Page 59 of A Vegas Crush Collection #3

lasagna confessions

Mikhail

“You know,”—I reach for a piece of warm bread in the basket—“mental health issues aren’t so stigmatizing now. Things are different around those conversations. Athletes come out every day and talk about their struggles with anxiety, depression, and whatnot.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Reagan answers carefully, “but those athletes have teams of doctors and counselors and trainers who can help them. And they’re not, like, wreaking havoc all over the place.”

I can’t help chuckling. When Reagan’s mouth turns down in a subtle frown, I squeeze her hand. “Hey, I’m only laughing at the phrase wreaking havoc, like she’s a comic book baddie or something. Also, that’s the name of my first professional team, Henderson Havoc.”

“Well, she’s certainly not that, but her mental health struggles have caused a ton of upheaval over the years.

For instance, one of her signature moves during a manic episode is to go out and spend a bunch of money.

She racks up enormous credit card debt and doesn’t have the income to pay it back.

It’s a whole thing she does. When I was in, like, middle school, she took a whole bottle of sleeping pills because she got sued for like eighteen thousand dollars that she’d put on a credit card and couldn’t pay back.

A credit counseling program helped her reorganize the debt, and she got a bunch of it written off because of the suicide attempt. ”

She sighs and pulls her hand from mine, grabbing her wineglass, and taking a sip. I get the sense that she’s not done talking, so I just sit back and give her the space to get her thoughts together.

“Toward the end of high school,” she says after a long, brooding pause, “she seemed relatively stable. She’d landed a good job as an executive secretary.

They paid her well, treated her well, and she got in a good place with her regular bills.

I’d planned to stay close to home for school, but I’d also applied at UNLV thinking it wouldn’t be likely I could go so far away, but she seemed genuinely good, so I decided to go for it when they accepted me.

One thing I can say for my dad, he set up a fund for my college when I was a baby, so I had that at least by the time I was ready to go. ”

“But she wasn’t good?” I ask, interested in hearing everything she will tell me. I feel like I’m on borrowed time here. Like at any moment Reagan will shut down and stop talking. And I don’t want that.

She shakes her head sadly. “No. She was not good. At the beginning of my junior year here, she called me crying. Said her car had gotten repossessed and the house was about to go into foreclosure. She’d lost her job.

And I was like, Mom, what the hell did you do?

Apparently, she felt she was in a good enough space to go off her meds. ”

“Oh, shit.” I can’t help cringing, but I catch it quickly.

“Yeah. That about sums it up. So, I came home over a long weekend and tried to sort it all out, called all her creditors, talked to a bankruptcy attorney, got an emergency psychiatric evaluation, and got her back on her meds.”

Our food arrives but it feels weird to dig into my meal while she’s telling such a serious story. Still, she waves a hand and says, “Let’s eat. I’m starving. I think I forgot to eat today.” She takes her first bite of Amadio’s signature lasagna and closes her eyes, letting out a moan of approval.

“Good?” I ask, my cock reacting to the sound of her enjoyment. I want her underneath me again making that sound at me while we’re fucking.

She blushes prettily. “Best meal I’ve had in a long time. This place is top shelf.” She kisses two fingers and her thumb together, smacking her lips and fanning out her hand. “Sorry, I got a little dramatic there.”

“Not dramatic. I’d call it sexy from where I’m sitting.”

She bites her bottom lip and looks up at me from beneath her long lashes. “Well, that’s good, then.”

I clear my throat and shift in my seat. “You were, uh, talking about your mom. Junior year, got her figured out…”

She holds out her hand and does the “so-so” gesture. “Kind of. There was just so much debt and no income because no job, and there were things we needed cash for right then. I just wasn’t sure where it was going to come from, you know?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I grew up in a high-income household. My father was a millionaire before I was born. I’m embarrassed, I guess, that I don’t have any of that perspective.”

Her lips flatten. “Well, it’s not a fun place to be so good for you.”

I can tell that this bothers her. The haves and the have-nots thing. We come from different backgrounds and very different life experiences. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand struggle at all.”

“Sure. I guess.” She has a distant look in her eye that I don’t like to see.

“The one-percenters have struggles, too. Mental health and abuse and addiction and illness and whatever. Those are human things, and they have nothing to do with your socioeconomic strata, but surely you can see that the approach to dealing with those issues is drastically different depending on how much money you have. If you have money, or power, or access, then the path to recovery is much more easily managed.”

“Yeah, I can see that. So, what did you do? You said there were some serious issues that weren’t easily fixed financially. What happened after that?”

She stares at me for a moment before taking a bite of her meal. Following her lead, I focus on my food. Am I supposed to apologize for being born into a household with money?

When she speaks again, she says, “I’m sorry. None of this has anything to do with you, and I’m projecting my frustrations. It’s not right.”

“There’s no need to apologize. You have a lot going on. And, frankly, you’re right. I come from a different place, and I don’t have the frame of reference to truly understand what you went through.”

“It’s also…” She takes a big breath in and then lets it out in a long sigh.

“People who were in a position to help found ways to exploit the situation. It’s like, no one does something just out of the goodness of their heart, or because it’s the right or kind thing to do, you know?

They find a way to gain something from it.

You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. ”

“That’s why I turned you away that first night.” I wait until she looks up at me. “Reagan, I never want you to feel that way with me. Like you have to give me something to have my friendship or help or whatever.”

“I don’t feel that way with you, Mikhail.

I know you’re the exception, but here’s my frame of reference.

When I got back from that weekend with my mom, I was freaking out, right?

I needed to make some quick cash to help her out.

I mentioned it to one of my roommates and she suggested I go work at one of the strip clubs.

She thought I could maybe make some good tips serving drinks or whatever.

So, I went.” She gets that distant tone in her voice again as she plays with the stem of her wineglass.

“They asked me to dance after a week of working there, which was mortifying at first, but when they told me what I could make in a night, I decided to go for it. The place seemed clean and safe, and I figured it was far enough from campus that no one from school would see me there.”

“So, you were a stripper?” All kinds of images start forming in my head of Reagan stripping up on a stage that are impossible to suppress. Biology and all that.

“I was. And it’s not a proud moment for me.” She’s looking ashamed now, and it kind of breaks my heart.

“Well, I’m not judging,” I tell her honestly. “It’s a way to make a living.”

“Yeah, and it helped somewhat. I made some immediate cash each night and used most of it to pay some of my mom’s bills.

I also met this guy. He was a regular, a little older, but he seemed really nice.

His name is Peter. We flirted a little at the club and eventually he asked me out.

He was…a distraction. An ego boost. But eventually, I grew to trust him, and I opened up to him about my situation.

I told him I was hardly making a dent in my mom’s debt.

She wasn’t working, still, and had even gone off her meds again.

It felt like I’d never get free. And he offered to help.

Asked how much I needed, said he could front me the whole amount, no questions asked. I could pay it back monthly.”

“Seems too good to be true,” I say, frowning.

She tips her forefinger to her nose. “Bingo. You know, I thought it was a personal loan from someone I cared about. Who cared about me.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“It was not. It was Sodorov money.”

My jaw nearly hits the table. “What?” I have to take a drink to give myself a moment to process. “So, you do owe money to the guys who’ve been roughing you up.” It’s not a question.

“Yes, but I had no idea. I just thought Peter was trying to help me out. I hated the stripping, and it’d be so much better for me to just pay him back than to keep doing something I hated so much.

So, I took the money and was able to help my mom keep the house and get her financials sorted.

” She twirls her glass back and forth on the tablecloth.

“I went out and got my job at Tangiers so I could slowly pay Peter back. I have never missed a payment since, and I increased the amount I pay him once I graduated and got more hours. There is no reason for them to think I stole from them. None.”

I sit back in my chair, letting out a low whistle. “Whoa. That is…crazy. And stressful.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“And does your mom know about all this? Is she better now?”

“She doesn’t know. I just told her I was working extra hours to help her out.

She has no concept of money. It’s like, sometimes I feel like I’m the parent and she’s the child.

” Reagan’s eyes fill with tears, which she dabs away with her napkin.

“And I don’t want to tell her, you know?

Because I’m worried it will set her off.

She’s been stable lately, but honestly, it can all change from one call to another.

So, every time the phone rings, I worry some new crisis is about to unfold.

I get anxious talking to her. She can be good and med-compliant for a year and then, boom, she’s off her meds and everything is spiraling out of control. ”

“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can think to say to her after hearing her story. I knew there was more than she was letting on, but now all the pieces fit together. Now, I understand. All this trouble she’s in—it’s all for her mom.

“It’s not your problem to worry about,” she says sadly.

“I know, but I just…well, that’s a lot. For anyone. And you still made it through college. You finished and graduated, even while you were doing this thing for your mom. You figured out a way.” She’s tiny, but Reagan Marlowe is tough as nails.

She smiles, tears still flowing. “It doesn’t feel like it sometimes. It feels like I’m in this endless tunnel and I’ll never see the sun again.”

“But you will,” I tell her with a firm nod. “You will. I believe it because you’re smart and capable and brave.”

“And alone,” she says. “I lost touch with all my friends here because I was so stressed and busy. I couldn’t go out, couldn’t spend money. I was always worried. And I couldn’t confide in anyone because I was so ashamed of the whole situation. So, I was alone.”

Not anymore.

“Well, you don’t have to be alone. If you want a friend, I’m here.”