6. Jackson
JACKSON
Morning has a way of resetting you.
That’s the goddamn point of a new day.
With every sunrise, you score a new opportunity to make up for the mistakes of the night before.
Do I ever know about the promises that were made at night—promises I hoped would live on in the bright light of a new day.
Promises that didn’t live long at all.
This time around, it’s up to me to keep my commitments—the ones I make to myself.
This morning, I renew my vow. I will resist Stone Zenith. I will resist him with every part of me.
Doesn’t matter how good he felt against me.
In a city full of chances, I’m going to make a bet on a surefire winner. This is a guaranteed payout. All I have to do is keep a promise to myself and keep my hands off the man who signs my paychecks.
Yeah, that’s all. Just that little detail of money I need to live on.
After I swing my legs off the bed, I pad across my room to the balcony and drink in the new chance. The pale pink fingers of dawn tug at the horizon, lifting the shade of morning as the sun peeks over the edge of the city.
It’s early—not even six.
If New York is a city that never sleeps, Vegas is a city that takes forever to wake up.
With good reason—hardly anyone wants to see the damage from the evening before.
But I require bright lights to shine on my deed.
Hell, I need five-thousand-watt stage lights illuminating everything, exposing all the artifice, reminding me that what occurred last night will not be repeated in the day.
After I brush my teeth, tug on workout clothes, and lace up my sneakers, I head down to the main floor. Walking through the mostly empty casino, I’m grateful to be off duty, grateful that it’s only me with no one by my side.
Sometimes it’s odd, off-kilter, even, to walk alone when I’m so used to scanning the premises and guarding the man by my side.
But this solitude is welcome. Nobody’s looking in my direction, and I don’t have to look out for anyone but me.
That’s what I vow to do as I hit the pavement, finding a rapid pace quickly.
I run through the city, past The Venetian, sidestepping garbage strewn across the sidewalk; racing by Paris, where tickets for strip clubs litter the pavement outside the replica Eiffel Tower; sweeping by the MGM, where cheap plastic beads hang on railings and the street is scattered with cigarette butts and overturned plastic cups, sticky with spilled Hurricanes and last night’s regrets.
Last night’s truths.
Dawn in Vegas reveals what the city tries to hide between neon and billboards, between music and glamour.
And I damn well require the reminder. It’s far too easy for me to get caught up in the moment.
Hasn’t that always been my issue? Getting caught up?
Falling too hard, falling too easily, falling too deep?
I grit my teeth, trying to close my mind’s eye to the flickering film reel of memories filling my vision.
Memories of a romance that burned bright and powerful for a few wonderful years—then not at all.
Then there are fresh memories of a scorching moment in a hallway mere hours ago.
Of lips and bodies and arms.
I can’t go there again.
Lust is a goddamn dragon in a video game, waiting to chew you up, spit you out, and leave you a charred mess alongside the path through the dark and perilous woods.
Lust is dangerous when it gets in the way of duty.
Of responsibilities.
I have so many of those. Like anyone else, any other guy who has debts to pay.
Choices to own up to.
Guys like me don’t get to act upon impulses.
Acting on impulse leads down a deadly road.
After I finish a punishing six-mile run, I lob in a call to a guy I know in Los Angeles who finished his service commitment with the Marines and is now training to be a bodyguard. I’ve been a mentor of sorts to Ryan, helping him navigate his path to a new career.
“Finished my CPR renewal last night,” he says.
“I trust you didn’t kill the dummy?”
“No dummies were harmed by me,” he says.
“Excellent,” I say, then we review the next steps I’ve mapped out for him to prep for some upcoming job interviews.
A half hour later, we’re done, and I want to pat myself on the back for focusing solely on Ryan and not on last night. Not on Stone.
We say goodbye as I walk back into The Extravagant.
But that run and that phone call only skirted the surface of what I need to clear my head.
Time to hit the gym.
I head to the state-of-the-art fitness center, where I pump iron, lift weights, and burn my muscles until they scream at me. I burn them some more, doing push-ups, crunches, then another round of weights on the bench press.
More than an hour into my workout, Terrence wanders in. The daytime bodyguard is the spitting image of Taye Diggs. He’s older than I am by about ten years, forty to my thirty, and is still as strong as a tank, with the reflexes of a ninja. He’ll relieve Cruz, the overnight guy, in an hour or so.
Terrence lifts his chin and grunts out a morning hello.
“Hey there,” I mutter as I move to the Nautilus machine, getting ready to work my triceps.
Settling in at the biceps machine next to me, he adjusts the weight then flashes a grin at me. “How’s it going?”
As I yank down the triceps bar, my muscles flexing, I answer with a simple “Can’t complain.”
Since truly I can’t.
In the scheme of life’s challenges, a little lust is nothing.
I’ve been through worse.
Much worse.
He lifts a brow, like he doubts me. “Are you sure? Looks like you’re ready to rip that weight machine apart.”
I push out a laugh as I ease the tension on the bar. “Some days it feels that way, doesn’t it?”
As he works the biceps machine, he nods sagely. He does that a lot. Nearly two decades in the business have made him a wise man, a rudder for the rest of us. “I hear you, bro.”
I say nothing as I keep working the weights, each move shoving Stone further from my mind.
Then further still.
Then, please, dear God, please , out of it.
“You sure though?”
I finish the set, furrowing my brow. “I’m positive. Why are you asking?”
He stops lifting. Blows out a long stream of air. Offers an apologetic smile. “Look, Melody wanted me to check in with you.”
I tense, a knee-jerk reaction that’s not his wife’s fault. “Ah. And everything makes sense now.” His wife is as cool as Imagine Dragons, but it’s hard to think of her without thinking of Fabian.
Because she was his best friend.
Was being the operative word.
“I’m fine, man. Tell Melody I’m all good.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “You think it’s that easy, Jackson? You think I can tell Melody you’re all good and then I’m off the hook?”
“Why can’t you tell her that?” I move to another biceps machine, settling in on the bench.
“Women aren’t like that.”
I laugh. “Shockingly, I’m not that familiar with how women are in relationships.”
“C’mon, man. You have two sisters and a mom. You know plenty about how to handle the fairer sex, and you ought to know that ‘all good’ is nowhere near satisfying to a lady.”
“Pretty sure the only thing I know about how to satisfy a lady is to give her a dress with pockets.”
Maybe even in spite of himself, Terrence laughs—a loud, boisterous chuckle. “Exactly. You know more than you let on. And in this case, you know I can’t take an ‘all good’ back to my wife. Melody worries about you. She saw some Facebook memory. From three years ago or something.”
I groan, bile rising at the mention of that godforsaken place. “I swear, social media should be outlawed. It only causes intense bouts of loathing, agony, annoyance, or some combination of the three. That’s why I’m not on it.”
“I hate it too. But Melody doesn’t hate it. And Fabian didn’t hate it.”
I let go of the weights, jerking my gaze to Terrence, all my latent emotions snapping to the surface. “I know he didn’t hate it. That was kind of the problem. He lived for it and did so much dangerous shit for the sake of it.”
Terrence’s smile is sympathetic and genuine. “I know, man. But it’s only a picture. Something he posted three years ago. She mentioned it this morning. It was of the four of us at a barbecue we all went to in Silver Lake. At Nina and Grayson’s house.”
That day flashes before me in Technicolor.
Burgers, corn on the cob, microbrews that Nina and Grayson made themselves.
They tasted awful, and we told them as much.
A sunshine-filled afternoon with volleyball in the yard, and good food and good drink—because we went to the store to grab a better IPA—that lasted deep into the evening.
An evening without regret. Because it capped off a day of laughter, beer, food, jokes, and falling.
Falling in love.
A year ago, the memory would have struck cruelly, like a sucker punch.
Now, it doesn’t hurt.
Time does that.
That’s the point of time. It helps you move on. Helps you stop hurting.
I don’t hurt.
And I also don’t want to hurt anymore.
I clap Terrence on the back. “Listen. You tell Melody I swear I’m good. I’m as good as a dog in the sun. As a woman finding a dress with pockets. As a classic rock fan tracking down an old Pink Floyd bootleg. Is that better than ‘all good’?”
With narrowed eyes and an “I’ll give in this time” grumble, he mutters a yes.
“But if she really worries about me, she can send me some of those home-baked brownies I love so much.” I lick my lips, my stomach growling as it remembers Melody’s prowess with a KitchenAid mixer and some cocoa.
“I’ll do you one better than that. I already left one outside your room. She sent them to me.”
I point at him. “Never leave her.”
“I never will. I miss her like crazy when I’m away.”
“After the East Coast tour, you’ll be back in Los Angeles.” I snap my fingers. “It’ll go by like that.”
“Let’s hope so.”
I say goodbye, mostly glad that Melody hooked me up with Terrence as buds in the first place. We became friends, and when the job opened up, he put in a good word for me with Stone.
Mostly glad indeed.
It’s not my friend’s fault I’ve got it bad for the boss.
It is definitely my fault if I keep acting on it.
But I won’t.
I definitely won’t.
Because I don’t have to be on social media evidently to feel what a memory can do to you.
It can remind you that getting involved can lead to pain.
To a particular kind of pain.
And I don’t ever want to go there again.
I laser in on resistance all day long, laser in on it so finely that my whole body is a tight wire.
Especially when I see Stone later that afternoon.