Best Friends Forever

Ayla blushed. “You’re ‘wow’ yourself. Mick Merryweather.”

They shared a quick kiss and walked inside. While waiting for a table, Ayla noticed the scar on Mick’s left bicep. She traced it with her fingertip. “Is there a story?”

“Not one I care to tell over dinner,” Mick replied. “It’s one of many. Picked it up in Laos.”

“Is it one of those ‘you should see the other guy’ things?” Ayla asked.

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to see him.,” Mick countered. “But you won’t have to. He was a very bad man. I was the last person he’ll ever hurt.”

Ayla was wide-eyed. She knew Mick had a military background, but he was insinuating that he’d killed the man who gave him the scar. Mick looked dangerous. He was dangerous.

Ayla couldn’t help it— she was wet.

The menu was overwhelming, so Mick helped with some of Ayla’s choices. She loved the things Mick ordered, as he predicted. The chicken larb and choi soy were more “native” to Southeast Asia than the stuffed chicken wing appetizer they shared and the garlic prawns to which Ayla became immediately, hopelessly addicted to.

The meal was delicious, the wine refreshing, and despite Ayla’s reservations about the distinctly “non-American” dessert of sticky rice with mango, it was likewise mouth-watering, and Ayla ate more of it than she’d intended to. Along with everything else that showed up on her plate. Her plan to eat lightly in front of Mick went out the window when she tasted the food. Besides, she knew she needed to eat enough to build up her strength for the nightcap she was hoping for.

The conversation flowed easily, bouncing between Ayla’s jobs, Mick’s various careers, his brother, Ayla’s sister and brother, and Mick’s announcement that his mother would be arriving in two days’ time.

Mick was especially excited to learn that Ayla had a brother in the military. He felt that they’d have quite a bit in common.

The began the meal across from each other, but as dishes arrived, Mick moved over and sat in the booth next to Ayla. Their arms and hands brushed more and more often, and Ayla found her body responding to his proximity in naughty ways. She squirmed under the intensity of his gaze after they finished a particularly memorable kiss while waiting for dessert to arrive.

She needed him badly.

They left the restaurant holding hands, emerging into a world cooler and darker than the on they’d left. Ayla didn’t technically have any sick days left for the year at NPE, but she was hopeful that Randy could cover for her. Jeff would probably be happy she wasn’t there, anyway, although as her co-worker J.R. had said countless times, “If Jeff doesn’t like you, you must be doing something right.”

Ayla sent Lupe a text asking if she could stay with Preston until she’d pick him up and drop him on her way to her second job, and Lupe agreed.

Mick drove Ayla back to his condo, valet parked his Navigator, and the two of them strolled inside. On the elevator up to his floor, they could barely contain themselves, kissing, groping and clawing at each other until they reached Mick’s floor and his elderly, snooty neighbor caught them making out like teenagers when the door opened. She gave them a disapproving glare as they eased past her and into the hallway.

“Have a pleasant evening, Mrs. Roban,” Mick said with a bow and flourish. Her eyes widened and she made a “Hrmph!” sound.

“Roban?” Ayla asked. “Like the jewelry store Roban family?”

“Exactly the ones,” Mick replied. “She lives here. I’ve never seen him. I think he has a place on a golf course somewhere. And a girlfriend your age.”

“That’s kind of gross. He’s got to be, what, almost eighty?”

“If you’ve waited until now to tell me you don’t fancy older men, I’m going to be terribly disappointed,” Mick joked.

“Every girl likes older men,” Ayla replied. “But there’s a difference between a silver fox and a… well, whatever somebody old enough to be your great-grandfather is.”

“I’m a silver fox, then?” Mick asked, opening the door, letting Ayla in, then locking it behind him. Before she could answer, he had her hands above her head, back to the door, kissing her voraciously.

Between kissing Ayla’s neck and mouth, Mick spoke directly into her ear. “I’ve thought about you… ever since… you’re a work of art… I’ve been obsessed with you… and I never even knew your name.”

Ayla writhed and whimpered under his assault, the spaghetti straps of her sundress sliding down her shoulders and down her body, leaving her clad in only her sandals and panties.

Mick kissed her bare shoulders and her collarbone. Ayla gasped when he kissed her hard on the mouth and pressed his hips forward, his erection separated from where she so desperately needed it by only her sodden panties and his tented pants and boxers. She felt it pulse angrily as he kissed her.

Ayla reached for Mick’s shirt, trying to pull it off, but instead he bent down and placed an arm behind her knees, lifting her effortlessly into the air and carrying her through his condo toward the bedroom.

Focused

entirely on Mick, throwing her arms behind his head and kissing him as he walked, Ayla was only vaguely aware of the floor to ceiling windows with the spectacular Strip view and the elegantly appointed post-modern furnishings in Mick’s home. She knew Arroyo Place’s reputation for housing the rich and beautiful of Las Vegas, alongside the movers and shakers in the gaming industry. When she learned that Mick lived there, she was impressed, but taken aback.

She knew full well that Arroyo Place residents didn’t mix with National Parcel Express hourly employees like herself.