Page 46 of This Thing of Ours

It hadn’t been until they were leaving the restaurant that things started to go downhill.

Marco took Gabriella’s hand as they stepped through the door, and she said, “Dinner was amazing. Thank you.”

He stopped them on the sidewalk. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

She looked up at the stars. “It’s a beautiful night. I’m not ready for it to end.”

Marco felt a moment of panic. He hadn’t planned anything past dinner.

She saved him, though. “Let’s go for a walk.”

A walk he could do. He kept her hand as they made their way down the sidewalk. They were about a block away from The Strip, and he led them that direction.

He looked down at her feet. “You okay walking in those shoes?”

“Sure. They’re super comfortable.”

He scrutinized them with a critical eye. That would be one of the last adjectives he’d use to describe them. Sexy? Fuck, yeah. Comfortable? Not so much.

Gabriella squeezed his hand and pointed excitedly. “Oh, can we go there?”

They’d just rounded the corner and hit the center of Las Vegas Boulevard. A bar was what had caught her interest. Its blazing neon sign spelling out the word Rascal’s one flashing letter at a time.

Marco thought it spelled trouble.

He must have taken too long to answer because she said, “Please,” stretching the A and turning it into a plea.

He could never deny her, and though he had serious misgivings, he finally relented. “Yeah, okay.”

She beamed up at him, and that was enough reward for any shit he was about to encounter.

Her smile was always enough.

The place was loud, crowded, and smelled like stale beer. A jukebox blared some top-forty shit from a decade ago next to a small dance floor packed with grinding bodies. The bar and all the tables were occupied. In short, it was the last place he wanted Gabriella to be.

Keeping a firm hold on her hand, he walked them to a corner booth. The four guys sitting at the table looked up at their approach. Marco forced a pleasant smile. “Four hundred bucks for the table.”

Two of their mouths fell open, one did a slow blink, and one was stupid enough to say, “Let’s see it first.”

Idiot.

“Why would I offer something I don’t have?”

One of his friends laughed. “He makes a good point.”

Not letting it go, the guy defended, “Maybe once we stand up, he steals the booth but doesn’t pay?”

Marco reassessed, the guy wasn’t an idiot, he was a moron.

His friend seemed to agree. “That’s stupid, man. There’s four of us and one of him.”

Marco was losing patience. “Yes or no? My girl wants to sit.”

One of the guys stood from the booth and shrugged. “I could use a hundred bucks.”

His friend followed suit, sliding out after him. “Yeah, man, me, too.”

The asshole stayed planted, blocking the other guy in. The guy sitting next to him nudged him with an elbow.

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