Levitating Las Vegas(33)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“Which neither of us can drive,” Elijah said, “because we’re on—”

“Mentafixol,” they said simultaneously, lowering their voices.

He chuckled. “I try to get rides from Shane or Rob. I won’t be bumming rides from Rob in the future.”

She shifted in her seat and let her brown curls fall forward to graze his shoulder as she said, “I’m so sorry about everything that happened Thursday night.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Elijah said, sounding sincere. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I dragged you to Glitterati. I—”

He was on the cusp of a mea culpa about that kiss. Watching him, she smiled, ready for anything, even a sudden admission that the kiss had meant something.

He skipped over that part. Running his hand through his wavy hair, he went on, “And I may have said something odd to you while we were there. I was feeling really crazy.” He looked past her out the bus window, as if revisiting that strange episode in his mind. “Rob moved out the next morning, which was for the best. We should have run him off for firing a gun at the ceiling, or for chasing you out the bathroom window. Shane and I treat our women better than that.”

“Do you, now,” Holly mused. He was only kidding, of course, but the macho crack about “our women” turned her on despite herself. She would have loved for Elijah to feel possessive about her like that for real.

But he’d lost interest in her already. He scowled at her right thigh. Poor thing. He was trying his best to carry on intelligent conversation, but he must be feeling awfully mental adolescent dysfunctiony. She would gladly have offered him another Mentafixol if she’d had one left herself.

Suddenly he looked straight into her eyes and burst out, “What were you doing with Rob?”

She sat back in surprise. “I—”

“I could not have been more astounded if he’d walked through the front door of my house with Queen Elizabeth. Or a llama.”

“A llama?” Holly asked. “Thanks a lot.”

“You and Rob aren’t a good match,” Elijah persisted.

“Obviously I agreed with you by the time I jumped out your bathroom window.”

Elijah opened both hands palms-up on his jeans, acceding the point.

“Last week I was walking through the casino a few minutes before my dad’s show,” Holly explained, “headed for the sushi place. Do you like sushi?”

“Love sushi,” Elijah said with gusto.

“I comped them tickets to the show one time, and now they serve me the ends they cut off California rolls whenever I come in. Only seventy-five calories or so. Tides me over until my next helping of edamame.”

Elijah gave her a skeptical look. “You’re counting calories?” His eyes flitted away from Holly’s face, down to her exposed flat tummy, and settled halfway up, on her bespangled boobs. Holly was used to this. Men could never help it. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed as he forced his eyes back up to her face.

“Always.” She may have sat up a bit straighter to poke her br**sts out. Men’s lustful looks were rote to her, but with Elijah it felt new and exciting, as if she were still a teenager. “Anyway, I was walking through the casino, thinking how—”

ironic it was that the gamblers she passed undressed her with their eyes, tossing off the wisps of clothes she wore, when in reality she was a twenty-one-year-old virgin

“—I’d been invited to a graduation after-party and sadly didn’t have a boyfriend to go with, when Rob appeared. Just walked up and started talking to me, and he was charming, and smart, and—”

She paused when she noticed Elijah’s expression. He was scowling again, this time not at her thigh but at her, as if he were jealous of Rob. This thought sent a fresh chill of pleasure across her skin. She didn’t want him to think Rob was her type, though. Especially when she increasingly suspected Elijah was her type, MAD and all.

She finished with a shrug. “I don’t know. He was friendly at the beginning. I took him to meet my parents and he charmed them. I took him to meet Kaylee and he charmed her.”

“He charmed Kaylee?” Elijah repeated. “I don’t know her that well, but word around the casino is, nobody charms Kaylee.”

Holly nodded. “She said as much after I jumped out your window. She wondered how Rob had won her over.”

“It aaaaaall comes back to the bathroom window,” Elijah said sagely. “Disappearing into the black abyss. Magical illusions are metaphors for sex, you know.”

Holly watched his lips and wished he would repeat that. She swallowed.

“I majored in psychology,” he explained with a grin.

“Psychology! No wonder you’re working as a carpenter.” Instantly she regretted that joke, which had come out as more of an insult. Who was she to talk about college grads with blue-collar jobs? At least his work uniform didn’t involve sequins.

He laughed, making her feel better. “I haven’t even looked for a psychology job or applied to grad school or anything. I’ve been thinking an opportunity was going to fall in my lap this summer. I should probably do some research into why I feel that way. I’m sure I’m repressing something.”

“Speaking of which,” she piped up, “since you’re clearly a student of human nature, how’d you end up with Rob as a roommate, instead of Queen Elizabeth, or a llama?”

“Actually, it sounds a lot like your story,” Elijah said. “Last week I had just re-signed the lease on the house—”

“Oh, that’s your house?” Holly asked, impressed. His rental still wasn’t the responsible home ownership she’d imagined for Rob, but it was a mature and sexy something.

“My mom and I always lived in an apartment, so . . .” He glanced at her and then looked away, and Holly recognized that sequence. Everybody was expected to understand hard times, and doing without when you were a kid, and wanting more as an adult—except Holly, whom everyone assumed to be a rich spoiled brat. She kept smiling.

“Last year one of my original roommates moved in with her boyfriend,” he said. “That’s when I found Shane to replace her. Or Shane found me. Then, last week, my other roommate graduated and split for California. I was at work, repairing the baseboard in the Peacock Room, wondering where I could get another new roommate to share the rent with Shane and me, when Rob approached me out of the blue.”