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Chapter Three
McKenzie
Vegasisa blast. From the moment we arrive, it’s everything I imagined it would be—flashy, energetic, exciting, and larger than life, a city of bright lights, big dreams, and constant activity. It’s like one giant, twenty-four-hour celebration, and as the girl who spent her high school and college years watching her mother slowly die while everyone else went to parties, I can’t help but get caught up in it.
After we check into the lavish suite we splurged on at the Wynn, we get dressed up and hit the casinos, trying everything from the slot machines to poker, which I’m surprisingly good at for having never gambled a day in my life. Unfortunately, Charlotte’s as bad at gambling as I am good at it, and by midnight we’ve lost all our money for the night and head back to our room.
The next day we visit the Hoover Dam and spend an inordinate amount of time at some of the more bizarre wedding chapels in Vegas. For a wedding dress designer, a wedding photographer, and a wedding planner, it doesn’t get any better than this, and we have to tear ourselves away so we have time to get ready for the Cirque de Soleil show. By Sunday, we’re ready to spend a relaxing day lying out by the pool at our hotel. The pool is gorgeous, with lush gardens surrounding it, luxurious chaise lounges, and some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen sunbathing, a few of them topless.
“Thank God Liam was male,” I say as a particularly beautiful and well-endowed woman sashays past us, her perky breasts bouncing as she walks. “It would have been just like him to put sunbathing topless on his list.” I’ve heard enough to know that Liam’s love of living on the edge extended to his sex life, and I shudder at the thought of my breasts on display for everyone to see. Although, I have to admit that the sexual things on Liam’s bucket list are pretty intriguing. A little terrifying and next to impossible to accomplish, but intriguing.
“You totally have the boobs to pull it off,” Charlotte offers conversationally.
“You do have great boobs,” Gemma agrees.
“I love you guys, but there’s something seriously wrong with my life when the only people who appreciate my boobs are girls.”
Charlotte laughs. “Is getting laid on Liam’s list?”
“Sort of,” I hedge. I look down, unwilling to meet my best friends’ eyes. There are some things on Liam’s list that are too private, and too unfathomable, to discuss even with Charlotte and Gemma. Like kinky sex. I don’t even fully know what that means. How the hell am I going to pull that off? And with who? It’s not like I can just bring that up on a casual date or put it on a dating app bio. And why is the idea of it becoming more and more exciting to me? The need to checkthatoff the list more and more important to me? They’re waiting for something, so I go with the least risqué. “Apparently, Liam never got the chance to join the mile-high club.”
Gemma and Charlotte hoot with laughter.
“Are you going to do it?” Gemma demands.
“Well,” I say, “I intend to do everything on his list eventually, but I kind of need a partner for that one.” I don’t add that finding someone to join the mile-high club with me is the least of my worries, considering the other boundary-pushing sexual stuff on the list.
That shuts them up, and we’re all quiet as we ponder my serious lack of available sexual partners.
“You could ask Bryce, for old times’ sake,” suggests Charlotte.
I give her my most withering glare. “I will chop Bryce’s dick off before I let it anywhere near me again.”
“You’re right. Bad idea,” Charlotte says quickly. Ever since I walked in on Bryce in bed with my marathon-running next-door neighbor, whose sense of humor was about as nonexistent as her body fat, he’s been a forbidden topic of conversation.
“You could ask one of the guys from Liam’s Navy SEAL team to help you.” Gemma waggles her eyebrows suggestively. “They’re all pretty hot!” She fans herself.
I think about the guys on his team, and then shake my head. “They all think of me as their little sister. Besides, most of them are in Afghanistan for the next two months.” I look up in alarm. “I can’t believe I actually considered that for a second! You guys are terrible.”
“You know, I think it’s great that you’re finishing Liam’s bucket list,” Gemma says seriously. “I know you, and I know how hard it’s got to be doing the crazy things on his list. I can’t even imagine jumping off a waterfall!”
“It makes me feel closer to him,” I say quietly. “Even if they’re all way outside my comfort zone. I want to be like Liam—reckless and bold and fearless.” I look at my two friends, who have been there for me through thick and thin since I met them both at college—Charlotte when we were thrown together as freshman roommates and Gemma a year later. “I still miss him.” I can’t help the catch in my voice.
Charlotte’s arms are around me immediately, and Gemma squeezes my hand.
“Of course you do, sweetie,” Charlotte says. “I miss him, too,” she adds wistfully.
Something in her voice makes me look at her more closely. Did she have a thing for Liam? I sigh. Just another thing cut short by the sharp knife of death.
“What’s left on the list?” Gemma asks.
I spew off a few of the things on Liam’s list that I know by heart now. I don’t tell them that I keep the actual list that Liam updated just a few weeks before he died tucked in my bra, or that I pull it out and read his messy scrawl every time I start missing him. “I’ve already done the waterfall jump, and this weekend will take care of the all-nighter in Vegas. I’ve taken a salsa dancing class, so I guess I can cross that off. I don’t even know what to do about the mile-high club! There are a few other, um, sexual things. I’ll save those for last, I guess. And start looking for a man!” I laugh. “Let’s see…what else? There’s seeing the northern lights, riding the Pacific Coast highway, swimming with sharks, sailing around the islands of the Philippines, scuba diving in Malaysia, tweeting from the equator, getting a tattoo… Oh, and owning a dog.”
Charlotte and Gemma are gaping at me. Gemma finds her tongue first. “What sexual things? And a tattoo? Are you insane?”
Oh God. I am insane. I don’t know what made me think I could do this, but I have to. It’s the only thing that keeps me putting one foot in front of the other every day—this sense of purpose and the connection to Liam. And the belief that there’s more to life, and more to me, just waiting to be discovered.
“And how are you going to afford sailing around the Philippines and traveling to see the northern lights?” Charlotte chimes in. “Our wedding business is doing good, but not that good.”
