Sleepless in Las Vegas (26 page)

“Which is how Miss Doyle views it, too.”

“I wonder about that.” He turned on South Myrtle Avenue. “My house is up here. By the way, I’ll text you Yuri’s name and a link later tonight. Want you to check out what he looks like.”

“F’sure,” she murmured as they approached the house.

The streetlights cast a surreal light on the gutted, burned building. Drake pulled over to the far side of the road and stopped but kept the engine running. He rolled down his window and looked at it.

The silence was eerie, broken only by a dog barking in the distance. The stench of smoke permeated the air. Yellow crime tape and no-trespassing signs circled the charred remains.

The devastation wakened memories of New Orleans in Val. The emptiness. The hope against hope that something had survived. “Do you want to get out and look around?”

“What’s the point? Total loss.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He rolled up his window, then turned to her and gently put his hand under her chin, tilting her face so he could see it better.

“Fire and water,” he murmured.

* * *

A
FTER
LEAVING
D
RAKE’S
old house, they listened to a local soft rock station on the radio. Five songs later, Drake parked in front of Val’s house and killed the engine.

“I’m going back to the office, pick up Hearsay. In the morning, Li’l Bit will follow me over in his car, and I’ll park yours out in front. Plan to put some time in at the office after that.”

“Li’l Bit. Funny name.”

“Met him when I subcontracted a process service, but our friendship took off after I helped him out of a jam.”

There weren’t as many lights on this street, making it darker inside the car. She sensed something in the air—a tension, an expectancy—and wished she could see the look in his eyes. He might be a master at hiding his emotions, but those gray eyes signaled more than he realized.

“Thanks again for inviting me to your family’s for dinner.”

He chuckled under his breath. “Next time, it’ll be a family get-together, not a group therapy session.”

She caught his familiar, masculine scent, felt a tingling in the pit of her stomach. The air seemed to thrum with their connection, their energy.

Across the street, the neighbor’s porch light went on. A group of people, laughing and talking, exited the front door. A small black dog, tail wagging, scampered outside with them, barking.

The image of Drake’s home, reduced to scorched rubble, rose in her mind. Seeing the horrifying destruction firsthand, knowing how recently it had occurred, jarred her.

Here he sat, looking so calm, so controlled…but she didn’t buy the facade. She had experienced such devastation and loss, knew how emotions—exhaustion, anger, confusion—bombarded a person those first days after the trauma. She remembered a social worker walking through the Superdome, asking people what they needed, offering coping tips. Although dazed and frightened, Val had forced herself to memorize three tips that became her mantra over the following days and weeks. Even now, eight years later, she could repeat them in her sleep.

Identify concrete needs.

Don’t make important decisions.

Find ways to alleviate stress.

The best thing she could do for Drake right now was help him cope. As much as she’d prefer to go for the gusto, it did a disservice to him, her, too, to behave like some P.I. intern with more hormones than sense. She needed to be his friend and work associate. If they were meant to be more, that would come in time. But not right now.

She put her hand on the door handle. “Need anything else for Monday’s interview with Tony?”

“No.”

Was there disappointment in his voice?

“Whenever you get the rental car back here is fine. Anytime Sunday works, I don’t have plans.” She opened the door.

“Val, wait.”

She paused, looking back at his shadowy face.

“Want to…do something tomorrow night?”

“Rain check?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” she said softly.

He blew out a breath. She could feel his withdrawal. Probably had that look of puzzlement on his face. The one that made him look shy and sweet, although based on the way his massive, shadowy form hunched over the steering wheel, more like one of those churlish gargoyles on a French Quarter balcony. Shy and sweet didn’t peg his mood at the moment.

This wasn’t going well. She needed to explain.

“You need to identify your concrete needs, not make important decisions, alleviate stress.”

He snorted with disbelief. “Are you a shrink all of a sudden?”

“No,” she said, forcing herself to sound calm, together. “I’m your friend.”

He started the car and revved the engine like a race car driver at the start line. “Get out and close the door.”

His words stung. “I didn’t explain that well. What I meant was—”

“Val, enough.”

“I need to get my purse.” She grabbed it, then paused. With her other hand, she reached out, offering peacemaking fingertips. “You’re going through a difficult—”

He snarled something about crazy who dats and she jumped back, shoving the door shut with a slam.

Standing on the sidewalk, she watched the plumes of smoke from his burning-rubber peel out as he erratically drove her rental Honda down the street. It truly was disheartening when people didn’t aspire to be mannerly and communicative, even in times of stress.

Across the street, the neighbors stood still, nobody laughing or talking, staring silently at her. Even the dog had stopped barking.

She plastered a smile on her face and waved. “G’night, y’all!”

Shivering, she walked to the front door, rubbing her arms as though it was chilly out, knowing it had nothing to do with the weather but the absence of the physical and emotional warmth she had desired. Yes,
desired.
Sensations pounded and raged within her, but she had made a choice to do the right thing and put his well-being ahead of her hot, sticky, primal needs.

But damn, he had asked her out.

These past eight years, Val had dated off and on, but she eventually found fault with the guy and ended things. Or she acted like a jerk and to her relief, he ended things. Could it be that until she absolved herself for abandoning Nanny, she wouldn’t allow herself to risk a deep attachment with anyone else? Especially risk falling in love, because that meant opening herself to feeling wanted and good and safe?

The realization surprised her. How could she—a woman who could work and fight so hard for a career—also stand in the way of her own personal happiness? It just seemed plain dumb, and yet that’s what she had done.

So now what? Call him up and say, “Hey, I know I said no, but how about yes instead?” Considering the way he’d left skid marks on the street tonight, she seriously doubted the man would be receptive to her changing her mind, if he even picked up the call after seeing her caller ID.

Feeling glum, she stepped onto the porch and halted. Opening her purse, she angled it under the porch light. What a mess. Honestly, bag ladies carried around less stuff then she did.

She pawed through the clutter for the house key, mentally flogging herself for cluttering up her relationship with Drake, too.

Just as she found her keys, the front door clicked open.

Jaz stood there, wearing a trench coat, her face slathered with makeup.

“Hey, bay-bee!” She swept back a curl of her raven hair. “I was just on my way out.”

Val glanced at her cousin’s black seamed stockings and leopard-print stilettos with pointy toes. “Where you fixin’ to go?”

“Have an interview with a club manager at ten. He’s looking for burlesque dancers.”

“You’re wearing your burlesque outfit under that coat?”

Jaz flipped it open. “Whattya think?”

Val checked out her barely legal cousin’s breasts, damn near spilling out of a leopard corset trimmed in red satin with a black tulle skirt that barely covered her whoozit.

“You look like a hooker.”

Jaz vigorously closed her coat. “I cannot believe,” she muttered indignantly, cinching the belt, “that you just called me that.”

“Well, if it looks like a duck…”

With a haughty toss of her neonoir head, she gave Val a withering drop-dead look.

“Don’t be so juvenile,” Val muttered, staring into her cousin’s eyes, determined to not be the first to blink. “Going on an interview dressed like that, at
ten o’clock at night,
in
Las Vegas,
is asking for trouble.”

“Ten p.m. in Las Vegas is like noon anywhere else in the world.”

“I see they’re also teaching logic at Dottie the Body’s burlesque school.”

Jaz sniffed. “You’re insufferable.”

“Yeah, well, you blinked first.”

Del and Char’s car wasn’t parked in the driveway. Probably working late at the Gumbo Stop.

“If you thought what you were doing was acceptable,” Val said, “you wouldn’t be sneaking out, dressed like some kind of burlesque cat in heat, before your mama and daddy get home.”

“Cat in—?” Jaz heaved an affronted gasp and fisted her hand on her hip. “My, listen to Miss Holier-Than-Thou. The other night, as I recall, you came home dressed up like some kind of
putain
after trying to seduce a strange man you’d never laid eyes on before in your life, in the
parking lot
of one of the biggest dive bars in the city.”

She had a point.

Nevertheless, it pissed Val off that her cousin would throw out
putain,
French for “prostitute,” in the heat of an argument. As though to say, “I might be losing my temper, but I never lose my sophistication.”

“That was a
forfait,
” Val said, not above flaunting a little sophistication herself.

Jaz frowned. “What does that mean?”

Val didn’t have a clue. She’d overhead it once, and liked how it sounded. “It’s French for ‘job.’”

“So strumpin’ in a parking lot is your
forfait,
sugar? Bein’ a burlesque dancer is going to be my
career!
” She paused, then dropped her fist-on-jutted-hip stance and stuck out her slick crimson bottom lip in a pout. “Cuz,” she whined, “I don’t like it when we argue.”

Val released a heavy sigh. “Me, neither. It’s just that I feel protective of you, Jaz. I support your burlesque dreams, but…who is this guy you’re meeting anyway?

“Manager of the Boom Boom Room.”

“The
Boom Boom Room?
” Val looked up at the heavens, counted five stars, then one more for good measure, before meeting her cousin’s eyes again.

“Bless your heart,” she said, oozing sweetness, “That’s a
bar,
dawlin’, not a theater.” What she really wanted to say was,
if Dino’s is a dive, the Boom Boom Room is one big ol’ nasty belly flop.

“They’ve built a stage in the back room,” Jasmyn said, all bubbly, “where they’ll feature monthly burlesque shows.”

Val could only imagine what that backroom stage looked like. Somebody’s kitchen table in a cleaned-out storage room?

Arguing didn’t change her cousin’s mind. Neither did being so sweet a frozen cube sugar could’ve melted in Val’s mouth. Time to put her foot down.

She crossed her arms, faced her cousin straight on. “I won’t let you go, and that’s that. Someday you’ll thank me for this.”

Arching a shapely eyebrow in profound disdain, Jaz brushed past her. “Excuse me, but I already have a mama.”

Val stood on the porch, watching her cousin head down the walk to her car, her heels clicking purposefully.

At least Jaz didn’t peel out, burning rubber. But then, she was a sophisticated girl.

* * *

D
RAKE
PICKED
UP
the eight-track tape case stuck behind the potted plant, opened it and retrieved the spare key. Inserting it into the lock, he gave it a twist and pushed open the door. It slammed against the sliding chain lock.

He reminded himself that Li’l Bit was a good friend, even if he was a space cadet who left a key outside for Drake to let himself in, then locked the door from the inside.

“It’s Drake,” he called through the slightly open door. “Open up.”

Hearsay, who’d been sniffing the plant intensely, looked up, his ears perked.

Seconds later, Li’l Bit’s sleepy face peered through the crack. “Dude, sorry. Sliding that chain lock is an autopilot thing.”

A moment later, Li’l reopened the door and Drake stepped inside.

Hearsay trotted behind him as he entered the living room, which still smelled like marijuana smoke, but to Li’l Bit’s credit, the smell wasn’t as bad since he’d been taking his smoke breaks in the bathroom. The room also smelled like popcorn, a large bowl of which sat on the steamer-trunk coffee table next to several bottles of beer.

“Hungry, man? Just made popcorn.”

Drake shook his head. “Had dinner at Mom’s.”

“Going to watch
The Man Who Fell to Earth,
” Li’l Bit said. He wore a pair of wrinkled plaid shorts and a T-shirt that read
Is This Your Homework, Larry?
“David Bowie plays a humanoid alien who falls to Earth. He rocks in this film.”

“Sounds interesting, but we have a problem.”

Li’l Bit, who’d been shuffling toward the couch, froze. Turning, he stared at Drake for a long, drawn-out moment.

“Yuri followed you here,” he said in a dead-solemn tone. “This is getting severely unradical.”

“No.” Drake pointed at the couch. “That’s my bed, and you’re on it.”

He looked at the couch, back to Drake. “Going to bed soon?”

“Yes.”

“Want to watch some
Man Who Fell to Earth
first?”

“No. It’s too much like my life right now.”

“I get your meaning, Aqua Man. You need some space, time to chill and heal.” He looked at Hearsay, who had curled up next to the couch. “How’s our boy?”

“Like his old self.”

“Animals, man…” Li’l Bit’s eyes moistened. “They rule the earth.”

He decided to step over that conversation. “Got a favor to ask.”

“After that parking ticket problem you got me out of, anything. Name it.”