The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Dice, and the Road to Reinvention (18 page)

“This’ll work,” Hannah said again, with a laugh. She turned and walked into the first bedroom; it had twin antique Victorian sleigh beds.

“Guess we’re in the kids’ room,” she chided, tossing her monogrammed Goyard bag on one of the beds.

Mark and I wandered into the second room, which had a silk-covered king-size bed.

“So we’re staying in here?” he asked shyly.

“I guess so,” I said, trying to sound more nonchalant than I felt. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to sleep with him at this point; it was that I didn’t want to
let on
that I did. I loved it that he wasn’t as presumptuous as all the other guys I had been spending time with in the last . . . well, ever.

The concierge put our bags in the closet, and I excused myself to change for dinner. Our master bathroom was gorgeous: ornate gold hardware, beautiful pink marble floors and countertops, and a giant tub that just begged to be occupied by more than one person.

I caught my reflection in the antique mirror.
Guess I’ll be wearing these all weekend,
I thought as I pulled a brush through my clip-in hair extensions. Ordinarily I would never sleep in these uncomfortable things, but suddenly it was super important to me that Mark
not
see me with my natural shoulder-length hair. I realized I had more of a thing for this guy than I had thought.

Which suddenly gave me pause. When I packed for the trip, I hadn’t
really planned on attempting to impress anyone with my appearance. Sure, I knew Mark was coming, but I hadn’t counted on the mere sight of him throwing my feelings into overdrive.

Dressing up for dinner wasn’t even an option. My suitcase was brimming with T-shirts, shorts, and Converse sneakers.
What was I thinking?
I asked myself. I had packed for a relaxing Florida vacation, but neglected to factor in the fact that a
hot guy
that I was
totally into
was going to be there.

I dumped out my makeup case on the marble countertop and shook my head. I hadn’t even double-checked my stash of travel cosmetics to make sure all the pieces were there.
Fucking scatterbrain,
I swore to myself as I realized I was missing eye shadow and bronzer. Luckily I had brought one of the most versatile products I owned, the classic NARS Orgasm Blush. Using what I had and some inventive tricks of the trade, I touched myself up as best I could.

Just as I emerged from the bathroom, there was a knock on the door. Sarah’s boyfriend had arrived with three grocery bags filled with booze.

“Awesome!” Mark shouted. I mean, we certainly could have cleaned out any bar in town if we wanted, but Hannah and I decided to adopt a full-blown spring-break mentality on this trip.

After a pre-dinner cocktail, we walked the scenic route across the resort to get to our dinner reservation. The restaurant came highly recommended, and we were not disappointed. Set next to the picturesque lake, with lighted barges parading by, the restaurant was the perfect romantic spot for my first dinner with Mark. Each dish that was brought out topped the last, not only in taste but in presentation as well. Everything looked like an exotic pastry, swirled and colored to perfection.

Sarah’s boyfriend and Mark hit it off right away, making the evening even more enjoyable. When you bring together a new group of people, most of whom don’t know each other, you expect a lot of awkward silences—but we had none! Mark was an engaging conversationalist, which was a
huge plus. I always knew I needed a social animal to balance out my quiet, reserved personality, and Mark passed that test with flying colors.

After dinner, Hannah, Sarah, and her boyfriend were eager to get back to their booze stash, and we asked our tuxedo-clad waiter for plastic cups for our remaining cocktails. Without missing a beat (or making us feel like amateurs), he appeared with them and gave us a rundown of which bars were still open at the resort.

“Hey, I want to take you for a walk,” Mark suggested as he gently elbowed me in the side. “That seems like the romantic thing to do, doesn’t it?”

Was this guy for real?
I wondered. The truth is, I didn’t even care. This trip was off to such an amazing start that I was just going to let myself go with it. I mean, I was on vacation. I decided to put all my paranoia about men aside for the week. I was determined to relax and let down my hair (extensions and all). Mark was doing everything right, so why not have a good time for a little while?
This guy is way too young for me to ever be serious about, anyway,
I thought.

He grabbed my hand and we split off from the rest of our crew. He led me along a path that wound farther away from our hotel.

“I really like your friends,” he said.

“Oh, good! I knew you and Hannah would get along,” I said with a smile. “This is the first time I’ve met Sarah, but any friend of Hannah’s is guaranteed to be a good time.”

“I’m really glad I decided to make this trip,” he murmured, putting his arm over my shoulders.

“Me, too,” I confessed. “It’s too bad you can’t stay the whole week.”

Damn it,
I thought,
I sound so desperate. Pull it together!

But I couldn’t help myself from blurting out exactly what I was thinking. I was transfixed by this guy.

We came to a fork in the path and he guided me away from the hotel toward a quaint old-fashioned dock on the lake.

“Let’s look at the stars,” he suggested as he walked me back to the edge of the dock, laid down on the smooth wooden planks, and folded his perfectly toned arm under the back of his head. I paused for a second to take in his sculpted physique sprawled out on the dock before setting myself down as gracefully as I could.

I could feel myself being swept off my feet, but there was still a casual element to it. There were no
Rules
this time. I was just going to be myself. If he didn’t like who I was, fuck it. I was no longer that young girl who would do what a lot of people do when it comes to new relationships: customize myself to be someone’s dream girl for the first few months of seeing each other. I wasn’t going to overplan this, I was just going to enjoy it.
Be in the moment,
I reminded myself.

“Oh my god, look!” I said, pointing up toward the stars.

“Bats!” he laughed. Swirling over our heads was a sea of nocturnal creatures. I’d never seen a bat outside a zoo before. The feeling of being in the
now
washed over me like a tidal wave. Finally I felt immersed and taken away from my usual anxieties and obsessions by this special, oddly romantic moment.

“This is unbelievable,” I whispered as we listened to the sound of them circling in the sky above.

We lay there under the stars for what felt like hours, holding hands and talking. I found myself opening up to him about things that I hadn’t shared with most people, simply because he was so easy to talk to. It was the most intimate I’d felt with a man in a very long time—and we hadn’t even kissed yet. When we finally headed back to the hotel, we approached the suite and could hear Hannah and her friends laughing and listening to music in their room. Room-service trays covered in booze and gourmet grilled-cheese sandwich crusts littered the hallway outside our door.
How long had we been gone?
Without announcing our return, we let ourselves in, grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses off the bar, and stole into our bedroom, closing the door behind us.

“Did you know we were going to hook up on this trip?” he asked as we awoke the next morning, looking at me with those intense, flawless blue eyes.

“Umm,” I began, unexpectedly shy. “I figured there was a high probability,” I admitted with a laugh. I felt a momentary flood of embarrassment, but then reminded myself that there was no need to play games. I just hoped he didn’t think I was a slut for being so presumptuous, but . . . too late!

Besides, I had already made the decision to stop giving any power to the “slut” label. No one would think of a guy as a slut for hooking up on a first date. In fact, I was kind of blown away that
he
hadn’t taken it for granted that we would hook up that night.

“Do you use one of those cervical caps?” he asked me.

This was totally out of left field
.

“No!” I scoffed, with a huge laugh. It was such an odd question to ask. I’d never heard anyone talk about a cervical cap outside of a sex ed class before! No one I knew used them.

“Oh, okay, just checking,” he replied.

Was he paranoid about birth control? I wondered. We had used a condom, but knowing his sense of humor, I realized his question could easily have been just a joke. I bounded out of bed, hoping to shower and make myself presentable in record time. We were on a mission to go to Universal Orlando for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which had just opened.

“So, how’d you get into Harry Potter?” Mark asked me on the drive to the park.

“When I was studying French a few years ago I was looking for children’s books to read in that language because I thought it would be easy, and I latched on to the series,” I explained.

“Oh, that’s cool,” he said before offering his own history with Harry. “I really got into it because every year a book would come out and Harry would be in the same grade as me, so I could relate to it.”

That was the first thing that made me feel old.

His fascination with Harry Potter being a bit more age-appropriate for him than for me was the only thing that had felt out of place, though. Otherwise, I felt like we were on the same page. He was self-made and had been working full-time since he was sixteen, which gave him an intellect and a maturity that effectively closed the gap between our near-decade age difference. Most important, he treated me like a lady, which was more than I could say for most of the guys I had dated before (who had all been my age or older).

That night we had a romantic dinner at a rooftop restaurant that he found. I was impressed that he took the initiative to research a special place for our final evening together. He was heading back to New York the next morning and wanted our last dinner together to be memorable. From the terrace, diners could see a nightly fireworks display. In full-blown gentleman mode, he escorted me to the balcony and asked someone to take a picture of us together.

“I didn’t know what to expect from this trip,” he said softly, “but it was even better than I could have imagined. I’m so glad I came.”

It was in that moment that I discovered what it felt like to actually be weak in the knees.

Before I could respond, he kissed me. I closed my eyes, and without realizing it, I was finally opening my heart.

“Q
UIT POUTING,
”
H
ANNAH TEASED
me.

“I’m not,” I shouted, tossing a throw pillow at her. I was surprised at how much I missed him. Mark left early that morning to make it back in time for his show that evening, and the enormous suite felt empty without him. I had made a concerted effort not to mope, so I knew Hannah was just giving me grief. But on the inside, I was definitely pouting.

After Mark left, Hannah, Sarah, and I decided to take it easy. I booked a massage at the spa, which was in its own pavilion just a short
five-minute walk from the hotel. When I emerged an hour later, I was blissfully relaxed, but when I opened the doors and stepped back outside, I was struck with an acute case of spa hangover. The bright sun came flooding into my eyes—and I immediately experienced that dazed and confused fog from reentering the real world too quickly. The afternoon was warm and humid, which made me feel drowsy. My body had been operating on hyperspeed for months, trying to keep up with all my work obligations, and now that I had actually gotten off the roller coaster, it was shutting down. After I had taken only a few steps outside, the strangest sensation hit me right between the legs. I could feel my heart begin to race and I started to panic. I had never felt anything like this in my life, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. As I kept walking, the sensation got stronger. It wasn’t exactly painful, but something serious was going on inside me. I got the distinct feeling that I was giving birth to an object the size of an apple.

A friend once told me about how her mom had to have surgery because of a prolapsed uterus. With a renewed terror, I froze and thought to myself:
Oh my god, my uterus is falling out of my vagina!

Clenching as tightly as possible and holding my breath, I took small steps back toward the hotel.

Just get back to your bathroom. You can call for help as soon as you have a better idea of what is going on,
I told myself. Thank god this hadn’t happened while Mark was here. This would have made me feel even more geriatric than the Harry Potter episode. Not to mention, it would make me the poster child for loose vaginas. Organs were escaping out of it, after all!

Thankfully, Hannah and Sarah were out when I got back to the suite. I knew Hannah and her raunchy sense of humor would latch on to this tale, which was fine, but let me save my uterus before getting roasted, please.

And just as quickly as the sensation came on, it began to dissipate. I noticed the apple-in-my-vagina feeling had vanished. I pulled down my shorts to go to the bathroom, praying a wayward internal organ wouldn’t
fall in the toilet bowl And there it was: the red condom Mark had used two nights before. Mark might have gone home, but apparently the condom had decided to extend its stay inside my vagina.

After all those years of hearing from sex education classes and
Seventeen
magazine that the vagina is self-cleaning (no need to douche, girls!), I had finally seen proof. Why a condom felt like a giant mass moving through there, I don’t know, but I was so relieved that it was nothing serious, I couldn’t have cared less. I bounded out of the bathroom, jumped onto the bed, grabbed my phone, and dialed Mark. In my flood of relief, I was dying to tell someone about this, and this story was definitely one he and his twisted sense of humor would appreciate.

“So you won’t believe what happened!” I exclaimed the moment he answered.

“What?” he asked with laughter in his voice, instantly matching my vibe.