Shine Not Burn (5 page)

I had some time yet.
 
I was only twenty-five.
 
My plans were still on track, even if Luke wasn’t on board with them anymore.
 
Junior partner by beginning of next year.
 
Married by the year after.
 
Babies a couple years after that.
 
And then full partner at the firm.
 
Bam.
 
Done with all the hard stuff by thirty-five, and then smooth sailing from then on out.

I looked at my wet head in the mirror and shrugged, my hair several inches past my shoulders and grown-out bangs tickling my eyes.
 
There are plenty of fish in the sea.
 
There has to be one out there who’d want me and who’d find my lifeplan appealing.
 
It was the perfect plan, I was sure of it.
 
I’d carefully developed it and worked towards accomplishing it for over a decade.
 
It was a life journey a million guys would love to be a part of.
 
Now all I had to do was find the right guy.
 
The one who would stick.
 
I ignored the specters that tried to rise up out of my past to haunt me with the misery I’d worked so hard to leave behind.
 
Not today, bad memories.
 
Today, I am invincible and I will have fun.

I walked into the other room, noticing that Candice and Kelly were both out on the balcony with drinks in their hands.
 
I joined them, my breath momentarily taken from me as the intense heat of the day hit me full force.
 
It felt like walking into an open oven set at four hundred and fifty degrees.
 
I took Candice’s drink from her hand.
 
“Don’t drink and cut hair, that’s my motto.”
 
I took a big swig of it and nearly gagged, the alcohol setting my throat on fire.

Kelly laughed before lifting her glass in my direction and taking a long sip of her own cocktail.

“Holy crap,” I said, my voice severely strained, “what was that?
 
Lighter fluid?
 
Did I just drink lighter fluid?”
 
I breathed out several times loudly and held my hand up as a caution.
 
“No one light a match.
 
I’ll blow up or combust or something.”

Candice waved my concerns away.
 
“That only happens if you hold in your gas.
 
Come sit down.”
 
She gestured to the chair in front of her.

My hand froze in the middle of putting the glass to my lips again.
 
I pulled it away.
 
“Uhhhh, what?”

Kelly was standing very still too, a confused expression coming over her face.

“You heard me,” said Candice, sounding very confident.
 
“If you hold in your gas, if you don’t break wind, you can spontaneously combust.”
 
She looked at us like we were the stupid ones. “It’s a medical fact, look it up.”

“Again. A reminder of how your talents were wasted by you not going into medicine.” I shook my head in sheer amazement.
 
“Where did you learn this particular fact, may I ask?”

“Why are you asking?” asked Kelly, sighing.
 
“You know you’re not going to like the answer.”

“If you must know, I saw it on Southpark,” said Candice, lifting her chin in the air.

“Southpark,” I deadpanned.
 
I lifted up a finger and pantomimed cleaning out my ear.
 
“We’re getting our scientific medical facts from Southpark episodes now?”
 
Candice scared me often.
 
This was one of those moments where I wondered how she got through a single day without getting herself run over by a car or a person on a bike.
 
Or a toddler on a tricycle.

“Hey, say what you want, but they bring up a lot of real world situations on that show and deal with them in a way that gets people talking.”
 
She pushed on my shoulder.
 
“Now sit.
 
I have magic to do here.”
 
She lifted up a lock of my hair.
 
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Desperate?” I said, feeling like I’d just fallen down the rabbit hole.
 
Thank God she was better with hair than she was with medical knowledge or I’d be seriously screwed.
 
I took another big swig of the firewater.

“Yes, desperate.
 
With a capital D.
 
You just got dumped by a dick-for-brains, you’re in Vegas,” she looked at her watch, “and it’s eight o’clock and you’re still sober.”
 
She put her fingers on the bottom of my glass and pushed it towards my face.
 
“Drink up, sister of my heart.
 
Relax and let Candice the Great make you beautiful.
 
We’re going to help you find a
new
man tonight.
 
A hot one!”
 
She giggled a little too crazily.

I put my hand out, taking Kelly’s fingers in mine.
 
“Pray for me, Kells.”

“Our father who art in heaven…,” she said, drowning out the rest of her sentence with swallows of her drink.
 
Her eyes crossed as the liquid burned its way down her throat, but that didn’t stop her from going for more of it just seconds later.

I closed my eyes and drank the rest of my cocktail
and
the second round of it that Kelly put in my glass, listening to the snip, snip, snip of Candice’s scissors near my ears.
 
I prayed I wouldn’t look like Pink by the time she was done because I so looked like a little man when I had short hair.

My mind strayed to thoughts of Luke, the motions of Candice moving my hair around making me totally relaxed and zoned out.
 
The cocktail might also have had something to do with that feeling of floating, but I didn’t fight it.

Why had I continued dating that turd after he’d given me the liposuction gift certificate?
 
And the cheating thing?
 
A kiss isn’t that big a deal, but I’d been thinking for a while that there’d been more than a kiss for him to confess.
 
I’d never pushed him to tell me more because I hadn’t wanted to know the truth.
 
Why?
 
Because the truth would have messed up my plans.
 
My crazy plans.
 
Was I so dead set on seeing them to fruition that I’d force any old guy into the mold?
 
Apparently so.
 
How depressing.
 
I hadn’t even told Kelly and Candice everything there was to tell about Luke.
 
About all the times he made comments about my hips.
 
About how he was always trying to convince me to go blonde and get a boob job.
 
They hated him enough without me giving them more fuel for the fire.
 
I felt like crying, thinking about how much of myself I’d lost over the last three years.
 
I’d forgotten what it meant to be strong and spontaneous and fearless.
 
I’d let Luke mow me over so that he wouldn’t leave me.
 
So that we could still get married and have kids.
 
God, how pitiful can I possibly be?

I was jerked out of my reverie by Candice’s proclamation.
 
“And I’m spent!” she said, putting her scissors down on the table next to my chair.
 
“Behold.
 
The new and improved Andie Marks.
 
Party Girl is in the hizzy house.”

“Party palace,” said Kelly, lifting up her drink.
 
Her arm swayed a little unsteadily.
 
“Party girl is in the party palace.
 
This is a
palace.”
 
Her arm swept the space in front of her as she spun, making it unclear whether she was referring to the hotel room or Las Vegas itself.

I stood, a little unsteady on my feet.
 
“Whoa.
 
Dizzy.”

“Get her another drink,” said Candice, handing my glass to Kelly.

“One more cocktail, coming right up!” Kelly banged past my chair and into the hotel room.

“She’d better slow down or she’s going to burn out before the fun really gets going,” I said, stepping into the room behind her.
 
“Am I supposed to dry this or something?” I asked, reaching up to feel my still-wet head.

“I’ll blow it out for you, but you need to shower first.
 
Get all that hair off you and then you can change into what you’re wearing tonight.
 
I’ll finish with a quick blow and then we can go to dinner.”

I looked down at my jeans and flowy blouse.
 
“I thought this was what I was wearing.”

Candice tsk-tsked at me.
 
“No, no, no-no-no, you are not wearing that Bohemian get-up out for a night out on the town.
 
No.
 
A dress.
 
A tight black one.
 
And heels.”

“But I didn’t bring one.”
 
I pouted, feeling like Cinderella surrounded by well-dressed step-sisters.

“Not to worry.
 
I brought back-up,” said Candice.
 
“I’ll put something together for you while you’re in the shower, don’t worry.”

I looked right at her chest.
 
“I’m not going to fit into your clothes, Candice.
 
Not unless I stuff an entire roll of toilet paper in my bra which I’m not going to do so don’t even try it.”
 
I pointed a threatening finger at her and narrowed my gaze, just so she’d know how much I meant it.
 
I wouldn’t put it past her to try and force me to stuff my bra.
 
She’d done it before in college, and the wet t-shirt contest that had sprung up spontaneously at the party we’d been attending hadn’t ended well.
 
I was scarred for life, in fact.
 
I could never look at a wad of toilet paper again without seeing soggy boobs falling out of my t-shirt and landing on the ground at my feet.

“Just go shower and leave the details to me, okay?”
 
Her smile was way too dangerous for comfort, but I suddenly realized I had to pee, so I left her standing there with her nefarious plans in favor of emptying my bladder.

“I’m not going to stuff my bra with toilet paper.
 
I’m not,” I mumbled as I made my way to the toilet.

Chapter Six

“YOU MADE ME COME ALL this way and you didn’t think to make hotel reservations?”
 
Mack shook his head at his little brother.
 
Ian’s two friends were standing just behind him, too engrossed with checking scantily clad women walking by to care about not having a room to stay in for the night.

“How was I supposed to know the place was going to be so packed?”
 
Ian scowled, hitching up his bag onto his shoulder uncomfortably.
 
“There’s like a thousand hotels in this town.”

“Well, come on,” said Mack, moving his hat around on his head a little.
 
It was a nervous gesture this time, not just a sweaty, itchy head.
 
“Let’s at least see if we can talk one of these bellhops into looking after our bags while we get some grub.”

Thirty minutes later they were sitting at a table for four, diving into plates piled high with all-you-can-eat buffet finds.
 
Their bags were locked in a small room just behind the reservation desk, and the ticket to retrieve them rested safely under Mack’s hat.

“Man, I ain’t never seen so much food in one place in all my life,” said Bo, Ian’s best friend since grade school.

“That’s cuz you’ve never been outside Baker your entire life,” said Ian.
 
“They have buffets like this all over Portland.”
 
He shoveled a huge mouthful of potato salad in his mouth, not letting it get in the way of his conversation.
 
“See, the difference is, here in Vegas?
 
They got all kinds of food, like seafood, steaks, Indian food, vegetarian garbage.
 
Anyone can come to Vegas and have a good time.”
 
He glanced up at his brother before spearing a hunk of beef.
 
“Even Mack.”

Ian’s friends snickered.

“Laugh it up, boys, but I came here to do some business.
 
I got plans.”
 
Mack took a bite of his overcooked steak and cringed.
 
“Jesus Mary and Joseph, this meat is like jerky.
 
Remember that jerky you made with Mom that one year, with the deer meat?”
 
He poked the lump of meat he wasn’t going to finish.
 
“This stuff is worse.”

“Oh, I remember that,” said Dillon, Ian’s other friend.
 
“The dog wouldn’t even eat it.”

Mack pushed his plate away and drained his beer.
 
“I have a date at the blackjack tables.
 
Move it,” he said to Dillon, elbowing him in the ribs.

“Aren’t you gonna wait for us?” asked Ian, looking first at his brother and then at his half-full plate.

“You kidding?
 
If I know you, you still have at least three more trips to the buffet before you’re done.
 
If I start now, I’ll be up a grand before you’re done with dessert.”

Ian snorted.
 
“Fine, mister high roller, go on with your badass self.
 
After we’re done tearin’ up the buffet, we’ll come find you.
 
Just don’t leave the casino here in the hotel.”
 
He stabbed his fork into five layers of various foods and stuffed them into his mouth, his cheeks bulging with the effort of chewing it all.