“Go on, you two,” she implored us. “Go out on the town! Leave this old bird to a nice, long sleep.”
I’d just spent over two hundred dollars on our dinner, almost half of my entire food budget for the whole week thanks to my stupid mistake of ordering something off the menu without finding out exactly what it was or what it would cost. I mean, to be fair, considering the amount of food we were given, the price honestly wasn’t that ludicrous. Still, I was kicking myself for making such a reckless mistake with my limited finances.
“We should go check out the casino!” Harmony suggested excitedly.
“Be careful,” her mother warned me with a grin. “Harmony really loves to waste her money on slot machines.”
I craved more time with her, and while (obviously) I was running short on funds, I reconciled the fact that gambling at the casino didn’t have to necessarily be something I offered to pay for. It wouldn’t make me seem like any less of a gentleman if I just stayed beside her and cheered her on, even if I had no interest in watching slot machines spin.
My interest was simply in being close to her. The fluttering of my nerve endings anytime this woman was within a ten-foot radius of me made it impossible to say no to her suggestion. “That sounds great,” I replied. “I’d love to go to the casino with you.” And it was true.
Our leftover food was wrapped up, and we three walked the short trek back to our hotel. Harmony and her mom brought their food up to their room for safe storage in the tiny kitchenette, and I did the same. I took the opportunity to freshen up, splashing water on my face, applying extra deodorant and a half spritz of cologne to my wrists like my grandfather taught me to do back when I was about six years old. “To be a gentleman,” he advised my much-younger self, “always make sure you don’t overdo it. Just a hint is all you need.” And then he unscrewed his green bottle of Polo cologne and put my scrawny wrist up to it, flipped the bottle quickly over and back upright, and set it on the counter of the bathroom sink. “Wrists together, rub it in. Any extra, you rub on your neck behind your ears. Overwhelm a lady with your heart, your wit, or your intelligence, little man—not with your cologne.”
I smiled to myself at the memory of my mom’s dad. Now that was a real man, unlike my father.
Harmony and I met back in the lobby. I was seated on the oversized wicker sofa beneath a ceiling fan made of woven, dried palm fronds when she emerged from the glass elevator. I stood, smiled, and approached her, opening my arms to wrap her in an embrace—our first. I’m not sure what came over me; my body acted of its own accord and I just followed along.
Harmony didn’t seem to mind, though. She fit so perfectlyinto the space between my arms, you might have thought my body was custom made just for hugging her. “Hi,” she said into my neck.
I squeezed her frame into my own. “Hi,” I replied.
“You smell good,” she commented.
I inhaled the aroma of her hair, a particular swirling combination of her signature oleander and some exotic fruit that I couldn’t put a name on. If I were a real scientist (as opposed to just playing one in front of my seventh-grade classes), I would find a way to bottle that scent so I could spray it around my apartment. “You too,” I murmured.
The moment ended, and I opened my palm to offer her my hand, which she accepted. We walked the short distance to the Islandia Casino at the marina. It jutted right out into the water, with rows of yachts, sailboats, and smaller watercraft parked neatly on either side.
“So, you feeling lucky?” Harmony asked, bounding ahead of me by a step, pulling me along to keep up. The innuendo draped around the question was impossible to miss.
“Hopefully,” I replied in earnest. “I’m not much of a gambler.”
“Me neither.” She grinned, wiggling her eyebrows. “That’s what makes it fun!”
I followed her through the heavy glass doors into the bustling space. Neon lights and the musical tunes, jingling coins, and electronic beeping of the slot machines all battled for the attention of the sunburned tourists inside. I gripped her hand a little tighter so we wouldn’t lose one another in the crowded space. She led me to the penny slots. Every seat was filled by someone easily over the age of sixty. Harmony turned to meand pouted. She leaned in toward my ear and half yelled, “I love the penny slots,” pulled back, and stuck her lower lip out in an exaggerated frown.
“How about that one?” I asked, jutting my chin out. A machine over her right shoulder was about to become vacant; an older man just hoisted himself up off the cushioned burgundy bar stool in front of the Double Diamond machine and hastily ripped his ticket out of the ticket printer.
Harmony spun around and started toward the machine. As the man lumbered away, he gave her a snide look, as if hoping to quell the joyful optimism on her face. I stood behind Harmony as she sat down on the stool and faced the machine. She read through the basics. “It’s a nickel machine,” she explained. “But that’s fine. I just feel like I burn through my money faster the higher the denomination.”
“That’s a logical observation,” I teased.
“Anyway, look.” I moved beside her, thankful the machine was located on an endcap. It’s bad form to sit in front of a slot machine if you don’t intend to play, and I wasn’t trying to anger anyone. Not that there were any nearby seats available. “It says it’s five cents, right? But if you don’t play the max bet, you miss out on winning all these different lines.” Here, she pointed to a tiny, indecipherable multicolored line graph on the shiny face of the slot machine. “So I have no choice. I have to play max bet.”
I laughed. “Obviously. And how much is that?”
“Forty-five cents.”
“Jeez. That feels like a rip-off.”
“Not when I become a millionaire,” Harmony smirked.
She pulled a crisp twenty dollar bill out of her wallet and slid it into the green blinking slot just above the spinners. Her cash was gobbled up, and she flashed me her pearly whites before pressing on a combination of buttons and then yanking down the lever on the right.
“Big money, big money,” Harmony chanted quietly to herself. The reels registered one at a time with a single turquoise BAR. “Bar, bar…bar! Look!” she pointed. The machine made a happy noise and rewarded Harmony with the clinking of imaginary coins as they added to her digital balance on the screen.
“And how much is that worth?”
“Five bucks!”
