“I’ll have another,” I told Steve, the bartender. He was a pothead when we went to high school together. Steve bought this bar after we graduated and turned it into a thriving business.
Pothead: 1
College Graduate: 0
He placed the glass of whiskey in front of me. I choked down another sip. It was awful but effective. I wanted nothing short of drowning myself at the bottom of a bottle. Explaining my sudden reappearance in Waukegan to my family sucked. I left out all the gory details, but they knew something had gone wrong.
Gone wrong?
Well, that was the euphemism of the century. It was better than saying I got caught having sex with my boss in his office AND everyone I worked with saw the video evidence. Fuck my life! I took another sip of the whiskey. I was halfway to drunk and working toward completely blitzed.
“You got anything to snack on back there?” I asked Steve.
He poured peanuts into a bowl and set it on the bar. “You want me to call John?”
“Nope,” I said, popping the P. The last person I wanted to see was my ex-husband. He’d wrap his arm around my shoulders and try to convince me to give it another go. The man put up with more shit from me than he deserved.
The door opened and a cold breeze drifted into the half-empty bar. I pulled my flannel jacket tighter around my body to ward off the chill. Spring was here, but you’d never know it. Snow covered every road in a fifty-mile radius. It was normal for the Chicago area, but a rude awakening after living in Las Vegas for the past two months.
A man sat next to me. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
I froze and stared straight ahead, not acknowledging his presence. What. The. Fuck?
When Steve placed the glass on the bar, Trent picked it up and took a sip. “Your roads here are shit.”
I shook the ice in my glass. “That, they are.”
“And the whiskey tastes like piss.”
“Sure does.”
“So, what’s a woman like you doing here all alone?”
Oh, this was rich! My lip quirked up. “Does that line usually work? Kind of cliché, don’t you think?”
Trent quirked his head to the side. “Fair enough, but still a valid question.”
“Escaping… from Vegas.”
He leaned on the bar, putting us face to face. “Now, why would you want to do something like that?”
I threw my hands in the air. “Oh, I don’t know! Maybe because I was involved in a sex scandal that all my coworkers now know about!” I pointed at Steve, who’d stopped midpour and stared. “Don’t you fucking judge me!”
Trent grabbed my flailing arms and pinned them to my sides. “I didn’t do it. It was Hunter, and he’s been fired.”
I struggled to get my arms free. “Well, that’s just great. Everyone still saw you banging me from behind.”
Steve hid his laugh behind his fist.
“I swear to God, if you tell anyone about this, I’ll torch this fucking bar and watch it burn to the ground!”
Steve held his hands up and backed away. “No need to get crazy.”
Trent grabbed my chin and turned my head to face him. “Do you love me, Gia?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters. Nothing has changed. Not for me. I love you, Miss Gianna Romano. Come back to Vegas and move in with me. The job is yours if you want it.”
“What about your dad?”
“He knows I have sex.” Trent laughed.
I dropped my head to the bar and groaned. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. It’s not as bad as you think. At least none of your lady parts were showing.”
“Everyone saw me orgasm,” I whispered.
He pushed my hair behind my ear. “And it was beautiful. At least your parents didn’t have front row-seats to the show.”
“Both of them?”
“Yep.” He sighed. “If we act like it’s not a big deal, no one else will either. My mom loves you and my dad is pissed he’s losing you. We have their support.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Fine.” Trent slapped the bar. “Then I’ll quit and move here. Hey, bartender!” he yelled. “Are you hiring?”
Steve wiped a glass while looking Trent up and down in his three-thousand-dollar suit. “No offense, man, but we don’t get many of your kind in here.”
Trent shrugged. “I already met your dad. I can work with him. There’s got to be something I can do.”
“You met my dad?” Fuck! I didn’t even want to know what that shit show looked like.
He nodded. “Sure did. Your mom too. How do you think I found you here?”
I couldn’t imagine their faces when Trent showed up on their doorstep. “What did you tell them?”
“That I was in love with their daughter and needed to find her ASAP.”
It was sweet. More than sweet actually, but it still didn’t take away the embarrassment or humiliation.
Steve leaned on the bar between us. “Listen, Gia, this guy’s obviously batshit crazy about you. Honestly, I don’t see the attraction, but that’s beside the point. You’ve been through some fucked-up stuff. So what? He’s offering you a way out of this shithole. You should jump on that.”
I blinked, looking between the two of them.
“What he said.” Trent hiked a thumb in Steve’s direction.
“I can’t believe, after everything that happened, you still want me.”
“Sweetheart, I flew halfway across the country, drove through a snowstorm, and drank cheap whiskey for you. If that doesn’t say love, I don’t know what does.”
“People are going to gossip about us.” I hiccuped from the booze.
He took the glass from my fingers and set it on the bar. “Fuck ’em. I’ll fire them all. You’re the only one who’s impossible to replace. Come home with me, Gia.”
Home. I always thought Waukegan was home, but my heart wasn’t in Waukegan anymore. It was with Trent. Where he was, was the only place I wanted to be. A tear ran down my cheek and he swiped it away with his thumb. All my inhibitions drained away as my chest swelled for the man begging me to be by his side. “I love you too, Trent. Yes. I’ll come home with you.”
He pulled me from the barstool and swung me around.
Steve slow clapped. “You know what they say… What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
Trent dropped my feet to the floor and pressed his forehead against mine. “We happened in Vegas.”
“And we’re staying in Vegas.” I stood on my toes and kissed him. We made out in the middle of the bar like no one was watching. I didn’t care if the whole world saw us. And that kiss… it tasted like forever.
“What do you think of Elvis?” He teased.
I set my finger against his lips. “Don’t press your luck.”
