a small, private circle on mine. I look down at where we’re now joined. It feels good.
It feels like we’re a couple.
“Is this okay?” she asks.
As if I could let her go now. I’ve missed this sense of being half of a whole, of feeling connected to another person. “Yes.”
She doesn’t let go until I’ve handed her into the waiting town car. Las Vegas is every bit as loud and colorful as I remember. It’s not a place I come often—I prefer the ocean—but Max, Dev and I used to drive over the mountains and through the desert to spend long, decadent weekends drunk off our asses to celebrate the end of another college quarter. Hazel’s quiet as we drive up the Strip. Walking might be faster thanks to the hordes of people crossing every corner and the never-ending streetlights, but the casinos are all lit up and Hazel seems happy to look out the window. I think about telling the driver to turn off and take the back way, but Hazel already has the window rolled down and is recording our slow crawl down the Strip for posterity.
When we reach the Bellagio, the fountains rocket up into the air. Enormous jets of water rise and fall, exploding across the surface of the lake in well-choreographed bursts. Tourists crowd against the wall that separates them from the lake, jockeying for the clearest point of view.
I booked a Bellagio pool villa. Typically the villas are available only to high rollers, but exceptions are always made for billionaires, and Hazel deserves nothing but the best for having my back. The living room of the villa is done in tasteful creams. Italianate villa but screams money. Two bedrooms, five bathrooms, a kitchen, dry sauna, massage room, fireplace, hot tub and our own private pool. The roar of the fountains almost but not quite drowns out the louder babel that is Vegas. While Hazel disappears, exploring, I tip the butler generously, willing him to disappear.
He doesn’t catch my subliminal message. “Can I do anything else for you, sir?”
Before I can send him on his way with a polite “no thanks,” Hazel bellows out her obscene admiration from another room for “the world’s biggest fucking tub.” I’m not sure if she’s referring to the tub’s proportions or to activities that could be performed within it, but it’s Vegas. Anything is possible.
“Perhaps our romance package?” The butler makes the suggestion discreetly, but I can feel him fighting back a smile. I nod, because what the hell. I’m sure Hazel would enjoy rose petals in her bath or something.
We don’t have much time before the rodeo starts, so I keep my plane IOU for later and we change and head out. I’m not going for the full-on Wranglers, boots and Stetson look, but jeans and boots seem like they would blend better than a suit. Hazel also gets into the spirit of things with a full skirt that stops just below her knees. She’s wearing bright red cowboy boots and a Western shirt that she’s tied up around her waist.
The rodeo is being held down the Strip, in the same venue where the resort usually hosts medieval jousts and dinner shows that serve enormous turkey drumsticks on platters so you can get your inner knight on. The cowboy hats are as outsize as their wearers, although nowhere near as large as the two-story posters of the top competitors lining the walls. This gives me an opportunity to check him out before confronting him face-to-face. Evan Wilson is not a bad-looking man. He’s not as tall as me, which makes him a medium-sized Viking and a big man. Close-cropped brown hair, bad-boy stubble, brown eyes and—fuck me—a dimple in his left cheek.
I nod toward the picture of my replacement. “Do you think he’s hot?”
Hazel’s eyebrows pull together as she gazes up at larger-than-life Evan. If it takes longer than three seconds for her to decide, the answer is yes, though there’s an unfamiliar, sort of hollow sensation somewhere near my stomach. Maybe I should work room service or dinner into tonight’s plan. Maybe—
Hazel shakes her head. “Absolutely not.”
Two seconds. I think she may be lying, but I appreciate it. Hazel’s good people.
Our seats are the best money can buy, so it would be impossible to get closer to the arena without actually entering the competition. The rodeo one. Not the one for Molly. And not that I’m competing for her. Or want her.
Something twists inside me.
I’m not entirely