I raised my bottle in the air. “This is my house!” I screamed and a hundred million voices raised their own bottles and cheered me on until the sound tore through me like wind through tissue paper.
I laughed or maybe cried, then staggered sideways. The liquor bottle slipped from my fingers just as I slipped from the table, straight into Hugo’s waiting arms. I saw the blackness of his T-shirt, then the blackness behind my eyes swallowed me whole.
The sign above me blinked off and on. Red and white. Pony Club. The edges of the metal were rusted and three of the bulbs lining the edge were burnt out. It looked cheap. Gawdy. Like a lot of Vegas. But when I squinted…
The lights blurred and I could imagine globes of white and red glass. Glass beads, maybe. A bundle of them held together with wire to make a bouquet. My mind pulled the red beads out long, making flattened petals. A poinsettia with white baby’s breath. A Christmas bouquet of glass that never needed watering. My mother would like that. Or maybe Dena. I started to pull out the battered little notepad I kept in the front pocket of my shirt to jot the idea down, then stopped.
Christmas was six months away.
A soft ache tried to take root, and I squashed it with practiced ease, like a lump of gum pressed under a table.
Keep to the routine.
I withdrew my hand and left the notepad where it was.
It was getting loud in the Pony Club. The show had supposedly ended an hour ago, but the shouts and whoops of some epic party were loud and clear—if muffled—through the cement of the venue’s back wall.
I pulled my cell phone from the front pocket of my uniform slacks to check the time. It was nearly one a.m. The limo was commissioned only until two, but I could already tell this was going to be a night of enforced overtime.
But what did I care if the job ran late? I didn’t sleep much these days and I could use the money. I’d stay until the band and their manager came oozing out of the venue, wasted and reeking, and take them back to the mega-mansion in Summerlin where I’d picked them up at five that evening.
The upside to driving at night was it left me time to work during the day. The downside was the down time. So many empty hours spent waiting for my fare to get done with dinner or the show, or to finally emerge from the casino, stinking of booze and smoke and—more often than not—mourning their losses at the blackjack or poker tables.
Limo drivers tended to band together at events, lined up outside the venue in a train of sleek black or white vehicles. I saw the same faces at different jobs, and some were my own co-workers at A-1 Limousine. But I had to avoid smoke, and I wasn’t interested in making new buddies. I kept to myself, to my routine.
I leaned against the limo and looked up. No stars could conquer the lights of Vegas. I’d have to wait until my best friend’s Great Basin camping trip in a few weeks to see actual stars. But the Strip was its own kind of constellation. A riot of garish neon color and glittering lights. It was beautiful in its own way, as long as you didn’t look down.
At my feet, in the gutter running between the street and sidewalk were cigarette butts, a crushed soft drink cup from Dairy Queen, and a flyer for a nudie show off the Strip. Shattered glass glittered green under a streetlamp.
One of the other limo drivers approached me. “Got a smoke?”
This guy was young. Younger than my twenty-six years, anyway. Sweat beaded his brow as he looked at me hopefully. Even in this summer heat, he was still wearing his service’s livery, a maroon polyester jacket with gold piping. Newbie. My black jacket was on the front seat and had been since the band and their manager exited my limo nearly eight hours ago.
“I don’t smoke, man,” I told him. “Sorry.”
The sorry was code for conversation over, but this guy didn’t catch on.
“Shit, I ran out an hour ago,” he muttered. His nametag read Trevor. “Hey, who you driving for? I got a bunch of sweet-sixteen richies seeing the Rapid Confession show.” He barked a laugh. “Spoiled rich brats. I mean, what’s worse than that?”
“I can’t imagine,” I muttered.
My phone vibrated with a text. Probably my brother Theo, with the hourly check-in. I pulled the phone from my pants pocket. Yep.
What’s up? You good?
Rolling my eyes, I took a screen shot of the midnight check-in: the exact same message and my reply that I was fine. I hit ‘send.’
He texted back. Dick.
I smirked, typing. You make it so easy. Go to sleep, Teddy. I’ll call you in the morning.
“I wonder who has the band,” Trevor said, glancing down the line of limos. “If I had those bitches, it would be epic. Night made.”