Andi swatted at her, but Taryn darted out of reach easily. “See? So slow.”
Andi grimaced. “You’ll keep.”
Taryn grinned then scanned the place as they continued between two rows of fully occupied poker tables. Barely ten a.m., and every one of them had an alcoholic drink beside them. She could smell smoke and despair even though the new carpet scent was still relatively strong. Taryn regularly gambled with her life, but that was with the backing of genius mathematicians and incredibly talented engineers. This kind of betting was rigged for the house to win, and luck could be a cruel lady.
Polly stopped at a wall covered with tropical flowers, and Taryn exchanged a questioning look with Andi. Polly looked upward, and Taryn followed her gaze to a discreet camera tucked beneath the head of a bird of paradise. She wanted to ignore the second reminder of home, but it made her realize that it’d been a while since she’d spoken to her brother, never mind her parents. Maybe she’d call him later.
A cleverly concealed door opened to reveal an elevator, and Polly beckoned them in.
“That’s neat,” Taryn said as she rested against one of the four bamboo seats inside.
“Ms. Parks insists on privacy and discretion,” Polly said. “There are a lot of unusual security features in these buildings, and many of them are of a similar design to government locations.”
Taryn raised her eyebrow and frowned at Andi, who simply rolled her eyes and looked at Polly. The casino floor had to be secure, sure, but Pentagon-style security for the offices seemed excessive. Taryn didn’t like this residency idea much; maybe she was just looking for faults and weird shit she could use to dissuade Andi from going through with this. The multi-million dollar offer on the table meant that Andi was probably prepared to ignore all manner of faults and weirdness.
The LCD display on the wall zoomed from zero to sixty-nine in a matter of seconds.
“Is this the top of the hotel?” Andi asked.
Polly nodded. “And this is currently the tallest hotel in Las Vegas.”
“Is that why it’s sixty-nine floors? To beat another hotel?” Taryn asked. If the hotel owner had been a privileged old white man, she might’ve thought he chose that number for its obvious Sin City-related connotations, but she didn’t expect that of a woman. Which was likely highly discriminatory of her. Woman, man, non-binary: sexual innuendo crossed all boundaries.
“Ms. Parks was born in 1969. It’s simply a design touch to amuse her.”
The fancy doors opened into a vast, open space with wood flooring. The sounds of the casino had disappeared the moment the elevator had closed on the ground floor, but this floor was almost eerily silent. Polly pointed to a shelving unit on the wall, which was neatly lined with around ten rows of slippers that looked like ballet shoes. Each row was marked with a different shoe size.
Polly slipped off her block pumps and took a pair from a lower shelf. “Would you be kind enough to change? Ms. Parks appreciates silence where possible.”
Taryn let out a long, slow breath and clenched her jaw. Andi seemed to avoid her gaze and swapped her Vans without question. This was getting stranger by the second. Why was it unimaginable wealth invariably came with unimaginable foibles? Was there a giant company somewhere responsible for inventing the most unusual habits just for stupidly rich people to adopt?
When she didn’t take a pair from the shelves, Polly touched her forearm gently.
“I know it must seem a little eccentric, Ms. Taylor, but how boring would the world be if we were all carbon copies of each other?”
Taryn rubbed her hand across the back of her recently cropped hair.When in Rome… It wasn’t like she and Andi hadn’t done more bizarre things in far-flung places across the world.
Andi took Taryn’s size from the racks and shoved them at her chest with a “don’t mess this up” kind of look. Andi’s apparent eagerness to seal this deal didn’t sit right, but she hadn’t admitted anything other than wanting a big payday for the team. With this and Andi’s declaration last night about settling down, Taryn was beginning to wonder if Andi was having some sort of existential mid-life crisis.
She exchanged her kicks reluctantly and gave a childish grunt before following Polly across the wide expanse of nothingness—very quietly—to a set of huge iron doors with a lion’s head door knocker the size of Taryn’s head. Polly looked upward again. This time, the camera was hidden in a bundle of bamboo sticks protruding from the ceiling.
The doors opened outward with a soft hiss, and the sight inside took Taryn’s breath away. Nowthisshe could get on board with. The room was about eight hundred square feet, and the entire floor, ceiling, walls, and windows wereglass… That was beyond freaking unusual.
“Andi Sullivan and Taryn Taylor, Ms. Parks,” Polly said.
Taryn and Andi stepped onto the glass floor without hesitation, and they both looked out the windows to the tiny tableau of life playing out far below them, like Lilliputians. “I’ve never wanted an office, but if I ever changed my mind, this would beexactlywhat I want,” she whispered as she looked around and took in the space. And that’s almost all it was: space. In the center of the office, perpendicular to the wide wall of front-facing windows, there was a large wooden desk with a view across the desert to Red Rock Canyon. But it wasn’t the typical old-man, power-hungry mahogany desk; it looked like it had been created from the largest piece of driftwood ever collected. It had so many curves, knots, and features that Taryn wanted to get on her knees and run her hands all over it. That reaction was generally reserved for motorbikes and women, in that order.
And behind the desk…
Taryn was well-versed in what it would take to be Andi’s perfect woman—she’d been her wingwoman long enough to have seen Andi’s many, many attempts at finding her. Long, auburn hair; brown eyes; tan skin; bigger than average breasts; tall but still a couple of inches shorter than Andi’s 5’10”; intelligent; sophisticated; good-looking; successful in her own right; self-assured; oozing confidence; fit and curvy—not skin and bone… Taryn could go on.
By some alchemy, it appeared that every single one of Andi’s desired traits had been used to birth Ms. Parks. Andi had never mentioned settling down until last night. And she’d never talked about a resident show until a week ago. But now, standing in this insanely unique and breathtaking office,everythingfell into place. Taryn threw Andi a sidelong glance to tell her she was on to her tricks, but Andi’s gaze was transfixed on the simply stunning woman rising from behind her desk to greet them. They’d be talking about this later, but for now, Taryn resolved to remain open-minded.
Ms. Parks crossed the room because apparently, Andi’s ability to move her legs had been suspended along with her ability to speak. Or maybe she’d stayed in place just to watch Ms. Parks effectively glide on air. Even without pumps, her walk was all sashay and sexiness. Taryn could practically see Andi melting into a puddle of butch appreciation and adoration. Taryn would have to be responsible for any negotiating, apparently.
Taryn moved to hold out her hand, but Andi suddenly jerked into action and stepped forward, her own hand thrust out. Taryn pressed her lips together to suppress her laugh when Andi seemed to do a little bow.
“Thank you for coming so soon after your last show,” Ms. Parks said. “Which was spectacular, as always, but that final stunt onto the boat,” she turned to Taryn, “was your best yet.”
