Highways & Hostages (13 page)

As Stella wrenched open the door to The Hula Shack her ears were assaulted by a male voice attempting the high notes of “Take On Me.” Just inside the door, a middle-aged man with a grizzly beard and hard lines etched into his face jumped up from a bar stool and beamed at Stella. “Aloha! Welcome to The Hula Shack, Las Cruces’s
only
tiki-themed karaoke bar,” he shouted. “I’m Lou!”

Lou wore a skirt made of plastic grass over jeans riddled with holes. A coconut bra was layered over his faded gray t-shirt. The look was completed by the red bandana holding back his shoulder-length gray hair. He draped a plastic lei around Stella’s neck and pulled a white silk orchid from his table. He gestured for Stella to come closer. She hesitated, then obliged. Lou tucked the silk flower behind Stella’s ear and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “You’ve just been leied!”

“Thanks,” Stella said, putting space between them. “I need a drink.”

“Well, honey, you’re in the right place. Go to the bar and Laurie will take good care of you.” Lou winked.

Stella turned around and finally got a good look at her surroundings. An actual tiki bar covered the right wall of the room. The façade of the bar was made of bamboo, and posts on the countertops held up a thatched roof. The left side of the room featured a mural of a tropical beach scene. There were a few counter-height tables topped with small tiki torches. In the front of the room, a small set of stairs led up to a stage, and a projection screen covered the wall. Fake tropical trees and plants were strategically positioned throughout the room. A rainbow of paper lanterns floated across the ceiling. She was impressed.

Stella slid onto a bamboo stool in front of the bar. The Hula Shack was only half full, which meant Stella was able to flag down the bartender, Laurie, and immediately get her hands around a hurricane glass filled with a bright red frosty mixture. She took her first sip and heaved a sigh that expelled all the air from her body. Laurie gave her the very look Stella gave her own customers when they were dining solo and seemed to have something weighing on them. The look said, “Want to talk about it?” Stella shook her head slightly, and Laurie shrugged before retreating to the other end of the bar.

Stella slurped at her drink noisily through a crazy straw. With each sip her anger ebbed, replaced by exhaustion. She downed a shot of tequila and was halfway through her second drink when someone slid onto the stool next to her.

Really?
Stella thought. There were plenty of open seats along the bar that didn’t invade her personal bubble. She glanced at the intruder out of the corner of her eye.
Of course
.

“Hi,” Finn said.

Stella took her drink and turned away from him, the speed of her slurping increasing. She heard the bamboo creak as Finn shifted his weight, followed by the clinking of the dog tags he never seemed to take off.

“I came to apologize, okay?” he said, his voice low. “I crossed the line. Will you just talk to me?”

Stella was in a better mood now, probably thanks to the alcohol buzzing through her system, but she wasn’t one to give in so easily. “Why do you want to talk to me? I’m just a waitress who lives in a trailer park. I wouldn’t my failure to rub off on you.”

“Look, I was kind of an asshole—okay, a huge asshole. It was a shitty thing for me to say, and honestly, I didn’t mean it. You just got me fired up. I’m sorry.”

Stella couldn’t see Finn’s face, but he sounded genuinely sorry. She turned to face him. He held one hand over his heart.

“Will you please accept my most sincere apologies? Pretty please? With sugar and sprinkles and chocolate sauce and—”

Stella waved a hand to stop him. “Alright, alright.” Her lips quirked up. “I don’t know what it is tonight. I’m not normally this sensitive, and I’ve been called a lot worse.”

Finn looked at her. His eyes narrowed and intensified. “It’s totally understandable. After all, you did find yourself married to me and sharing a honeymoon suite after just two and a half days. Talk about a whirlwind romance.” He raised his hand to signal a bartender. “Bartender, a Jack and Coke, if you please.”

“You can’t order a Jack and Coke in a tiki bar,” Stella informed him, her face serious. “Laurie, he’ll have a margarita! And tequila shots!”

Finn turned to Stella with a raised eyebrow. “Tequila shots?”

“I’m on vacation!” Stella declared, waving her empty glass around.

“Are you buzzed?” Finn asked.

Stella’s brain did feel a little fuzzy. “Maybe like this much.” She held her fingers an inch apart.

“Thank goodness it’s a short walk back to the hotel.” Finn ran a hand through his hair.

Stella hadn’t realized just how cute he was before. This could be a problem. “You can’t see me naked,” she slurred, wagging a finger at him.

“Of course not!” Finn said in mock horror. He clasped a hand to his chest. “I’m a gentleman.”

Stella snorted.

“One margarita. Two tequila shots,” the bartender said with a flourish. Stella took one of the shot glasses and passed the other to Finn.

“Should we toast?” Stella asked.

“Let’s not and say we did. Drink up!”

They knocked back the shots. Stella grinned as Finn grimaced and quickly took a sip of his margarita.

Stella let out a very unladylike burp and clapped a hand over her mouth. Finn took a serious interest in his drink until his shoulders stopped shaking.

“You know, I haven’t been on a vacation in, like, four years. My dad took Phoebe and I to the Grand Canyon for some sort of misguided family bonding trip. I’ve been working non-stop ever since,” she said.

“Sounds like you’re in need of a serious break. Me too. It’s been so long since I’ve just been able to be myself and let loose. I’m always with Alex or Billy on a job somewhere.”

“You should make more time to hang out and have fun.”

“Look who’s talking!” Finn retorted.

“Well, now both of us have no choice but to hang out and have fun. So drink up, Jacob Gilroy. And then get your ass on that stage!”

Finn shook his head. “No way in hell.”

Stella pouted. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t do things like that. Making a fool of myself isn’t something I consider fun.”

“What if I do it with you? We could do a duet!” Stella whispered. “Nobody ever has to know.”

“You’re killing me, Stella.”

“Please, please, please? Pretty please with sugar and sprinkles, and chocolate sauce—”

Finn sighed. “Fine. What are we going to sing?”

Stella hopped off her barstool, and Finn quickly grabbed her upper arm to steady her. She stumbled over to the karaoke DJ’s table and retrieved a binder full of laminated pages, which she slammed on the counter in front of Finn with a “Bam!”

Finn slid the binder back to her. “You choose. I’m no good at this stuff.”

Stella rolled her eyes. She paged through the book, calling out song titles. “‘Love Shack’? ‘I’ve Had the Time of My Life’? ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby’?”

At each suggestion, Finn shook his head. “Do you
only
know eighties music?”

“Oh, I know!” Stella whipped through the pages. When she found what she was searching for, she looked up at Finn and grinned. She tapped the page. “Beach Boys!”

“Okay.”

Stella snorted and shook her head. “I still can’t believe the big gangster man likes The Beach Boys.”

“I am not a big gangster man.” Finn slurped down the rest of his drink and waved the empty glass at Stella. “I just drank a freaking margarita.”

“You put severed fingers on my coffee table!” Stella exclaimed. A few of the bar’s other patrons swiveled curiously toward them as a woman onstage belted out “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

“Shh!” Finn whispered. Then he said loudly, “They were props from a prop house.”

“Still—who even thinks of that?” Stella asked, waving her arms around her head. “Let me go buy some fake fingers and pour ketchup on them and convince the dumb waitress they’re her sister’s fingers.”

“Stop it! You are
not
dumb,” Finn hissed, grabbing Stella’s flailing forearms. “And it wasn’t ketchup…it was a mixture of water, corn syrup, maple syrup, food coloring, and flour.” He ducked his head and brought his face closer to Stella’s. “I thought we were past that.”

Stella pushed Finn away and flipped through the book. “You know what? I don’t like being a waitress, but I don’t know what I want to do with my life. And that scares me. I’ve been on this earth for twenty-eight years, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing.” Stella crossed her arms on top of the book and dropped her head on top of them.

Finn raised a finger in the air to catch the attention of the bartender. “Two more of those fruity drinks,” he requested, gesturing at Stella’s empty hurricane glass. He grabbed the tiny umbrella from it and twirled it between his fingers.

“Sorry,” she said, still face down. “I’m not trying to be a downer. Sometimes I get a little mopey when I drink.”

“It’s okay,” Finn reassured her. “I got a little mopey when I watched
The Notebook
.”

Stella lifted her head. “Wait a minute. You like The Beach Boys
and
you watched
The Notebook
?”

Finn tucked the tiny umbrella behind his ear. He took Stella’s hands and stared into her eyes, his own eyes unfocused. “Do you know why I picked you, Stella…Wait, what
is
your last name?” he slurred.

“Carstens,” she blurted.

“Do you know why I picked
you
of all people, Stella Carstens?”

She shook her head.

“Because there’s something about you that I saw the first day I stepped into the Leaky Stein. You’re not just a pretty face—you’re clever and you’re funny. I know you make an impact on all the people you serve.”

“Thanks…I really appreciate that.” Finn’s words made her feel all warm and tingly inside. She glanced down at her ring and guiltily thought of Derek worrying about her. She took her hands from Finn’s and moved her stool ever so slightly away. Two new hurricane glasses filled with frosty Mai Tai appeared on the counter in front of them. Stella grabbed one and gulped it before slamming it back on the counter. “Okay! What are we singing?”

“Don’t you want me, baby?”

“What?” Stella squawked. Did he really want her to answer that?

“The song ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby?’ Let’s sing it.”

“Oh,” Stella breathed in relief. “Sure, I love that one.”

Finn took a large sip of his drink. “Go sign us up.”

“Look at you! You didn’t even want to sing twenty minutes ago, and now you’re raring to go!”

“Do it quick before I change my mind.”

Stella got off the stool, grabbed the binder, and made her way over to the DJ. She felt like her body was operating on auto-pilot, talking and moving on its own, and she was observing everything from a distance. She spoke with him for a few moments—about what, she couldn’t say—before returning to her seat beside Finn.

“There are two more singers before us.”

“Great. More time for me to drink this down so I won’t remember this tomorrow.”

Stella looked at her ring again and twisted the ruby around so it was no longer winking at her. She looked at Finn. “Let’s do this.”

Shit
, Phoebe thought as she walked barefoot along the street.
How am I going to get back to the trailer? I don’t even know where I am. Stella’s going to kill me.

Another woman walked down the sidewalk in Phoebe’s direction.
Maybe she has a phone,
Phoebe thought.

“Hey!” she called. “Hey, could you help me?”

The woman clutched her purse to her body, ducked her head, and power-walked past Phoebe as if she hadn’t heard her.

Phoebe flipped the woman off and wrapped her arms around herself. The soles of her feet hurt. They were covered in shallow cuts, leaving a bloody trail behind her. She wished she’d had time to grab her shoes and purse, but when her chance to escape came, she took it. Her fishnet tights were pretty much shredded, and her short black-and-white mini-dress was dirty. She hoped the police would stop and help her get home, but with her luck, they would try and bust her for being a hooker.

Phoebe always seemed to be getting herself into trouble. She was pretty sure that was why her parents had been so quick to let her come out to Las Vegas: They wanted a drama-free summer. But Phoebe hadn’t been looking for drama when she met Will. He had seemed like such a nice guy, and he was
really
cute…and he listened to her.

All Phoebe wanted was someone to pay attention to her. Back home, her parents were so wrapped up in each other they barely gave a shit about what she did. She’d told Will her parents warned her about stranger danger, but that was years ago. These days, she was lucky if they even called out a “hi” in greeting before retreating to their home offices
after
a full day at work. She couldn’t even remember the last time they’d all sat down together and ate dinner.

During her spring semester, Phoebe came up with the idea of visiting Stella, in hopes of building a connection with some other member of her family. Now here she was in Vegas…and it was pretty much the same as at home: no one to talk to, no one to listen. She didn’t know what she’d expected of her older half sister. Their father rarely spoke about Stella or his life with his first wife, so all Phoebe had to go on was her imagination.

Since Stella lived in Vegas, Phoebe thought she’d be at least a
teensy
bit glamorous. She imagined Stella living in a spiffy apartment in a sleek high-rise like Will’s and having a cool job—something like creating costumes for showgirls, Phoebe’s ideal job. In Phoebe’s daydreams, Stella would take her backstage and proudly introduce her to the dancers. On her days off they’d lounge by the pool and Phoebe would pour out her heart. Eventually Stella would insist she move out to Vegas and live with her.

Instead, Phoebe arrived in Nevada to find out Stella was just a waitress in a dingy bar, lived in an even dingier trailer, and drove a crappy car. And time off? Ha! Stella worked so much there didn’t seem to be any point to owning the trailer; she pretty much lived at the bar.