“What about you?” I asked. “Are you gonna lay out or something?”
He extended one arm, indicating the tattoos that covered him from wrists to shoulders and spanned the entirety of his back. “This skin was not made for sun,” he said, then tipped his chin toward me. “Yours either. Hope you put on sunscreen.”
I grimaced. “Oh… yeah.”
And good luck explaining a burn to my boss when I supposedly hadn’t stepped foot outside in the past two months. I’d ask Darby for some when we got to our destination. He must have some in that bulky beach bag.
For now, though, I focused on the immediate.
“What’d you say about a bus?”
Elliot waved his gloved hand toward the street where a towering, two-story vehicle idled at the curb. Some people filed off while others hurried to board, and our group was angling to be among them judging by the way Darby picked up the pace, holding on to the brim of his hat so it didn’t fly off.
He boarded the bus ahead of the rest of us and met the driver’s request for tickets with a blinding smile.
“What do you say I sit in your lap, and we call it even?”
The driver gaped as Darby passed his bag to Oz, then slid into the narrow gap between the driver’s thighs and the steering wheel. He wiggled his ass the way I’d seen him do with the VIPs, men who grinned and groaned while their cocks stiffened. The bus driver was less prepared for the advance, but he gave no further protest as the rest of us piled on and shuffled toward the open space at the back of the bus.
What I meant to be a hurry felt slow, and the realization that I had boarded a legitimate, moving vehicle dawned. A bus that would take me to parts unknown. Possibly strand me in an unfamiliar place in this sprawling city.
I could get lost. Left behind.
The bus lurched into motion, and I staggered. There were no open seats, so I took a cue from the other guys and grabbed one of the straps hanging from the low ceiling. Too late to turn back now, but my empty stomach gurgled with nausea.
Callum bumped into me as we hit a dip in the road. He peered at me through his fringe of brown hair.
“You wanna hold my hand?”
He sounded like his brother, his voice honeyed with a Southern drawl I used to find grating. That was because I heard it most often from Colt, and I’d learned it was more his personality that was grating than his accent.
Callum’s hand hung in the air, and it took only that second for his twin to grumble, “It’s just a damn bus.”
Callum leaned around me to scowl at Colt. “Yeah, and he ain’t ever been on one before.”
Caught between them, my head whipped from one side to the other. I rarely saw Colt without his Stetson—Elliot called it his redneck security blanket—but the missing hat exposed the nubs of Colt’s horns almost hidden in his mess of hair. Less than nubs, they were stumps, almost flush to his scalp and flat. Filed off. I compared them to Callum’s long, twisted ones, wondering and probably staring too blatantly when Callum snagged my free hand and raised it with an air of defiance.
Colt rolled his eyes.
“Don’t be jealous.” Callum’s sour look turned sweet as he added in a lower voice, “I’ll holdyourhand later.”
Colt scoffed, then turned his attention to other things, which freed me to do the same.
If I thought I’d smelled sweat before, it was ten times worse in here. Soaking into the seats and wafting off the passengers who were crammed into the massive vehicle. People sat silently, most engrossed in their phones while a few stared out the filmy windows. At the wheel, Darby honked the horn then tittered a laugh that the driver joined in on.
But the bus was only a distraction from the big pictureoutside. I stared, slack-jawed as buildings blurred by. A few I’d seen from a distance and others that were entirely new. Buildings stood shoulder to shoulder, fronted by grassy lawns or stands of palm trees. Ahead on the left, a massive pond spouted jets of water. Pedestrians lined the sidewalk in front of it holding signs and shouting at passersby. I couldn’t hear what they said, but the posters I glimpsed bore messages like DON’T GAMBLE WITH ETERNITY and YOU CAN’T BLUFF YOUR WAY INTO HEAVEN.
Callum held my hand the whole ride, and I should have thanked him for it. But I didn’t think to before the bus rolled to a stop beside a casino entrance topped with a fan of feathers in shades of purple and green with lights spelling out the word “Peacock.”
Darby whistled shrilly, spurring our crew to spill toward the exit and off the bus. Outside, and farther from the Dollhouse than I’d ever been, I looked around.
I was already so discombobulated I could have been dropped into another world entirely, though I knew we’d only gone a mile.
The others didn’t pause for me, and neither did the stream of foot traffic weaving around us like fish following an unseen current. Callum broke free and kept his promise to grab Colt’s hand. The pair trotted side by side toward the neighboring building, done up in hot pink and black and labeled The Crowndell.
I stayed at the back of the pack, torn between playing this stressful game of follow the leader and processing the assault of sights and sounds that only intensified when we entered the casino.
Noise was constant at the Dollhouse. Songs we rehearsed day after day, then performed night after night. It was music and light and every bit the bustle I walked intonow, but the darkness there was like a cushion, softening all the things that were suddenly sharp.
