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And Vegas seems like the perfect place to do it. It’s a city full of entertainment. Football. Lights. Women. Lust. Sin.
I want it all.
I rewind the film as I watch the most recent game between the Rams and the Aces from last season. I’ve watched it dozens of times, but each time I study it for something different, and each time I see something new.
My phone dings with a new text. I pick it up from the couch cushion beside me and glance at the screen.
Jess: You busy?
I sigh. It’s our code for hey, do you want to come over and fuck my brains out? It’s a standing invitation between friends, and the benefits have been outstanding for the last year or so since we met. But it’s another friendship that’ll end whenever I leave this place.
She’s a research assistant at a corporate law firm, and she typically works long hours. As I do, too, we’re a good match. Neither of us is looking for anything more than what we have because neither of us has the time to put into nurturing a relationship.
I don’t answer. A non-answer means yeah, I’m busy, and while I’m really not, I’m also not in the mood to head over to Jess’s place right now.
I finish my notes on the game and set my tablet on the coffee table. I pick up my tumbler of whiskey and wander around the house a bit, looking at the cold white walls as I sip the amber liquid. I stop at the patio sliders and stare out into the darkness.
How much longer will I call this home?
The market is hot now. I could put in a call to my buddy who’s a real estate agent and he’d have a buyer for me before we’d even need to formally list it.
I’m not attached to this place. I didn’t hang shit on the walls or do much of anything to make it mine. A white coffee table and a gray couch sit in my family room. White floors are cleaned weekly by a cleaning crew.
I’ve been here four years now. It’s sort of unbelievable it’s been that long, and my mother chides me for not having anything on the walls when she’s visiting. She’s even sent me artwork to hang.
It’s sitting in a closet somewhere.
It’s a big place—too big for just one man, but the resort-style backyard sold me. I’m walking distance to the beach, a great selling point I’ve never actually taken advantage of, and the house has five bedrooms and eight bathrooms.
I’m one single man. I don’t need all that, yet it’s mine.
I did a quick search of homes in Vegas just as insurance. Do I want a big place like this? I’m not sure. It’s sort of lonely having six thousand square feet all to myself.
And then there’s the issue of buying versus renting. I have an image to maintain, and renting will make it seem like I’m not confident I’ll be there long term.
Sometimes I hate having to be strategic about every decision I make. Sometimes I just want to be a little reckless.
But that’s not me.
On the field, I’m not afraid to take risks. But personally, I don’t do it. I don’t do anything that might fuck with my career goals. I’m a competitor driven to win. I’m a leader and motivator compelled to find ways to improve my team, my players, my coaching staff to make every single person on that field do their very best every single time.
I don’t have time to be reckless.
I take another sip of whiskey, that text from Jess the furthest thing from my mind.
Instead, a woman with long, blonde waves swirling chaotically around her shoulders as she talks angrily on the phone comes to mind.
The gold flecks in those mesmerizing light brown eyes I studied back when we were teenagers still haunt me to this day.
I shake my head to try to get the gold flecks out of my mind.
But just because the gold flecks are gone doesn’t mean she’s out of my head. Her tits are still there.
The last thing I need to be thinking about right now is Jolene Fucking Bailey…and yet, I can’t seem to get her out of my head.
If I get this job, if I’m close to her again, if if if…
There’s an awful lot on the line.
