Full Tilt (Full Tilt #1)(9)

At two in the morning, Vegas showed its dark underbelly. The streets were filled with the most desperate: gamblers hoping to salvage some of their losses, hopeless drunks, drug dealers and prostitutes. This was the Vegas I hated, but as I crossed the Strip, heading east, I passed the Bellagio. My smile returned. There was real beauty in Las Vegas. You just had to know where to look.

The Bellagio’s lobby ceiling was one place. In my rearview was another.

The girl passed out on the long seat threw one tattooed arm over her eyes and gave a little moan.

“We’re almost there,” I told her gently. “You’re going to be okay.”





I pulled the limo to the front of my apartment complex. I lived in a cement box of a building, with pale gray stucco and crooked railings peeling lime green paint.

“I know it’s not the luxury villa you’re used to,” I told her, “but beggars can’t be choosers, am I right?”

The girl, still deep in her booze-soaked nap, wasn’t in a position to choose anything.

I parked the limo along the side of the building as close to my first floor apartment as I could get. Illegally parked? but hidden from the street.

I jogged to my front door, unlocked and opened it, and flipped on the light near the door. Back at the limo, I climbed in and sat beside the girl.

“Hey,” I said, nudging her arm gently. “Hey. Can you wake up for me?”

She didn’t stir.

“Shit.” I heaved a breath. “All right, here we go.”

She was a slight thing, maybe 5’5” and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck-ten, but the alcohol had turned her to dead weight. Her limbs were limp and her head lolled. I struggled to get her out of the damn limo without banging her head on the door. I hoped to half-carry, half-walk her inside, but she was like jelly, oozing out of my arms.

I sucked in a deep breath and lifted her under her knees and back, cradling her, so that her head rested against my chest.

Dr. Morrison would have a conniption if he saw me lifting an entire human being. Theo would lose his shit. But neither of them were there now. Another perk about the night shift: aside from a text or ten from Theo, I was free of the scrutiny that only reminded me of my predicament when I was trying to put it aside and keep to my schedule.

I carried the girl through the open door of my place, and kicked it shut behind me with my heel. I laid her out on the couch and sat beside her to catch my breath. I was winded but it wasn’t bad. A few deep breaths and I was back in business.

“That wasn’t so tough, now, was it?”

The girl’s full lips were parted and she was breathing easy, a thin sheen of sweat over her forehead and across her chest. I couldn’t imagine she could be very comfortable in those boots and bustier. Not that was I about to do anything about it. It was bad enough I had her in my apartment. Even taking her shoes off might add fuel to whatever PR nightmare was awaiting me tomorrow. I wondered if I could lose my job over this. Over her.

Now that she was safe, I spared a thought for my situation. I needed my job. I had the perfect routine going and I couldn’t let one goddamn thing throw it. I was supposed to go back to the Pony Club to pick up the band like I’d been hired to do, but then what? Bring them all back here to get their guitarist? And was it a good idea to leave her alone in the first place?

I looked at the girl. Young woman. I guessed maybe twenty-two. She was out cold but her beautiful face was at peace, her brows unfurrowed for the first time all night.

I sighed. It’s late. Let her sleep.

I called A-1 back and told Tony I had the stretch and would have it back at the garage by seven a.m. Tony warned me that our boss, Harry, would lose his shit to know one of his cars was out. Not to mention I’d left the band stranded at the Pony Club.

“But then again, Harry f*cking loves you,” Tony said. “You’re his favorite driver.”

That was true, which was why I was entrusted with the Rapid Confession job in the first place. Still, I was taking a huge f*cking risk with my job—a job I desperately needed.

With a frustrated groan, I chucked the phone onto my old junker of a coffee table in front of the couch. It clanked against one of three blown-glass pieces sitting on its scratched, wooden surface.

From the hall closet I retrieved an afghan and draped it over my houseguest, then set a glass of water and two aspirin from my personal miniature pharmacy on the table beside her. A peace offering should the girl wake up and wonder if she’d been kidnapped by a crazed, knick-knack-collecting psycho.

The girl. If I called her that one more time, even in my own mind, I was going to lose it.

My laptop was on the kitchen counter that overlooked the living room. I opened it up and typed Rapid Confession into the Google search bar. A bunch of photos and articles came up, many of them as recent as yesterday. The band was about to “explode on the music scene like a Molotov-cocktail” (according to Spin) and “was the best thing to happen to rock and roll since the Foo Fighters” (so speaketh Rolling Stone). I scrolled until I found cheeky promotional photos naming each band member.

“Kacey Dawson,” I muttered. “Hallelujah.”

I stared at the promotional pic. Even flipping the bird with an ‘I don’t give a f*ck’ expression on her face, Kacey Dawson was breathtaking.

“Get a grip, Fletcher.”