Page 85 of For Pleasure Or Worse

“Took a snack break?” I asked. Mateo’s eyes were on me, and my throat dried.Don’t look at him, Tally. He’s trying to intimidate you. Be stronger than that.

I looked at him.

Unsurprisingly, his hazel eyes were as handsome and soft as ever, and my stomach fluttered in betrayal.

“We figured we would let you girls catch up,” Frankie said. “Make this at least a little bit interesting.”

“Not so cocky, Maverick.” Ophelia threw a warning at her boyfriend. Frankie’s eyes narrowed toward her, but he held his tongue.

“Well, there’s no more pools to jump into, unfortunately for you one-trick ponies,” Bella quipped. “Was it worth the day-long swamp ass?” She gestured to Sam’s shorts.

“You think I didn’t ditch the wet briefs?” Sam said. “Anyway, people piss in their chairs so they don’t lose their turn at the slot machines here. I’m the least of their worries.”

Angelo’s nose scrunched. “Is that what I smell?”

“That smell is fear.” Tyler sniffed in our direction, and I pushed him away by his big barrel chest. “These girls reek.”

Ophelia nudged me with her phone, showing an address for a karaoke bar only a few blocks away. My eyes flared, but I quickly schooled my expression and cleared my throat, giving her a subtle nod of approval. The cocky groomsmen entourage was like sharks in the water; we couldn’t let them follow us.

“I have to use the restroom,” I said.

I tugged on Phee’s hand. The longer we stood there the harder it would be to outrun them, and the one leg up we had was that sneaky women’s telepathy keeping us all on the same page. We started walking. Naturally, my sisters caught on and followed.

Mateo’s head tilted, zeroing in on me, and I avoided him in the most obviously up-to-something way. He could always tell when I was lying; it was a real pain in the ass when it came to any kind of surprise for him. I could feel the heat of his pressing attention trying to pin me across the casino floor.

We pressed forward to the first public bathroom in sight, leaving the men precariously aloof. In a perfect world they’d get bored and wander off, or leave to try and figure out another way around the scavenger hunt, but in reality we had about four minutes to get our shit together and find a way to the karaoke bar without sounding the alarms.

“What’s really going on?” Bella turned against the marble vanity and plucked a round mint from a bowl.

Women filed around us out of the bathroom stalls, checking their makeup in large round mirrors, shoes pattering on the tiled floors. The sound of the hand dryer was loud to hide our voices beneath thundering gusts that seemingly never stopped.

“We need to get to this karaoke bar.” My sisters leaned in as Ophelia showed them the map on her phone. “It's four blocks away, but the guys are watching our every move. I don’t know if we should just make a run for it or call a car and try to disappear into traffic and hope they don’t catch on.”

“The second we leave this place they’re going to know something’s up,” Mia said. “Half of the fun for them is chasing us down. It's like a whole different kind of hunt.”

“Four blocks are nothing. We’d spend more time in an Uber trying to get there than it would take to walk,” Camilla reasoned. “I say we just go.”

She was probably right, and I was probably overthinking it. But this had become so much more than a game of bragging rights. “What if they’re right outside?”

“Then we run,” Bella said.

Ophelia fixed the creasing sparkly eyeshadow on my lid with the pad of her pinky finger as if she was donning war paint. “While we’re here though, does anyone actually have to pee?”

“No, Mom,” Mia said mockingly. Rather than annoyed, though, it was charmed, appreciative. My two deeply separate lives crashing together in a gooey, warm way. Like meltings’mores. Maybe it was just the drinks, the circumstance, or my own wishful thinking, but I had stars in my eyes hoping there was a future of harmonious friendship between my best friend and my sisters, and whatever this was, it was a start.

“We’re going to beeline straight out of this bathroom to the far doors at the front of the casino, then hang a left,” Ophelia instructed. “Don’t hit pause. Don’t get distracted. Stay together.”

I shouldered the heavy black bathroom door open and led the group, keeping my head down. One foot in front of the other, my eyes remained on the patterned carpet until we were halfway there and onto sparkly tile. I felt my sisters at my back, Ophelia to my right with her arm linked through mine. We all had the same idea, shrinking into ourselves, as if the parade of hot pink and sparkles wasn’t a full giveaway. I chanced a look up at the revolving glass doors as we inched closer and the pink skies outside looked like a fresh, well-earned freedom. In four strides we were there, in another few we were galloping through the vacuum of partitions, and when my short boots finally hit that pavement outside I let go of a breath that had been holed up in my chest for what felt like an hour.

Night was creeping up on Vegas quickly. All the lights were that much brighter, the streets busier. There was a pulse picking up in the city and my own heart was an echo of it. Adrenaline skipped through me in anticipation for the shoe to drop, for the plan to be wasted, but when we all finally stopped to look around, the coast was clear. There was an audible sigh of relief.

“Holy fuck, why am I so nervous?” I laughed. “We did it.”

“Keep going.” Phee ushered me forward. My sisters kept up the pace until we got to the edge of the block and pounded the button on a long, busy crosswalk. Once we made it to the other side, finding us would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

The streetlight changed from green to yellow, and I was rocking on the balls of my feet as it hit red and the cars rolledinto complete stops. The crosswalk signal gave us the go-ahead, and I don’t know why—maybe that invisible string tugging me in his direction—but I turned back to the casino just as Mateo burst through the doors and outside.

He saw me, and a muscle in his jaw ticked. And then a wide, bright smile split his face.

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