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“Yes sir,” Cooper said for what felt like the thousandth time. “Seventy-five. Got it.”
“Make it seventy.”
“Yes, sir.” Thousand and one.
Rudy gestured toward the still-open driver’s door, and Cooper put his back to the guy and climbed in. He slammed the door and put up the window. Even that little bit of separation made him relax more. Shit, he hoped he could make it to the state line before he pissed.
Rudy walked backward until he cleared the truck, then stopped again, his flashlight trained on the driver’s door.
Cooper started the truck up and pulled back onto the interstate.
He drove sixty-five miles an hour until he crossed the state line, where he immediately pulled over and drained his hose over Arizona desert.
Jesus fucking Christ, he should have stopped at the damn La Quinta.
CHAPTER TWO
“Okay, I’ve got a Dewar’sand soda for you, a Macallan neat for you, Tanqueray and tonic, and Patrón Silver for you.” Siena tucked the tray under her arm. “Can I get you anything else right now?”
The table of four forty-something men all had the golf-tanned look of thousand-dollar-suit executives on the high-roller version ofThe Hangover. They were dressed casually but with obvious expense. Good haircuts and buffed manicures. Heavy gold bands on four left ring fingers. Four different pricey aftershaves mingled in the air above the table.
They weren’t obnoxiously drunk yet, but they clearly intended to be. It was New Year’s Day, which wasn’t necessarily a holiday you’d expect four friends to have gone off to gamble away from family, but she’d long ago given up being surprised by the things people did on vacation.
She was a little surprised that these four obviously successful men would choose Laughlin over Vegas, but she added it to the list of inexplicable shit rich people did and moved on.
Tanqueray and Tonic reached out and hooked his arm around Siena’s waist. “Not unless you’re on the menu,” he said with a grin he probably thought was sly. It wasn’t. It was just scummy.
Being a cocktail waitress in a casino bar was as much knowing how to recognize trouble as it was balancing big orders of drinks on small trays while wearing uncomfortably tight clothes and high heels. It was especially important to be wary because their uniforms didn’t cover much more than a bathing suit. Like her coworkers, Siena was wearing sparkly dance tights, thigh-high black urethane boots with four-inch heels, a red satin two-piece leotard with French-cut legs, and a black sequined bolero jacket. She looked like a minor-league showgirl.
Most of the other waitresses wore a leotard with a plunging sweetheart neckline and had their tits pushed up for maximum cleavage. For Siena, wearing a leotard like that required a lot of work, gear, and pain in the ass, but luckily Brock, her boss, was a decent guy, and he’d worked with her to find a better solution. Her top was a cold-shoulder turtleneck style, though the little jacket warmed her shoulders, so it was mainly just a turtleneck.
Yeah, she got the occasional asshole who made a fuss out of not being able to see her cleavage, but she generally made some comment about how he should ‘enjoy the mystery’ and moved on with her life. Once or twice some douche had actually complained to Brock about her insufficiently bare skin. Brock told those idiots if they wanted to see skin, they could go across the street.
A lot of guys seemed to have trouble differentiating between cocktail waitresses and exotic dancers. Here at the Andante, the main bar of the Cadence Hotel & Casino, they had rules spelled out that were pretty similar to strip-club rules.
For instance: Customers weren’t supposed to touch the cocktail staff.
By rights, she could call Parker, the head bouncer, over and make T&T regret putting hands on her. However, here at the Andante, waitresses had final say over what was acceptable for themselves. T&T hadn’t grabbed her ass or gotten fresher than an arm around her waist, and there was a possibility, with all these top-shelf drinks, of a good tip if she played the game a little, so Siena didn’t make a fuss about the touch. Smiling, she drew a boundary by simply stepping out of his hold and saying, “Sorry, I’m not.”
He put his hands up. “Ah, that’s too bad. I guess we’re set then.” With a lift of his eyebrows, he sent a question out to his friends, who all nodded. “Yep, we’re good.”
“Excellent. I’ll be back to check on you soon, then.”
Making a mental note to be wary of these guys as their rounds added up, Siena headed to her next table—a new group of three couples in date-night attire.
