Page 72 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

NERVE DAMAGE

Alix

I was going out of my mind, and it was only eight-thirty in the morning.

I’d never been to Las Vegas, all right? And I’ll just say—the place is surreal.

Ben and I had stepped off the plane at nine-thirty Saturday night to the overwhelming sound of many somethings going ching-ching-ching .

To flashing lights and huge electronic signs announcing ever-increasing jackpots, to brightly lit slot machines—the source of the ching-ching-ching— right there near the gate, and travelers with their suitcases beside them, stuffing quarters into those machines like they hadn’t lost quite enough money yet and wanted to leave another paycheck behind before they got on the plane.

This scene was repeated all the way through the airport.

Hundreds of slot machines. Maybe a thousand.

I immediately wanted to know what the payout ratio was, but I’d bet the house took a good ten percent, and these machines had to take in millions per month, didn’t they, with all these people playing them? The mind boggled.

People with Statistics degrees—or who are close to getting them—don’t tend to be big gamblers. The curse of the mathematically inclined: always knowing the odds.

A shuttle bus drove us through stop-and-go traffic past a veritable extravaganza of neon, with a heavy emphasis on pink and red.

There was an over-the-top fountain display, where the water changed color and danced to soaring—meaning loud—music; what appeared to be giant ships on a man-made lagoon, with actors playing out some sort of naval battle; casinos shaped like a huge fake castle and an enormous fake pyramid; and crowds.

Crowds like you’d imagine on Manhattan sidewalks.

Crowds that would give the most serene person claustrophobia.

Also air so dry, you felt the moisture being sucked out of your body.

The driver informed us that the city had gone two hundred forty-one days without rain, but nobody’d told the fountains or lagoons that.

Was it the most artificial place on earth? I hadn’t been to Dubai, so maybe not. But it was close.

I was nervous about the game. You bet I was. And then there were all those Life Decisions I’d just made.

After the Super Bowl, I thought, as I’d thought so many times about so many things this past week, and resumed looking at neon.

The shuttle let us out at a hotel complex that looked sculpted out of gold.

Restrained this place was not, and when we stepped inside, it got weirder.

The hotel was called “The Venetian,” and the lobby was decorated exactly like that.

Concrete columns made to look like marble, with garish gilt Corinthian capitals.

An elaborate barreled ceiling painted like the Sistine Chapel.

Extreme tilework on the floors. And just beyond all that, more of the ching-ching-ching, because the slot machines were everywhere .

Slot machines and cigarette smoke, like a throwback to a time before Surgeon General warnings.

When we looked for a place to have a snack before bed, it turned out that the restaurant was just off the casino floor.

You could also gamble from your table. I am not joking.

We walked outside for a while afterwards, and guess what?

There were gondolas! On artificial canals, with gondoliers in striped shirts, straw hats, and red neckerchiefs.

What was more, they were singing. In Italian.

You had to laugh. Just no choice. I didn’t want to make the gondoliers feel bad, though, seeing how hard it is to make a living at acting, so I did my best not to double over in hilarity.

Ben’s eyes were like saucers for the whole thing.

I guess Canada isn’t big on huge, garish displays.

The overstimulation didn’t seem to bother anybody else here, but by the time we got upstairs to our rooms—the elevators were gold and mirrored and had some more Italian singing piped in—I had a headache.

And if you think all that was toned down at eight in the morning, you’re wrong.

We met up with Harlan’s and Owen’s families for breakfast in a very crowded hotel restaurant, during which nobody took advantage of the gambling-at-the-table thing.

Right now, after eating a truly astonishing number of chocolate-chip pancakes, Ben was saying, “We should, like, walk around some more.” He shifted restlessly in his chair.

“You’re probably nervous, Alix. We should definitely take a walk or something. ”

I said, “You’re right that I’m nervous. I shouldn’t be—I know it’s just a game—but I can’t help it.” I was proud of my tact. Not my strong suit.

Dyma said, “Wow, that’s some next-level detachment. How can you even say that?”

Jennifer said, “It’s a good thing to remind yourself of,” and cut up some more pancake for Nick in his booster chair.

“Yeah, right, Mom,” Dyma said. “Like you aren’t a basket case too. I know I am. ”

One of Owen’s nephews, whose name I hadn’t caught, said, “I’m not nervous. I know the Devils are going to win.”

His older brother said, “The Niners are favored by nine points, though. That means most people expect them to win by more than a touchdown.”

“I don’t expect it,” his little brother said. “I expect the Devils to score fifty-seven points and win the game.”

“Yeah, right,” his brother said. “You can’t just wish and make it be true.”

“I can so,” the littler brother said. “Uncle Owen says you have to believe, and I believe.”

“That’s just stupid,” his brother said. “That’s not how it works.”

“You two knock it off,” their father, Dane, said.

“You’re totally right, Alix,” Dyma said, possibly tactfully, except that it was Dyma, so probably not.

“We should do something so we’re not so nervous.

Here we are in the entertainment capital of the world, right?

There have to be things to do besides gamble.

It’s eight-thirty on Sunday morning, but still. ”

I could have said, “I’m not just nervous about the game,” but I didn’t.

I shoved away the memory of Sebastian saying, after I’d told him my back-to-school idea, “If you want to go back, you should do it.” But with a look on his face that I hadn’t understood at all, when I’d just got done telling him that I wouldn’t be pressuring him!

He obviously had felt pressured, though, like I was secretly planning my life around his after all, because he’d gone quiet.

Sure, we’d had great sex that night, the kind that you remember every night afterwards, when you’re trying to go to sleep alone in that too-big bed, but that had almost made it worse.

The way he’d held me, the way he’d touched me, the look in his eyes—there’d been something there I couldn’t interpret.

Like he was hanging on tight because he knew he wasn’t going to be hanging on for long, was how it had felt. Or maybe that was me.

Win or lose, the football season would be over after today, and I could face the consequences of my actions.

What I’d told Ben was true. I could get over this relationship, if that was what I had to do.

If that felt like I’d be cutting off a limb—well, living fully meant hurting fully, too, right?

Something that sounded a whole lot better when you were talking about it in the abstract.

Leaving Ned had made me feel plenty guilty. This thing, though? This was next-level.

The worst part was, I couldn’t tell how Sebastian was doing. I’d talked to him every night this past week, and he’d looked wolflike and intense, like always, but he’d said so little, and I couldn’t tell.

I said nothing about all that. I said instead, “We could go running, I guess.”

“That sounds good to me,” Annabelle said.

Ben said, “What? Running in the huge crowd of people on the sidewalk, waiting at all the stoplights? We’re in Vegas. You don’t go running in Vegas!”

I said, “There’s a scenic area called Red Rocks about a half-hour’s drive out of town. Supposed to be beautiful. Desert landscape, lots of trails, big rocks. Uh … red rocks. As they say.”

“We don’t have a car,” Ben said. “Does anybody else have a car?” Nobody, it appeared, did.

“So we rent a car,” I said. “Oh, wait. The Super Bowl. Well, I’m sure we could find a car somewhere.”

“What if we break down or something, though?” Ben said. “Or step on a cactus when we’re distracted by looking at the beautiful rocks? I can just see saying, “Yeah, I missed the whole Super Bowl, because I got bitten by a rattlesnake. Bummer. ”

Dyma said, “Excellent point. Also, we’ll want to leave for the stadium by twelve-thirty.”

“OK,” I said. “Uh … bowling?”

“Bowling’s good,” Dyma said.

“Kind of lame,” Ben said.

“Hey,” Dyma said, “it’s Vegas. There’ll be colored lights. There’ll be music. There’ll be fattening fast food. There’ll be Annabelle to beat all of us with her natural talent, since the NFL players aren’t here. There may possibly be my mom falling down or bouncing her bowling ball.”

“Sadly true,” Jennifer said.

“Bowling!” Owen’s second-oldest nephew said. “Yay!”

“But you have to get those bumpers on one of the lanes,” the oldest nephew told his mom. “So the little kids can play.”

“There you go, Mom,” Dyma said. “Bumpers. Right up your alley. See what I did there? There’s a place that opens at nine. Let’s go.”

Any jitters that were left after our bowling session, during which Jennifer did use the bumper lane and everybody laughed a whole lot, possibly hysterically, we got rid of at the New York, New York casino—I’d missed that one last night, because there was a fake New York skyline here, too—on the Big Apple roller coaster.

There’s nothing like a two-hundred-foot drop to drive everything but your screams out of your mind.

I may have been terrified, but at least I was distracted.

Until Sebastian made that opening kickoff and my chickens came home to roost.

I have to say, watching sports is more enjoyable when you don’t care so much.