Waking Up in Vegas(26)

She looked up, wearing that little Jensen half-smile. “I deserved it, after splatting your pictures all over the place. But thanks for saying so.” Then she dug a finger in her ear and crossed her eyes. I couldn’t fight the laugh, and everything was okay again. I hadn’t even realized that I was worried that it wasn’t.





My second counseling appointment was just as awkward as the first. Seriously, who just sits down and talks about their problems? Besides women, I mean. They’ll yak your damn ear off, not want your input on how to solve the whatever-it-is they’re getting on about, and end by either laughing or crying. Unless you’re dumb enough to try to offer advice a second time during their ramble. Then it’ll end with stomping and slammed doors and screaming about how you just don’t get it.

Except I do get it.

Women are crazy.

Even the head-shrinking ones, only they hide it better.

So when Dr. Cheska launched into a lecture about how I needed to talk more about my feelings and motivations and do less play-by-play of events, I just had to put a stop to it.

“I’d be more comfortable talking to you if you’d have sex with me.”

“No.” She said this with a straight face. Impressive.

I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms. “Come on. You know you want to.”

She put down the papers she’d been looking through for more ammo, folded her hands on top of the stack and looked me dead in the eyes. Double-impressive that she didn’t need a fidget-prop. Now I really wanted to fuck her.

“It won’t work that way for me. Plus, you need to learn to communicate with women in non-sex related ways, or you’ll be here forever.”

Whatever. Her loss. Not that the stiffy I’d sprouted a moment ago took notice of the declined invite. He was still hopeful. Too bad, pal.

The doc broke eye contact to look into the drawer she’d just opened. She pulled out a spiral-bound notebook and slid it across the desk at me. She tapped a finger on the cover and said, “I’m going to change the subject here, Tack. You need to start keeping a journal. It’ll help you with recognizing when you’re wandering into sexual territory in your communications, and also help you put things in perspective.”

All this talk about what she thought I needed was driving me up the wall. “I don’t need perspective. I need to get laid. It’s been weeks, for chrissake.”

“Tack—”

“Not with you. I concede defeat there. But tonight…”



Tonight.

I had intentions. It was, after all, Friday in Las Vegas. I was heading to Club Pure where I was to be a featured star, and I’d be stone sober while the beautiful ladies got a head start and loosened up with their cocktails of choice.

Things were looking up.

And, sweetheart, this time your gutter-thoughts are right on. The one-eyed trouser snake was most definitely looking up, too.

Thank God I arrived first; it had totally slipped my mind to call my mother beforehand. Most of the station knew she’d been running Pure (and all of its varying incarnations and names) since the beginning of time. Most of them also knew the name she’d saddled me with from birth, since she insisted on calling me by it every time the station did a promo there. My co-workers had been threatened with drawn-out, painful deaths if they ever told a living soul what Tack was short for. Jensen was clueless (unless someone had spilled) and I was too raw after the doc-session to either explain or take her ribbing.

I was again puzzled by how women both desired flaying themselves open and how they freaking handled it day in and day out. Two hours on two separate days and I was ready to kill something.

I found my mom, giving her the hug that was our standby, then corralled her into a quiet back hallway to plead my case. There was no other way to put it—one did not tell my mother what to do, nor simply ask without a catalogue of reasons ready to present. If I hadn’t known she adored her job almost as much as she loved me, I’d think she was a frustrated lawyer wannabe.

“I need to ask a favor, Mom,” I said, doing my best not to look down and shuffle my feet like a third-grader. I stand a full head taller than her and thirty is looming on my personal horizon, yet asking the woman for anything still reduces me to an age when I believed in Santa Claus.

“What do you need, Spartacus?”

“That. That right there,” I said, pointing my finger around like the words were dangling in the air. “My new co-host is here. For tonight, would you please call me Tack, like the rest of the world does?”

I was surprised when, without further justification on my part, she blew out a breath and nodded. My mother knew I’ve hated my name since kindergarten when I discovered Spartacus was weird in a world of Zacks, Mikes, and Jeffs.