Page 9 of Gamble (Black Light #38)
ELIJAH
“ I can’t believe I forgot to stop at the bank to stock up on dollar bills,” Elijah’s stuntman friend, Lee, groused over the loud music at the strip club.
Elijah reached into his pocket and came out with a wad of ones. He peeled off a handful of singles and threw them onto the center of the cocktail table where the five men were gathered.
“You guys can fight over them,” he said as several men scrambled to grab a few bills.
Kent took a swig from his bottle of beer before giving their friends shit. “We’re supposed to be here celebrating Keaton’s birthday. You guys shouldn’t be taking his cash,” he berated.
Another friend, Bruce, leaned in to shout louder. “At least I bought the round of drinks! Miller here,” thumbing in the direction of the final guy at the table, “hasn’t even done that much.”
“Hey, it’s only our first night in town. There will be plenty of opportunities to drop a load of cash, trust me.”
Elijah was sure he wasn’t mistaken. Vegas may have a lot of fun things to do, but it was an expensive city.
“I told you guys, you didn’t need to come all this way. We could have had drinks and a steak in L.A.”
“And miss all this,” Bruce waved in the direction of the topless dancer grinding only a few feet away. “Mary would have given me grief if I had gone out to a club at home.”
Kent gave him shit. “And you don’t think she knows where you are tonight?”
“Oh, she knows. She’s just too far away to do anything about it. I can deal with her when I get home.”
Hearing the married men talking about their partners brought mixed emotions for Elijah.
Part of him envied having someone to share life with, but then he remembered how his previous relationships had turned out and let out a sigh of relief that he had no one to bust his balls just for living his life.
When the three younger men got up to approach a different dancer, Kent and Elijah had a moment to chat more privately, at least as privately as one gets at a busy club.
“Johnny sent his regrets. He did want to come with us, but his new wife is eight months pregnant, and he didn’t feel comfortable being out of town,” Kent informed him.
Elijah finished his bourbon before answering. “No worries. I figured it would be hard to get the old gang together on short notice.”
Lee Buckley, Bruce Schmidt, and Roger Miller were all nice enough guys, but they were a good fifteen years younger than he and Kent. They were the new guard of their stuntmen group of friends, and watching them having fun in their current setting reminded Elijah again of his own age.
Kent leaned closer to be heard. “You should have kept some of those bills for yourself. It looks like you could use a lap dance.”
Elijah glanced back at the blonde dancer closest to them, trying to get his attention. She was pretty enough, in a glamour makeup kind of way, but after spending thousands of hours as a voyeur at Black Light, coming to a show like this felt like a cheap theater event.
“No thanks. If I were interested in hooking up with a one-night stand, I’d take my pick of subs back at Black Light,” he answered.
“Except you haven’t been availing yourself of the women available to you there either,” Kent reminded him.
“I can see I should have kept my mouth shut last week when you came to Black Light for a visit.”
“Hey, I’m trying to remind you that yes, you may be turning another year older this week, but you aren’t dead yet, old man.
I’m not saying you need to get married and start putting babies inside some filly, but I think it’s about time you get back on the horse and find a subby who you can make scream under your belt just before you tie her down and fuck her up the ass until she’s a blubbering mess. ”
Crawford and his damn ranching analogies, yet as raunchy as Kent’s rant was, it proved two things to Elijah.
One was that his friend really knew him well, since he’d just described Elijah’s idea of a perfect night of debauchery.
It was more surprising that the vision of the beautiful redhead he’d met earlier today popped into his mind.
He took a few seconds to imagine the scene his friend had just described, only instead of some faceless woman, he inserted Reagan into the fantasy.
His cock grew hard enough that his jeans felt uncomfortably tight, telling Elijah, Kent was right about one thing.
It’s time for me to get laid this weekend.
But as he returned his attention to the newest dancer stripping in front of him, Elijah knew without a doubt, some faceless woman would not quench his thirst. And sadly, Reagan had a boyfriend, making her off-limits.
He berated himself for even thinking he’d have a chance with her, anyway.
Of course, she had a boyfriend. She was an eleven on most hot-blooded heterosexual man’s scale of hotness, which meant she could have any man she wanted.
Why in the world would she want a washed-up guy old enough to be her father?
Luckily, the return of their younger friends to their table cut short his self-loathing. Tank was carrying two drinks and slid one across in front of Elijah.
“I didn’t order another drink,” he shouted over the music. He’d already had more than normal.
“It’s your birthday, old man! We need to get you shit-faced.”
Luckily, Elijah didn’t have to say he’d had enough when Bruce answered for him. “Hey, don’t get him so drunk that it ruins his fun tomorrow.”
His friends looked at each other, smiling conspiratorially.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What do you assholes have planned for tomorrow?” he asked, genuinely worried since this group of men had made risking their lives into a lucrative career choice.
“We need to leave by nine to get out to the hangar by ten,” Lee answered. “That’s all I’m going to say. The rest can be a surprise.”
Elijah was past the surprise phase of his life. His bum hip and knee had made sure of that.
“Sorry, but I’m not signing on for any surprises this weekend,” he replied.
“You’re no fun! You’re my fucking hero, for Christ’s sake. I’ve watched you do stunts I wouldn’t even consider doing. You can’t tell me you can’t handle a little skydiving trip,” Tank taunted.
“You forget I’m retired, asshole. There’s a reason for that. I put this old body through the wringer. It can’t handle hitting the ground at twenty miles per hour anymore, like I used to.”
“Fine, we’ll get you one of the wimpy canopy shoots so you can float down like a pussy,” Bruce said.
Their bravado only pissed Elijah off.
“Listen, you guys go… have fun. That’s what I would have done fifteen years ago too, but I’m telling you I’m not going skydiving. And I’m a bit too old for peer pressure.”
“Fine, we can cancel that and go out on the ATVs instead. I scoped it out, and there is a trail that we can combine with rock climbing,” Lee said, trying to appease Elijah. Little did he know, that would be even worse.
“Listen, guys. I appreciate you coming out here to Vegas to help me celebrate and all, but I’ll have to pass on the daytime adventures. I’ll find something to keep me busy here in town, and then maybe we can meet up for dinner and drinks after you get back,” Elijah offered.
“I’ll stay here with you,” Kent offered. “I wouldn’t be opposed to hanging around the pool to take in the view.”
Elijah appreciated his friend’s offer, but he countered.
“Fuck that. I know you want to go out and get a hit of adrenaline with these guys. Trust me, just having a few weekend days where I don’t have to go into work is a treat.
I’ll find more than a few things to keep me busy while you’re out trying to kill yourselves. ”
His friends tried a few more times to change his mind and go with them the next day, but by the time he was letting himself into his hotel suite a few hours later, Elijah was looking forward to having the following day to just relax…
maybe get a massage… or read the suspense novel he’d brought with him.
As fun as those things sounded, he couldn’t help but wish he could spend the next day with a beautiful redhead named Reagan Murphy instead.
“That would be the best kind of birthday present,” he said to the empty room. After all, it couldn’t hurt to throw his wish out into the universe. If only he had a few birthday candles he could blow out to make his wish come true.