Next Time (9 page)

Chapter 12

“Oh, God,” Payton breathed out as she pressed her forehead against the bathroom mirror and shuddered. She’d taken pain relievers, soaked in the bathtub, showered, and still, it brought her nearly to tears to put her jeans on. The muscles in her thighs felt like they had been ripped apart and set on fire.

The smart thing would’ve been to call Ryann and tell her what she’d done to herself and postpone their outing. She reasoned, though, that as long as she stayed on her feet and didn’t try to bend her legs, she’d survive the night. She didn’t have to sit to play the slots, and she could at least walk. Payton hoped a few drinks would help numb the pain.

She dried her hair, slipped into her shirt, and pulled on a sweater over it, thankful that she had not gone to the gym that morning so sadistic Susan could cheer her through doing the same thing to her upper body. When she did have full use of her legs and felt good enough to go back to the gym, she planned to use her new muscles to kick Susan in the ass.

Payton swallowed down two ibuprofen tablets as she kept an eye out for the cab, wondering how she was going to climb out of it once they arrived at the casino. She hoped Ryann wouldn’t notice how stiff she was. Her ego wouldn’t allow her to admit to Ryann that she was truly a wimp, especially since Leigh had been in such great shape.

“Here we go,” she said when the cab pulled in front of her house. She practiced her walk on the way to the car and breathed a sigh of relief when the cabbie climbed out. “Drago, I’m so happy it’s you.”

“Why’re you walking like you got a stick up your ass?” he asked as he opened her door.

“Am I?” Payton asked with dread.

“Yeah, you hurt?”

“Big-time.” Payton tried to bend her legs and ended up falling into the backseat.

“We going to the hospital?”

“No.” Payton whimpered and gave him Ryann’s address. “Look, I need a favor tonight. The woman we’re picking up doesn’t need to know I overdid it at the gym. So when we get to the casino, I need you to create a diversion while I get myself out of this car.”

“Sure, but you gotta pull your feet inside. I can’t close the door.”

“They’re not in?” Payton asked with a grimace.

“Why did you do this to yourself?”

“It was the trainer’s idea…and when she mentioned muscle stripping, I thought it was kinda like a Swedish massage.”

“She hot?”

“Yeah…kinda.”

“That’s why,” Drago said as he waited for Payton to slowly pull her feet in, then closed the door. Once he was inside the car, he looked over the seat. “This address is like eight miles away. Depending on traffic and the lights, you may have ten minutes to sit up.”

“Thanks, man.”

“This a date?”

“It’s complicated,” Payton said with a groan. “I’d like to date her, but she just got out of a bad relationship, so we’re just friends.”

“Then why can’t you be honest with her?”

“Because her ex was like Adonis in female form.”

“You gonna get your ass whipped.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, dude.”

“Skip the gym and get some fight training just in case you run into this woman. You’ll get skills and a workout at the same time. I got a cousin who teaches Krav Maga, that’s some kick-ass shit. If you need to defend yourself, that’s the way to go.”

“Drago, right now, a gnat could kick my ass. I spent the day on the sofa swapping a heating pad from thigh to thigh. I’m gonna have to recover for a while before I can even consider doing anything else.”

Drago laughed. “Come on, woman, sit up.”

Payton grabbed the back of the seat and pulled herself up. “Will you pick us up tonight?”

“Yeah, take my number. Give me like a thirty-minute heads-up, and I’ll be there. Look, you gotta work on your swagger. Don’t hold your ass and walk like you did a few minutes ago. Let your arms hang down, fingers loose.”

“Loose, got it.”

“Don’t make that prune face, either.”

“Anything else?” Payton asked with a sigh.

Drago’s gaze met hers in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, have a good time,” he said with a laugh.

“Thanks.”

Payton smiled and looked out the window as Drago turned onto a street comprised of modest-looking duplexes. It was a nice-looking community with landscaped lawns and small ornamental trees planted along the road. She pulled out her phone and sent Ryann a text letting her know they were about to arrive. After Drago pulled into one of the driveways, he got out and opened the door. When Ryann stepped out of her front door, he bowed low.

“Nice touch,” Payton said with a laugh. She grinned when Ryann climbed into the cab. “Welcome to my limo.”

“Is there something wrong with your car? I could’ve picked you up,” Ryann said as her gaze swept over Payton.

“Parking is a pain, and I’d like to have a couple of drinks tonight. This is Drago, our driver for the evening,” Payton said when he climbed into the driver’s seat. “Drago, this is Ryann.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ryann,” he said in a more genteel tone than he used with Payton.

“Likewise,” Ryann said with a smile. “I’m spoiled already.”

“Is Harrah’s Casino where you’d like to go, or do you have somewhere else in mind?” Payton asked.

“No, that’s perfect. We could walk down to the Quarter later if we were so inclined,” Ryann answered with a smile.

Drago grinned at Payton in the rearview mirror. “It’s a cold night. Y’all can always call me, and I’ll give you a ride. It’s no charge since it’s only a few blocks, and I like you because you’re a big tipper.”

Payton waved a hand at him. “See how he spoils me? How was your day?”

“I went to the mall with my sister and her three kids. I think the begging started when we passed the place where they make those really big cookies. It started out as a low hum that grew louder when we got near the pretzel stand, then it became a cacophony of grating wails. Shelly lost her mind and started making outrageous threats—which is the problem. Not that I think she should sell her children to gypsies or tie them to the hood of the car, but her threats should be promises that she will keep. I suggested this to her, and she responded by threatening to pull my uterus out of my nose.”

“So she talks a lot of smack,” Payton said with a nod.

“I think she was serious about my uterus.” Ryann shrugged. “Despite the fact that I have a classroom of children to deal with, she still thinks I’m clueless about them since I haven’t given birth. Apparently, you’re granted some sort or superpower or knowledge then.”

Payton laughed. “I just thought it was stretch marks and a baby.”

Ryann shifted a little so she could face Payton. “Tell me what you did today.”

“I bummed it on the couch and channel surfed.” Payton glanced at Drago when he started coughing. “You all right there, bud?”

“Yeah, dry spot in my throat.”

“I try to treat weekends like everyone else.” Payton continued. “I do chores and relax unless I have something really pressing that I have to finish. A year or two ago, my brain totally locked up, and I couldn’t write anything, but then I was working every day of the week.”

“I remember you saying that you can’t force creativity to abide by a schedule.” Ryann reached over and picked a piece of lint from Payton’s shoulder. “Do ideas hit you in the middle of the night and force you to get out of bed?”

“Sometimes. If it’s a line, I’ll just write it on the pad I keep on my nightstand. Tunes are the ones that get me out of bed. I hear it in my mind, and I have to play it before it’ll leave me alone.”

When Drago pulled in front of the casino, Payton slipped the fare and a healthy tip into his hand. “Ryann, let me get your door, please, that handle has been giving me some trouble,” he said before he climbed out. With great fanfare, he opened her door and offered his hand.

Payton pushed her own door open and clenched her teeth as she stepped out. The movements made her feel like the muscles in her thighs and hips had exploded. While Drago was claiming he saw Brad Pitt, Payton stepped onto the curb like a ninety-year-old woman and came face to face with one. For a split second, she debated asking if she could borrow her walker.

Ryann joined her a moment or two later and gazed at her quizzically. “Are you sweating?”

“It was kinda hot in the cab.”

“I thought it was freezing,” Ryann said as she wrapped her coat tighter around her body.

Payton did her best to “keep it loose” as they walked toward the doors, but when she caught her reflection in the glass, she realized she looked like she belonged in a rap video. She was sort of slumped to one side, left hand in her pocket, the other dangling.

“What’s your limit?” she asked when they stepped inside.

“Sixty bucks, which means I’ll be rocking the penny slots,” Ryann said with a laugh.

“All right, that’s what I’ll play, and my limit will be the same. The machines we’re looking for are over here.” Payton led Ryann past the dollar slots.

“You seem very familiar with your surroundings.”

“I came here last year with someone,” Payton said with relief as some of the pain and stiffness eased up in her legs.

“A date?”

“Yes.”

“And why didn’t it work out with her?”

Payton shrugged as she looked for two empty machines side by side. “I didn’t realize that she was a racist. She didn’t let that cat out of the bag until the third date and made some derogatory comments about my Hispanic neighbors across the street.”

“Yes, that would be a deal breaker,” Ryann said as she dodged one of the other gamblers who’d had too much to drink.

“How about these? Do you want to hunt ghosts or get in touch with your inner wolf?”

“Ghosts.” Ryann looked at the machine in confusion. “You’re gonna laugh when I admit this, but the last time I was in a casino, you could actually put change in the machine, and it had an arm you pulled on.”

Payton’s brow shot skyward. “Were you like…six?”

“Show me how to play, wiseass.”

Payton took out a twenty and slipped it into the slot. Once the bill registered in the machine, her credits showed on the screen. “You can bet on like twenty different lines. The buttons on the panel allow you to choose how much you want to bet. If you’re lucky and hit a bonus round, you get all sorts of free plays.”

Ryann was mesmerized by the ghosts floating across the screen and peeking from the windows of a haunted mansion. “The graphics are so cool.”

“Yeah, a lot better than waiting for cherries to line up. They do have that type if that’s what you’d prefer.”

Ryann pulled a twenty from the pocket of her jeans and fed it to the machine. Like a child, she just started pushing buttons and landed right into a bonus round. “What’s happening? Why can’t I place a bet?”

“Because your lucky ass has hit a bonus already. Make yourself comfortable and watch the ghosts dance.”

And dance they did. Eerie music boomed out of the machine as six doors appeared. Ryann was quick on the uptake and touched the screen, causing the blue door to open. Every golden goblet she touched afterward dumped credits into her pool. Payton watched in amazement as Ryann tripled the money that she’d paid in until finally the Reaper popped out from behind a bookcase and put an end to her run of good luck.

“Oh,” Ryann said with a growl. “Me like.”

“And she’s hooked.” Payton motioned for one of the drink servers and ordered a glass of wine. Ryann did the same without looking away from the screen in front of her.

“Aren’t you going to sit down?”

“No, the machine might notice. It might not be stingy if it thinks I may cash out.”

Ryann did look away from the game then. “They watch us?” She frowned at the grin on Payton’s face. “You got me. It’s not nice to make fun of the naïve, you know.”

“You are anything but.”

Ryann laughed evilly and continued to press buttons. “You’re great-looking and have the personality to match. Tell me the real reason someone hasn’t snagged you.”

“You tell me because that’s one riddle I haven’t been able to solve.”

“I’ll need more time to come up with a theory. Let me ask you this, if a squirrel had found its way into your house, what would you do?”

“That would depend on whether an offer of nuts had been made and what kind. If the interloper was rude, I’d put on a pair of canvas work gloves, then I’d show the pest out.” Payton glanced at Ryann with a cheeky grin. “I’ve already gotten rid of one squirrel, remember? Wait—do you have one in your apartment? They really tear up stuff.”

“No, just getting a broader picture of you, that’s all.”

“What would you do?”

“I wouldn’t go after it with gloves, that’s for sure. That’s too up close and personal, they bite. Maybe I’d use a leaf blower. No animals like those.”

Payton pursed her lips as she stared at her machine and marveled at the strange places Ryann’s brain went. She closed her eyes when Ryann hit another bonus round. When the server arrived with their drinks, Ryann was glued to the screen watching floating gold goblets and coins rain down into her pool of credits. Payton took care of the drinks and sipped hers as the round ended with the Reaper again.