Double Blind (4 page)

He expected Randy to fight him, or mock him, or even, given the way this was headed, try to seduce him. But as if Randy could read his mind and wanted to make sure he thwarted him, he didn’t do anything that Ethan expected. He just held up his hands and smiled ruefully.

“You’re right,” he said. Then he bowed, winked, and turned away.

For a second, Ethan could only stare, watching Randy walk past the video poker machines, on toward the end of the row to the entrance of the bar attached to the casino. Ethan watched him and heard a part of himself whisper that this was his moment, that he could go. That he could be rid of this idiot once and for all.

And do what?

The vision of his alternate future came back, hot and dark and short, and Ethan went still.

And then, as he watched Randy Jansen sauntering away, something else rose up, something as black as the mark on the table which had never, not even once, gone Ethan’s way.

Rage
.

Ethan tightened his fists, and his jaw, and he glared. “
Hey!
” he called, and when Randy didn’t stop or even glance over his shoulder, he swore under his breath and stormed after him.

Randy
kept walking toward the bar, but he slowed his pace so that Roulette Man caught up with him at the edge of the last of the Triple Diamond slots. The bouncer standing near the Wizard of Oz machine cast a quick glance between Randy and his pursuer before raising an inquiring eyebrow. Randy just smiled and gave him a wink and a grin before wiping his face clear. And then, as he’d known it would be, his quarry grabbed Randy’s shoulder roughly and turned him around.

But “roughly” was a relative term with Roulette Man; even though it was clear the action had been meant to communicate the tall, slight man’s anger, the dominance of the act was buried in significant sediment of Nice. He gripped Randy’s shoulder, yes, but carefully, his fury at being managed and embarrassed checked by an apparently overwhelming urge to be polite and deferential.

Well, make that an
almost
overwhelming urge
.
Randy’s lips quirked. Perhaps this evening could be salvaged after all.

The stranger caught Randy’s near-smile, and his fingers tightened briefly. He leaned forward, looking almost dangerous for one moment, and Randy caught a whiff of the spice and soap that had been teasing him the whole time he’d been leaning against the rail of the roulette table. At this close range it made his blood hum. At least it did until his assailant shoved himself back from Randy with an angry push.

“Who the
hell
are you?” the man demanded. He gestured back toward the tables with a long, elegant arm and a slight flick of his wrist. “What—
why
did you do that?”

The spice was still tingling in Randy’s nostrils, and it mixed nicely with his appreciation for the sleek curve of the stranger’s jaw. He couldn’t quite see the man’s angry pulse point, but he could imagine it beating hard in the slope where his neck was exposed by his collar, which had opened an additional button since Randy had studied it through the surveillance camera.

Randy looked up at the man’s angry eyes—pale blue? gray?—and waggled his eyebrows. “Because you smell so good.”

Randy delivered the line with just the right tone and pitch, making it impossible for Roulette Man to tell if it were a tease or the truth, and then he watched very, very carefully to see how it was received. The flash of shock he’d been expecting, but his focus was on the length of the other man’s pause. The measure proved to be promising: it hung on a bit before switching over to anger. But it was the moment in the turnover that Randy had been watching for, and it told him all he needed to know. It hadn’t exactly been arousal, which would actually have been a turn-off, having him roll over this quickly. But it hadn’t been revulsion, and it hadn’t been a wall. That meant that this flustered fellow was playing on Randy’s team.

And that meant Randy was in the game.

Randy winked at him and patted him on his shoulder, deliberately keeping both gestures confusingly neutral, leaving the potential for this all to be either a joke or an opening act. “Come on, buddy. Let me buy you that drink.”

The man pulled back, but not as far away this time, and with less force. He glared at Randy. “I’m not your ‘buddy’.”

“Then give me your name,” Randy said. When this only made the glare deepen, Randy added, “Or I could just name you, I guess. Let me buy you a drink, Mr. Black.”

That one made the man’s blood boil, and it was damn hard for Randy not to laugh at his glower. God, but yanking this one’s chain was so damn easy it was almost criminal.

“Ethan,” the man spat. “My name is Ethan.”

Randy made a mock bow before tucking his fingers beneath Ethan’s arm and tugging him toward the bar. “Right this way, Ethan Black.”

He tensed. “Ellison. My name is Ethan Ellison.”

“Right this way, Mr. Ellison. You can tell me what an ass I am over a drink.” He glanced at Ethan. “Let’s see. Not beer. This isn’t a beer moment.”

“I don’t need a drink,” Ethan insisted, but it was a flat, compulsive refusal.

Randy decided to ignore him. “You’re not quite ready for something stupid and fruity, but that might be good for a chaser. Straight alcohol isn’t going to be your thing, though, either, so no tequila shooters. Let’s see. It’s slower than I’d like, but what about rum and Coke? Or—no, God, how thick am I? You’re a G&T man.”

Ethan looked at him askance. “Have you been stalking me?”

“Just reading you, baby.” Randy noted that Ethan flinched but didn’t withdraw at the endearment. He smiled briefly to himself as he ducked his head, wiping his face clean as they approached the bar. “Hey, Scully. A big gin and tonic and a double Dirty Whiskey.”

“Dirty Whiskey?” Ethan repeated.

“Bailey’s and Jameson’s.” Randy slid onto a stool and gave Ethan a look of mock angst. “Are you going to tell me that’s girly?”

“Girly?” Ethan’s expression was incredulous. “That’s nothing but pure alcohol.”

“Yes, but it’s sweet and creamy, and that’s enough to damn any drink.” Randy took his drink from Scully, sipped it, then waved impatiently at Ethan as he set his glass down. “Sit. I can’t flirt standing up, and you’re freakishly tall.”

Randy turned away, ostensibly looking at Scully. As the bartender had a mug that could have been improved by a run-in with a hacksaw, this wasn’t a pleasant task. But it didn’t matter, because all his attention was on Ethan, who hadn’t sat down yet, but hadn’t walked away either. Randy stared at Scully’s greasy hair and flat, pocked expression and tipped his glass to his lips again, rubbing his thumb against the cold damp of the tumbler to bleed off some of his tension.

Come on,
he urged Ethan Ellison silently.
I played that perfectly. This is your cue to sit, have a drink, and try to work out what exactly is going on here.
Ethan hovered, though, and for a few agonizing seconds Randy thought he must have misread the man after all. The thought, while alarming, was also stirring.

But then Ethan sank carefully onto his stool and reached for his drink. He didn’t sip it, just held onto it tightly. “What exactly is this?” he asked. “What are you doing? What’s going on here?”

Randy gave Scully a rueful smile, but the bartender just shook his head and turned back to watching a game on the television at the other end of the bar. He stayed close, though, which meant that Billy had tipped him off about his role in this little play.

That was when Randy realized he’d half-forgotten his actual mission with Ethan. Now wasn’t that interesting?

He took another sip and nudged Ethan’s drink toward him. “I’m buying you a drink. Don’t they buy people drinks in Utah?”

Ethan’s eyes went very wide, and Randy couldn’t help laughing when he looked around the room nervously.

“You
are
stalking me.” Ethan kept his eyes moving, clearly looking for hidden cameras or men in sunglasses and dark suits.

“No, baby, I told you. I’m reading you.”

Ethan still looked spooked, and Randy decided he’d pushed right up against the limit of how much of being an asshole he could get away with.

He leaned back on the bar and prepared to lower the veil a bit. “Utah was a guess. I just got lucky.”

Ethan was still pale and kept shaking his head. “But—how? Out of fifty states—”

Randy rolled his eyes. “Oh, please! The list of places you
aren’t
from is longer.” He ticked them off on his fingers as he spoke. “You’re too uptight for Hawaii, and you don’t smile enough for California.”

Ethan flattened his lips. “
That
is just ridiculous. Smiling?”

“It’s a light in the face, California. An aggressive sort of friendliness, and something about the corners of the mouth. It’s different north to south, too, but you don’t have the look for anywhere in that state. And you aren’t laid back enough for Pacific Northwest. You don’t have the accent or manners for the South. I know
damn
well you aren’t from Michigan.”

“How?” Ethan asked, baffled.

“Because I’m from Michigan, and you always know your own.” He resumed his elimination. “Wrong accent again for east coast, and wrong demeanor. So now we’re down to West and Midwest. Most people wouldn’t be able to spot the difference, but again, you know your own, and you have the Nice, but it’s the wrong kind. Western nice is a little more distant. For all they say about cowboy chivalry, there’s more of a ‘oh, let me lay down my coat for you, I don’t mind the mud, honestly’ about the center of the country.”

Ethan looked at Randy as if he were trying to find the two-by-four he was getting hit with. “Are you making this up as you go along?”

Randy grinned. “Sort of. I mean, it’s there, but normally I don’t try to explain it. But you want to know how I got Utah. I knew you weren’t Nevada. You felt too out of town to be that local. Odds are too good you’d at least have been to Reno before, if you were native, and you have a look about you like you’re convinced Vegas is about to eat you whole. And you just don’t feel like Arizona or New Mexico. So now we’re down to Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, and Idaho. I ruled out the last two for distance, because you’ve clearly run away from something, and traveling that far would give you enough time to come to your senses.”

Wide eyes again. “How—?”

Randy waved him away impatiently. “Listen, one thing at a time, okay? So. Now we’re down to three, which means I’m looking at better than a thirty percent chance. But I want better odds. So I’m making a call on Wyoming because it doesn’t feel right, and really, it’s also too far. So that’s fifty-fifty, western Colorado or pretty much anywhere in Utah. Though now that I know that one’s right, I’m willing to get cocky and say Salt Lake City. Or Provo.”

Ethan looked seriously spooked now. “I’m from American Fork, and I lived in Provo after college. But
how—?
”

“Frankly? You have this vaguely Mormon feel, but you also don’t. So, you grew up steeped in it but weren’t overpowered. So you’re from somewhere big enough to be diverse.”

Ethan stared a few seconds longer, then shook his head and took a deep drink of his G&T.

Randy took a drink, too, but just a sip. “I’ve been told,” he said, as he put his Dirty Whiskey back down, “that when I read people like that, it’s scary. I take it you concur?”

“I think,” Ethan said slowly, “if you lived in the Middle Ages, you’d have been burned at the stake.”