Chapter Thirteen
MILES
PRESENT
I sigh as I flick through Netflix as I lean back on the headboard of the plush hotel bed I’m sleeping in tonight. Nothing is piquing my interest.
I throw the remote to the end of the bed and close my eyes. Sometimes I get so tired of this—spending every night like this.
My phone buzzes where it lies at the end of the bed and my sister's name lights up my screen. A flicker of feeling jumps through me at the thought of talking to her. God, just a simple phone call gets me so excited these days. How depressing is that?
I reach over and accept the call. “Sooo, how’s Australia?”
“It’s dry, and the dirt here is like…red.” Her voice is like a combination of confusion and curiosity.
A smile picks at the corner of my lip. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”
“It’s amazing! There’s so many birds here. Caio got one of those bird books and he’s been trying to identify all of their calls when we go on hikes. It’s keeping him very entertained. Me, not so much.”
I chuckle before I hear Caio on the other line. “Hey, I keep you plenty entertained in other ways,” he says to my sister.
“Okay, nice, I didn’t need that info.”
Isla giggles into the speaker and it pulls the smile on my face even wider. “It’s been so nice to get away and explore somewhere new.”
Isla and Caio have been in Australia on their honeymoon for three weeks already; they’ve got another three before they head home.
I feel a hint of jealousy at what a good time they’re having.
All I’ve done in the last three weeks is get on and off planes, and in and out of hotels.
I’m itching for something else, something that makes me feel like my sister sounds. Fulfilled.
I scoff, shuffling down the bed until I’m staring at the ceiling. “As if you don’t live in paradise already.”
“Well, yeah,” I can hear the smile in her voice. “But this is a different kind of paradise. How about you? Where are you right now?”
It doesn’t go over my head the fact that my family never knows where I am, wouldn’t know where to find me, and they can’t rely on me in any way. If anything ever happened to anyone, I wouldn’t be there. Not right away anyway. “I’m in Vegas.”
“Vegas? Doing anything exciting tonight?”
“If you call staring at the ceiling of my hotel room exciting, then sure.”
“Miles.” I can just imagine the look on her face.
“Isla,” I chirp back, rubbing my hand over my brow.
“You’re in Vegas and you’re spending the night at your hotel?”
I shrug, not that she can see me. “Yeah.”
I leave out the fact that this is what I spend the majority of my nights doing these days.
“Is Wes there too?”
“Yeah, but knowing him, he’s probably out getting himself in some kind of trouble.”
“So go find him, get into some trouble yourself, or keep him out of jail for the night,” she suggests. It’s almost like she can feel my boredom through the phone line.
“I don’t know.”
“You deserve to enjoy yourself, Miles. You travel the world every day! Take one of these days to enjoy it, have your own little holiday.”
“Yeah, I?—”
“Oh! Sweetheart, I think that’s a kookaburra, can you hear that?!” I can’t help but laugh at Caio’s excitement through the phone.
“Okay, I have to go look at this kooka-whatever. I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”
“Okay, have fun, I love you.”
“Love you too, bye!”
The silence in this damn hotel room is deafening when my sister hangs up the phone. So loud I decide to pick up the phone and text Wes.
Me
what are you doing right now?
Wes
oh my god are you coming out?
Me
depends what you’re doing.
Wes
I’m at the bar in the Venetian
I sigh, once again. But fuck it.
Me
be there soon.
As I walk through the chaos of the strip, my eyes glaze over so many different things.
Spiderman walks past me, asking if I want a photo, before I nearly trip over a dog running after him.
I head straight for the Venetian, the gigantic hotel lit up so bright my eyes hurt.
This whole place is like that—colored lights, music, and chaos.
In the years of traveling I’ve come to the conclusion that big cities aren’t for me, I like the calm of somewhere a little quieter than this.
Maybe that’s why I spend so much time in my hotel rooms. I’ve never really thought about that until now.
A showgirl in six-inch heels greets me as I pass her and walk through the doors into the hotel.
I look down at my feet as I make my way in, hoping to avoid any interactions with anyone.
It’s not that I don’t like people, but this is a lot of people.
I don’t feel much like talking to anyone here except someone who can point me in the direction of my best friend.
Knowing Wes, he probably left this place and is halfway down the aisle at some Elvis chapel.
On second thought, I probably should’ve checked those spots before coming here, but I’m hoping the guy hasn’t had that many drinks yet.
But again, I don’t know how much alcohol Wes would really need in his bloodstream before he’d say yes to a Vegas wedding.
Hotels in Vegas don’t look like hotels in other places. They are hotels, casinos, malls, everything all in one. But the particular one that Wes chose for tonight is taunting me. As I walk step after step into the gigantic space, I’m thrown right back to a place part of me wishes I were still in.
A canal flows through the middle of the building, complete with boats for hire, with couples making their way through the center by water.
The roof is painted as the sky, so realistic you would barely recognize you are indoors if you’d had a few too many.
And the shop fronts, they’re designed to match Italian architecture.
I’m in a makeshift Italy, when where I want to be is the real thing. In a small little town that’s a lot quieter than this, and has the girl I’ve loved for years living right above the only bar in town.
I look around me and have no idea where I’m supposed to be going. “Excuse me,” I lean over the barrier to talk to the man standing on one of those little boats. “Can you point me in the direction of the bar?”
“Which one?” he asks.
I frown. “How many are there?”
“Eight.”
I roll my eyes. God damnit, Wes. “Is there one that is tuned up to the sports channel?”
He nods before prattling off directions and I weave through the crowds of people for what feels like forever before I finally find it.
The place has screens on screens, playing the NBA live.
I hear a cacophony of female giggles and I walk in the direction of the sound, knowing I’ll find my friend wherever it came from.
And sure enough, I find him sitting on a couch watching the game with a beer in hand and two girls on either side of him, hanging on his every word.
I shake my head. Wesley has always had this draw about him; women flock to him, even worse when he tells them he’s a pilot. They go feral. Like getting into bitch fights over him feral.
His head turns ever so slightly and he catches sight of me. “Heyyyyyy, the captain is out for once!”
I shake my head as I get closer to him. Dude has no concept of his volume levels once he’s got one sip of alcohol in his system.
“Move over, ladies. Make way for the captain.”
Oh my god.
“It’s fine,” I say, but the girls are already making themselves scarce, some of them giving me flirty eyes and the others a deadly case of side eye for taking Wes’s attention from them. I flop down on the couch next to him nonetheless.
He throws an arm around my shoulder. “I can’t believe you actually came out, I was fully expecting you to bail.”
“I nearly did when I realized there’s eight bars in this place.”
“Oh shit, sorry.”
I can’t help the way the corner of my mouth turns up. “It’s fine, got here in the end. What are we watching?”
He rambles off details about the teams and the players and I just zone out, my eyes glazing over as I imagine what Marina is doing right now, who she’s with, what she’s wearing, if her body still feels like it did, if it still looks the same?—
“Hi there.” A hand runs over my bicep. “I’m Danny, I’ll be your server tonight. Is there anything I can get you?” she asks, crouched down to look us in the eyes. Her eyes are gorgeous, bright, and blue. She’s objectively pretty, beautiful even.
But all I find myself doing is wishing I were looking into my favorite pair of hazel eyes instead.
“Hi, Danny,” Wes says with his signature charm. “He’ll have a bourbon and coke.”
She turns her gaze to me. “Oh, he likes an old man's drink, does he?”
I chuff a laugh, looking up at where she’s now standing with a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. “I wouldn’t say it’s an old man’s drink. More like a mature man’s drink,” I counter.
She raises her brows. “You know, mature is what old people call themselves instead of saying old, right?”
The way Wes has gone silent next to me means he’s enjoying the hell out of watching this girl flirt with me, but I can’t say I feel the same. She’s gorgeous, but something doesn’t feel right. I have that same strange feeling in my stomach that I get any time I try to flirt with someone that isn’t…
“How about just a soda water instead,” I say. I don’t think I need to add alcohol to my already twisted mind.
“Sure thing,” she says with a smile, running her hand over my shoulder as she walks away.
“She’s cute.”
“Uh-huh.”
He turns sideways on the couch to look at me. “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”
I slump back into the couch, throwing my hands over my face. “I don’t know how to stop. Now that I’ve seen her again after all this time, she’s all I can think about. ”
“I hate to ask, but it didn’t work the first time. What’s changed?”
I clasp my hands behind my head. “Nothing.” Then I shake it. “Everything.”
Wes just looks at me like he can’t figure me out, before Danny appears again. “One soda water.”
“Thanks,” I say as she places it on the table in front of us.