you’re strong. I know you’re smart. The reason I didn’t tell you about the whole plan is because—well, I’m figuring out a lot of it as we go along. There’s not as much of a plan as you’d think.” He took her dewy face between his hands. “And I wasn’t lying about the most important thing, Romy. I am truly, truly, falling for you. I want to be with you. In the daylight, away from this town. I want to wake up beside you every single day.”
“You don’t even know me,” she sputtered, hating the petulance in her own voice. But wasn’t that a little bit true? It had been two weeks. A dramatic, crazy two weeks, sure, but 14 days nonetheless.
“I think I do,” Bryson swaggered. She fought an urge to seek out his by-now familiar, easy grin. She had to be smarter. She couldn’t fall so easily into the trap of a handsome face.
“Let me tell you all I know,” he crooned. “Okay?”
Romy nodded dully. Her lover drew breath:
“Okay. So Lefty DiMartino, proprietor of the Windsor and resident evil, is a real nasty piece of work. But you already knew that. What you don’t know is how deep his operation goes. The man’s got his fingers in Mexican drug cartels, some highly dubious shipping operations on the Eastern seaboard, human trafficking, and he can be connected to at least sixty murders in the past ten years alone. Following so far?”
Romy moved to perch at the edge of her armchair. She blinked rapidly, indicating he continue.
“...Great. So what I mean to say is: making a significant dent in his operation is going to require a lot of trust. A lot of confidence. And most of all, a lot of money.
Now the Aces have lent me and Kelly the sizable nest egg we’ve been gambling with so far, which we’ve managed to make some nice returns on. Though if I know my brother, half of what we won last night is being peeled off the Needle’s floor this morning...regardless. So now there’s all this money at stake. My family’s, my club’s, mine—basically the life savings of a dozen operations are in play. And we wouldn’t take a risk like this, Romy, unless we fully expected to make a difference. To topple DiMartino to the best of our ability. Now to pull off a stunt like that, we’d need: a woman on the inside. Check, that’s you.”
“So you USED me?” Romy blurted. She made to stand, but Bryson rushed to her side again.
“Absolutely not,” he said firmly. “You’ve got to understand that my family, with its connections, could hurt a man like Lefty DiMartino in far less, shall-we-say expensive ways. Falling for you, even recognizing you as an employee at the Windsor...none of that was part of this. I swear to God.”
She resumed her position in the armchair. At this point, what choice did she have but to believe in Bryson? And their sweet week of bliss, of lust...that all had to mean something, didn’t it? Even as a liar, he was still the best man she’d known in who-knew-how-long.
“I. Swear. To. God,” he repeated ardently. “But you can see the appeal of the amended plan. Instead of hurting Lefty like a bunch of thugs, we can take from him what he cares about most: power. Credibility. Money.
My brother is involved, namely, because he’s the best card-counter I’ve ever met. Games come naturally to him; it’s his inner performer. Plus, people like him, and I can trust him. Lefty has taken an unexpected shine to him, which ended up being helpful last night. Took lots of the heat off me and you. And I didn’t tell Kellan about us, didn’t tell you about Kellan, because, like I said, I got scared. I know you two used to have a thing together, and even if it was small and ancient...I didn’t want to risk a rekindling. It was selfish.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Yes. That was a mistake. I admit it. But I want you to myself,” He took another heavy, inflating breath. “And now here we are, right? Last night we took the casino for another cool three hundred, four hundred grand. That’s a big hit. But more importantly, we’ve gained the trust of the target himself. If we barter on that and wait a week...just one more week...we could sink him hugely, Romy. Walk out of there with enough money to hobble his empire, without raising an eyebrow.”
“He’s not an idiot, Bryson. I’m sure he’ll be watching both you and Kellan hyper-closely the rest of the time you’re in Vegas. He’d already traced you to my house.”
“And he’s already seen us make love like animals, all throughout his hotel. He knows you’re terrified of him. He only knows me as a nameless suit. Why should he be more suspicious of us than any of the other slime bags up in the Needle?”
Though her mind tripped on this bit of logic, Romy nodded her head. The rest of the plan—laid out like so—made enough sense to keep her listening. She urged him on, with another dainty incline of her head.
“So what happens when we walk out of here, then? Next week? With more money?”
“Well first, we skip town. Fast, fast, fast.”
“Sure.”
“And a week will give us enough time to make the right arrangements. You can withdraw from school, we can get your dog to a safe place, et cetera. We get far enough away with enough money, you call in an anonymous tip to the Feds and tell them everything you can about DiMartino. We sink him like a submarine. Presto!”
“And Kellan?”
“When I win at the final tournament, we’ll all divvy up the profits fairly. And Kellan will go back to his band, I guess.” Bryson’s brow furrowed. They sat in silence for a moment. It’ll work, Romy. It’ll be so great, his eyes seemed to say.
Her whole life, Romy realized, was centered about intelligent gambling. She studied probability, the likelihoods of certain outcomes. She measured actions on the probability of their positive outcome. But the past week felt like an outrageous departure from all that structure; she’d pawned herself along on the basis of other people’s assessments of danger. It was a precarious place to be, but she had to admit; it was also a thrilling one.
“I understand why you wouldn’t want to believe me,” Bryson was saying heavily. “Everyone’s lied to you. For so long.” But not me. Not my brother. “And I don’t want you to think this is your only choice. If you go to the police, if you walk away now—the Devil’s Aces will do everything in their power to protect you. I swear that on my life.”
Feeling the crumpled cash growing damp in her fist, Romy finally availed herself of her lover’s eyes. They told stories. Here was a man who’d been everywhere, who'd seen everything, who’d always said yes to adventure. Building a life with him would demand her acceptance of uncertainty, of not-always-knowing. She couldn’t yet contemplate the choice in terms of forevers, but in that damn impish grin, she read one word: yes.
“Bryson,” Romy said slowly. “About what you said last night. It was very…” But he rushed forward then, pressing a thick finger to her lips. “Wait,” he told her. “We have plenty of time for that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
On Monday, Romy met with her advisor and requested an official leave of absence from the University of Nevada. She walked through campus gamely, hoping not to run into anyone she recognized. Thankfully, it was a dead week—spring break was just around the corner, and everyone was in the library.
“We’ll miss you, Ms. Adelaide,” stuttered Mrs. Datsun, one of the few friendly elders who oversaw the Statistics program. Her concern seemed genuine. “I hope this isn’t in pursuit of some kind of M-R-S degree.”
Romy snorted, psuedo-heisting a casino was about as far from marriage as humanly possible, she thought to herself. “No, ma’am,” she said instead. “I just need a bit of time to sort through my personal life. I’m not leaving the field, and have every intention of finishing the program as soon as the stars align.”
Mrs. Datsun regarded her warily over horn-rimmed glasses. “Wouldn’t always wait for the stars, m’dear,” she crowed, stamping a few documents with a creaky paw. But she smiled on standing. They shook hands. Romy felt more stranded than ever b
efore; Bryson’s not-quite-a-plan was materializing in real terms all around her and there was no turning back now.
Also on Monday, in a different part of town, Kellan Vaughn took Paulette and her two pesky offspring to the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. He’d spent the rest of the weekend prone in her sewing room, and figured, what with the heavy heaps of cash he kept finding in his socks, that it would be nice to pay it forward, for once.
While her children marveled at the mounted ceilings, the giant plush animal recreations loitering through the greenery, Kellan walked with Paulette around the cavernous lobby. They spoke no more of his ugly Saturday evening, or the anonymous girl culprit behind his bingeing. Rather, Paulette talked about her children, and her dreams away from the Sunset Strip.
“I always wanted to be a dancer. Like a Rockette, something like this.” She swung her purse to and fro as her children ran amok. “Fell short, I guess.”
“In this town? It’s never too late.”
“No, I’m physically too short. See?” She drew herself up besides an enormous raffia ladybug that was milling around the fake-landscape. “No taller than a lady bug. Try to do a high kick with stubs sometime.”
They laughed together at this. Kellan had the peculiar, warm sense of being in recovery when he was with Paulette. Her sweetness was so distant, so anathema to the Strip that he could almost all-the-way escape into the folds of her life. He felt no romance towards her, and especially none towards her tow-headed monsters, but he was immeasurably grateful for the new friend. And in a strange way, she reminded him of Romy. She had the same empathy, behind her eyes—a perceptiveness that let her see the world just as it was. She let him exist just as he was, never challenging his secrets, the bits of him he wished to keep private.