by Holly Kerr
“And that’s Clay.”
“Big hands.” Ruthie nudges me like she can read every dirty thought going through my mind. “You know what they say about that?”
“Big gloves?” Dean offers.
I burst out laughing, but cut it short as soon as I hear how loud it is. Thomas constantly told me my laugh was too loud.
“I like your laugh,” Dean says. His smile is hesitant, like he doesn’t use it often. Seeing it, I feel…what?
Nothing. The tingling sensation deep in my belly better be nothing more than indigestion. Because bailing on a wedding means romance is off the table for the foreseeable future. And besides, who would want to pick someone up in a hotel bar in Las Vegas?
M.K. laughs at something Clay says. She tucks her hair behind her left ear, one of her tests for when she meets new people and smiles. When M.K. smiles, it makes the scar even more noticeable. There it is, out for everyone to see.
I wait for Clay’s wince or the grimace, or the quick turn away when he sees the side of her face unhidden by her hair.
Nothing. Nothing but blatant interest from Clay.
Nice.
M.K.’s scar was a result of a late night bike ride. We had been riding in the middle of the quiet country road when a truck roared around the bend and sent us crashing into the ditch. I landed on a rock and ended up with a broken rib and a separated shoulder. M.K. fell into a barbed wire fence, which left the nasty scar, beginning above her eyebrow and ending at her ear. Forty-seven stitches later, M.K. is still beautiful, with her delicate features and Cover Girl-worthy complexion, but I know the scar causes a lot of unwanted attention and comments for her.
I watch them talk for a few minutes. The table is set in a corner of the bar, and while the music still ricochets around us, I can at least hear myself speak.
I guess I’m supposed to speak to Dean.
“Anyone ever tell you that you look like the guy in Game of Thrones?”I ask him. “Tall, big, red hair…beard.”
He winces. “You’re the second one tonight. Fourth today.”
“So not that often?”
He smiles and I’m glad I’m sitting down. Big and bearded has never been my type, but why are my fingers itching to touch his beard again? Heat rises in my cheeks as I remember stroking it in the chapel. Should I apologize for that too, or pretend it never happened?
“I love that show,” I say, trying to think of anything but his hands and the way his lips peek out from the reddish hair like a bored housewife hiding behind the curtain as she spies on the neighbours. I feel something unwind inside me, a shock considering the day I’ve had. “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
Dean grins at my pathetic attempt at an Irish accent but Ruthie groans. “Please don’t start,” she pleads. “You should have seen her during her Star Wars phase.”
“You had a Star Wars phase?” Dean’s expression turns hopeful.
“Three brothers, so I didn’t really have a choice,” I say. “They taught me how to play Dungeons and Dragons, too.”
“I’m impressed.”
“As you should be. I proudly fly my geek flag.”
“Not a lot of women would admit that.” His face falls. “At least not the women I know.”
There’s a sadness in his eyes that moves me enough to reach for his hand, settling for his wrist because he’s gripping his glass tight enough to crush it. “What made you so sad?”
He shrugs and I slide my hand away. “Why were you at the chapel?”
“Why were you at the chapel?”
I better get used to talking about it, since there’s going to be countless questions to deal with when I get home. “To get married. Which I called off.”
Dean nods. “Same, at least there to get married. But she didn’t show up. Sent Clay a text to tell me.”
I wince. “That’s rough. At least I did it face-to-face.”
“Halfway down the aisle, she balks like a bad horse!” Ruthie laughs as she joins their conversation. “Classic.”
“A bad horse?” Clay asks with a polite smile.
Ruthie shrugs. “I grew up on a farm. I could have said balked like a pitcher trying to throw out a runner at first, but I wasn’t sure if you’d get that.”
I notice Dean’s fingers clench on the glass again. “I would have gotten that. I’m pretty good with baseball analogies.”
“Do you play?” Please don’t play, please don’t play… Every boyfriend I’ve had from Brad Melchuk in grade eight, to Harrison Peters in first-year university had been ballplayers and I’d never forgotten—or forgiven—their contempt for my own interest in the sport.
“Wait a minute…” M.K. stares at Dean, eyes narrowing. “You look like—by any chance do you play baseball?”
Dean winces like the question is an insult. “Played.”
“Oh!” M.K. points her finger at Dean, trembling with excitement. M.K. has a memory for faces, especially famous ones. I’ve lost track of how many movies M.K. interrupts with some tidbit about so-and-so actor who’d been in whatever movie. “Oh! Flora, remember? A couple of years ago, during spring training, there was a big redhead playing for the Blue Jays. They brought him up from Triple-A, talked like he was going to be the next Aaron Judge and Clayton Kershaw combined, and then he just—I never heard about him again.” She looks at Dean expectantly.
“You seem to know your baseball.” He seems uneasy.
M.K. points at me. “I know it from her. Did you know Flora—?”
“I know a bit about baseball,” I interrupt.
M.K. gives me a look. “Remember that guy, Flora?” she says instead. “I don’t remember his name but he started a couple of games, and you kept going on about how cute he…” She trails off with a horrified expression.
“That was him,” Clay chimes in proudly. “Dean Coulson. Former Blue Jay.”
“I’m not playing anymore, so there’s no reason…don’t get excited… ” He trails off with a resigned expression.
“Why? What happened?”
Another wince. Dean pulls his elbows off the table. “Long story. Another one that doesn’t have a happy ending.”
Ruthie takes a loud pull from her straw as if to remind us she’s still there. “Well, I’m off to find my Mr. Right Now.”
I glance around the crowded bar. “Good luck with that.”
Ruthie nods to M.K. who is back to all smiles talking to Clay. “Well, she’s making out okay, and you seem happier chatting with Mr. Big Guy so I’ll have to find some fun for myself. Later.”
I frown at the thought but there’s no containing Ruthie unless she wants to be. “Be careful.
With another suck of her straw, she finishes her drink. “Always am.” With a wink, she sashays from the table, blonde braids quickly vanishing into the crowd.
“She’s interesting,” Dean says with a grin.
That’s the usual reaction to Ruthie—people love her until they want to kill her. “She’s my niece. She always feels the need to make me worry.”
“She seems like she can handle herself just fine.”
“That’s the problem.” I’m about to elaborate on the trials and tribulations Ruthie has put me through but Dean looks at me with his blue eyes and I can’t turn away. He doesn’t either, even when he sips from his Guinness, leaving a hint of foam on his mustache when he set down the glass. His eyes—
No. This isn’t happening. Not now, not tonight. Not after eight years of Thomas has come crashing to a halt. There’s no point of staring at this big, beautiful ballplayer who is a complete stranger and whom I’ll never see again after tonight.
So why not?
No.
“So baseball talk is off the table,” I say lightly. “As well as weddings.”
Dean gives me a rueful grin. “Doesn’t matter. This night can’t get any worse. I mean—” I have to laugh at the expression on his face. “Not that it’s bad talking to you, but, you know…”
“It’s not the night you had planned,” I say to
let him off the hook. “Believe me, I know.”
“I guess you do.” He holds my gaze for another moment. There’s something about him that grabs my attention in a tight grip. The guy was just dumped, he’s a baseball player—I should be hotfooting away from him like I ran from the chapel.
But instead, I sit and smile at him.
A loud peal of laughter from M.K. thankfully grabs my attention. “What do you think of that?” Dean asks in a low voice.
“I’m not sure.” M.K. is notoriously hard on men. She’d gone through her own bad relationship in her twenties—not ending as disastrously as mine, but bad enough. She rarely shows interest in a man, or even interest in meeting men. This is new.
Ruthie elbows her way back to the table, her face flushed with excitement, her hands full of glasses. “Ta-da!”
“Success?” Dean asks.
“Yes! Hang on a sec. I think I might have gotten more on me than they put in the glass.” Ruthie sets three fruity-looking concoctions on the table. Two bottles of beer are caught in her fingers. “I made it to the bar.”
“I see that. What do we have this time?” M.K. asks, taking a hesitant sip at the pink liquid. Her face breaks into a smile at the taste. “Yum.”
“Strawberry Patch Smash,” Ruthie offers. “I think there’s whiskey in it.”
“You’re pretty talented to carry all those,” Clay says.
“Years of experience.” One of Ruthie’s many jobs had been a waitress. “I’m full of many talents.”
Clay laughs. “I’m sure you are.”
“Look what I got.” Ruthie brandishes a fistful of flyers she pulls out of her skirt pocket. “Those guys over there are from the Tower of Power, and we’re going to see them dance. Right now. Or, at least in a half hour.”
“What are you talking about?” M.K. frowns. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“I want to go see the strippers,” Ruthie whines.
“I don’t know about that,” I say with a glance at Dean.
Thomas had always disapproved of me seeing other men in their underwear. I have vivid memories of an argument we had when my friend Imogene’s evening of pre-wedding debauchery took us to a Thunder from Down Under show.
But that had been Thomas; this was Dean.
Dean, whom I’ve just met, so why am I worried what he thinks?
“You have to come,” Ruthie protests, her voice rising over the crowd. “You owe it to me. I came for a wedding, which I didn’t get. I never got to plan your shower or bachelorette party, which would have definitely included strippers—”
“I would have been the one who organized her shower,” M.K. cut in.
“And you would have planned afternoon tea, so no, I would have done the party. I never got to do anything, so you have to come with me.”
Ruthie is right. I dragged her to Vegas to see a wedding that never happened. She paid for a weekend of celebrating and is getting nothing.
“I’ll be good for the rest of the weekend,” Ruthie promises as if sensing that I’m starting to cave. She clasps her hands under her chin and gives me a hangdog look.
“We fly home tomorrow,” M.K. says. “I got the tickets changed so we don’t have to pay for another night.”
“I’ll be good until then.”
I’m caught between them again. I don’t want to take M.K. away from Clay, but Ruthie will take off without us. And Dean… He shouldn’t even be a consideration, so why I am letting him be?
“I’ll go by myself,” Ruthie threatens, turning to M.K. “I will. You have to go with me to make sure I behave myself.”
“You should go,” Dean says.
My heart sinks.
“You can come with,” Ruthie says, happy to have gotten her way.
“Tempting but no.” Dean glances at Clay, and something passes between them.
“Why don’t you meet us after the show is over?” Clay suggests.
My stomach feels like it’d been thrown a life preserver, popping back up to the surface.
“Really?” M.K.’s face lights up.
“Sure. You’ll only be a couple of hours and we can get something to eat in the meantime.” Clay smiles at M.K. “We can meet you at what–eleven?”
Dean looks at me for agreement but I don’t know what to say. “I’m sorry I touched your beard earlier,” I blurt.
“I’m not,” he says.
“Make it midnight,” Ruthie says. “And find another friend for me.”
Dean
“Cool chicks,” Clay says as they leave us at the bar.
“I guess.” What am I supposed to say? I met Flora less than an hour ago, so why am I sad they left? I’m not sad. Disappointed?
Possibly.
“Are you okay, Deano?”
I look up from my beer to see Clay with pity in his eyes. I hate that look. I’ve seen it enough.
I’m not coming.
“Why?” The question is blunt and harsh.
“Why what?”
“Evelyn. Why she didn’t show up?”
Clay shrugs with an apologetic expression. “No idea, bro. Were things cool when you left?” Clay and I had flown to Las Vegas that afternoon, a few hours before Evelyn. She said she wanted time to get her nails done.
“She was talking about what colour to get her nails painted.” Our last conversation was about her manicure. Looking back at our relationship, it kind of fits. “Like I cared.”
“Maybe that’s part of the problem.”
“She dumped me because I don’t care about nail polish colour?” I ask incredulously.
“No… Evelyn seemed to care about the little things. Maybe she wanted you to notice—I don’t know. I don’t know her like you do.”
I stare into my beer. The foam head is nearly gone. “I don’t think I knew her at all.”
“So what do you want to do?” Clay asks awkwardly.
“I don’t know…maybe get out of here? I wouldn’t mind just walking for a bit. My mind is…” I can’t describe the emotions skittering through me, like rogue jolts of electricity, each one more painful than the last.
“Yeah.” There’s sympathy in Clay’s voice, but Clay has no idea what this feels like. I once counted fourteen women moving in and out of Clay’s life during the span of six months.
“Do you want me—do you want to be alone?”
I give him a grim smile. “Maybe for a bit. Clear my head.”
“This probably isn’t the best city to do that.”
“Not really.”
“Do you want to meet back here at midnight? See if they show up?” I must have looked as blank as I feel. “Those girls? The women we just met?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I know you’re in the middle of a crisis of the heart here, but I thought that M.K. was something else, and I could really use a wingman. Come back?”
Even though Clay needs a wingman like he needs a set of wings, I agree. What else am I going to do? I finish my beer and slide off the stool. “Back soon.”
Clay grabs my arm. “I’m sorry, bro. I know you love her.”
“Yeah.”
I stop upstairs to grab my phone and wallet, not bothering to change out of my suit, other than pulling off the tie and throwing it across the room. It’s not until I’m out of the door that I’m hit with the realization I don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.
This is Clay’s room, which means I have to find someplace to sleep if he’s expecting to share it with M.K.
I punch the elevator button with an angry jab. Evelyn had booked a room and I had been obviously going to stay there. I have no idea if she’s in that room, still in the city or even the country. I don’t know anything. I don’t like the feeling.
My mood doesn’t improve with the arrival of the elevator. Inside I find a very happy couple, who don’t bother to stop the make out session. I can’t help but take a peek, especially since mirrors cover the walls. His hands are on her ass; one of her legs with a short skirt hiked
up as high as it can go is caught between his. She moans.
Sixteen flights of stairs isn’t too bad to walk down.
Once I make it to the lobby, the bar beckons, as does the casino. I like a good game of cards, but with my luck tonight, there’s no way I’m putting money down on anything other than a cab to the airport. I sink into the throng of happy people on the street.
Despite my height and size, I’ve never loved crowds. Even though no one touches me, I feel like I’m being pushed and shoved in a direction I don’t want to go.
Sort like marrying Evelyn.
“Hey, big boy!”
I turn instinctively to see a group of women waving at me with suggestive smiles on their faces. I consider a response for about half a second, before I keep going. Finding another woman to take my mind off Evelyn is tempting, but it’s not me. Not now. It had been easy talking to Flora because it wasn’t going anywhere. I knew it; she knew it. Clay and that M.K. are the only ones who expect some love connection tonight.
Who knows? Maybe it will happen for them.
It’s not until I make it to the north end of the Strip, passing the bigger hotels and losing some of the crowds, that I turn onto a side street and slide into the nearest bar.
There’s none of the lights and noise of the hotel bar, or the people, only a long counter with bottles glinting in the dim light, with a dart board and groups seated at a few tables in the back. It feels out of place for Las Vegas.
It feels like home. I can walk into a place like this on any street in Edmonton.
Only home isn’t in Edmonton any longer because I followed Evelyn to Toronto.
“Pint of Guinness, please,” I ask the bartender politely. He’s elderly and wizened, nothing like the beefcake that works in the hotel bar.
I wait until I take a sip of beer to take out my phone.
I thought I was upset about not being married but
it was because you were my only option to marry.
The words on the screen are like a sharp kick between the legs.
You’re a decent man, Dean, but not for me.
I need someone positive and ambitious.
Someone who knows what he wants out of life.