Beautiful Bombshell (Beautiful Bastard 2.5)

Will looked over at the table, meeting my eyes. And, oh, shit. In a rush I burst out laughing, understanding dawning. Johnny had totally f**ked with us, and from the second the woman found him, Will knew exactly what we’d done. The gauntlet had most definitely been thrown.

“That son of a bitch,” Max swore. But I didn’t have time to ask because it looked like Red was ready to put the moves on Will.

We all watched in rapt silence as the escort leaned in, whispering something in his ear. Her hand was big—bigger than my own—and she placed it against his chest, fingers twisting in the fabric. Will laughed, shaking his head before nodding to us at the table.

With a seductive grin, she gripped his shirt and pulled him forward, kissing him hard on the lips. Damn.

He stepped away in a daze and made his way back to the table. As he took his seat we each looked at the other, unsure of what had actually happened. Will was silent for a moment, blinking several times before reaching for his drink. He drained it in one pull and then took a deep breath.

“You’re a bunch of a**holes,” he said, leaning back in his chair and popping a shrimp into his mouth. “But as far as kissing a dude went, that actually wasn’t bad.”

Honestly, that one really had ended up in the Win column for Will. I glanced across the table to where he perused the dessert tray, still wearing the same smug f**king grin.

“Am I really really drunk or did we accidentally hire a male prostitute to distract our friend?” I asked Max.

He didn’t answer, just held up his phone displaying his most recently delivered text message: a picture of Johnny’s hand, middle finger extended. Perfect.

I laughed, putting my drink down with a bit more of a crash than I’d intended. “I’m not going to say I told you so but for the record, I definitely did.”

“Fuck you.” Max slumped back in his seat, pushing his hands into his hair. “This isn’t over. He’s going to bide his time, and then completely ruin us. Do you have any idea what I’ve done tonight to be with this woman? I snuck out on my best friend’s stag weekend. I stole a limousine. I hired my other best friend a drag queen, Bennett.”

Maybe it was the alcohol buzzing in my system, or the absolute absurdity of the situation, but I started to laugh, and then I couldn’t stop.

“I think Ben’s finally lost it,” Henry said. “Who called today?” He pulled a wrinkled slip of paper from his pocket, presumably with the bets they’d each taken earlier in the day. “Damnit. It was Max.”

I sat back in my seat and scrubbed my face. Max was right: this definitely wasn’t over.

Six

Max Stella

The din of voices in the bar, glasses clinking, and sounds of ringing slot machines all around us was occasionally disrupted by the loud bursts of laughter by the world’s biggest wanker, Will.

“Wonder what it’d be like to get head from a male prostitute?” he mused. “Like, okay, assuming of course it wasn’t illegal, and you didn’t even know it was a guy. I bet that would be some good suction.”

I shrugged, feeling the humor of the situation bubble up inside me and burst out. “I bet it would be bloody fantastic.”

“Strong grip,” Bennett agreed, laughing.

“Bigger tongue for the equipment if you know what I’m saying,” I added.

“Well, fuck. Now you’re making me wish I’d given him a go.” Will picked up his empty drink glass and raised it for the waiter to bring another. “Where are we headed next?”

“Thought we could hit Tao, at the Venetian,” I suggested. “Or head back to the Bellagio?”

“Does anyone actually know where Henry is?” Bennett asked, looking around for only a few seconds before seeming to decide he didn’t care enough to get up.

But then Chloe and Sara appeared around a corner, arms linked and making a beeline for a blackjack table only about ten yards from the bar. Bennett straightened instinctively, drawing Will’s attention.

“You’ve got to be f**king kidding me,” Will groaned, following Ben’s gaze. With mumbled thanks, he took his drink from the waiter. “They don’t even know you’re here, do they? Oh my God, they do. That’s why you’ve both been idiots all night. It’s like the four of you have subconscious homing devices implanted in your genitalia.” He sighed. “It all makes sense now.”

I stood at the same time as Bennett, stretching my arms over my head before tucking my dress shirt back into the waist of my trousers. Will could give me all the shit he wanted. I was going to Sara.

“If you don’t mind, gentlemen, it looks like I’ll be trying my hand at blackjack this evening.”

I made my way out of the bar and to the table where the girls were organizing their chips and being dealt in. Finding a seat next to Chloe, I met Sara’s eyes just a couple of seats down, giving her a little wink.

“Max,” she said, simply, smiling.

“Petal,” I acknowledged with a nod.

Pulling a few chips from my pocket, I had the croupier break them into smaller denominations and add me to the hand.

“I’m gonna win some money,” Chloe informed the table.

“I’d love to see that,” I murmured, frowning as the dealer laid down my faceup card. A five of hearts.

“As would I.” Bennett slid easily into the last empty chair at the table, on the opposite side of the half circle from Chloe and beside Sara. Between me and Sara was a skinny man wearing a ten-gallon hat and one of the most fantastic bits of facial hair I’d ever seen.

When I busted with a score of twenty-five, I turned to look at the man more closely. “Mate, that is a bloody brilliant mustache.”

He tipped his hat, thanking me before busting with a twenty-two.

Chloe held, and the dealer revealed that Chloe had both the ace and jack of spades. The house had a jack on the up card, but flipped the hole card: a king. The dealer paid out Chloe’s winnings before collecting the cards on the table with a sweep of her hands.

“Told you!” Chloe sang, dancing in her seat and blowing Bennett a kiss. “It’s my lucky night.”

He responded with a tiny lift of his brow.

Looking across the room to the bar, I found Will, who was sipping his drink and f**king around on his phone. He looked up and caught my eye after a moment, giving me a silent fuck-you face, and I waved, indicating that I’d be back soon.

The problem was, blackjack was f**king fun. Chloe was cleaning up, winning hand after hand. And although Bennett and I were systematically losing all of our money, it didn’t bloody matter. The dealer was easygoing, Sara’s laugh was infectious, and Mustache had started cracking the best awful jokes between each hand.

“Doctor walks into a room,” he said, running his fingers over his mustache and winking at Chloe. “Says hi to the patient on the exam table, goes to make note of something on his chart.”

The dealer dealt our facedown cards and we all looked at the table in time to see the next cards arriving faceup.

“He realizes he’s holding a thermometer and frowns. ‘Well, fuck,’ he says, ‘some a**hole’s got my pen.’?”

And because her sense of humor was always easy and gutter-loving, Sara completely lost it, falling onto the soft padded edge of the table in laughter and looking lovelier than I think she had all night. She was flushed from whatever she’d had to drink, but even more than that, she looked positively blissful. When she looked up and caught me staring, her smile straightened as if liquid heat had trickled into her veins, and she blinked down to look at my mouth. Going back to find her at the theater had been the best decision of my night.

Come to think of it, the only good one. I gave her a wink, licked my lips.

“You two going to fornicate or play some goddamn cards?” Chloe asked, having decided to stay with a nine showing; the table showed a six, and busted, hitting seven on top of a hole card of nine.

“Shut your gob, woman,” I hissed playfully.

“A young guy walks into a bar,” our new acquaintance started as the dealer cleared the hand, and f**k I’d decided this was the best man ever to have at a blackjack table. The dealer began the process of shuffling the decks. “He orders ten shots of whiskey. The bartender says, ‘Damn, kid,’ but lines them up anyway.”