Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
They all wanted to drink, have dinner, and then hit a strip club. Since only the food part sounded good to me, I was going to beg off until later, but Tony, one of Michael’s buddies, chimed in.
“Mike, your brother and his partner or whatever ain’t interested in tits and ass, man,” he sneered, gesturing at me, “just dick and balls. We need to meet them after when we hit Fremont Street, and we can all have fruity umbrella drinks together.”
He finished that up with laughing.
Michael remained silent, Chip and Buck laughed along with him, and a couple of the others snickered. And that was fine. I didn’t want to go with them anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Chip said with a chuckle, not sorry at all, “Michael should leash his dog.”
“Dogs have more manners,” I said tightly, and I saw Tony’s face flush red.
“What’d you say?”
I gave him a dismissive wave. “We can meet you later,” I told Michael. “Just text me where you are once you’re done watching whatever show.”
“Perfect,” Michael agreed.
I turned to go, but Tony, who had been drinking, just like the others, since he touched down, grabbed my shoulder and spun me around to face him. “You got something to say to me, you little fairy faggot?”
God. “I’m having a flashback to ninth grade,” I said with an eye roll. “You know, fairy and faggot seem a bit redundant, don’t you think?”
Should I have done that? No. But the whole thing was simply, again, so ninth grade.
“Your brother-in-law is a mouthy bitch,” Tony said to Michael, “and we all know what to do with––”
I groaned. Loudly. And people around us, not in our party, a couple of women, laughed. When I looked over at them, I realized they were both simply stunning, could have been models, probably were, and they were sitting in front of a machine, feeding it, and we had stopped to talk near them.
“Hey,” the blonde called over to me, a living Malibu Barbie, sipping something with a red straw. “Our guys just bailed because they had to work, not their fault, it happens, and we have a reservation at Mercato Della Pescheria for four in, like, twenty minutes. Would you like to have dinner? I heard that guy say partner or whatever in a super snide tone, so is he here or somewhere close that you can grab him?”
“He is.”
“Oh yay! So will you come?”
I smiled at her. “My husband and I would love to.”
The other girl, just as gorgeous, tall with a short brown messy bob, put her hand over her heart. “Ohmygod, you’re saving dinner. You don’t even know. If we go alone, it’s just a nonstop barrage of drinks coming to the table and men walking over, and sometimes they take a seat without even asking, and shit, we just wanna inhale a lot of carbs, you know?”
“I do know,” I agreed.
“I’m Kendra,” she said, beaming at me, rising from the chair beside her friend to offer me her hand, “and this is my friend Sloane.”
“Pleasure to––”
“Girls,” Tony said loudly, “you don’t want the gay guy who gets on his knees, you want the guy who will put his tongue––”
“Women,” I corrected automatically, having a daughter.
“What?” Tony sounded really annoyed.
“Women, not girls,” I clarified.
“Eww, no,” Kendra said, doing a fantastic Alexis impression, her entire face a mask of disgust and horror, shaking her head. “Just go with your friends to drink and ogle women who would never give you the time of day in real life.”
“Bye,” Sloane nearly shouted, waving at all of them. “Have lots of fun.”
The others grabbed Tony then, and I was standing with the two women when Sam came back, looking confused when he saw me.
“New friends?”
“Yes,” I told my husband. “This is Sloane and this is Kendra, and they’ve invited us for Italian with them, as their boyfriends, who are both vice detectives here in Vegas, were called in to work through no fault of their own.”
“Okay, sounds good,” Sam agreed, and both women were beaming at him.
It had to have been confusing. Sam and I were holding hands, Sloane had her arm in mine, and Kendra had Sam’s. I needed a picture, which I took once we were seated at the restaurant.
“I love eating here,” Sloane told Sam. “But if I come with only my girlfriends or my sisters—it’s the worst. I was telling Jory earlier, without my boyfriend, my brother, my guy friends, or my father, it’s horrible.”
“It happens to my daughter too,” I told her.
“And my dad always says, it’s because you’re so beautiful.”
“Which you are,” I assured her.
“Which is super sweet of you to say, but I’ve been standing in line at my favorite bakery in sweats, with my Detroit Tigers hat on, sunglasses, and just looking like Tuesday’s takeout at the back of the fridge, you know, and still—still, guys will be all, can I get your number?”