8. Carter
8
Carter
W hen Miri left the party in Vegas, she took with her the last piece of my heart capable of loving someone else. Not the superficial beam of sunshine that I forced on strangers. Not the facade of the professional I gave to my agent and the other models. No, Miri knew the real me. We had years and years of history.
Alone in the city of sin and broken dreams, I wandered the Boulevard for hours. Thinking. Reminiscing. Trying to decide what to do next. I was melancholic enough to pack up my shit and go home. Maybe a few months in Chicago would do me some good. I could be with family again, maybe find that thing inside me that used to want this career.
Eventually, I sat at a roulette table, drinking whiskey and putting random chips on random numbers. I’d never been a betting man. I made money to save or buy necessities. But when in Rome.
Besides, I was depressed and feeling sorry for myself, and what better way to make that worse than to get shit-faced and blow a bunch of money I didn’t have?
“Hey there, cutie,” a drunk blonde said from the seat next to me. “Put a bet down for me.”
“Sure thing, sugar.” Why not? It wasn’t my money. I grabbed some of her chips and put them on twenty-three red. I, likewise, did the same to mine.
“No more bets,” the dealer said, and we watched the ball spin around the wheel and land on twenty-three red. “Winner!” He pushed our earnings toward us.
The woman shouted and threw her arms up in the air, wrapping them around my neck and giving me a big kiss on the cheek.
“I got lucky. I got lucky,” I said.
“Do it again!”
This time, I put it down on sixteen black. The dealer spun the ball in the wheel, and it landed on the same number and color.
“Winner!” he called again.
“Jesus, cutie pie,” the woman said. “Do you have a horseshoe in your pocket?”
Apprehension slithered around my spine, and I shivered. From what, I didn’t know. The analogy rocketed through me, not because I actually had a horseshoe, but because there was something about me being lucky. It wiggled around in my chest like a fucked-up monster from an ’80s movie, preparing to bust out of my rib cage and kill us all.
“Okay, one last time.” She handed me a big stack of chips.
“That’s too much,” I protested and tried to push them back.
“Don’t tell me how to spend my own money.” She slurred and tumbled on her heels, but I caught her and pushed her back upright.
“All right,” I conceded, and I placed another bet.
We won again, but this time, we won big. Really big. To the tune of half a million dollars. It drew the attention of the dealer and the security staff, who came over to “monitor” the game. It was enough to scare me off, especially because I didn’t know what was happening. Could it have been a coincidence? Sure. Nothing was impossible, only highly improbable. But I’d made myself and a stranger a lot of money in a very short amount of time.
The house always wins, right?
Not tonight.
“What’s your name?” The blonde slung an arm over my shoulder, leaning on me as we walked out of the casino. She smelled like cigarettes and gin and regret. “I’m Candy.”
“Carter,” I said.
Once we were on the sidewalk, she put a cigarette between her lips and eyed me up and down.
“Candy and Carter,” she repeated. “A match made in heaven.”
I snorted a laugh and ran a hand over the back of my head. I could have her, if I wanted. I could take her back up to my room and fuck her brains out and forget all about Miri and Lex and Ivy. But my cock shriveled at the idea, revolting at the images coursing through my brain.
“I should go,” I said. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Yeah.” She flashed me a grin. “Likewise. Take care of yourself. Thanks for the luck.”
That uneasy feeling choked my windpipe again, the one that had me wincing and trembling with anticipation.
Luck.
I’d never been superstitious. I didn’t believe in ghosts or things that went bump in the night. Something strange had happened to us in Ireland, sure. There were things about that experience that I would never be able to explain, but there was a logical explanation for it, whatever it was: someone had drugged us, someone had burned marks into our hands, someone had fucked with Ivy.
I needed a way to test this, a way to be one hundred percent sure.
A stupid idea rattled around in my idiot brain, but once it was there, I couldn’t find a good reason not to do it.
I went to another casino a few blocks down, one where I’d be able to get in and get out before their facial recognition system picked me up again.
One game. Just walk up to the first table. Put it all down. See what happens.
I found a blackjack table and sat down to bet it all on the first hand. Half a million dollars. Bam! Right on the green.
“Sir,” the dealer said. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Yep.” I looked ridiculous, like I didn’t know what I was doing, but I’d come here penniless, and if I left that way, I’d call it square.
I had a point to prove. I needed to know I wasn’t cursed, that I’d just had a good night in Vegas and the odds were still stacked against me just like any other?—
“Blackjack,” the dealer said, and the lights above the table went off, drawing the attention of everyone in the vicinity. The guards. The other patrons. The girls dancing in the cages nearby. “Winner! Winner!”
I’d just won…$750,000…totaling $1.2 million…in one night.
This drew loads of attention, and after a tense conversation where I managed to convince them I’d just gotten lucky, the hotel personnel kindly escorted me to the airport. They even stuck around to make sure I got on the flight.
What a couple of gentlemen.
But I could no longer deny the truth. Something was definitely wrong with me.
“She said she gave me a gift,” Ivy had told us. “You don’t think fairies are real…do you?”
“I have this feeling in my gut,” Miri said the other night. “ I think Ivy might have been right about the fairies.”
I’d heard about them in stories and read about them in plays from the Renaissance. There wasn’t a part of me that believed they could exist. But…what if they did? What if Ivy was right? What if Siobhan really had fucked with us?
I should tell her. I should tell someone. But what proof did I have? A gut feeling and a good night of gambling? Who would believe me? I barely believed myself…until I got back to LAX.
That short flight had never felt more lonely. I raged against Evelyn Washington and Kellan Fairfax and the whole royal family. At the stupid media and the paparazzi and a public hungry to eat it up. I hated Lex and Ivy and Miri, all three of them. If I’d never met them, I wouldn’t be so heartbroken. If I’d never fallen for them, never followed them into those stupid fucking woods, I wouldn’t be wondering if I was having a quarterlife crisis.
Was there such a thing as being too lucky?
I suddenly regretted not having paid more attention when Ivy did all that research. Why had she blocked me? Why wouldn’t she just talk to me?
To make matters worse, the plane was an hour late getting in due to someone on the flight before us having a medical emergency. We sat on the tarmac for another two hours while we waited for a gate to open up.
Going to California was the stupidest thing I’d ever done, and for what? I had an agent, but no real career prospects. I’d lost my best friend, my girlfriend, and my star-crossed lover. My father thought I was a joke. Maybe he was right. Maybe this was a pipe dream. Maybe I should’ve thrown in the towel and gone back to Chicago. I had enough money to set myself up now. I could buy a nice house, find a partner, and settle down with two-point-five kids and a golden retriever.
My bitterness burned my eyes, tasting sour on my tongue.
Getting off that plane, I hated my life. I hated LA. I thought I’d made the worst decision anybody could make, all for the sake of ambition. I wanted Hollywood with a fury, and I’d do anything to get it. But my mind had never been more filled with doubt than it was trying to catch a taxi back to Miri’s Malibu dream pad. I had to pack up my shit and find a place more my speed. I had to figure out if I was delusional or actually possessed by some rotten form of a fairy “gift.”
I went for the handle on the yellow car door at the exact same moment as someone else, and I jerked my hand back, looking up to meet the eyes of the person I’d have to fight for the ride home.
My jaw nearly hit the ground.
Anthony Michaels, my director from the Royal Theater Company, stood in front of me with an astonished look on his face. He hadn’t aged a day in five years.
“Anthony?” I said.
“Holy shit!” He threw his arms out to give me a hug. “Carter! Look at you! You’ve filled out.”
I laughed. “It’s good to see you.”
“Where ya headed?” His grin nearly blinded me.
“Malibu.”
Anthony’s eyes twinkled as he shook his head. “Not anymore. Get in the cab.”
I furrowed my eyebrows but did as he said, if only so I could have the time to catch up with him. I mean, c’mon, this chance encounter on this random Tuesday at one of the busiest airports in the country? One in a million.
“What are you doing in LA?” he asked once we were on the road.
“Going for the big time.” I told him about my agent and how I’d spent the last few weeks auditioning and modeling.
“You’ve only been out here a few weeks?”
“Since the end of June,” I said.
Anthony shook his head and sighed. “You’re the luckiest little shit in the world right now.”
Yeah, no kidding.
I snorted and raised an eyebrow, ignoring the rising staccato in my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m here because Fractured Crowns , the screenplay I was writing back when I met you, has been picked up by a major network. I’m not at liberty to say which one yet, but there’s a B and an O in the name.”
My excitement rattled through my torso like a dose of some high-quality club drug. “Really? That’s great, Anthony. Congratulations.”
“No, you don’t understand,” he said. “Carter, I was writing that when I first met you. Remember? I said you had natural talent and you’d be good for one of the parts.”
“I asked if you were offering me a job.”
“Yeah,” he said, giving me a big Cheshire grin. “You did.”
I paused for a moment so the meaning of his innuendo could finally dawn on me. “Are you offering me one now?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I am.”
What the fuck? What the actual fuck?
“Carter, I wrote this part with you in mind,” he said. “You still have to audition with the studio execs, but I’m directing most of the first season.” He turned in the seat and gestured to the phone in my lap. “Call your agent. Get her on the first plane out here. I’m one hundred percent serious when I say you have the part as long as I can get the studio on board. I’m almost certain that I can.”
Hands shaking and sure this was a dream, I called my agent to tell her the news, but she was conveniently still in LA. When we got to the studio, I did my song and dance with the producers, putting on the charming act even though I was exhausted and smelled like Vegas and regret. They didn’t seem to mind, and two days later, I’d been cast as the lead in the next mega show to blow up on premium television.