Best Friends Forever

Several times, they found Winston with the same shadow; the handsome man in the black suit. The guy who looked like a grown-up version of Preston. Very grown.

“He’s with him all the time, and always in that black suit. He’s definitely his bodyguard,” Desiree offered. But the knowledge brought them no closer to the man’s identity. Nowhere was his name mentioned.

“This is so crazy,” Ayla muttered, going through the pictures. “I thought I’d never find him.”

Chapter 8

Mick hated asking for time off. Winston never took vacations anymore, although business often had him traveling, squeezing in a day or two of leisure when he’d find himself in, or near, an exotic locale. Some of his staff had even started referring to him by the nickname “World Wide,” as it shared initials with his own first and last name.

“I’ve been looking at the calendar; any idea when it might be good for me to take a trip home to visit my mum?” Mick asked his boss.

Winston looked up from his phone as the limo they shared rolled slowly through evening traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard.

“Oh, back to the U.K.?” Winston asked.

“Yeah, Sheffield,” Mick replied. “She’s been down lately. Anniversary of my brother’s passing is right around the corner. It’s tough on her.”

Winston nodded. “I wish she’d consider moving here. From what you tell me, it’s just her there, surrounded by all those ghosts. The desert might do her some good. But, yes, of course, just tell me when you want to go, I’ll have a Watterson jet ready for you.”

“Nah, it’s alright, mate, those private jets are nice, but a little, ah, ostentatious for me. I’m just a simple lad from Sheffield. I’ll splurge for first class, though.”

“Have it your way, Mick. But if you ever do convince her to relocate, I’ll have a condo ready for her. As near, or far, as you want it to be.”

“Thanks, boss,” Mick replied. He enjoyed the camaraderie of the new, more mature Winston Watterson much more than the playboy he used to babysit. “I’m afraid the only thing that would get her to move here would be grandchildren.”

“Well, then you’d better get started!” Winston chided. “When is Las Vegas’s most eligible bachelor going to settle down, anyway?”

“That would be you,” Mick answered. “I’m a scarred-up old pensioner, just about. Nobody’s looking for me, or especially to have kids with me,” he assured his superior. “They all want to be part of the Watterson fortune, anyway. If any woman were interested in me, I’d assume she just wanted to get close to you.”

“Oh yeah,” Winston laughed. “Women hate military guys. Especially ones covered in muscles. Getting dates must be a such a challenge.”

“Feh,” Mick waved him off. “Dates aren’t the problem. Nobody would want to put up with me for a second one. I’m not exactly Mr. Sunshine.”

“Who needs a second date? There are enough beautiful women in this town to take a different one home every night for ten years. And by then, a whole new batch would move in to replace even them. Live a little.”

Mick shook his head. “Not my style, mate.”

“Suit yourself,” Winston replied, as they pulled into a rundown shopping complex a few blocks east of the Strip, an area that was, surprisingly, home to perhaps the finest Thai restaurant in America— Lotus of Siam. It was one of Winston’s favorites, and he’d invited his guests from Macau to join him there for dinner.

Mick enjoyed the larb served there, the best he’d had outside of southeast Asia. Larb was a sort of chicken salad he’d first tried in Laos when he spent a few weeks there on the trail of a group of North Koreans who’d been suspected of abducting Thai women and taking them back to Pyongyang. A British woman of Cambodian descent had nearly been the victim of a kidnapping off the street directly in front of her hotel, which drew the attention of MI6.

A knife fight in an alley left two unidentified men (North Koreans by all forensic evidence), dead. Mick’s souvenirs of the scuffle were a cracked rib and a scar on his left bicep. On cold, rainy days, the rib ached a bit, but Las Vegas didn’t experience many of those kinds of days, so it worked out just fine.

The chicken larb at Lotus of Siam was authentic and delicious. Mick looked forward to a plate of it, followed by koi soy, the Thai version of steak tartare.

By the time dessert, sticky rice with mango, arrived at the table, the group was begging for mercy, having stuffed themselves with Thai and Lao delicacies.

Mick couldn’t help thinking that as much as being a loner had its downsides, the lifestyle he led now was pretty enviable.

But he still couldn’t help but think of the girl.

Across town, Ayla and Desiree dipped their hands into the large bowl of microwave popcorn between them on the sofa as they each searched their respective laptops for a clue as to the identity of Winston Watterson’s bodyguard.

“Let’s say we find him,” Desiree suggested. “What then? What are the chances this guy is single and just waiting for his baby momma to show up, child in tow, to invite him to join her life, and that of her son, already in progress? I don’t want to be mean, but what’s the best case scenario? A monthly check? I mean, if it’s really even him.”

Ayla looked up from her computer and pondered the question. “I don’t know. But I think… No, I

know, there was something between us.”