4. Brander
4
brANDER
“Let’s go back out to the strip!” she says not even two seconds after redressing.
Match eyes Lifesaver and me. “You want to…?”
“Go back to the strip!” she exclaims. “What? You’re too old? You want your bed?” She falsettos a cry. “Oh, boohoo . You only live once, you know.”
Says every woman ever below the age of twenty-five…
It’s an overused saying, but one I have over the years learned to be true.
The streets aren’t for the fainthearted. As fond as I am of the other two—they’re my best friends—they wouldn’t be able to survive a night sleeping on a sidewalk with the stench of week-old piss infused into the cement. Lifesaver values the appearance of his hair too much, and Match wouldn’t be able to handle the chaos—as MC secretary, he has a passion for peacemaking. The streets come with no peace. Alice is right.
You really only do live once. I didn’t share sleeping bags with rodents and survive surprise attacks just to turn a pretty girl down when she proposes the idea of heading back into the city.
“Yes,” I say. “Sounds good.”
Match shoots me daggers. “Brander,” he says through his teeth when Alice turns her back to locate her shoes. “She needs rest.”
“She’s twenty-two. She can rest in the morning.” I extend my gaze to Lifesaver who perches on the arm of the couch, running a finger over his lips. He’s probably in his own world imagining Alice’s lips pressed against his. “Lifey? What do you say?”
“I say she’s not that drunk. Trust me. Coming from someone who’s worked shifts in the emergency room and dealt with a whole umbrella of drinking-related issues, she’s fine. Besides.” He hops off the couch. “We need to get her back to her friends at some point.”
“Exactly,” I say.
Match narrows his eyes.
“Twenty-two fucking years young, and she’s just been broken up with. C’mon. We can’t let the darling down now.” I lean into the doorway and fold my arms over my chest. “Suit yourself. Lifesaver and I will go. Stay here. Get an early night.”
He shoots up quicker than my fucking cock did as soon as Alice announced she wanted some.
I’m still not convinced about the whole cheating ordeal. She’s a very classic type of pretty. The kind that wouldn’t slip any gentleman’s notice. Not even an IT tech whose perception of reality is most likely warped from many hours of staring at a computer screen. She’s beautiful. Drop-dead gorgeous, and she’s telling us that she got broken up with a week before she was supposed to be walking down the aisle?
Fake crying is a talent that gets individuals far. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, back on the streets when a seventeen-year-old girl fake-sobbed for one hour straight and earned two thousand fucking bucks.
Did she really want to fuck us that bad?
No.
Perhaps there’s a tinge of truth. She did think we were strippers her friend had hired.
“Alright,” announces Match. He straightens out his shirt in the mirror. Turns his head to the side to smooth a hand over black stubble. “Let’s hit the town!”
“WOOO!” Alice grins and bites down on her bottom lip to contain the excitement.
We’d be stupid to turn her down. I plan on spending every minute with this woman until she tells us she needs to return back home. Not just because you only live once, but because you never stumble upon the same person again. Ever.
And there’s not a soul out there like Alice.
Something about her energy drew me in the second she opened her mouth. Her voice…it was so feminine. So soft and innocent and playful, despite her teary mood.
And she was looking at me.
Continuing eye contact even when I looked up at her.
I was the first one to break. Normally it’s the girl who lowers her eyes first. I get a courteous smile and a look away from them, and that’s just about it. The other two are more inviting—and I suppose, more aesthetically pleasing—because they spent their entire childhood in one home, not with hundreds of foster parents who spoke to me like I was a bomb about to explode. It ages a person, being moved into a new place from week to week, and it’s probably why I don’t have as much hair as the other two—the emotional stress that came with never being good enough for a foster family.
But Alice looks at me just the same as the others. Scrolls her eyes up and down my face for the same length of time.
I’ve only ever had one girlfriend, and it was when I was seventeen years old. Her father caught me in the house and gave me two black eyes, so since then I’ve come to the realization that it’s better to stay clear. I’m one up from Lifesaver, though—he’s never been in a relationship. The one-night-stand lifestyle seems to keep him satisfied and smiling. I only really ever share my bed with women now, but their interests don’t go past the length of my cock. It seems to be the only fucking quality I have. Holding a woman in my arms, sex aside, is something my body has always longed for. To be loved, and to be in love. Match had it once, but shut it down to move to Vegas. That, I still can’t get my head around.
“Brander.” Alice runs her tongue over her teeth. “Can I ride with you?”
“Of course, darling. Hop on.”
I switch on the headlights, rev the engine, and we take off onto the open road.
Living in the middle of the desert with no neighbors is peaceful. Besides the Venom Vultures, it’s the only other thing that brings me joy—to be away from the city lights and the stampede of people. City living is all I’ve known for twenty-one years, so I try to avoid entering it as much as possible.
But Alice insisted on the strip.
We ride in one line. The moon spotlights down, and neon city lights flash in the near distance, growing closer by the second. Seeing Vegas from this angle soothes my chest.
At thirteen years old one summer night, I moved into my seventeenth foster home, another located in West Las Vegas. It was okay. A shared room with one other boy a year younger who used to murmur, “Mommy, come back,” in his sleep.
That first night, I cracked open the window and stared out of it. Junkies filled the streets all throughout the night, handing one another syringes and substances in packages. Cars honked. People screamed. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep, and when I did, it was with one eye open. It was that first night in my seventeenth home when I made a promise to myself. I’m gonna get out of here. I’m gonna live in the desert, and I’m gonna wake up to nothing but the sound of wind blowing free through the great open.
Alice tightens her arms around my waist, and I find myself easing into her.
The city grows closer.
And closer.
Until we’re finally riding through it.
“The Venetian?” proposes Match.
“Yes!” Alice hugs me tighter. “So exciting!”
We walk through the casinos and end up outside in the resort area that’s teeming with people. Alice picks up her skirt, dress as white as her smile, and stands eagerly beside us as we order drinks at the bar.
We corner ourselves into a booth and relax. Palm trees sway in the breeze and overlook pools that glow a bright blue in the night. Each one is full, and women in skimpy bikinis lounge at the side, scouting the surrounding area for men.
This late into the night is when I’d usually wander over and secure myself a woman for the night. A quick fuck is all I usually end up with. Nothing ever lasts longer than two days. The rough-around-the-edges exterior exhilarates some women I think, and it’s normally the European tourists. The women desperate for a taste of real American danger. They see the biker jacket with the “ VV CLUB” bold across the back, the tattoos and the shaved head, and they twirl strands of hair around their fingers just that little bit more in my presence.
But even the local women seeking a bit of danger want nothing to do with me the next day. I’m not boyfriend material.
Boyfriend material would be Match.
“I loooved earlier.” Alice twirls the straw around in her drink. “But I would looove it even more if you fucked me. All of you.” Her eyes switch between all of us.
We’re on rum now, bad choice from Lifey when we were, not even two hours ago, gulping down whisky. If I can feel the drink swirling around in my head, working its way into my brain cells and urging me back to the bar for a regrettable second, I can’t imagine the effect it’s having on Alice right now.
Her eyes spin, and her body sways to the side.
Match says something. I don’t even hear the words, but I’m laughing. Struggling to grip the glass in my hands. The tone of his voice is funny sometimes. Rhythmic, almost like he’s singing.
Oh god.
“Another?”
Somehow my ears pick that up just fine.
“Thanks, Matchy.” I hand him my glass. “What a legend.”
Legend?
Do I hear myself?
Alice shuffles closer to me, tracing my jawline. “Are you a wizard?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Because you worked magic on my pussy.”
We need to change the conversation topic before my fingers are inside of her again.
She was so fucking tight.
I feel faint just imagining how tight she’ll feel around my?—
“I want you to do it again. Again, and again, and?—”
Lifesaver presses his hand over her mouth. “People are listening in.”
“So?”
“ So ,” Lifesaver says, “you have to be a good girl and keep your lips shut. Some men have wild imaginations when it comes to women. I don’t want them picturing you naked.”
“Why? It’s not like we’re together . ”
I waggle my brows at Lifesaver, curious for his response. His eyes look in two different directions, one staring at me. The other at Alice. Jesus. The drink has even got to him.
“Because,” he begins, “you’re a very beautiful woman. You need to be protected.”
“Protection? I need none of that. All I neeeeeed ,” she slurs, a hand traveling up her torso to outline one of her breasts, “is your hand here again. You were so good before. Both of you. Match and Lifesaver. And Brander…and Lifesaver.”
She’s lost it.
“You’re old.” She turns her body to Lifesaver.
I snort. Wink at him. He doesn’t want to hear it.
“Like, really old. You’re actually similar in age to my daddy.”
“Alice—”
“I’ve never seen somebody so old and attractive like you before. It’s my kink. Old and experienced. I looove your gray hair.” She combs a hand through his hair. “It’s the perfect shade. The same as your pubes.”
I snort again.
“Which, again, are perfect, by the way.” She squints. Fiddles with her lip as she works out what else to say. “You all have gooorgeous dicks. I used to suck Levi’s sometimes, but I never really wanted to. Yours on the other hand. Ughhhhhh. I really want to suck all of them. At the same time. Do you think we could arrange that? Three penises in my mouth all at once? Would they fit, do you think?”
She definitely has a big enough mouth on her tonight to accommodate.
Match returns to the booth, struggling to balance four drinks on a tray. “Limited choice I’m afraid. Fireball is all they have.”
He thuds down next to us. Passes me a glass.
I take a sniff. Wince. “Fucking hell. Straight Fireball?”
He shrugs. “They were all out of mixers.”
Good thing Lifesaver is a doctor.
Not like he’s in the right frame of mind to be prescribing medicine at the moment.
We look at one another. Shrug. And take a sip.
Alice doesn’t even pick up her glass. Instead she stands up, sets her hands on her hips and in an inquisitive voice, asks, “What if we were to get married?”