Candice rolled her eyes. “Do I want to get her another drink, Andie?”
“Yes and no,” I said. “Yes, because it’s her bachelorette party and yes we want her to get good and hungover later so she never forgets this trip and how much fun it is to be single … and no, because I hate it when people barf. It makes me barf when I see it. And if she drinks too much more…”
“…she’s gonna barf,” Candice finished for me.
“Exactly.”
“Waitress!” yelled Candice, running after a barmaid with a tray.
Kelly and I watched her go. “What’s she doing?” Kelly asked.
“Getting us drunk.”
“Aren’t we already drunk?” she asked, scratching her head.
I smoothed down the hair that was sticking up as a result of her confusion. “You are and I’m nearly there. But this is your party, little sis, so you must drink until you fall over or until you kiss a stranger.”
Kelly looked at me in horror. “I did not come to Las Vegas to cheat on Matty!”
“Then you better start drinking,” I said, handing her one of the cocktails Candice brought over.
“How’d you get these so fast?” I asked her, looking down into the glass, wondering if I was drinking something she found next to a slot machine.
“What can I say? Cleavage works.” Candice raised her glass high. “Here’s to winning big tonight and possibly getting laid in Vegas!”
“Here’s to getting married!” said Kelly, raising her glass.
“Here’s to getting getting married and laid in Vegas!” I said, clinking all of their glasses and downing my drink in one, giant, three-swallow gulp session.
Candice looked at Kelly. “Do you think she knows what she just did?”
“Nope.” Kelly giggled, sipping on her straw.
“Shut up, buttheads. You know what I meant.” As if I’d drink to getting married in Vegas. Shuh, right. That totally didn’t fit into my lifeplan or my personality.
As soon as I finished my drink and put the glass down on a nearby shelf, we locked arms and walked into the casino area of the hotel. Having my girlfriends on either arm made walking in Kelly’s ferocious heels way easier, so I was all for it, even though it made quite the barrier for people trying to get by. Whenever anyone scowled at us, I smiled big and said, “She’s getting married. To a mortician. This is her going away party,” and they’d turn their frowns upside down. It was like Vegas magic or something. It was impossible to be cranky here.
As we left the restaurants and lobby behind, we entered a darker area of the huge facility. The casino. Bells were dinging all over the place, lights of every single color of the rainbow were flashing and blinking, and thousands of people milled around. There were slot machines in groups with small passageways between them to get by and chairs filled with butts. People were dropping quarters like there was no tomorrow, pulling one-armed bandits as fast as the money clanged into place.
A group of tables were across the aisle from the slot machine section, all of them with green felt on top. The very first thing I noticed when we walked in that direction was a cowboy hat. And it had the most beautiful man I had ever seen sitting right under it.
“Oh. My. Good. Ness,” I said, caught in some kind of tractor beam, unable to look away. My foot lifted up, trying to walk that direction, but Candice held me back.
“I don’t feel so good,” said Kelly, pulling away from me. I let her go without a thought.
“Oh, shit.” Candice let go of me too, leaving me to wobble a little on my own. “Come on, Kelly, come with me. I don’t want you to barf on their nice carpet. Please don’t yack. I hate it when you yack, you’re so loud about it.”
My brain barely registered what they were saying. I only had eyes for the god sitting on the stool just twenty feet away from me. Jeans, dress shirt, cowboy hat, five o’clock shadow beard, muscles visible just below his rolled up cuffs, bronzed like he spent most of the day outside. “Be still my heart,” I said, talking to no one, to the wind, to the goddess of love who I was pretty sure had just shot an arrow into my chest cavity. I reached up and touched my hair, hoping it was perfect.
“Stay here while I take care of her,” ordered Candice, her voice getting fainter as she got farther away. “I don’t want you watching her and getting sick too or my whole night will be ruined.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said absently, walking towards the card table so I could get a closer look at the cowboy who’d taken my breath away and sent my brain on a vacation to Mars.