“Yeah. I’ll take that win.” I bite my lip. This feels like the last day of summer camp, like we’re gearing up for some great big goodbye. Which is beyond ridiculous, because we’ll see each other at the show later tonight. Still, it feels heavy, this moment. Not because Eleanor owes me anything, but because maybe I owe her.
“You know, I haven’t really apologized. You were right, this morning. Not about everything…” Eleanor was awfully quick to blame me for what happened last night, and to be fair, it’s not like I forced her into any of it. But she had a point. I came here and fucked with her meeting, and I did it on purpose. “I was telling the truth when I told you I didn’t know who the band was having dinner with. But only because I didn’t care enough to ask. I was chasing a lead; that’s all I caredabout. I’m… not sure that makes it any better. So yeah, I’m sorry.”
Eleanor breathes in, slow and deep. She nods once. “I’m sorry too. For giving you such a hard time earlier.”
I wave her apology away, not sure how necessary it is in the first place. We both gave each other a hard time—we’re even. Almost.
If I had my priorities straight, I’d tell Eleanor to head over to her hotel now. I don’t need her help anymore. We’ve got the money—I can get my ID back, then go to the brewery to meet the band, like I’m supposed to. But apparently my instincts are all fucked up, because they’re telling me we should stick together. Which is absurd. We’ve spent theentire daytogether. We should be sick of each other by now. Instead, I feel sick at the prospect of parting ways and going back to how things were before.
It’s possible my crush isn’t quite as dormant as I originally thought.
“Listen… I know you probably want to go decompress,” I tell her, “but I was actually about to head out to meet up with the band.”
It’s jarring, how quickly Eleanor’s expression shutters in the face of this information. “Oh.”
“You should come,” I say before she can get pissed all over again.
She shifts her weight and looks away from me.
“Seriously. It’s a casual thing at a brewery across town.” I tilt my head and bend my knees, trying to snag her gaze again. When she looks my way, I offer a grin. “What do you say?”
“Why are you even telling me about this? It’s your chanceto win them over. That’s the whole point of you being in Vegas, isn’t it?”
I shrug. “More fun winning if we play fair.”
This earns me an eye roll and a bitten-down smile. She rocks forward, until we’re standing toe to toe. For one irrational, hopeful moment, I get the idea she’s going to kiss me. Instead, she reaches up and taps my uninjured cheek with her palm—too gentle to be called a slap, too rough to be a caress. Just enough to stoke the desire that’s been burning through me all day long. “Cute that you think you still stand a chance.”
CHAPTER FIFTEENELEANOR
After a day of wild stress combined with desert heat, my skin is past the point of what any reasonable person would consider dewy. In the back seat of a cab on our way to the bar to pay off our tab and pick up Adam’s ID, I rifle through my bag in search of a tissue or napkin—anything I can use to blot my face. When I come up empty I swipe the back of my hand over my forehead in an effort to control the shine.
I’m not the only one concerned about my appearance. I keep catching Adam tenderly touching his face. When he resorts to pulling out his phone and turning his camera to selfie mode, I take pity on him.
“It’s really not that bad.”
He lowers his phone and rolls his head against the headrest to look at me. “It’s not great, though.”
“No, it’s… very rock ’n roll.” I maintain a straight face for a five whole seconds before we both start laughing. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard someone earnestly call somethingrock ’nrollin my entire life, so it’s no wonder he didn’t buy it. “Honestly, I’d be more concerned with your shoes.”
“Shit.” He looks down at his feet, apparently having forgotten that he is still wearing hotel slippers. It reminds me of our first cab ride this morning, and I don’t understand how only a few hours have passed since then. Feels like a lifetime ago.
“I should probably do something about that,” Adam muses. We pull up outside the Desert Cowboy and I wait in the car while Adam runs inside to pay the tab and recover his ID. When he slides back in beside me a few minutes later, he hands me some folded cash.
“What’s this?” I ask as I unfold them and count six twenty-dollar bills.
“Your half of what was left over.” He leans forward and asks the driver if he could reroute us to a shoe store.
“Sure. What one?” the driver asks.
“Doesn’t matter. Any shoe store that carries men’s shoes.”
While the cab pulls away from the curb, I fiddle with the money in my hand. Part of me wonders if we really had that much left over, or if Adam gave me more than half of what was left. But asking means skirting around the fact that Adam now knows I’m flat broke, and I’d rather not get into that yet again, so I pocket the money and say nothing.
The driver chooses a discount shoe store near the brewery called Kinky Boots. I don’t even attempt to keep a straight face this time. Based on the pictures taped to the window, it seems like the sort of place the dancers at Deja Vu would buy their footwear.
Adam grimaces at the sign, and apparently can’t resist casting a glare my way—which only makes me laugh harder—before paying and getting out of the car.
“Solid choice,” I tell the driver.
