Chapter 18
MANDY
We set out, stopping to ask a couple of people if they’d seen the horse and carriage. Someone pointed us down a side street. And to my delight, it was the same white carriage with two beautiful horses, patiently waiting for passengers.
The driver was perched on the box seat, scrolling through his phone. He was somewhere in his sixties with a white mustache that belonged in a different century. He was actually wearing a top hat and a white coat. I searched my memory… and blank. I didn’t remember him.
He looked up when we approached.
Then he looked again.
Then he let out a laugh. The horses shifted and looked around.
“That’s not good,” Briggs said under his breath. “You just walked me into an arrest.”
“Relax,” I said.
“Hello.” I smiled up at the man. “We have a question.”
He looked amused. “I bet you do.”
Briggs and I exchanged a glance.
“I take it you know us,” Briggs said.
“Know you?” The man climbed down from the box. He was shorter than I expected, barely reaching Briggs’s shoulder. He was grinning ear to ear. “Son, you are the highlight of my entire career. Seventeen years I’ve been doing this. Seventeen years.” He stuck out his hand. “Gary.”
“Briggs.”
“Oh, I know who you are.” Gary pumped his hand enthusiastically, then turned to me. “And you’re the bride. How you doing, sweetheart?”
“Honestly, Gary, I’ve been better.”
He laughed again. “I’ll bet. You two remember me?”
“We don’t remember much of anything,” I admitted. “I’m afraid we might have overdone it a bit. I saw a video online—”
Briggs elbowed me.
As if pointing out that the evidence of our misdeeds was available was going to make the situation worse.
I forced a tight smile. “As I was saying, I saw a video of us enjoying a ride in your carriage. I was wondering if you could tell us where we, uh, went.”
I wasn’t going to implicate us in the theft.
He laughed again. “I can tell you where I picked up my carriage after you borrowed it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Briggs said.
“You paid me five grand,” Gary said. “Don’t apologize.”
I slapped Briggs chest. “See. You bought the carriage. You didn’t steal it.”
“Mandy,” he hissed and gave me a look that said shut the hell up.
“Get in, get in.” Gary waved us toward the carriage, then immediately held up a finger. “Actually, let me be very clear about something before we do this. I’m driving. Both hands on the reins. The whole time. Are we agreed?”
Briggs held up both hands in surrender. “Agreed. Are the horses okay?”
He laughed. “Maybell is used to Vegas party animals. Susie was less pleased, but they got extra grain to make up for it.”
“I’m really sorry,” Briggs said again.
“You ever ridden before?” Gary asked.
“I’ve been on a horse.”
“It showed. The girls liked you.” Gary patted the chestnut’s neck.
Briggs helped me up into the carriage. The interior was deep red velvet. It was relatively comfortable. Gary settled in up front, clicked his tongue at the horses, and we rolled forward at a pace that could generously be described as leisurely.
“Okay,” Gary said, half-turning so we could hear him. “You want the story of how you two ended up in my carriage.”
“Please,” I said.
“You didn’t come looking for a ride.”
“We didn’t?” I asked with surprise.
Shit, maybe we were intent on a felony.
“No, no. You walked up and you were both pretty well along at this point, I’ll be honest with you. The gentleman here asked if you could just get in for a picture.” Gary glanced back at Briggs. “You said your wife wanted a picture in a carriage for her wedding night.”
I looked at Briggs. He looked just as surprised as I was. He’d called me his wife. I didn’t remember it, but I just knew it was sweet.
“So I said sure, go ahead, get in,” Gary continued. “I figured you’d be in and out in two minutes. But then Maybell just started walking.” He laughed. “She does that sometimes. Creature of habit. She hears people get in, she walks. So off she goes.”
“And you let her?” Briggs asked.
“Well, at two miles an hour, nobody was in any danger. And you two were having the time of your lives. Laughing, pointing at things. So I walked alongside.” Gary said it like it was nothing.
“You walked alongside your own carriage,” Briggs repeated.
“Right behind. The whole way down the block.”
“Gary,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. Best shift I’ve had in years. I’ll be telling that story until I die. The standing up, though, that was all you. I didn’t encourage that. You mentioned chariots or something.”
“God,” Briggs muttered.
I pressed my lips together very hard.
“Your wife thought it was hilarious,” Gary offered helpfully.
“My wife appears to find most things hilarious, even if they are extra stupid.”
“I have a good sense of humor,” I agreed. “It’s one of my best qualities.”
“Well, you paid me after the little joyride,” Gary said. “I tried to tell you no, but when I gave you the credit card thingie, you put in five grand. Said it was my tip.”
I looked at him with a “see” expression. He shook his head, still not pleased, but at least he wasn’t scowling.
The carriage rolled on. I didn’t remember my first carriage ride and decided to enjoy my second. The seat wasn’t exactly spacious. I was already thigh to thigh with Briggs. I leaned into him just a little. He didn’t move away.
Gary was saying something about a bachelorette party he’d taken out last weekend.
I was barely listening. I was very aware of the fact Briggs’s shoulder was solid.
His chest was hard. And his body was very warm.
I also realized being squished up against my fake husband was not a terrible place to be.
“Put your arm around your wife,” I said. “I’m chilly.”
A pause. I felt him look down at the top of my head.
“You’re not chilly,” he said. “It’s eighty-two degrees.”
“It feels colder with the breeze.”
Another pause, longer this time.
Then his arm came around my shoulders.
Oh my.
I had not fully thought through the implications of asking for that. I’d meant it practically. I’d meant it as part of the bit. We were retracing our steps. Pretending to be newlyweds in a carriage. We were absolutely selling it. Unfortunately, we were selling it too hard.
I kept my face neutral. I was a professional. It was all about putting on a show like a good little actress.
“Better?” he asked in a husky voice.
“Much,” I said. Very casual. Totally fine.
Gary glanced back at us and smiled.
“Did you pick us up in the same spot?” Briggs asked Gary.
“No, no. You were just coming onto the Strip. By the Linq. You said you had just been at Dirty Shirley’s. I know that place very well. And the bartender is not stingy. No weak pours there.”
“That explains the blackout,” I said.
“I’m guessing the drunker you are, the funnier the karaoke gets,” Briggs said with disgust. “Mean trick.”
“But on a positive note, it means everyone else in there was just as drunk and doesn’t remember.”
“They took videos and posted them,” Briggs retorted. “Now everyone remembers a story they weren’t actually there for. Except us.”
“Good point.”
“Where did you drop us off?” Briggs asked. He shifted his arm around my shoulders, his hand dropping to rest on my upper arm. I told myself not to flinch at the contact, but it was impossible. “That night. Do you remember?”
“New York New York,” Gary said. “You wanted to ride the roller coaster.”
Briggs stared at the back of his head. “We were in a horse-drawn carriage at—what time was it?”
“Oh, pushing eleven.”
“We were in a horse-drawn carriage at eleven o’clock at night and we wanted to get off and ride a roller coaster.”
“Correct.”
“Whose idea was that?”
Gary tilted his head. “Hers.”
“That tracks,” Briggs said.
“Hey,” I said.
“Am I wrong?”
I thought about it for a second. “No,” I admitted. “That does sound like me.”
“Can you take us back there?” Briggs asked.
I grinned up at him. He was on board with my plan.
“Sure can,” Gary said. “Be about fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes that I got to snuggle against my husband.
I watched the lights of the Strip blur past. I was hyperaware of every point of contact between us. His hand on my arm. My shoulder pressed against his chest. The way his thumb had started absently moving back and forth across my sleeve. I didn’t think he even knew he was doing it.
I needed to say something before I did something stupid like turn my face into his neck.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, tilting my head to look up at him.
He glanced down at me. “That depends on what you’re asking.”
“The song. Use Somebody. Why is it one of your favorites?”
He was quiet for a long moment. I thought maybe he wasn’t going to answer.
“It’s something I can relate to,” he said finally, his voice low enough that Gary couldn’t hear from his perch at the front. “The lyrics. The feeling behind it.”
“What feeling?”
He looked away from me. “Isolation despite success. Being surrounded by people but not really connecting with any of them. No one really knowing you.”
I hadn’t expected that level of honesty. I stayed quiet, giving him the chance to continue if he wanted to.
“I’ve spent most of my adult life being what everyone needed me to be,” he went on. “The responsible one. The lawyer who fixes problems. Adrian’s right hand. My brothers’ safety net. I’m good at it. But somewhere along the way, I stopped being just me. If there even is a ‘me’ underneath all that.”
I understood that feeling more than I wanted to admit. The pressure to maintain a certain image. To never let anyone see the cracks.
“You know what’s funny?” I said. “I watched those videos today, and I kept thinking—who is that guy? The guy in those videos looked free.”
“He was drunk,” Briggs said.
“Maybe. But drunk people don’t become entirely different humans. Drunk words are honest words.”
A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what you think happened that night? My inner playboy came out to play.”
“I think we both got so drunk we forgot we were supposed to be anything other than two people enjoying each other’s company. And we had fun. A lot of fun.”
A shriek stopped our conversation. I looked over and saw a woman who had tripped on the sidewalk, skirt up and her friends all laughing.
“Vegas, baby,” Briggs said with a laugh.
The night was perfect. Beautiful. And yes, I was a little warm, but I wasn’t about to move. I was just fine right where I was.
“Here we are,” Gary said, pulling gently on the reins. The horses slowed. “New York New York. You’ll get a good view of the Sphere from up there.”
The carriage rolled to a gentle stop. Above us, I could hear the distant mechanical shriek of the roller coaster.
“Ready?” Briggs asked.
“Maybe not.” I laughed.
“Too late. You got me here.”
I was truly second-guessing my life choices but there was no backing out now.