19. Cassandra
I shimmiedin my seat as the plane circled the airport below. Bright lights peppered the ground, and I searched for the Las Vegas strip, probably impossible to see from my angle, but that didn’t stop me from looking while the plane touched down. The wheels bounced against the tarmac, lifting me from my seat as the engines roared, slowing the plane.
“Welcome to Las Vegas!” the flight attendant announced over the intercom.
Lena sat next to me, her white knuckles clenching the armrest.
I gave her hand a squeeze. “We’re here!”
“Thank god,” she breathed as she loosened her grip. “I’m never flying again.”
The clear skies in Norwalk had given way to rain clouds over Texas and some severe turbulence as we flew over New Mexico. Despite the plush first-class seats, we’d been thrown around enough to make a suited businessman in the next row heave into a bag and the flight attendant drop a bottle of vodka as she hustled back to her jump seat.
“I’m sure the flight back will be completely unremarkable. And we’re here! We made it!” I reassured her.
The fasten seatbelt light turned off, and the captain muttered something meant for the flight crew. Seconds later, the attendants opened the doors and grateful passengers poured from the plane. I grabbed my backpack from the overhead compartment before disembarking. A row of slot machines sat in front of us.
“So, do we just hang out here or…” I gestured to the row of little old ladies pulling the handles.
Lena exhaled, shoulders going slack. “I want to get as far away from airports and airplanes as possible.”
We gathered our luggage and jumped into a cab. I excitedly asked the bored-looking driver to take us down the length of the strip. He groaned but changed his trajectory from the hotel to the bright lights of the row of casinos.
I’d crammed in as many odd jobs, tours, and bar back shifts as I could handle to make some extra money for the trip. Still, I expected that ‘enjoying myself’ just meant I’d wander the strip wide-eyed at the sights. But Diego had other plans.
First-class tickets on the plane, a suite at the Bellagio, and instructions to go see a show or three. After showing us the hotel room, our room concierge provided us tickets and dinner reservations for the night. As soon as the concierge left and Lena retreated to her room to unpack, I called Diego.
“Hey,” he answered, voice low. He muttered an “excuse me” under his breath.
“Is this a bad time?” I asked. “I just wanted to let you know we made it.”
“Just watching some game film. It’s fine. I’m glad you got me out of that room,” he said as a door slammed in the background. “I don’t remember which hotel we’re at, somewhere off the strip, but the conference rooms are tiny.”
“How’s your hotel room?” I asked, taking a lap around the palatial suite Diego had booked for us. “Ours has a foyer. A foyer! And a guy named Romeo who said he’s here to serve us.”
Diego laughed. “No foyers here. Just a kitchenette and a view of another hotel.”
I moved to the bay window overlooking the fountain. Jets of water blasted into the air as a crowd of hundreds looked on, little dots on the horizon from my vantage point. “Wow. All I got is a lame view of the fountains and you get a view of another hotel? I’m jealous.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
I sighed, resting my forehead against the cold windowpane. “Staying out of trouble?”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
“Yeah, my fake boyfriend told me that was pivotal to us all having a nice long weekend in Las Vegas.” My chest tightened and an “I miss you,” lingered on the tip of my tongue. I swallowed it back. I missed Diego as a friend. As a guy I hung out with and ate Chinese food with and took over his video games and fell asleep on his couch. “He’s pretty lame.”
“I’ll stop being lame after the game,” he chuckled, his voice low and indulgent.
“That’s forever away.” I wrapped a curl around my finger. “I’ll probably meet someone new, start a new life before then.” His silence stretched on a beat too long and I blushed, stumbling with my words to fill the space. “Dumb joke, obviously. I’m pretty sure that’s a myth, anyway. You can’t just stumble into city hall with some stranger, right? Should I try and find out?”
“No getting married.”
“So, hooking up is okay, marriage isn’t?”
“No. Neither.”
Despite the hotel room and the first-class flight and the show tickets, the urge to tease him proved too strong to overcome. “How about dancing? Do you have any strong feelings about twerking?”
“No twerking. And dance with Lena.”
“If you want to twerk with Noa, that’s all you. I support you fully.”
He sighed, and I imagined him in a hotel hallway, generic pastoral paintings dotting the walls. Diego in a pair of sweats and a Breakers t-shirt, hair mussed and jaw tense, his dark eyes glimmering and his focus entirely on me.
I closed my eyes, forehead hitting cold glass and repeating the motion twice more. Nope. Nope. Nope. Wasn’t this the exact reason I hadn’t given my number to Diego all those years ago when we met in college? The pull to fall into his world was just a little too much. A little too strong. I’d get lost in there.
“Well, the good news is that Lena isn’t much of a dancer. She prefers shows.”
“The concierge booked them for you?”
“Yes. He insisted on using your credit card, too.” Below me, the water fountain cannons moved back and forth, painting circles on the pound. “I picked up some extra shifts. I can actually pay for stuff myself.”
“You’re paying for our date tomorrow.”
His voice rested on the word “date” and a well of excitement shot through me. “I could have covered some show tickets too, probably.”
“Which show?” he asked and damn it if he didn’t sound like he legitimately wanted to know.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Something with acrobatics and a musical score, I’m sure.”
“And drinks!” Lena called from her bedroom.
“And drinks,” I added.
“Well, be good, okay? I don’t want to wake up and find out that Diego Salazar’s girlfriend got married in Vegas to someone else.”
I grinned. “Is it too late to ask for another ticket to the game? Just in case.”
“Way too late.”
“Fine,” I pushed out my lower lip in a pout. “Guess I’ll just have a totally normal night with Lena.”
I hung up the phone, strangely sad even with an entire night in Las Vegas ahead of me. Rather than mope, I knocked on Lena’s doorframe. “What’s the plan? We getting out of here?”
“Yep.” She threw open her suitcase, rifling through until she pulled out a shiny red dress. “Just getting changed.”
“Oh, we’re getting dressed up?” I’d thrown in a couple of slinkier dresses but planned to live in leggings and football jerseys for the bulk of the trip.
“What’s the point of coming to Las Vegas if you’re not going to get dressed up?” Lena asked, stripping off the oversized sweater and pulling the dress in her hand over her head.
She had a point. “Alright, give me twenty to get changed and throw on some makeup.”
* * *
After getting foxy, Lena and I called on Romeo for suggestions on how to navigate to dinner and the show in heels. At Lena’s insistence that she wanted to play some blackjack before we ate, he settled us at a table and arranged for a driver to get us for dinner. Better than that, Romeo flagged down a server. Thanks to his influence and a near endless stack of five-dollar chips that seemed to flow from Lena, by the time the driver came to get us, I was lit.
“You didn’t tell me you’re a card shark,” I laughed, leaning back onto the padded bench in a posh, dimly lit restaurant. The only bursts of light came from the near endless parade of diners taking pictures in front of a giant statue at the back of the restaurant.
“Noa’s not a huge fan of gambling, so I’m getting it out of my system tonight.” She sipped demurely at her frothy pink drink in a martini glass.
I ran a finger over the tiny shot glasses of sake arranged on an egg skelter in front of me. “Well, I certainly enjoy the endless slew of free drinks and watching the old guys at the table get pissed off when you win.”
“So, you’ll come back out with me after the show?”
“Why not?”