Page 14 of Gamble (Black Light #38)
Today felt like brutal honesty time. She finally saw him for what he was. Self-centered and superficial. Sexy, yes. Handsome, definitely. Fun-loving, too much. He wouldn’t be settling down anytime soon, if ever.
Where did that leave her?
On the one hand, it put her back at square one, at least in the romance department.
But looking at her reflection, she acknowledged that was okay.
She’d taken the wrong path when she’d put her trust in Tristan.
She could see that now. The relief she felt at being able to reset herself back to the fork in the road where she’d started trying to change for all the wrong reasons was telling.
The only good thing her relationship with Tristan had done was it had gotten her off her butt to move to L.A.
where she had an exciting and fulfilling job at a world-renowned hospital.
Los Angeles, where her best friend lived and where she could see herself settling down.
The problem was she couldn’t afford to live in the over-priced Southern California market. Not alone anyway.
That meant she’d either need to high-tail it back to Washington State where she could move back in with her parents while she saved for a down-payment on her own house, or she’d have to find a new roommate in Los Angeles once Meena and Asher got married in a few months.
“You don’t need to decide this today,” she said to the woman in the mirror, feeling a calmness she hadn’t thought she could tap into this soon after walking out of Tristan’s life.
Her phone ringing drew her out of her deep thoughts.
“Hi there,” she answered, suspecting why Meena was calling.
“What’s going on? Who is Elijah Keaton?”
Smiling at the woman in the mirror, Reagan tried to find the right words for explaining all that had happened that morning.
“The man I had breakfast with.”
“Okay. Why didn’t you have breakfast with Tristan?”
“Because I don’t like to have meals with my ex-boyfriends.”
“You did it.”
Reagan didn’t take offense at the relief she heard in her best friend’s voice. Meena hadn’t tried to hide that she thought Reagan could do better than Tristan Goodrich.
“I did.”
“You don’t sound very upset,” Meena observed correctly.
“That’s because I don’t feel upset,” Reagan said.
“I’m so glad. You deserve so much better than him.”
While Reagan didn’t disagree with her best friend, she also knew finding better was hard.
“Are you coming home today then?” Meena asked the million-dollar question.
The level of genuine excitement she felt thinking about the day she had planned in Sin City was telling.
“Maybe later. I’m not sure,” she hedged.
“Does your staying have anything to do with Mr. Keaton?” Meena asked. When Reagan failed to reply, Meena started pelting her with the kind of questions a good friend should considering where she was. “How did you meet him? Doesn’t he seem a bit old for you? Would I approve of him?”
Reagan couldn’t help but chuckle. “Whoa! One question at a time.
“I met him yesterday when I was checking in. He helped convince the front desk guy to let me have Tristan’s room even though Tristan wasn’t here yet.
I’ve bumped into him several times since then, and when he found out I’d finally thrown Tristan to the curb, he was nice enough to invite me to spend the day having fun with him in Vegas today. ”
“Fun… what kind of fun? Is he a pervert?”
“Stop! He has been nothing but a gentleman so far.” The bonus round of orgasms aside.
“He’s here to celebrate his fiftieth birthday, and his friends ditched him, kinda like Tristan ditched me.
I’m sure he’s just being nice, but honestly, I’ve enjoyed talking with him so far, and we’re going to take a ride on the enormous Ferris wheel and then go to a show together. It sounds like fun.”
“I agree, as long as he isn’t trying to just take advantage of you.”
“It’s not like that. Or maybe it is like that, but at least I’m going into this with no expectations. And look at it this way, spending the day having fun here with Elijah is better than my coming home and laying in my pajamas all weekend eating ice cream out of the carton.”
“True facts,” Meena laughed. “I just don’t want you to be hurt again, is all.”
Elijah’s odd comment about there being a good and bad kind of hurt resurfaced, giving her a moment of pause.
“Don’t worry,” she answered. “In a way, it’s kinda freeing.
Because of our age difference, I’m just going into this looking for a fun day or two here in Vegas.
He’s helping me forget about how disastrous things with Tristan turned out, and I’m helping him celebrate a big birthday milestone.
Then at the end of the weekend, we can each go on our own way with fond memories of a fun reset weekend for each of us. ”
“So… what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?” Meena asked.
“Something like that,” Reagan agreed, hoping she did feel reset by the time she made it back to Los Angeles.
“Okay, but I want you to be careful. You don’t know this guy. Check in with texts so I don’t panic, thinking you’ve been murdered by a serial killer.”
Reagan laughed. She may not know Elijah well, but she instinctively knew he was a good man. Something she’d never felt about the previous men in her life.