Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
At least, I hope not.
Britney has taken Sheila back upstairs. Against her wishes. Sheila, now adjusted to being back in Vegas for the first time in a long time, I suppose, wanted to hit the slots. But Britney dragged her to her suite. I think. For all I know, Sheila ditched her and is down on the Strip right now, looking for the ghost of Dean Martin.
I pull my phone out of my clutch to text and make sure everyone got to their room okay when I see a notification. Requesting that I download the Aria’s SparkleNight DreamWeaver’s WishMaker app.
Huh. That’s odd. I wonder if that’s just a default thing that happens when you get a room here. They send you an alert to keep you in their system. Of course they do. That’s how they keep you coming back. I forgot for a moment that it’s not really the 1920s.
Whatever. They’re probably already tracking me anyway. So, I go ahead and click the…
Yep. Click that. Then click… Yep. Okay. Accept the terms and… All right. Add to home screen… Okay. Set user name… Um… Leering Lass. Yeah, that’s fun. Play on my pen name. Great… Set password. Uh-oh, Goneril69. Ha. That’s funny. Shakespeare and sexy talk all rolled into one. I’m too clever for my own good. Love it. Okay. And…
… I get another notification. Congratulating me. For reaching the SparkleNight DreamWeaver’s DreamDate WishMaker Bonus Level.
Huh. That’s even odder. I wonder—
Steve approaches from having settled up with the band.
“All good?” I ask.
“Yeah, they didn’t wanna take the tip.”
“Really?”
He nods. “Said they’re already part of the package and yadda, yadda, yadda.”
“What’d you do?”
“I made ’em take the damn tip.”
I smile.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re just a nice guy.”
He rolls his eyes, but then bends down and kisses me on the mouth. My stomach gets… twingly. Not a word, but how it gets.
“You, uh… you wanna come with me to my room?” he asks.
“I could,” I say, doing my best impression of a coquette. “But isn’t that wasteful? You went through all the trouble of getting me my own room here and—”
He kisses me again, this time long and deep, and I stop talking.
“What were you saying?” he asks after finally disconnecting our lips from one another’s.
“Huh?” I say, in something of a daze. “Nothing.”
He grins, grips my hand, and we head for the elevator up to his suite.
DreamDate WishMaker Bonus Level, indeed.
Leslie Munch staggers out of the taxi in front of the Aria hotel around two a.m., drugged out of her mind on painkillers. She’s holding an ice pack against her broken nose and even though the painkillers should’ve put her in a good mood, she’s fuming.
Elaine and Angela ditched her. She called, she texted, sending a flurry of messages from the ER, and they never responded.
How dare they? That’s what Leslie is thinking as she makes her way into the Aria. How dare they not come to her aid in her time of need? Her nose is broken! One of her eyes is almost swollen shut! And there is a suspicious twang in her front tooth that might indicate a coming root canal!
And the worst thing is—she has no one to blame. No one specific, anyway. Because she didn’t see the miscreant who bashed her face in with a door. Oh, she’s planning a lawsuit, all right. She will be getting right on that tomorrow. But she will be suing a hotel.
That isn’t satisfying! How could she ever get any personal satisfaction out of suing a nameless, faceless corporation?
She couldn’t.
She wants to ruin someone over this.
Leslie stumbles into the elevator and takes it up to her floor. It is only now, when she’s standing in front of her door, that she realizes she doesn’t have her key. In fact, she doesn’t even have her purse.
She has her phone, which has a case with a slide-in pocket for credit cards and ID. That’s how she paid for her taxi. But no purse. And no room key.
She closes her eyes, takes a deep, deep breath as she bows her head, and promises to sacrifice a chicken to Moloch the minute she gets home if luck could just… cut her a break.
Just one break. Just one. That’s all she needs.
The sound of music through earbuds interrupts her little prayer. And when she opens her eyes, there is a maid pushing one of those laundry carts down the hallway.
It’s an odd time of the night to be cleaning rooms, but it is Vegas.
The maid is bobbing her head and paying no attention to Leslie. The maid probably won’t help her. But then again, didn’t Elaine and Angela say that the maids here were super-helpful?
That wasn’t actually what Elaine and Angela had said, but Leslie is pretty fucked up on Vicodin, so she runs with it and puts a hand up as the maid passes. “Excuse me.”