Loving and Loathing Vegas (3 page)

Jackson puffed out his cheeks. “She’s a baby. I don’t think she cares. I hear they eat strained peas. If they can stomach that, I don’t think your gourmet baby food matters.”

Vegas came closer, holding out his pinky.

Jackson managed to hold back the urge to blush at Vegas’s devastating pretty-boy pout. He halfway turned with his back to Vegas, trying to protect the baby, but kept his head turned toward Vegas. Jackson parted his lips just before Vegas reached into his mouth and flicked the custard over Jackson’s tongue.

Jackson’s breath hitched in his throat and their eyes met. Vegas’s green gaze flickered in warning of the sultry incubus within. Jackson’s stomach clenched and his mind wandered at all the things Vegas could do to someone with the power of his stare.

But then he remembered he was tasting baby food, and there was a newborn in his arms.

He swallowed around Vegas’s finger and withdrew.

“And?” Vegas asked, as if he were expecting a fine dining critique.

Jackson licked his lips. “You know…. It’s got a light sweetness, with a punch of… lemon?”

Vegas nodded quickly. “I put lemon juice in with the apple and pears. Think she’ll like it?”

Jackson scowled. “She’s a baby.” Maybe if he reminded Vegas enough times, he’d get the hint. “But make it an icebox pie flavor and you have a hit.” At least Jackson could be encouraging. He reached for a spoon, and Vegas held out the bowl. “Okay. Let’s give this ‘feeding a baby’ thing a go.”

Ten minutes later, Jackson wore more of the custard than was in the baby’s mouth. Covered in white, creamy goo that was nowhere as near as exciting as it was in the old days of the Seventh Circle, Jackson glowered.

Vegas had busied himself across the kitchen with washing the pots and pans. Also, he remained spotless due to the baby’s utter hatred for him. “Ready to get to the sheriff’s office?” he asked as he hung a pot on the overhead rack.

“Remember what I said about this stuff making an awesome icebox pie?” Jackson spat a mouthful of the pear-and-apple baby food.

“Yeah?”

“I lied.”

J
ACKSON
COULDN
’
T
decide what was more amazing. A completely abandoned diner on Thanksgiving, finding an abandoned baby on Thanksgiving, or standing in front of the abandoned Tez PD Sheriff’s Office.

“Sheriff Ikestanski went to Tampa for the holidays,” Vegas said as he read the handwritten note taped to the dingy glass door.

Jackson shifted his weight, counterbalancing against the grocery basket serving as an impromptu baby carrier. “What kind of law enforcement closes down the office for Thanksgiving? The nearest PD is Santa Fe,” he snapped.

“Not just Thanksgiving,” Vegas said, tapping the glass. “He won’t be back until after New Year’s.”

Jackson’s knees buckled. “Are you kidding me? What about the fire station?”

“That’s in Santa Fe too,” Vegas said as he thumbed his chin.

Jackson clenched his fists. “How has this town not descended into anarchy with no fire department or police department?” He brightened. “A church! We could leave the baby at a church. That’s legal, right?”

Vegas arched a brow as he sauntered down the PD steps. “You want to leave the baby… at a church. Please think about that a minute,” he said with a dubious frown.

“Why can’t we leave the baby at a church?”

“Why don’t you tell me why we can’t enter church grounds?”

Jackson paused. “Fu—Fudge.” He glanced at the baby to gauge her reaction to his near miss with cussing.

She babbled wordlessly.

“I never thought you of all people would forget what we are,” Vegas said, smirking. “Incinerating like a deep-fried Thanksgiving turkey upon stepping on hallowed ground is not in my best interests if I’m going to win the bet.”

Jackson furrowed his brows. “What? You said the bet shouldn’t be our concern right now.” He pointed to the basket. “How am I going to seduce a guy while I’m stuck with a baby?”

“I didn’t say seduce,” Vegas said, placing his hands on his hips. “I said fall in love. They’re two different things.”

“But.” Jackson gestured to the basket. “I’m at a bit of a disadvantage here.”

Vegas tossed his head back in laughter, and Jackson internally wilted. “There’s plenty of guys who love hot guys with kids. Think of her as your babe magnet.”

Jackson’s mouth went dry. He choked down a swallow. “I’m hot?” He cleared his throat before Vegas could answer. “Of course,” he said, puffing out his chest. “I’m
damn
hot.”

“Ahem.” Vegas glanced at the baby.

Jackson winced. “Dang. I’m
dang
hot.”

The baby didn’t seem to mind, and had drifted to sleep.

“I guess she needs a name,” Vegas said. “So we know what to call her while she’s stuck with us.”

“Bob,” Jackson said. “She’s Bob.”

“She’s not a Bob.” Vegas smirked. “I was thinking, since she’s a holiday baby, we should call her Jes—”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Jackson growled. “This isn’t Bethlehem.”

“
Jeshebet
,” Vegas rumbled and narrowed his eyes. “After my aunt.”

Jackson blinked. “What does your aunt have to do with the holidays?”

Vegas tilted his head, smiling in an impish way. “You know the manger? Like
the
manger?” He shrugged. “Who do you think mucked the stall before Mary and Jo showed up?”

“Jeshebet?” Jackson asked the sleeping baby. He rubbed his chin. “I guess it’ll have to do.”

“With that settled, the only thing we need to settle now is who’s going to fall in love,” Vegas said with a devious wink. “You have one month.”

“Baby or no baby, I’m not losing to you,” Jackson warned.

“Bring it on, sweetheart.”

E
AVEN
MAY
have been a ghost town on Thanksgiving, but on the days following, the place was booming with customers—hungry tourists passing through for a much-needed pit stop, or those finding them on Foodspotting.

In between bussing tables, Jackson took every minute he could scrounge into checking his Grindr choices on his smartphone. It was an exercise in frustration, with the 4G randomly dropping and the Wi-Fi conking out. He had bussed six tables by the time his phone would cooperate.

Jeshebet, Jackson’s new attachment, seemed to do well in the bustle of the diner. He had set up a temporary crib behind the counter by arranging giant cans of pickles into a walled rectangle and nesting her grocery basket baby carrier inside his creation.

Vegas had been too cheap to hire extra staff, but Moonbeam Rainbow-whatsit was more than happy to drop by to keep an eye on the baby.

It’s not that Jackson didn’t like him. He did like him. Kind of. At arm’s length. In that “exchanging as few words as possible before it got incredibly awkward” way. He wasn’t jealous of his friendship with Vegas, or so he insisted. The guy was just…
weird
.

Okay. Maybe a little jealous.

A lot jealous.

He had a name, Vegas had reminded him. Cillian. But it didn’t make it any less “weirdo alert” in Jackson’s head.

Jeshebet seemed to approve of Cillian’s company, which made Jackson’s hackles rise. It was silly. It wasn’t like she was Jackson’s flesh and blood, but he had become a mite possessive of her. The whole situation was temporary, and if he was going to take care of her, he wanted to make sure she wasn’t scarred for life. Not that she’d remember, anyhow.

Jackson nodded to Cillian as they both hung out behind the counter.

Cillian smiled in return. He had one of those smiles that rivaled the sun, and Jackson swore damned birds would tweet around his head if they could. Everything about him was nice. Impossibly nice. No wonder Vegas took a shine to him.

Jackson considered his Grindr choices. He was so out of his league when it came to the friendship Cillian and Vegas shared. He had declared Cillian off limits for the bet, but even as a creature only made for sex, Jackson understood the heart wants what it wants.

Jackson just had to try harder. Maybe Jeshebet would be his ace in the hole for getting a date. There must be some guy in this one-stoplight town who loved kids. But the list of available men whom Jackson was reasonably attracted to had one man on it.

He looked over his shoulder into the kitchen as Vegas manned the grill. He felt a little lightheaded as Vegas worked. Vegas’s timing was near superhuman when it came to the kitchen. He may have insisted their powers were sealed, but Jackson suspected Vegas still used a measure of them to give him an edge.

Jackson swallowed and then ran his tongue over his bottom lip.

Sweat soaked through Vegas’s thin tank top, clinging to the small of his back. His broad shoulders glistened under the kitchen lighting. He kept his hair tied back in a blue bandanna, the cloth lying flat like a classic housewife headscarf. Jackson’s throat tightened at the intense concentration on Vegas’s face as he flipped a row of burgers.

Only Vegas could make cooking hamburgers look obscene.

Not happening.
Jackson cursed himself as his blood pressure rose and his supercharged hormones encouraged his body into inappropriate displays. He took a breath. What would have humiliated a human in a public scenario, incubi had a way of turning on and off at will. As the start of his hard-on dissipated, he looked up just at the right—or wrong—moment and caught Cillian glancing at Vegas too.

Fine
, Jackson thought. This was how it was going to be. He could handle this. He’d just shake it off. It’s not like Vegas hadn’t had a billion lovers before. And
really,
he’d had a billion lovers. Surely Cillian was well on his way to making Vegas break his vow of celibacy.

Jackson returned to scrolling through his phone. Perhaps Craigslist? Someone had to be looking for
companionship
for the holidays. If that’s what they called it. His future vacations depended on it. Paris, Pompeii, and Sãn Paulo were his new additions to his “traveling through the alphabet” list.

“Order up!” Vegas called, hitting the pass-through bell.

Jackson startled and his phone slipped from his fingers. He launched forward across the counter and flailed to catch it. He hit the phone with his fingertips, propelling it away as it skittered across the counter.

“Nonono,” he bit out as the phone barreled down on a collision course with a customer’s biscuits and gravy.

“Nonono!” Jackson panicked.

The phone crashed into the edge of the customer’s plate but ricocheted away, going airborne in a graceful arc. Jackson tried to snatch it out of the air, but it was all for naught when the phone plunked into Cillian’s latte.

Jeshebet cackled and kicked her feet.

Jackson furrowed his brow at her and then glared at Cillian.

But Cillian offered the sweetest apologetic smile, one that rivaled a basket of kittens. It wasn’t his fault, and as much as Jackson wanted to blame someone, he only had himself. “I’ll see if I can fix it,” Cillian said kindly, absolutely clueless about how much Jackson was jealous of him.

“Order up!” Vegas hit the bell again. Jackson knew by his firm slap, Vegas was warning him about his behavior.

Jeshebet seemed to be amused. She giggled from her grocery basket.

Jackson’s irritation evaporated. He couldn’t be mad around her. He read babies picked up on that stuff, and didn’t want to corrupt her with hatred at such a critical developmental stage. She had been through enough already, with being cast away into the trash.

“Thank you,” Jackson said politely to Cillian. He then took the dishes from the pass-through and put on his best smile. He couldn’t think about how his Grindr strategy was officially toast.

Upon his arrival at the table of five hungry college boys, Jackson brightened. His perkiness became a Casanova on the prowl. All of them were clean-cut and some variation of blond. Jackson could do blonds. He fucking loved blonds. Especially the one who made sinfully good pies.

He shook his head, trying to clear his wandering thoughts of Vegas. “Where are you guys from?” he asked as he presented the dishes.

“We’re out in Cali,” said the tallest of the bunch.

“South, right? LA? San Diego?” Jackson asked, playing it polite and eager.

“North,” said the smaller blond next to the taller one, setting his hand on the taller one’s and lacing fingers with him.

Dammit. Taken. And he didn’t seem open to sharing. All they needed was the right…
encouragement
.

“San Fran? Thereabouts? I love when Cali boys… come,” Jackson purred as he made eye contact with each of them.

The guys collectively blushed.

Hmmm…. Maybe five dates? Jackson’s victory would crush Vegas’s bet. At least Jackson could share the spoils.

He bent over the table, arching his back in the perfect porn star curl of the spine. “I just love it when boys come all over,” he said, then dragged his teeth over his bottom lip for effect. “It’s just gets so hot.”

One of them choked on his drink, and Jackson caught the slight tenting in another’s shorts. Jackson’s victory was nigh. It tasted as sweet as Vegas’s strawberry pie.

Jackson chuckled. “It gets so
hard
working such long hours—”

Across the diner, Jeshebet screeched!

Jackson shot ramrod straight as the baby wailed. Cillian looked at him in pure terror. The five college guys glanced at Jackson and then across the diner at the crying baby. Jackson sensed the awkwardness in their auras. College boys definitely had no interest in a guy with a baby.

Fuck ’em.

Shaking off the rejection, Jackson had more important things to deal with. He hurried to Cillian’s side.

Jeshebet wailed in that perfect pitch that could blow out eardrums.

Cillian watched Jackson in a panic. “She spit up a little and I went to wipe it away and she just started screaming.”

Jackson sighed in exasperation. He scooped up Jeshebet’s basket out of her makeshift bassinet, and she instantly giggled. He scowled at her. “I swear to God you’re doing this on purpose.”