by Sage Nyx
Laughing, I pull the bags through the opening. I thought Leroy was kidding about Sugar pitching a tantrum. Now I’m not so sure. Leroy knows him better than I do. Artists and creative people can be temperamental when they don’t get their way.
“You’re not hungry?” I say when Sugar sits there without touching the food. “Too bad. More food for me.”
I pick up a French fry out of the bag and wave it teasingly under Sugar’s nose.
“You’re getting very, very hungry,” I say in a fake hypnotist voice. “You cannot resist this French fry.” A grin plays around the corner of his lips. “Your mouth is watering. All you can think about is greasy, hot French fries.”
He suddenly reaches out and grabs my wrist. Holding me tight, he takes a big bite of the fry I’m holding in my hand while his eyes never leave mine. He seems reluctant to turn me loose.
“You’re right. These are good. You’re not mad?” he asks, suddenly serious.
“Mad?” I’m confused. “About what? Why would I be mad?”
“About not making it to a nice restaurant tonight.” He waves a hand at the window. “Sitting in a trashy parking lot eating greasy fast food is a lame excuse for a date. I wanted to take you somewhere nice and show you a good time. You’re all dressed up and pretty. Maybe even try to impress you…a little.”
I grab two more hot fries out of the bag and cram them into my mouth.
“At this moment, nothing could taste more delicious,” I say honestly. “How many degrees of good or great are there? Expensive doesn’t always mean that it’s better.” I shrug. “If these fries cost twenty-five dollars a plate would that make them better? No, of course not. That’s my poor person’s perspective.”
I tilt the bag toward him, and he reaches in for a handful of fries. Taking a bite, he chews slowly.
“Don’t you agree?” I ask.
He nods and smiles at me. He hits a button and the roof of the limo slides open.
“Come on,” he says, reaching for my hand. “Let’s sit on the roof. You go up first and I’ll hand you the food.”
“A picnic on the roof of a limo? Now you’re impressing me. That’s my kind of date.”
He laughs and helps me up on the roof, then hands up the food before climbing up to sit beside me.
“May I present you with your table, madam,” he says with a flourish, pointing at the bright lights of the Vegas skyline twinkling all around us. “The best view in the city.”
“And the cheapest,” I add.
He holds up a finger. “Hold that thought. We need the champagne to make our Super-Value Meal complete.”
He disappears back into the limo and grabs the bottle and our flutes before hopping back up beside me. After he pours our champagne, I give him a handful of brown napkins.
We carefully try to spread out the napkins between us for a tablecloth with one hand while holding our champagne flutes in the other. When we have them laid out, the wind grabs the whole pile and blows them across the parking lot.
“Oh, shit!” Sugar says with a laugh, watching our napkins fly across the lot and down the street. “Should I run to get them? We’ll need to do public service cleanup duty for a week because of the mess we’re making. We can’t keep littering.”
“Maybe we should go back inside the limo?” I suggest when the wind whips my hair around my face.
“And miss all this fun?” he says. “No way. We’re committed to this adventure now. This was your idea, so you’re not leaving.”
He grins at me and for a moment we connect.
No games.
No playing.
Only me and Sugar.
Whatever is happening between us is real.
He opens the paper wrapping on a hamburger and spreads it out on his lap. “Here we go,” he says. “Put your food on me. I’ll be your table. I don’t want your nice dress to get greasy. Pile it on me, baby. We’ll start a new trend. Instead of eating sushi off a half-naked woman tonight, you can eat fries off my lap. How does that sound?”
Not too shabby.
When he dumps the container of fries on the napkin in his lap, I laugh at the absurdness of our situation.
The wind is crazily whipping my hair around, napkins are blowing all over the place, I’m eating fries off Sugar’s lap and now Leroy has cranked up James Brown full blast through the open windows.
This is the absolute best night of my life.
I hope it never ends.
Sugar
I can’t take my eyes off Jade.
Never in my life have I seen a girl look so fucking sexy while innocently devouring a cheap hamburger. And she doesn’t have a clue which makes her more alluring.
I’m mesmerized by her every movement.
I want nothing more than to lie her back on the roof of the limo and feed her French fries one-by-one. Then I would have a good excuse to stare at her luscious lips barely tinted with a hint of pink lip gloss. I want to lick them to see if they taste as sweet as they appear.
I can’t stand it much longer.
Patience has never been a virtue of mine.
She doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing to me. The physical effect would be plainly obvious to see if she peeked underneath the paper bag covering my lap.
I’m realizing that volunteering to use my lap as a table wasn’t such a great idea. Every time she reaches her hand over to pick a fry off my lap, I almost grit my teeth in frustration.
I reach up to wipe a grain of salt off her mouth. My thumb softly brushes her bottom lip.
“Mustard or ketchup?” she asks. “I’m making a mess.”
“Let me taste and I’ll tell you,” I say, leaning down to press my lips against hers in a quick, soft kiss.
She seems surprised but doesn’t draw back when my lips linger, then move to her neck.
“It’s salt with a hint of ketchup,” I murmur against her skin. “I might need to do that again to be sure.”
Her long hair blows around my face. I grab of a handful and loop it around my hand, then nuzzle the soft spot between her ear and neck. I can only imagine how her hair would feel trailing down against my abs or stomach.
“My hair is turning into a hopeless mess,” she says with a laugh. “I’ll never get the tangles out.”
“You’re beautiful,” I say. “Not a mess at all. I like the way you are right now. Authentic and real. A true gem in this town.”
Jade doesn’t put on airs or pretend to be something she’s not. I find her to be a refreshing and welcome change.
“And now I’m really stuffed,” she says with a groan. “Are you finished eating?”
“Yeah, I’m done,” I reply. “Later we can go somewhere special for dessert if you’re up for it. Or Leroy might share one of those apple pies if you want one.”
“No, I’m good,” she replies. “I might hold out until later for the dessert you mentioned. If it contains chocolate. Or peanut butter.”
She crumbles up the hamburger wrapping and drops it into a bag. I quickly gather up the paper bag covering my lap and cram it into the bag too before she notices the raging hard-on underneath.
“Where to now?” I ask. “Any ideas? Would you care to do a little dancing? Go to a show? I can get us tickets to any show in town. Even the sold out ones. Whatever you want to do. Name it.”
She studies me quietly for a moment without speaking. “Really? Anything?”
“Sure,” I reply, curious to hear what she’ll say. “I’m all yours for the night. Along with my excellent driver.”
“What I’d really love to do…” she says.
A loud shriek interrupts her.
“Sugar! Oh my God! It’s Sugar!!”
A long, white stretched limousine filled with a group of drunk women is stalled directly in front of us. Four girls are hanging out of the sunroof. They wave their arms in excitement.
“Sugar! Hey Sugar!” they all scream again.
Oh, no.
They’ve recognized me.
I’m accustomed to having throngs of horny women chasing after me. That’s why I have Leroy. To protect me from insane groups of women. No matter where I go or what I’m doing in Vegas, they always seem to find me.
What I’m not used to is having a special woman with me when it happens.
Tonight, I don’t want the life of a celebrity. I don’t want to be recognized and I’m resentful about my evening with Jade being disturbed by a bunch of crazy, drunk women.
All I want is to enjoy a simple night with the pretty girl sitting beside me.
To be normal.
“Hey Sugar!” one of the women yells. “Show us some magic. Can you make my panties disappear?”
Jade grins. “They want you bad,” she says in amusement. “What’s your best guess? A bachelorette party? I wonder which one is the blushing bride?”
“I don’t know,” I reply. “My sympathies are with the groom if he’s marrying any of them. The poor chump doesn’t have a clue what he’s getting into.”
The women yell more obscene things they want me to do to them. Each suggestion dirtier than the one before. When that doesn’t get my attention, they decide it might be more effective to offer me sexual favors instead.
“I’m thirsty,” one yells. “Want a blowjob, Sugar? You want to cum on my tits?”
Oh my God.
“This is unbelievably bad and embarrassing,” I say to Jade. “What is it about Vegas that turns nice young women from small towns into sex-crazed lunatics?”
“I know the answer,” Jade replies with a laugh. “One word. Alcohol. Lots and lots of whiskey. And the mistaken belief that everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
“Which has been proven countless times not to be true,” I say.
A girl wearing a skintight, white dress yanks her lacy bra out through one sleeve and slings it around like a rope lasso. “Save a horse, ride a cowboy!” she yells. “We’re coming for you, Sugar!”
I’m mortified.
“I hate to tell you this,” I say. “This situation will escalate quickly. I’ve had tons of experience with bachelorette parties before. When a group of women get together to party and begin drinking heavily, anything can happen. Self-control and common sense flies straight out the window. Rowdy bachelor parties can’t compare to a horny group of ladies out for one last night of bad behavior. Vegas brings out the worst in people.”
“What should we do?” Jade asks.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I reply. “Hey Leroy!” I yell down through the roof. “Aren’t you paying attention to what’s happening? Can’t you see this?”
The limo stereo is cranked up loud and he can’t hear me.
“Knowing Leroy, he’s still fantasizing about his middle school teacher and hasn’t noticed the situation unfolding ten feet from us,” I tell Jade. “He seriously is the worst bodyguard in the world at times.”
“How about an autograph?” the woman in the white dress calls out before breaking into drunken laughter. “On my tits!”
She slides back inside the limo and opens the passenger door.
“Oh no, here she comes!” Jade says.
The woman piles out, quickly followed by the other three girls. They run across the street screaming while the drivers in the cars behind them blow their horns and yell for them to ‘get the fuck out of the way!’
One lady tries to keep up with the others in her four-inch heels and falls flat on her ass in the middle of the street.
“Uh oh,” Jade says. “That had to hurt. Now she’ll get run over in traffic. Should we go help her?”
“Nah, don’t worry. She’ll be fine. I see women fall all the time. Why can’t girls stay on their feet in this town? If they can’t walk in high heels, they shouldn’t be wearing them.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Jade says, kicking off her low heels and dropping them back down into the limo. “I can barely stand up in two-inch heels, much less the shoes they’re wearing.”
“Oh my God, Courtney.” A woman stops to peer down at her friend sprawled on the pavement. “Are you okay?”
Courtney leans over and throws up every bit of alcohol she’s consumed all night onto the street.
“No! Courtney!” her friend whines. “You puked blue vomit on my new white shoes!”
“Let’s hope the sober girl isn’t the bride,” Jade says drily. “It would suck to have to take care of wasted friends at your own bachelorette party.”
“Now I can’t meet Sugar,” the girl rants. “Dammit Courtney! You’ve ruined my party. Get back inside the limo and don’t you dare throw up in there. I’ll have to pay for it to be cleaned if you do. You’re the worst fucking bridesmaid. If I ever get married again, I’m not asking you to be in my wedding.”
“But I’m your sister,” she sobs with tears running down her cheeks. “You have to ask me to be in your next wedding.”
The girl sighs in disgust and tries to help her up while the remaining women keep running straight toward us like a pack of hungry hyenas out for blood.
“Fuck,” I say. “Let’s go. We need to get out of here.”
I jump down into the limo and grab Jade’s waist with both hands to pull her safely inside.
“Leroy,” I yell through the window. “Get us the fuck out of here now. What are you doing? Stop screwing around.”
Leroy is loudly sucking the last of his orange drink through a plastic straw without a care in the world. He leans over to glance back at us.
“Oh, shit!” he says. “Where did all those crazy women come from? Don’t worry. I’m on it. Strap your seatbelts on. We’re leaving.”
“We don’t have seatbelts back here,” I say.
“Hang on tight then. Old Leroy is on the move. I’ve got this.”
“I hate it when you say that.”
He stomps on the gas and the limo lurches forward abruptly, up over the curb and into the street.
That’s as far as we get.
Damn this miserable traffic!
We’re trapped the same as before.
“Oh crap! I’d better close the roof!” I say. “They might try to climb in here with us.”
I hit the button and we both hold our breath until the roof closes shut. I wrap both arms around Jade to hold her steady. She hasn’t said one word since I yanked her back inside the limo. I’ll be lucky if she ever speaks to me again after all this insanity.
Jade feels good in my arms and my grip tightens around her. I can’t resist rubbing my beard against her sweet-smelling hair. It’s soft, instead of being stiff and sticky with hair spray. Why don’t women realize men love to touch their hair? I love letting silky strands of long hair drift through my fingers and across my face.
Closing my eyes, I try to shut out the world outside the limo.
For only a brief second.
I wish the women would go away and that we were alone way out in the desert somewhere. Under a silent, wide-open sky with bright stars and a full moon.
Just me and Jade.
With no crazy fans chasing us down. Or Leroy slurping on an orange drink in the front seat while fantasizing about matronly middle school teachers.
Why does one simple wish seem impossible? I never realized being a celebrity meant giving up the things that mean the most.
The women reach the limo and begin banging on the windows. They’re darkly tinted so they can’t see us sitting inside.
Thank God for small miracles.
Jade bursts out laughing when a woman pulls up her blouse and presses her bare breasts against the window.
“Nice nipples,” Jade says sarcastically. “What is their plan? To chase us down the street? Do they really think you’ll open the limo door and let them crawl inside?”
“That is exactly what they’re hoping for,” I tell her. “This isn’t the first time this has happened.”
“Really? This a normal occurrence in your life? My God, that’s awful.”
“Sometimes,” I say with a sigh. “Once a
gain, I’m sorry. I’m always apologizing to you.”
“No need to apologize,” she says. “Just promise me you won’t let them in here. They’re scaring the crap out of me. They remind me of a zombie invasion, except more terrifying.”
“Same here.”
“Where to now, boss?” Leroy calls out over his shoulder. “I’ll cut across a parking lot to get us out of this mess. I know a back way that will come out further down on the strip.”
“Oh, so now you remember a shortcut?” I say. “Why didn’t you try it before?”
“I was hungry,” he replies. “And Burger Crown was on the way so…”
“Turn around,” I tell him. “Take us back to my place.”
“You got it,” Leroy says. “Watch for me to make sure I don’t run over any girls.”
He lays down on the horn and the women jump back out of the way. Turning the wheel sharply, he makes a rough U-turn back through the parking lot.
“No! Don’t leave, Sugar! Don’t go!”
The ladies are not happy to see us leaving. They run after the limo in their high heels until they finally give up and stand defeated on the side of the road.
“Whew!” I say to Jade, placing a hand on her leg. “Glad that’s over and we’ve made our escape. Are you having fun yet?”
She snuggles up closer to me and smiles. “Truthfully, I am. Not exactly what I expected from you though. Fun all the same. Where is your place?”
“Right back where we started this nightmare date,” I reply with a laugh. “The Imperial Hotel and Casino. As part of my contract, the hotel owner furnishes me with a three-bedroom hotel suite.” I shrug. “At first I thought the suite was an extra perk for me. Then I realized the suite is more to keep me on site at the hotel as much as possible. I work, eat and sleep there. I’m not complaining. It’s a good deal and works out better all the way around. If my creative juices are flowing in the middle of the night, all I need to do is go downstairs to the theater to work.”
“Doesn’t that get old?” she asks. “Living in a hotel?”
“Sometimes it can get very old,” I reply honestly. “The biggest problem is being recognized and accosted by fans every time I step out my front door. Don’t get me wrong, I love them and owe them everything. Without my fans, I’d be nothing.”