CASINO SHUFFLE (27 page)

Max pulled the chair away from the desk.
 
“Can I get you something?”

She sat down and dabbed her cheeks with one of the cocktail napkins.
 
“I’m fine.”
 
She chuckled.
 
“What am I saying?
 
I’m a wreck.”
 
She lifted up her sunglasses and wiped the napkin across her eyes.

Max looked around on the desk for tissues.
 
There was a stapler, a cup of pens, a framed award certificate and a picture of Greg Sheffield holding the award certificate as he stood next to a man in a very expensive suit.
 
Oh damn it.
 
Of all the offices to be open.
 
He walked over to the door and pressed the button lock.
 
“So nobody barges in,” he said.
 
“You can take off the sunglasses and hat.
 
If you want to.”

“Thank you, you’re sweet,” said
Shannon
.
 
She smoothed the ends of the leather jacket over her bare thighs.
 
“Under here I’m an even bigger wreck.”

She had beautiful knees, he noticed.
 
Not bumpy knees like everybody else’s knees.
 
Perfectly smooth, just like her thighs.
 
Just like all of her.

What the hell was he thinking?

He quickly dropped his eyes to the floor but saw that she was sliding her feet in and out of the white slippers.
 
She had really great ankles.

Shannon
sighed.
 
“I hope you won’t get in trouble with your boss.
 
Not Antonio, I know he’d be fine.
 
But whoever you work for down here.”

Max glanced at the picture of Greg Sheffield.
 
“Oh, I’m off the clock.
 
The tournament’s over.”

“You probably want to go home.”

“I practically live here.”

She took another deep breath.
 
“Working two jobs must be hard.”

“It must be.”
 
He saw her expression and quickly added, “…if you don’t like them.
 
I like my jobs.
 
Both of them.”

“You’re a good man.
 
Probably want to have the best for Trixie.”

“We don’t live together anymore.”

Her sunglasses angled towards him.
 
“Divorce?”

He nodded, and then shrugged.
 
“Casinos and marriages don’t mix.”

“But you still see her?”

“Trixie?
 
Our relationship is better now after the divorce.
 
We’re very close.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding sad.
 
She took a breath.
 
“Everybody in my business is divorced.
 
Or pretending to be happily married.
 
I’m not sure which is worse.”

“I’ve done both.
 
What about you?”

“Me?”
 
She laughed.
 
“You must never read magazines.”

“I hate going to the doctor.”

She laughed again.
 
Brushed the napkin across her nose.
 
“Don’t make me laugh.
 
I’m supposed to be bawling my eyes out.”
 
Her cheeks suddenly flushed and her lips parted.
 
She hunched forward and her sunglasses leaked tears.
 
“The power of sense memory.
 
Shit.”

Max bent forward, smelling some kind of mango scent in her hair, wishing there was something he could do.
 
What kind of person didn’t have tissues on their desk?
 
He pulled the pocket square of handkerchief out and stared at it dumbly.
 
He tossed it down and his hands fluttered around his pockets.
 
Finally he yanked his bowtie loose.
 
The silk came smoothly undone, despite the fact that he had no idea how to untie the damn thing.
 
He pulled it from his collar and folded it into a square.
 
“Here, take this.
 
Better than cocktail napkins.”

She stared at it, her shoulders loosening up as she did.
 
The corner of her mouth wanted to smile, and managed something close.
 
She reached out slowly and took the pad of black silk.
 
“He was screwing one of his fans in the upstairs guest bedroom.”

“Oh.”
 
Max dropped down onto the corner of the desk.

“A BranFan.
 
Did you know they called them that?”

“Sounds like a support group for people with constipation.”

She snorted out laughter, then pushed the square of bowtie to her mouth.

“Sorry,” he said.
 
“I should be listening.
 
I’ll shut up.”

She shook her head.
 
“I need to laugh about it.
 
I don’t know what the big deal is, this sort of thing happens all the time in this business.
 
Everybody’s screwing everybody.
 
Maybe we should all just have a big orgy and get it over with.”

“That would be…”
 
He had no idea how to respond to that.
 
“Weird.”

“He had the iHome playing in the room.
 
Sometimes he goes into another room to work.
 
Listen to music, write lyrics.
 
That’s what he said he was going to do when he called me on his cell when he was leaving the private gambling thing Antonio set up for him.
 
I was waiting in bed,” she glanced up at him, shrugged.
 
“You know.
 
It was supposed to be a special weekend.
 
Just the two of us.
 
But he had the show in the nightclub tomorrow so I figured he wanted to work a little.
 
Then I had such a stupid idea.”
 
She pushed the sunglasses up from where they’d slipped down her nose.
 
“
I’ll take a walk up there naked with a bottle of champagne and pour him a drink.
 
I could hear them in there over the music.
 
I could here them moaning.
 
I’m standing there naked holding a bottle of champagne listening to my boyfriend screw somebody else.
 
I heard some little girl voice saying his name over and over, and him
grunting
, the pig.
 
How old are those girls anyways?
 
Christ,” she chuckled.
 
“Women really are annoying, aren’t we?
 
It’s so typical.
 
We have to go with our big romantic plans, no matter what.
 
She just beat me to it, that’s all.”

Max was avoiding imagining Shannon naked with a bottle of champagne, but found his eyes drop to her bare legs, and tried to imagine what in the hell he could possibly be doing that might distract him from Shannon Moon waiting for him in bed.
 
“You’re not like every other woman.
 
At least, not the ones I’ve met.”

“You know,” she said, perking up.
 
“You’re probably right.
 
I was just his prize.
 
Oh my god, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.
 
They call it
publicity pussy.
 
Date a famous girl, get in the press.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant…”

She leaned back in her chair, nodding.
 
“He used me.
 
Why didn’t somebody
tell
me that’s what was going on?
 
I need to call my agent.
 
She
should have seen this coming for crying out loud…oh, damn.”
 
She slapped her hand down on the table.
 
“She
knew.
 
She let me get into a relationship with a walking hard-on because she wanted the press too!
 
Probably for my movie coming out in the Spring…”

Max sat, stunned and silent.
 
There was a long pause that he felt obligated to fill.
 
“Maybe he really did like you, you know?
 
You’re very likable.”

She took off the sunglasses.
 
Her eyes shimmered at him from the shadow under the hat.
 
“Thank you, Max.”

He smiled.
 
“And you look great in a cowboy hat.”

“I meant thank you for this,” she said, pulling out the Cartier cigarette case from the pocket of her jacket.
 
She held it up in front of her.
 
“I never got to tell you thanks.
 
This is the best thing that’s happened to me all weekend.”

“Oh,” he said, a little embarrassed.
 
“I’m sure people buy you stuff all the time.”

“What people?”

He waved a hand through the air.
 
“Movie fans…”

“Have you ever seen one of my movies?”

“All of them, I think.
 
Trixie…”

“Right, she’s a fan.
 
But what about
you
?
 
Did you like them?”

He had never really thought about that before.
 
Had he liked them?
 
“I liked the one where you went out and looked for treasure in the ocean…you were diving and stuff.”

“That was Kate Hudson.”

“Oh.”
 
Damn.

But she was smiling.
 
“I think it’s funny that you barely even know who I am.
 
I like it.”

“Are you sure that wasn’t you?
 
When the shark came up behind you and you were trapped in that shipwreck – ”

“Kate.
 
That’s okay though.
 
I think she’s adorable, and a good actress.”
 
She aimed her eyes at him.
 
“I guess that means you think I’m adorable and a good actress, too.”

Max sat blinking at her gaze like an idiot.
 
No witty replies were coming to him, even though she was giving him plenty of time to come up with something.
 
Finally he took the cigarette case from her hands, clicked it open and withdrew a cigarette.
 
He reached into his trouser pocket and found the box of matches from her suite.
 
She parted her lips and leaned forward.
 
Max touched the cigarette to her mouth and she accepted it, smiling around it, and winked at him.
 
He lit the match, she leaned to it, inhaled, and Max held up the match and blew it gently out.

“You’re getting better at that,” she said.
 
She exhaled smoke, studying him.
 
“In movies we call that
dramatic pause.
 
Right after you deliver a good line, you do something slowly.
 
Take your time.
 
Let the audience repeat the words over in their heads.”

“That’s exactly what I was doing,” said Max.

“You’re not the audience, Max,” she said.
 
“You’re the hero.”
 
She tilted her head to the side.
 
“And you’re blushing again.
 
That’s
so
cute.”

“Not exactly heroic, all this blushing.”

“But you helped me tonight, and never asked me for anything.
 
All you did was listen.
 
And make me laugh.”
 
She sighed.
 
“Nobody treats me like that anymore.
 
Not even my shrink.
 
He just stares at my tits the whole time.”