One Night in Vegas

Collision Course

Chapter 3: Collision Course

The Strip hit Ava like a wall the second she stepped out of the taxi — neon blazing against the darkening sky, music spilling from every doorway, crowds surging past in waves of laughter and perfume and cigarette smoke. She stood on the sidewalk with her duffel gripped in one hand and let it wash over her.

She'd done crazier things. She was trying to remember what they were.

Her hotel room was small and clean and smelled faintly of air freshener. She dropped her bag on the bed, showered fast, and stood in front of her open duffel trying to decide if she was actually going to do this. The red dress was folded near the top — the one Kyle had called too much, too bright, the one she'd bought on impulse eight months ago and never worn. She picked it up, held it against herself in the mirror.

She put it on. Added the colorful scarf Mia had given her for her birthday, tied it loose around her neck.

She looked like someone who had somewhere to be.

"Okay," she said to her reflection, and meant it.

The rooftop bar was on the twenty-third floor — glass walls, open sky, the Strip laid out below like a circuit board lit from within. Music pulsed low and steady. People clustered in groups along the railing, laughing easily, comfortable in their skin. Ava felt the familiar pull toward the exit the second she walked in.

She went to the bar instead. Slid onto a stool, ordered wine, tried to look like she did this all the time.

The bartender smiled, said something kind about her scarf, poured generous. She took a sip, let the warmth settle, and turned to face the view. The city glittered below, endless and strange and beautiful in the way that things are beautiful when they don't care whether you're watching.

Her hands were shaking slightly. She wrapped them around the glass and watched the lights.

Lucas checked into his suite on the fortieth floor, walked straight to the windows without unpacking. Vegas sprawled beneath him, garish and relentless and exactly what he needed. No board. No Elias. No Julian watching him with that careful expression that meant the scans came back and we should talk.

He showered, changed into dark jeans and a white button-down, sleeves rolled up, and headed out. The rooftop bar was his go-to when he was in Vegas — high enough to feel separate from the chaos below, crowded enough to stay anonymous. He stepped out of the elevator into the familiar hum of it, felt something in his chest ease for the first time in days. The bartender recognized him from a conference two years back, made small talk, poured his whiskey without being asked. Lucas leaned against the railing near the edge and looked out at the Strip pulsing below. Nobody here knew his name. Nobody was waiting for him to be anything in particular.

He took a slow sip and let himself just stand there.

Ava moved closer to the railing, wine in hand, watching the crowd. A group nearby erupted in laughter and she smiled in their direction even though she'd missed the joke. The music shifted to something with a heavier beat. She was starting to think she could do this — actually do this, be a person who went places alone and didn't disappear into the wallpaper — when she reached back for her glass on the bar top and turned, and her eyes moved across the crowd and stopped.

There was a man leaning against the far railing, maybe twenty feet away. Dark hair. White shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow. He was holding his glass loosely, looking out at the view, and then he wasn't — he was looking at her.

Not past her. At her.

She'd expected to look away, the automatic response, but she didn't. Couldn't, quite. There was something in the directness of it that held her — not the fact that he was looking, but the way he was, like he wasn't performing anything, like he'd simply seen her and hadn't bothered to pretend otherwise.

He had the kind of face that looked like it had opinions. Sharp, a little worn at the edges, more interesting than handsome. And he was almost smiling, like he'd noticed her noticing and found it worth staying for.

Her pulse did something inconvenient.

Lucas had been watching the city when his gaze drifted across the bar and landed on her.

Red dress. Colorful scarf. Dark hair loose around her shoulders. She was standing slightly apart from the crowd with her wine glass held in both hands, and there was something in her posture — not quite uncertain, not quite at ease, somewhere in the middle — that made him look twice. Then she turned and their eyes met and he felt it, clean and immediate, like a key finding a lock he'd forgotten he had.

She was staring at him with an expression that was completely unguarded — startled, a little wide-eyed, like she hadn't expected to find anything when she looked up. Most people he met in rooms like this had their faces arranged. She hadn't had time to arrange hers.

He liked that. He liked it more than he'd expected to like anything tonight. He let the almost-smile go all the way, slow and deliberate.

Ava felt her own mouth curve before she could stop it.

He pushed off the railing and started moving through the crowd toward her, and the rational part of her brain made its case briefly and lost. She stayed where she was. Watched him come.

He moved like someone who was used to rooms making way for him, but without the self-consciousness that usually came with it — no performance, just ease. And as the distance between them closed she felt her pulse in her throat, the wine warm in her chest, the city blazing below like it was putting on a show specifically for this moment.

He stopped in front of her. Up close his eyes were darker than she'd expected.

He said nothing yet. Neither did she.