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LAUREN
The ride back to Las Vegas — and the desert beyond — seemed a lot longer than the ride in. Maybe it was because we were tired. Or maybe because we’d stayed up most of the night fucking around in Mason’s apartment, fixing snacks and playing games… generally laughing our asses off, while the guys took turns screwing me senseless.
It was more than a little strange, how easily we’d all hit it off. How quickly we’d become friends who knew each other, rather than new acquaintances who were just hanging out. We talked so much, we discovered a lot about each other. Our likes and dislikes. Our far-flung hopes, our stupid dreams.
Mason talked at length about his experiences in Hollywood. The highs, the lows, the craziness that followed showing up for pilot season one year and finding out he might have a future clear on the other side of the country. I admired him for dropping everything to chase his dream. For being willing to take the plunge into something totally unknown, knowing he might not succeed, and then eking out some measure of success anyway.
Corey spoke a lot about his own dream of owning a bar, or nightclub. He’d originally come to UNLV for civil engineering, apparently to follow in his father’s footsteps. It had never really been his own path, though. Not by a longshot. And when his father found out he’d switched his studies to a more business-orientated major, he’d cut off all funding and forced Corey to find creative new ways to find income.
As for me, I thought a lot about home, and work, and even about Rob. About how little I’d chanced in life. About how easily I’d gone straight from marrying my high school sweetheart into a business I loved, but somehow ended up in a job I hated...
And stayed there for so very long.
My friends had been blowing up my phone, but I’d turned it off days ago. I’d decided that if I was going off the grid, I was really going off the grid. That meant no social media, no news, no updates… at one point I even lost track of what day it was.
To tell the truth, it was pretty fucking magnificent. Almost even life-changing, to cut ties with these things, even for just a short period of time. I felt rejuvenated. Reset. Mentally, physically, spiritually… I felt healed and re-aligned in ways that I hadn’t felt since I was younger. Younger and happier and free of responsibilities.
The only bad feelings I had now were of separation. Of dreading my whole little fantasy coming to an end. It was inevitable, of course. Each of us would have to leave the desert and go back to our own lives. The guys, back to the grind of constant work and little play. Mason, to Hollywood. And me…
Well, I had to go back to New York.
And face Lilith.
Ugh.
For a brief, fleeting moment I wondered what my parents might think of my unhappiness with my job. I could never tell them the truth, of course. The one time I had been honest with my mother was about my marital problems. Instead of being helpful, she’d looked at me like I’d sprouted nine additional heads.
Ditto for my sister. My only sibling and I had never really been that close, and it didn’t help that Allison (always Allison, not Ally) had gone on to become a respectable dental hygienist with my parents’ strict guidance and approval. All while I was barely scraping together a living on my own, doing some obscure “marketing thing” in the city.
So yeah, no. Every time my family looked my way I was happy-go-lucky Lauren, kicking ass and taking all sorts of names… whether I actually was or not.
As always, whatever I accomplished had to be done on my own. No Rob, that’s for sure. No mom or dad either. And now… no Lilith. After what I’d pulled this week, she was sure as hell not going to help me advance to the next phase of my career path. If there even was a career path, working for her.
Besides, did I really ‘pull’ anything at all? In her eyes maybe. In reality, I’d only asked for another week of five or six days of vacation time. Not exactly a capital crime in most States, not even New York.
No, I’d worry about those things later. I’d deal with Lilith when I got back, and I’d deal with my parents, too. Hell, I’d even deal with Rob the next time he called to come by to ‘pick something up from the house’. Which was the code phrase for him showing up with a very convenient bottle of wine, and every excuse in the book as to why having sex “one more time” would be no big deal between us.
That left me, and Vegas. And Brody, and Corey, and Mason…
Two more nights, that’s all we really had. Two more nights and I’d fly away, out of their lives, back into my own.
I was going to make the best of the time we had left, that’s for sure. Until then, everyone else could kiss my ass.
Forty-Four
COREY
“That’s it? It’s really ours?”
The conversation had lasted all of two minutes. A quick phone call from Brody, the moment he left the loan office.
“If we want it, yes,” he’d said. “We’re approved. It’s all up to us now.”
Up to us… as if there really were a decision that needed to be made. As if we hadn’t talked about this every waking minute for the last year and a half, give or take a few fun distractions.
I was pretty fucking exuberant. Much more excited than I ever thought I’d be, and I was already thrilled.
I couldn’t wait to get back now, to see the place again. To walk through the doors knowing it belonged to us — if we wanted it, that is — and start going over all the different ways we could make it ours.
