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“No Mav,” I threatened, although I was the one stranded in Las Vegas.
If Mav knew, that meant the others would hear about it. Lindy, Dex. Silas, probably. Theo. Not that any of them would blab, but I was a flipping first-grade teacher who went to Vegas and got arrested for prostitution.
And while Theo might not have found me skilled the other night in the restaurant parking lot, I didn’t think he was looking for a woman to be on the other end of the experienced spectrum either.
“I could lose my job over this,” I said, dropping the big one which scared the shit out of me. There weren’t tons of teaching jobs in town and if word of this got out, I’d never be employable again, even if they didn’t yank my teaching certification.
“Shit. Yes, fine. No Mav. Just come home and you can tell me about it over wine and ice cream.”
I stood, paced. “I can’t. Bridge, I’m stuck in Vegas.”
“What do you mean you’re stuck? You’re still in jail?”
I shook my head, but she couldn’t see.
Two women came out the courthouse doors. Their names were Trixie and Annie and actually were prostitutes who’d been in the holding cell with me. They were gorgeous and sexy and really nice. Somehow–because the police officers thought I was as gorgeous as them to be considered a call girl–I’d been swept up in the same undercover raid or whatever it was that they had. High-class hookers who made more in a weekend than I made in two months. To pass the hours in the cell between the late-night arrest and our court appearance times this morning, we’d talked about everything from sex moves to lipstick colors. Boy, had I learned a lot. I even got their contact info to meet up when we had our court appearances in nine days.
On their way to an awaiting car, they gave me a wave and I offered one back, completely unfazed they were leaving jail. Jail!
Me? I was about to lose it. “No. I’m out. I went before the judge and I’m free to go, at least for now. But I missed my flight this morning and it’s on that cheap airline where you have to pay for a carry-on and water and a seat belt. I have to buy a new ticket without any notice, and I maxed my credit card to pay my bail. I have something like twenty-six dollars in my wallet and I covered my parents’ rent this month and… Bridge, I have no way to get home. If I ask Arlo for the money, he’ll think I’m turning into my mother andthatis something I absolutely can’t do. I may have to stay here and sleep on one of my new hooker friends’ couches. I don’t want to ask, again, because I’m not my mother, but I’m literally stuck in Nevada.”
Like the bestie she was, all she said was, “On it.”
15
THEO
I wason Mav’s huge sectional watching Dex’s hockey game on his big screen TV. Scout was snoring on his plush dog bed in front of the fire. It was pumping out the heat and I didn’t know how he could lay that close without overheating, especially with all his fur. The front door opened, and Bridge bolted from her spot beside Mav.
I heard whispers and glanced at Mav, who was sprawled low on the other side of the sectional, his socked feet propped up on the coffee table. We’d cleaned up dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread. The kitchen was clean, and I was lazy and full. I’d make it back to my little house, but I wasn’t in any rush. A perfect Sunday evening, the kind I never knew existed.
Being lazy. Full. A beer in hand. Good sports on TV. Hanging with family. A fire and a dog.
Two weeks ago, I was either in the OR or sleeping in my bare, boring apartment before another long shift at the hospital. It had been the same, day after day. Patients, operations, sleep. Repeat.
“I can’t believe you got conned into speaking at career day,” Mav commented.
“Conned? Blackmail. I was in the back of a destroyed car trying not to succumb to claustrophobia. I didn’t have much choice.”
Maybe there were a few downsides to small-town life.
Mac and the crew of firefighters had that totaled car pulled to pieces well within the ten-minute window for being forced to speak at Mac’s kid’s school assembly. I’d been covered in a blanket and hadn’t seen them at work, but they’d blown out the back window, sawed through the roof supports and opened that thing up like a tin can. A medic had climbed in and settled beside me, offering me pretend injury assessment and placed a cervical collar around my neck. She’d been following protocol and her skills were excellent. So was her lady balls for climbing inside the back of a wrecked car, pretend or on a real scene. Once the Jaws of Life had pried open the back door, I’d been carefully loaded onto a backboard and placed on a stretcher in one of the ambulances for continued mock patient care.
After I’d been freed from the straps and neck brace, Mac had transitioned the training to me being the doctor I was and the EMTs and paramedics giving me a report on the fake patient they’d just saved. I had newfound confidence in the town’s emergency services.
After cleanup, we’d shifted the meal from dinner to lunch and gone to the same restaurant/bar that I went to with my brothers over the summer. After burgers and a few beers, it seemed I made friends with all of Hunter Valley Fire Department. I wasn’t sure if they liked me, or that I paid.
There was no question Jeff–who’d volunteered me for that morning of fun–knew what I’d been in for. Most likely he and Verna were still laughing about it, even a day later.
“You don’t even like kids,” Mav reminded. “How are you going to keep an assembly of them from falling asleep?”
I titled my head and glared at my brother. “I like kids,” I grumbled. I didn’t really, for no other reason than I didn’t know any.
“What? You?” he shrugged. “You don’t.”
Out of the corner of my eye Bridget and Mallory–heads close together–cut past the great room and up the stairs. Mallory didn’t stop to say hi, didn’t even look this way.
At the quick glimpse of her as she went by, my dick stirred. I hadn’t seen her since I left her in the parking lot on Thursday in that sexy dress and fake garter tights. Oh, and little yellow panties.
