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Jack wiggles his eyebrows at me.
‘I’ve always got something up my sleeve. See you around, Georgie.’
‘See you,’ I call after him.
‘I’ll probably see you first… because of all the cameras…’
I examine the artificial flowers he gave me – rainbow-coloured carnations. As flowers go, they’re pretty ugly, but I can’t help smiling at them. Jack hasn’t just given me flowers, he’s given me a tiny shred of hope in the biggest mess I’ve ever been in – a far more impressive trick than pulling flowers out of thin air, don’t you think?
Chapter Four (#ulink_bf8a5ab8-c22c-55fe-8d8d-545057c8712f)
Make-up is a wonderful thing. Not too long ago I watched a video of a Korean teenage boy doing make-up tutorials on YouTube. He gave himself a Kardashian-style makeover with nothing but a few beauty products. His lips were fuller, his cheeks perfectly contoured and his eyebrows seriously on fleek – it almost made me feel a little inadequate, that a boy could effortlessly wing his eyeliner, but whenever I try to do mine, in an attempt to make them even, I apply too much and end up looking like Amy Winehouse circa ‘Rehab’.
I might not be as skilled as that guy is, but I’ve done a pretty good job at patching up my face so I can go back out – yes, you heard me, I am taking myself out. As much as I want to curl up in a ball, drink myself stupid and cry myself to sleep, that’s not what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep a smile on my face, go and enjoy my freebie three-course dinner (for two) and I’m going to do it all without a man by my side.
It’s a nice idea, to think I can take a couple of hours off from my heartache, but considering it’s been on my mind every second of the day since it happened, I’m not going to hold my breath – but I am going to go for dinner.
I check that I’m ready in the floor-length mirror. My eyes look a little red still, but my make-up is fixed. Liv did a great job with my extensions; I’d believe this were my real hair, had I not just paid a lot for it and endured the lengthy process of having it fitted.
My dress is red, short, strapless and tight. My thighs are probably a bit too big to be so exposed, this strapless bra isn’t doing much to support my boobs and I feel like I hold my tummy in on autopilot when I suspect someone is looking at me. I’m probably only a few pounds overweight, but I just don’t think my short arse is carrying it well. Stepping back into my heels goes a long way to making my legs look longer and a bit slimmer, taking me from 5’5” to 5’9”, but they’re shoes, not liposuction.
My outfit is as on as it can be, my make-up is fixed, my hair is still salon-perfect and I’m ready to go.
I walk out of my room with my head held high and head for the lift, ready to negotiate the map of the massive Black Diamond Hotel. This place really does have everything under one roof, I’d much rather stay here than head home to Blackpool for a family wedding.
I trace the map with my finger, following the route I’ll need to take to get to the restaurant. Luckily it doesn’t seem too complicated. Despite the size of this place, I’m not going to be needing a compass.
I’ve got the lift to myself, so I adjust my outfit in the mirrored doors. Walking seems to have driven my dress up a little too high.
As I make the short trip from the lift to the restaurant, I take my time, careful not to stumble over in my high heels or pop out of my dress, or anything else that might embarrass me. Between flashing the porter and Jack thinking I was a prostitute who was going to jump off the roof, I think I’ve felt as mortified as I can possibly feel today.
Tottering through the bar in my heels, the muscular figure of a man propping up the bar catches my eye.
‘Jack?’
The man turns around.
‘Georgie, hey. Buy you a drink?’ he asks.
‘What’s that you’re drinking?’ I ask. I didn’t expect to see him ever again – let alone so soon.
‘Bourbon,’ he replies, raising his glass. ‘Want one?’
I scrunch my nose as I take a seat on the stool next to him. It doesn’t seem like this is his first drink, and – I know I don’t know the man – but he doesn’t seem himself.
‘Not really a fan,’ I tell him. ‘I’d love a Sea Breeze, though, please,’ I tell the barman.
Jack takes a generous sip of his drink.
‘They let you drink on the job?’ I ask curiously.
‘Nope.’
‘No more work tonight?’ I persist. That cheeky charm I witnessed earlier seems to be in short supply.
‘No more work ever,’ he corrects me casually. ‘I was fired.’
‘What? But it’s less than an hour since I saw you. What’s changed since…’
My voice trails off into silence.
‘It doesn’t have anything to do with me, does it?’
Jack knocks back the remaining contents of his glass before turning to face me, taking my hand in his reassuringly.
‘This is not your fault,’ he insists. ‘I left my post unattended, something happened, I missed it. That’s that. There are no second chances in this town. The house has to win.’
‘Jack, I’m so sorry. Please, let me speak to your boss, explain what happened.’
I give his hand a squeeze back to show him I’m serious and, for a split second, we just look into each other’s eyes. I can see something in there. Just a glimmer of the guy I met earlier, who turned my bad day around.
‘It’s fine,’ he tells me. ‘Or at least it will be after a few more of these.’
He says this loud enough for the benefit of the barman, who pours another shot into his glass.
‘A wise man once told me that whatever life throws at us, we can fix it,’ I tell him. Jack can’t help but smile at his own words being repeated back to him.
‘All right, all right,’ he laughs. ‘But come on, I’ve earned a bit of a pity party.’
I think for a second.
‘How would you like to upgrade your pity party to a pity meal with champagne?’ I ask. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
‘You don’t owe me anything,’ he insists.
‘You’d be doing me a favour,’ I tell him. ‘Come on, don’t make me have dinner on my own.’
‘All right, fine,’ he jokily concedes. ‘But I need to drown my sorrows.’
‘Well, so do I,’ I tell him. ‘Plus, someone told me this restaurant has excellent crème brûlée.’
Jack steps off his stool, collects our drinks in his hands and nods towards the hostess.
‘Come on,’ he insists. ‘I still know people that work here. We won’t need to wait for a table.’
Chapter Five (#ulink_8be6ce7d-4f60-59b0-bad0-bc4e01d34a8c)
If you’d told me this time last week I’d be single and having dinner with a gorgeous man who wasn’t my fiancé, I wouldn’t have believed you. And yet here I am, in Las Vegas of all places, sitting opposite Jack.
I’ve been asking him loads of questions about his job. I had no idea there were so many ways to cheat in casinos – well, try to at least.
As Jack explains each technique to me, he demonstrates them with an old, battered playing card from inside his wallet.
I’ve learned about card marking, which is basically what it sounds like: making a mark on cards so you know what they are before they’re turned over. He’s also shown me a multitude of ways to hide cards on your person, or quickly swap them with ones in your pocket, or trade cards with the person next to you.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff,’ he laughs. ‘You might just go back into the casino and clean up.
‘I won’t, I promise,’ I giggle. ‘I just find this fascinating.’
‘More?’ he offers.
I nod my head eagerly. Jack obligingly takes a poker chip from his wallet.
‘So, if you win, you can cap your bet, which means you sneak more chips onto the table, which means you win more for less risk. You can also try and sneak chips off if you lose a hand – all of this is illegal,’ he reminds me.
When Jack performs these manoeuvres they look effortless. He makes cheating seem easy, but I know this stuff isn’t as simple as it seems.
Once he’s done explaining, Jack rolls the poker chip across his knuckles before making it disappear and then seemingly pulling it out from inside his mouth.
I laugh.
‘Are you a frustrated magician?’ I ask.
‘I’m not really anything,’ he explains. ‘Born and raised right here in Vegas. My dad was a magician, quite a well-known one, too. This playing card is actually signed by him – that’s why I carry it around. I know what you’re thinking, that it’s weird to have my dad’s autograph. But this is a card from one of the last tricks he did before he died.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
Jack bats his hand.
‘It’s OK. It was a while ago now. My dad taught me a lot about sleight of hand and the art of deception. I knew I could use these skills for good or bad, and here we are. Or here we were,’ he corrects himself. ‘So, what do you do?’
I push my few remaining fries around on my plate anxiously.
‘Erm, I’m sort of between jobs at the moment,’ I admit. ‘Moved here from England to study acting at UCLA, graduated. I work a few part-time gigs but my fiancé doesn’t like me taking on too much. He travels a lot for work and said it would be easier for us to spend time together if I worked less.’
Jack’s face falls.
‘You’re engaged,’ he suddenly realises.
‘Not anymore,’ I point out quickly. ‘You were right, on the roof, when you guessed a boy was the reason I was crying. I caught him cheating on me a couple of days ago.’
Every time I say it, it comes out more casually and very matter-of-fact.
‘Bastard,’ Jack says softly. ‘So, you ran away to Vegas?’
‘Just stopping over,’ I tell him. ‘On my way to England for a family wedding.’
‘Your family will help you through it,’ he reassures me.
‘Yeah, I can’t tell them. I’m just going to pretend he has to work, and tell them when it’s easier.’
‘What did you say he did?’
‘He’s a pianist,’ I reply.
‘Yeah, he sounds like one,’ Jack jokes.
‘A pianist,’ I correct him with a chuckle. ‘I don’t know if it’s all that believable, but the truth isn’t an option.’
Jack thinks for a moment.
‘I know you were upset about it earlier, but you seem very… numb right now,’ he observes. ‘Do you think you’re having trouble admitting it to your family because you’re struggling to admit it to yourself?’
‘All right, Magic Psych,’ I cackle. ‘Calm down.’
Jack throws his head back as he laughs.
‘What is it with the stripper comments?’ he asks. ‘And where is your accent from?’
‘Lancashire,’ I tell him. ‘It’s in the north. And if I seem more numb than I did earlier, it’s because of this.’
I give the empty bottle of champagne a little shake.
‘Yes, I do seem to be caring less about being unemployed,’ he reasons. ‘I guess we should keep drinking then, right?’
‘What else have we got to lose?’ I reply.
Chapter Six (#ulink_f46a5222-d24c-5171-8485-97f16a5b42d1)
I wake up suddenly, gasping for breath, but the thumping in my head is too overpowering for me to move.
I open my eyes slowly, one then the other. My hotel-room blinds are open and it feels like the harsh light of morning is dissolving my eyeballs.
My head feels like it’s full, but my memory of last night is almost completely empty. I remember bumping into Jack in the bar, I remember going to dinner with him, and then I remember us deciding to go out and drown our sorrows and… not much else. Oh God, tell me I haven’t had rebound sex with Jack. I’m almost too scared to roll over and check.
The fact I’m in my hotel room is some relief and the reason breathing is so uncomfortable right now is because I not only slept in an underwired bra, but my dress is still on.
I listen carefully, for snoring, breathing or any sign of life coming from the other side of the bed. I just need to roll over and check, but I don’t want to deal with the consequences. Right now, it’s Schrödinger’s one-night stand – if I don’t roll over and see him there, it never happened.
I’m usually so quiet and sensible – some might even say boring since I met John a few years ago. A crazy night for me involves binge-watching more than six episodes in a row of something on Netflix. The height of my wild behaviour involves trying a new topping on my pizza. The only thing unpredictable about me is my menstrual cycle. How have I got myself into this mess? Why did I get so drunk last night? What did I do last night?!
Thinking hard only makes my headache worse, and trying to remember isn’t going to change the facts. I just need to get him out of here.
I roll over slowly, so as not to provoke the bear who is currently living in my head and pawing and heaving at the inside of my skull. But there’s no one there. I’m in bed, alone, fully dressed. Well, of course I am. I don’t know what I was thinking. Jack is so far out of my league, why would he want to sleep with me? A single, cheated-on, skint loser who doesn’t even have the courage to tell her family how bad her life is. They might think I’m living it up in LA with my successful fiancé, but Jack knows the truth, and that’s why he didn’t come back to my room with me.
It’s better this way. Now I don’t need to worry about getting him out of here and getting to the airport before… shit! My flight!
I grab my phone off charge and check the time. I’m officially running late, but not so late I’ll miss it. Thank God I woke up when I did.
