Then he smacked her ass, shifted her off him, and said in a teasing tone, “Woman, you’re taking too long. We need to go.”
“You’re lucky I love you and let you talk to me that way,” she said, with a wink.
“I am lucky that you love me. I am the luckiest son-of-a-bitch.”
He didn’t need that tie. He had her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Friday, 10:08 p.m., Las Vegas
He watched her walk away in the club, zigzagging through the slew of half-drunk, mostly-wasted, and completely-trashed patrons at Brent’s club.
Finally, he lost sight of her long red locks as she turned the corner to the restrooms.
When he shifted his attention back to Brent, his brother was staring hard at him as if to say what gives.
“What?”
“What am I? Chopped liver?”
“Compared to her? More like chopped liverwurst,” Clay teased, then took a drink of his scotch. He was in the not-quite-drunk-but-most-definitely-half-buzzed category. Brent was steely-eyed sober, and had one more show tonight. He’d finished his eight p.m. set before a raucous crowd that had rewarded him with the one thing a comedian craves more than anything—uncontrollable laugher. A woman in the back of the club had laughed so loudly during his routine on how hard it is to shave your own balls that she’d snorted, then shouted that she planned to toss her panties on stage at the end of the show.
She’d been mostly drunk, and had wound up keeping her clothes on, but had indeed rushed the stage after, trying to give him her number. Now, the stage was clear and “Luck Be a Lady” by Frank Sinatra piped through the club’s sound system before Brent’s late-night set kicked off soon.
“Maybe I won’t relinquish that ring to you then.”
Clay clapped him on the back. Hard. “Yeah. I’m not even going to acknowledge you said that.”
“But yet you just did.”
“So, how’s the ring?”
Brent clasped his fingers together and fluttered his eyelashes, somehow managing to rearrange his features to look like a simpering Disney cartoon character. “Oh, it’s just so, so pretty,” he said in an affected tone.
Clay rolled his eyes. “Seriously. We’re all set for tomorrow, night?”
Brent took a drink of his Diet Coke and nodded. Both men were serious now. Clay’s brother might be a jokester, but he knew that his role as wingman in this proposal plan was not be toyed with. “Everything is in place. Think she’ll say yes?”
Clay had complete and utter confidence in their love, but it was never a love to take for granted. Nor was a yes. He’d already made assumptions once and had nearly lost her. There would be no presumptions of a yes; only a great hope for one. “I hope so,” he answered plainly.
Brent smiled. “She’ll say yes.”
“Thanks again for taking care of the package today. I’ll get that tomorrow too. And I got your text that all was well, but also wanted to ask, did you talk to your friend in more detail about security? Are they watching Julia?”
“I did talk to her after Julia left with you. Mindy said there’s no special attention being paid to her. All the hotels had beefed up security after a string of robberies a few months ago at some casinos off the Strip. Can’t be too safe, she said. They thought it was mob-related. Michael Lawson is the Tony Soprano of this town; he runs a few rackets here in Vegas, but no one ever found a connection to the robberies. Besides, that’s not Lawson’s style—stealing chips. Anyway, a few were solved, but now they’re thinking the thieves are just thieves, plain and simple, and they’ve spread out into a small pickpocket ring, lifting chips here and there. Dealers are coming up short at the end of the night. That’s making the casinos more concerned in general, and some are even offering rewards for information leading to apprehension,” Brent said, and the extra men in suits thronging the hotel premises now made sense. Casinos were always going to be targets for brazen robbers, but robbers were not mobsters. They went after money, not people, so he could breathe a little easier.
“Should I be concerned about a pickpocket ring?” Clay joked. Because pickpockets? That was small potatoes and hardly anything to worry about. Hell, New York City was teeming with them. You keep your eyes open, you don’t leave your wallet in your back pocket on the subway, and you don’t nod off on public transit. Simple as that. Pickpockets were not a cause for his concern. They weren’t on the same level as Charlie. Not even in the same solar system.
“Yeah, keep your chips close to you,” Brent said, but then turned serious. “But, I gotta ask. Why would you be so concerned?”