The Rivals

“Umm… I’ll take the same thing she’s having.”

The waiter nodded. “Very good, sir.”

After he disappeared, Sophia lifted her wine glass to her lips, hiding a smirk. “You have no idea what you just ordered, do you?”

I shook my head. “Not a damn clue.”

A few more interruptions followed. The busboy brought bread, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil, and the restaurant manager walked over to introduce himself. Everyone at the hotel recognized us now. Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately for Sophia—the moment had fizzled by the time we were alone again. And even if it hadn’t, the direction Sophia took the conversation certainly would have killed it.

“Can I ask how long you’ve been in recovery?”

“Fourteen months.”

She nodded. “Good for you. I honestly had no idea. And here I thought our families did such a good job tracking all the gossip on each other.”

“That’s only true of the stuff they want people to know. But we all bury the things that might blemish the family name too much.” I took the lemon off the side of my glass and squeezed it into my seltzer. “As far as the world knows, your mother divorced your father in an amicable split. If we hadn’t spent that night together after the prom, I wouldn’t have even known he’d left you guys.”

Sophia tilted her head and studied me for a moment. “You never mentioned what I told you that night to anyone in your family, did you? I don’t think I realized until this moment that you could have leaked the truth as gossip. I’m sure your father or grandfather would have shared it if you’d mentioned it to them.”

I sipped my seltzer. “You told me that while we were lying in your bed. Give me a little more credit than that.”

Sophia looked away but nodded. “So…the psychiatrist you go to, is that part of your recovery?”

I nodded. “It’s part of my grandfather’s recovery plan for me, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I want to keep my job, I have to do what he says. Fourteen months ago, I wound up in the emergency room after nearly drinking myself to death. I did thirty days in rehab to dry out. During that time, my father and grandfather personally stepped in to take over the properties I ran. Las Vegas hotels have to be watched like a hawk. You tend to get a lot of gamblers with money problems as employees, and the theft and embezzlement can run rampant if no one’s minding the store.”

I shook my head. “They had to clean house while I was gone. I’d been too wasted most of the time to notice people stealing right under my nose. A woman I’d been sleeping with tried to blackmail my family with videos of me doing stupid shit, like taking a piss in the hotel’s fountain. It wasn’t pretty. The day I got out of rehab, my grandfather gave me an ultimatum: ‘Do exactly what I say or you’re on your own.’ Psychiatrist, AA meetings, random piss testing—you name it. I’m a puppet, and he holds the strings.”

“Wow. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure if I spiraled out of control and wound up in the emergency room, my father would hang up on the call and never even come.”

I forced a smile. But really, her father pissed me off more than my own family did. At least mine had reason to treat me like dirt. I was a fuckup.

The waiter showed up with our food, and I was glad to move on from this conversation. I cut into my steak and steered things in an entirely different direction. “So, have you heard from the playwright since he and I had a nice chat?”

“He sent me a text, basically saying I had a lot of nerve letting another man answer my phone. I blocked him from calling or texting after that.”

I smiled. “Good for you.”

“What about you? Any disastrous relationships since we parted ways prom night?”

“I think those are the only kind I’ve had over the last twelve years.”

“No serious girlfriend at all?”

“There was one. Brooke. We were together for a little over a year.”

Sophia wiped her mouth with a napkin. “What happened there?”

“I fucked it up. We got together a few months before Caroline died five years ago. I spun out of control after that. Eventually, she didn’t want to put up with my crap anymore.” I shrugged. “I don’t blame her.”

I saw sympathy in Sophia’s eyes and hated it. I guess I hadn’t steered us in the right direction after all. “Not to change from the happy topics we’ve been discussing, but I’m down to two issues with the union—number of sick days and the quota for how many rooms the cleaning crew are required to clean per shift.”

“Oh, that’s great. Anything I can do to help?”