Levitating Las Vegas(13)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Wait a minute.

Best to change the subject. “So, where are we going?” she asked brightly. Last week at the casino, he’d promised he would feed her. She didn’t forget promises about food. She’d been hoping for a late dinner at a nice restaurant—perhaps too much to ask on a rookie cop’s salary, but didn’t men spring for first dates? Broaching the subject might prove awkward, but Holly would be glad to go Dutch or to treat Rob, especially when food was involved. Her mom would die if she caught wind that Holly had ordered dessert. At least Holly could enjoy a salad and the atmosphere of the fine restaurant and feel like an adult, maybe even save this date from sliding any further downhill. They’d entered a residential neighborhood, though. Most restaurants were in the opposite direction.

“Home sweet home.” He parked behind a way-cool early 1960s muscle car in the driveway of a one-story orange stucco house, landscaped with gravel and cacti, average Vegas living. It was impressive that he’d been able to buy this at twenty-two years old. Maybe the muscle car was his, too.

“Is this all yours?” she asked.

“No, I rent it with a couple of roommates.” He got out of the car and slammed the door.

She watched him as he rounded the car. He was so handsome, with his dark hair short and perfectly styled. She found it a bit weird that he carried a piece while off duty, and that he kept it in a holster at his hip where everybody could see it. But that was probably an overcautious cop habit. She was being too critical. If she’d dated more, she would have seen what a catch he was. He had a logical reason for taking her back to the rented house he shared three ways without making the least effort to impress her first. She smiled brilliantly up at him as he opened the passenger door and held out his hand to her.

When she stood, he didn’t let go of her hand. He held it as they walked up the sidewalk to the house. And just as this was making her uncomfortable enough to pull away, she caught a whiff of alcohol.

Don’t panic, she told herself. It was 10:30 p.m. He’d worked a suicide that day. It made sense for him to have had a drink before he picked her up. It also made sense for him to hold her hand. They were on a date. He had no idea he was turning her off.

She swung his hand to lighten the mood. “What will we do while we’re here?” she asked hopefully. She could picture a few dates in Rob’s rented home that wouldn’t be so bad. He might want to show her his favorite movie ever. He might cook her his mom’s famous lasagna. Holly could even eat it. Her stomach rumbled at the thought that they were out of the public eye and her mom would never find out what she put in her mouth.

He stopped on the threshold, brushed his thumb across her lips, and crooned, “That depends on you.”

Holly’s throat closed up—not as completely as it had in her imagination during her mental breakdown seven years before, but enough that she touched her collarbone with her fingertips. Though his words weren’t sexual, his tone dripped innuendo. He was moving so fast it made her anxious. As he opened the door and stepped inside, drawing her by the hand, she tripped over the threshold. She caught herself, but her heels clacked ungracefully on the floor inside.

At the noise, two men glanced up from opposite ends of the open room. In the living area sat Shane Sligh, whom Holly knew by sight. He played guitar for his dad’s Frank Sinatra tribute band in the Peacock Room at the casino. He usually looked the part, too, in a fitted black tux, with his hair slicked down in a retro do. She almost didn’t recognize him now that he’d washed the gel out of his hair. She hadn’t realized he was blond. From a threadbare chair, he eyed her over the neck of his electric guitar, but his fingers never stopped flying over the silent fret board.

In the kitchen stood Elijah Brown.

She blinked, thinking she must be wrong. She’d had sex on the brain, and now she’d mistaken Rob’s roommate for her first crush, to whom she’d hardly spoken since she bailed on the ninth-grade prom. He simply looked a lot like Elijah at this distance, peering at her between the top and bottom rows of kitchen cabinets—hair in messy brown waves like a movie star caught on his day off, intense green eyes, lean body in a T-shirt and jeans.

Then he shifted forward, hanging on to the knobs of the cabinets above. His red T-shirt was partly obstructed by the dish towel over his shoulder, but she thought it read UNLV LACROSSE. Where his sleeves ended, his strong triceps moved underneath his taut skin. It was him all right, and hotter than ever.

“Mom, I’m home!” Rob called with a smirk. “What’s for dinner?”

“Tuna Helper,” Elijah said, looking at Holly.

On the drive over, Rob had made sex jokes and touched her knee, and none of that had elicited a reaction approaching the warm jolt she felt when Elijah Brown called her Tuna Helper. The rush of electricity was followed by a slower flow of emotions: Familiarity. Happiness at seeing a friendly face from high school. Sorrow for the missed opportunity of the ninth-grade prom. Anger at her parents for controlling her life. Curiosity about the coincidence that her ex-crush was her current date’s roommate.

“Mmmmm. Too bad we won’t join you.” Rob dragged Holly toward a hallway that she assumed led to his bedroom. She hung back while trying to look like she wasn’t. There was no way to extricate herself from this accelerating situation with Rob and simultaneously save face in front of Elijah.

Not that she had much face to save with him. She only waved to him each night when she passed him in the underground corridors for employees at the casino. He’d graduated from college with her last week. She’d spotted him when he walked across the stage with the Bs, looking perversely sexy in his black cap and gown. She hadn’t approached him because her parents had been in the audience.

But even if she thought there was nothing between her and Elijah anymore, maybe he disagreed. He came around the counter, wiping his hands on the towel, just as Shane jumped up from the couch and said, “Rob, aren’t you going to introduce us to your girlfriend?”

Rob glared at Shane, his eyes looking as devilish as they had in the car with the red traffic light reflecting in them.

Unphased by Rob’s expression, Shane raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Holly watched this macho drama unfold. But her attention was on Elijah, who stood not a foot from her. Goose bumps rose on her skin as if her body longed to jump that gap between them.

Rob dropped Holly’s hand and reached for his belt. She thought at first he would unbutton his pants and make some ungodly lewd gesture—he was acting so strange, she wouldn’t put anything past him at this point—but no, he unbuckled his holster and hung it on a coat rack beside the door, next to another laden holster. He took out his pistol and released the cartridge of bullets. “Shane Sligh, Holly Starr.” He managed to make this simple introduction sound ironic.