22. Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
I t wasn’t supposed to be a relationship. A month later, however, it felt like a relationship.
We spent almost every night together. That wasn’t the original goal—it was supposed to be an occasional night of sex offset by a full dose of professionalism at work—but things shifted before I even realized it was happening.
At work, we bantered and flirted but only when Kyla wasn’t present.
Deep down, I recognized Kyla was probably asking about us when we were off shift.
I told myself to stop the flirting. It didn’t happen, though.
Whenever I was around Tallulah, I couldn’t stop myself.
She always rose to the occasion. I always rose to every occasion too.
We went out to dinner. That shouldn’t have been part of it.
She liked trying new restaurants, however, and it was always a joy to try to find someplace she’d never been with an eclectic menu and a garish Vegas vibe.
She was gung-ho to try everything, even if she was convinced she wouldn’t like it.
Sometimes, she surprised herself. Other times, she picked around the entree and suggested grabbing a burger afterward.
I was up for all of it.
As for the sex, it was still as hot as it had always been. I expected to burn out—that was the plan—but instead my interest in her grew with each passing day.
She was funny. Sometimes, she was mean funny, but she was also self-deprecating.
She didn’t let herself off the hook. Often, I wished she would get over the trauma of her childhood and see herself as everybody else saw her.
She was a queen, and I always wanted to worship her.
Her insecurities popped up at the most inopportune times, but I was getting better at talking her down from her emotional cliffs.
The other thing I noticed—although I never brought it up—was that Candy was spending two solid hours with her a week. The conversations weren’t happening in Candy’s office, which would’ve been an obvious tipoff, but Candy followed her around on slow afternoons and chatted with her nonstop.
I understood something about that relationship that Tallulah did not.
It was therapy. Candy was working with Tallulah, talking her through her childhood trauma, and easing some of the anxiety that weighed Tallulah down.
Tallulah didn’t realize that, of course.
If she recognized what Candy was doing, she would clam up.
Instead, she was opening up more, naturally.
And, from what I could tell, she was being honest.
That was good. I wanted her to feel better about herself.
I lived in fear of how she might shut down when she realized what was really going on.
There seemed to be no danger of that happening yet—especially since I had no intention of telling her—so I pushed those fears out of my mind. For now, at least.
Her mother had shown up at the casino four times, to my knowledge. Tallulah had managed to avoid her each and every time. Sharon was determined, however. If Sharon escalated things by doing something stupid—and she would—Tallulah was going to melt down. That was a worry for another day too.
Tonight—we’d both worked day shifts, thanks to a bachelor party—I had something else I wanted to show Tallulah. I hadn’t told her what—she’d made jokes about penises of unusual sizes—and I was looking forward to the surprise.
“This is a nice building,” she said as I keyed us in through security.
I took her hand once we were inside and led her toward the elevator. “It’s an older building, but they did a nice refurbishment on it,” I agreed. Once on the elevator, I hit the button for the twelfth floor.
Her eyes went wide. “Top floor, huh?” She cocked her head. “Is this where you live?”
Surprisingly, we’d spent all of our nights together at her apartment.
I wasn’t keeping her from my place—I had no inhibitions about sharing my space with her—but she had never mentioned wanting to see it.
Since I preferred her being comfortable, I always stayed with her.
Plus, she was closer to the casino. It made it easy to head there after our shifts, which sometimes ended at two or three in the morning.
“Actually, I don’t live here.” I didn’t say anything else until we got off on the top floor. Then I led her to the left. “I do something else here.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Omigod. Do you have a sex room in this building?”
Why she’d jumped to that conclusion was beyond me. I spurted out a laugh. “Who has a sex room?” I was honestly curious.
“This is Vegas. Every self-respecting millionaire in the city limits has a sex room.” She sounded as if she meant it.
I shook my head. “I am not a millionaire.”
She didn’t say anything, but it was obvious she wanted to.
“I’m not,” I insisted. “If I was a millionaire, would I be working as a dealer?”
“When rich people do crazy stuff, they’re called eccentric. Maybe you’re just eccentric.”
I burst out laughing. “If you say so.” I keyed a different code into the pad outside the end unit. “This is not a sex room, and I’m not a millionaire. My father is a millionaire—he might actually be a billionaire at this point—but I’m not my father.”
“Okay.” She was dubious. “If we walk in here and I see a sex swing, though, I’m leaving. You’ve been warned.”
I was taken aback and paused with the door halfway open. “A sex swing?”
“They’re a thing.”
It was my turn to be dubious. “Why don’t you strike me as the sex swing type?”
“I just told you I would run if I saw one. You might be the sex swing type. It’s possible.”
I thought about it. I had no particular feelings on sex swings either way. “I promise it’s not a sex swing” was all I could come up with.
I ushered her in front of me, hit the light switch on the wall, and then fixed my full attention on her. I already knew what I was showing her. What I wanted to see was her reaction to the space.
“Oh, wow.” Pure reverence replaced the cynical smile I’d grown so fond of.
She released my hand, her eyes wide, and shuffled to the center of my studio.
“This is… Wow.” She headed straight to my current piece, a watercolor of the Las Vegas skyline.
I’d been working on it for weeks—when I wasn’t spending time with her—and I’d just about finished it. “This is amazing.”
Her smile was so big when she turned to face me that I thought I might melt into a puddle of goo right there.
“You like it?” My voice was raspy. I’d never been nervous about showing others my work.
Art was the one place I excelled, and doubt wasn’t part of that game.
Tallulah was different, however. Not only because she was an artist—she’d shown me a few of her pieces one night when I’d stayed over—but also because I wanted to impress her.
“It’s beautiful.” She didn’t touch the canvas.
The paint was dry, but some artists were persnickety about people touching their stuff.
Tallulah respected those kinds of boundaries.
“This space is amazing.” She moved over to another piece, this one of the Grand Canyon.
“Did you do this from memory?” She was awestruck.
“Yeah. I’ve been there enough times that I have a favorite spot.”
“I’ve never even been there. I’ve seen photos, though.” Her sigh was long and drawn out, wistful. “One day, I’ll see it.”
Given Vegas’s proximity to the Grand Canyon, it dumbfounded me that she hadn’t ever been there. Of course, that was my entitlement talking. My parents had the money for the trips. My mother had taken me there more times than I could count when I was a kid.
I doubted Sharon had ever taken Tallulah anywhere that didn’t benefit Sharon. She didn’t seem like the type.
“How long have you had this place?” Tallulah asked. She’d moved on to the sculpture corner and was eyeing my supplies there. I wasn’t surprised. What she didn’t know was that I’d beefed up that section just for her.
“About a year,” I replied. “I had to save up money to secure the space—the rent is surprisingly doable on my salary—but when I went into this, I didn’t have much of a nest egg.”
“How is your nest egg looking now that you’re in the high rollers section?”
“Much better.” I laughed as I thought back to when I’d been informed of the move. “I thought maybe you’d had something to do with that when it happened.”
Confusion knitted her eyebrows. “Me? No offense—I’m glad that you’re over there now—but why would I try to get you transferred? Forget for a moment that I don’t have that power, but at the time, how would that have benefitted me?”
“I thought maybe you’d partnered with Zach and Rex to try to get me booted. If I screw up in the lounge, then it means bad things for the casino.”
She made a face and shook her head. “I would never do that. I don’t believe in messing with people’s money.”
“Which is why you never tried to get Kyla ousted.”
She shrugged. “I understand why Kyla hates me. I waltzed into one of the most lucrative sections of the casino. There’s a waiting list a mile long for my position. She thought she was finally going to get her sister in.”
“That doesn’t give her a pass to treat you like crap.”
“No, but she’s calmed down over the last month. It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine with me. Still, I smiled. “Either way, I don’t think you’re out to get me any longer. I know I was making things up in my head at the time. It just threw me.”
“I could be trying to get you,” she teased. “It could be a long con.”
“Yes, all the sex is definitely teaching me a lesson,” I agreed.
She laughed and then turned back to the sculpture section. “You have a lot of supplies. It looks as if you paint more than you sculpt, though.”
“I like sculpting,” I replied. “I find it restful. I can get lost in the process for hours on end. I don’t think I’m very good at it, though.”
“No, you’re great.” Tallulah focused on one of my abstracts. “You seem to be good at everything you do.”
The double meaning of her words wasn’t lost on me. “Is that so?”
“Yup.” She bobbed her head solemnly. “You’re a maestro in certain mediums.”
That could’ve been the nicest thing anybody had ever said to me.
“You’re much better than me when it comes to sculptures.
” I hesitated and then got to the reason I’d brought her here, and it wasn’t to brag about my studio.
“I thought, since you don’t have a current space to work, that maybe you might want to work here. ”
Surprise blew across her face like a hurricane. “What?” She looked gobsmacked.
“You don’t have to,” I said hurriedly. “This isn’t pressure. It’s just… Your apartment is small. You keep talking about pulling the trigger on studio space. You seem a little worried, though.”
“I’m afraid the money will dry up,” she admitted ruefully. “I’ve managed to pay down my debt—and fast—but Kyla hates me. The first chance she gets to fire me, she’s going to take it.”
“You said Kyla has calmed down some.”
“Yes, but if there’s an opening, we both know she’ll walk through it. She won’t ignore that gift.”
“And then you’ll be right back where you were,” I surmised.
One of her shoulders hopped. “Not exactly in the same position. I’ve managed to pay all my credit cards down, and I actually have a balance in my savings account for the first time in, well, ever. I’m way better off than I was.”
“But you think things will fall apart again.”
She nodded. “That’s the way my life goes. Good things happen—not often, but they happen—and then bad things happen. I’m on a swing, and each time I sail toward the good stuff, I build up even more momentum for the bad swing.”
She was good with words as well as paints and pottery. “Tallulah, you can work here.” My voice rang with sincerity—and maybe a little vulnerability. “I have plenty of space. We can even work together in here at times.”
Something occurred to me, so I added the next part. “Or, if you can only work alone, we’ll come up with a schedule. I just want you to have a place to work. You’ve gone without one for too long.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “How much is the rent? The space I was looking at was a quarter the size of this, and the building is nowhere near as nice. I’m not sure I can swing my half of the rent.”
“First off, I don’t expect you to pay rent.”
Her eyes went steely. “I will pay rent. That’s the only way this is going to work.”
I had to bite back a curse word. She was squirrelly when it came to money. “Well, I pay two grand a month. Can you swing one grand a month?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Are you being serious? You only pay two grand a month?”
“I told you the rent was reasonable.”
“Yeah, but…” She trailed off. “You could be snowing me.” Shrewdness infiltrated her features. “You could be throwing out that number to make me say yes.”
“I can show you the receipts in my email,” I replied dryly.
She sighed. “Do you really want to share this space with me? This is your utopia.”
How could I explain that there was no utopia without her? The truth of the matter was, despite my earlier determination, I didn’t see this relationship—and it was a relationship—ending. I no longer wanted that. I no longer anticipated that.
She wasn’t ready to hear that, though.
“I can work with other people,” I replied. “I actually prefer it sometimes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Her lips curved, and she stared toward the huge bay windows. “Then I accept.” Her voice was low. “I’ll send you the first payment tomorrow.”
I grinned. “I’ll get you the codes for the front door and this unit.”
“Okay.”
“And all that stuff over there?” I pointed to the sculpting supplies. “I bought that for you.”
I didn’t think it was possible for her expression to go any softer, but I was wrong. “You did?”
“I’m dying to see your work.”
She took a step toward me then stopped herself. “I would show you,” she said in a husky voice. “I have a few ideas I’ve been sitting on until I could afford studio space. I have another idea for something we could do now, though.”
I grinned. “Maybe I should get one of those big beanbags up here so we have a piece of furniture to meet on in the middle occasionally?”
Her laughter was full of magic. “Now, see, that there is a great idea.” She raced toward me.
My arms were already open when she arrived, and my mouth was on hers, hot and heavy. Our tongues tangled for what felt like forever, and I was breathless when we pulled back.
“I’ll place the order tomorrow,” I said, my playful tone matching hers.
“Good idea. The floor will work for now, though.”
“Oh, most definitely. The floor is a freaking great idea.”