I give him a flick of two fingers toward my duffel and a cock of an eyebrow. “Speak for yourselves. I’m packed. I’ll see you shitheads downstairs.” Remy scowls as I let the door fall closed behind me, but just before it settles into the jamb, I push it open again. “Oh. And don’t forget to leave a tip for the housekeeper.”
The door slams shut, and I head for the elevators. I’ve got an hour to get a real cup of coffee, find a spot in the hotel to people watch, and hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ll get a glance of a wild mane of curls before we need to head to the airport and leave Vegas behind for good.
Flynn
The sounds of Vegas have managed to follow me into McCarran International Airport. Even while sitting at our gate and waiting for our flight to New York to board, my ears ring with “the slot machine soundtrack” every damn casino in the city plays to lure tourists into thinking they need to get in on the gambling fun.
I know New York isn’t the quietest city in the country, but I’ll take the sounds of honking taxis and street traffic over the ching-ching-ching Vegas song and dance any day of the fucking week.
If I had my say, and if family and business weren’t keeping me as a full-time New Yorker, I’d permanently live in my desert house, where silence and the sound of the wind are about the only things that fill my ears. My Vegas residence might be close to the Strip, but I made damn sure when I bought and built that property that it was far enough away from the casino chaos.
Yet you didn’t mind all that ching-ching-ching when there was a mane of curls and big green eyes adding to the ambiance…
I’d be a liar if I tried to refute that sentiment. It appears the only thing that made Vegas interesting was Daisy Diaz.
Actually, Daisy Winslow, the woman—your wife—whom you hoped to spot before you left the Wynn but came up empty-handed.
“I swear to God, I shit a toddler in there. Little cherub cheeks and big fat arms, I didn’t even look back after I flushed the toilet because I don’t think there was even a chance my crap was going down,” Ty announces on his return from the restroom, climbing over the suitcases and bags under his and Jude’s chairs and collapsing into the pleather.
“You’re fucking nasty, dude,” Remy remarks, pulling his sunglasses down over his eyes and sinking farther into the airport seating.
“What? I haven’t been able to pinch one off all week. Traveling and booze make me constipated as a motherfucker.”
“Ty, I’m not even remotely drunk enough to be having this conversation right now, and I can smell the booze seeping out of my pores.” Rem puts two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “So, can it with the literal shit-talk, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m just saying,” Ty says on a whisper then, focusing his monologue at Jude, a willing listener. “It was a violent showing by my intestinal system. I didn’t know the old girl had it in her, to be honest. I thought I was going to die in the bathroom. See Ty Winslow at his eternal resting place, kind of thing.”
I step away from the group on a shake of my head and look for anything I can do that’ll be far enough out of earshot that I don’t want to puncture my own eardrums anytime soon—or admit that they’re a hell of a lot funnier than I want them to be. Just down from our gate, I spot a cluster of slot machines in the center aisle of the airport, mostly abandoned by passengers as they wait to board their impending flights.
Daisy’s bouncy curls flash through my mind like a trailer for a movie, and I move on a whim. Toward the slot machines, around the group of them in surveillance, and then finally, to take a seat at the distinctly memorable buffalo game in the middle.
I still fucking hate these things, but a smile almost cracks through the fatigue a weekend in Vegas with my three brothers has created on my face, and I find myself feeding the slot a twenty-dollar bill.
I’m credited immediately, and as any guy with balls would, I hit the max bet button and take my chances with a spin of the reels.
They’re off to the races, dinging and calculating and loading into the most random fucking line pattern in the world with buffalo and sunrises and wolves and all kinds of shit that shouldn’t have any part in real gambling. There’s no science to it. No figuring it out. No skill. It’s all blind luck based on the spin of a digital machine.
Nevertheless, something evidently good happens in my favor, the lights and sirens firing wildly into the otherwise silent cacophony of the Las Vegas airport. I can practically feel the sneers from hungover passengers, their bloodshot eyes finding me from behind the solace of their big hats and dark glasses to gift me with a glare.