Especially if she doled out lap dances on a regular basis.
14
BRANDON ONLY SNORED when he’d been drinking or was exhausted. Now the buzz-saw rasp vibrated the bed between them. Sort of like an aircraft taking off. Verrrrry relaxing. Even though he had his head buried in the pillow and the covers yanked over his head, she could hear him. Leah never understood how he could stand sleeping like that, and it made her nervous, like he was going to suffocate in the night and she wouldn’t know until the morning.
God, if she couldn’t bear to trust the fact her lover was going to wake up safely every morning, how would she ever handle having a child with him?
This thought drove Leah out of bed, even though the soft sheets and Brandon’s warm, naked body were both tempting enough to keep her there for a few more hours. Taking her cell phone, she went to the bathroom, closing the door carefully behind her so he wouldn’t wake. Leah had no doubts Brandon was in desperate need of a few more hours’ sleep.
This bathroom was bigger than her living room, which wasn’t saying much, since Leah’s house was what she liked to think of as cosy. Which meant small. Sometimes Brandon knocked his head on the doorframes, it was so tiny. It wasn’t a house they could live in forever, that was for sure, especially if they had kids.
That thought, the second so close and hard on the heels of the first in the bedroom, forced a breath out of her. She clutched the cool marble of the countertop and splashed some water on her face and the back of her neck. Then, budget-be-damned, she took a bottle of diet Coke out of the minifridge under the sink – a minifridge in the bathroom, of all things! The one room where food should never be stored! Las Vegas was pure decadence, and Leah was ready to go home.
Back to her small house where nothing was ever out of order and everything had its place, including Brandon.
Leah twisted the top off the bottle and drank back the sweet bubbly liquid with a grunt of pleasure much like she imagined heroin addicts made when they took their first hit of the day. The stuff was poison, but, damn, did it taste good. She wiped her mouth and set the bottle on the counter and looked around the bathroom again, at the shower where they’d made love the night before and the giant soaking tub she could easily imagine fucking him in later today.
Leah had spent a lot of years being responsible for herself, and she didn’t bear a grudge against her parents for making that happen. She liked who she was because of how she’d been raised. She was satisfied with her relationship with her parents because even though it wasn’t close, it was genuine, with both sides having no false illusions about what the other wanted or was able to give. But now, for the first time since her high school prom date had stood her up to take the school slut instead, Leah felt herself reaching for something and regretting that she’d never get it. Not from her mother, anyway, who’d be happy to listen to her dilemma and even offer advice, but who would sound a little confused as to why on earth Leah would bother asking.
Leah thumbed in a number that was familiar even though she’d only had to call it a few times. It rang and rang, and in the half a minute before it was answered she panicked, wondering if she’d miscalculated the time difference. If she was making a huge mistake.
‘Hello?’
‘Caroline? It’s Leah.’
‘Leah! Hello, hon, how are you?’ If Brandon’s mother was pissed off, she wasn’t showing it.
Leah pulled out the low chair in front of the bathroom’s vanity and sat. The tray of sample-sized, high-end beauty products rattled and she reached to still the shaking bottles with the flat of her hand. She knew she should say something or look like an even bigger idiot than she had when she’d left Iowa with hardly any explanation.
‘I’m in … we’re in Las Vegas.’
‘Oh, yes, I know.’ Caroline laughed. ‘Bingo called me when he got in so I’d know he was all right.’
Caroline paused, then continued before Leah could speak. ‘I told him he didn’t have to do that, you know. I’m glad he did, of course. I worried when I heard there was ice down your way, that his flight might have problems. But he didn’t have to call me.’
Leah’s parents must’ve worried about her, she thought. Sometimes. Didn’t they? Isn’t that what parents did? It’s what she would be expected to do for a husband and children. Worry about them. Take care of them.
‘But how is it?’ Caroline continued. ‘Bill and I went out there once, oh, it must’ve been three years ago now. We had the most incredible food there, I came home in my fat jeans and still couldn’t button them. I’m sure you won’t have that problem, you’re so slim. But my goodness, the shows there. Have you been to see a show?’
‘Um … yes,’ Leah said, not ready to spill it about watching naked men gyrate while bathed in baby oil.
Caroline’s voice dipped low. ‘I thought about going to one of those burlesque places, you know, but Bill and I decided to see Barry Manilow instead.’
Leah laughed then covered her mouth with her hand. ‘How was he?’
‘Oh, Leah, he is so dreamy,’ Caroline said. ‘But I’m glad he kept his clothes on.’
Leah laughed again, softer this time. ‘Caroline, I’m sorry I ran out on you all. That’s why