Page 42 of Full Tilt
Her head cocked, her eyes bright and electric underneath the amber streetlights. “Good, right?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t tasting any cake.
“You have a little frosting…” She reached again, and her fingertips brushed the corner of my mouth. A whisper touch that crackled like a little current of electricity, straight down to my groin, where is sat heavy and warm.
I offered her mine. “Taste?”
That’s all I could manage. Taste. I scoffed inwardly.Me Tarzan, you Jane.
Kacey took a small bite of my cupcake, and I watched as she licked her lips, staring at her mouth.
“How is it?” I said, a split second before my stare would need an explanation.
“Good.” Kacey stepped back and flashed me a smile. “You have excellent taste, Fletcher.”
We headed west, toward the Strip, ambling along a walkway between shops and restaurants, lined with potted plants and trees. It was after eleven on a Sunday, but Vegas was wide awake. Couples, groups of laughing friends and tourists speaking other languages walked past us or parted around us. We strolled and ate our desserts, heading across the boulevard toward Caesar’s Palace. Then I turned us south.
I wanted to show her the Bellagio Hotel.
“Let’s stop here,” I suggested. We leaned our arms on the white cement wall that buffered the pond in front of the Bellagio. Across the water, the hotel was lit up in gold and pink, curving toward the smaller structures of the casino below it like an open book.
“It’s beautiful,” Kacey said. She turned around to face the Strip. The small-scale Eiffel Tower glowed in front of the Paris Hotel and Casino across the street. “Italy on one side, France on the other,” she said.
“You’ve really never been inside a casino?”
She shook her head. “Our tour schedule isso crazy; we haven’t had any free time until after the show last night. That’s why we’re here until Tuesday—so Jimmy can hit the strip clubs and do some gambling. The last time I was here, I was too young to be allowed anywhere fun.”
“Did you come here with your parents?”
“No,” Kacey said, turning her gaze to the still, dark water in front of us. “I don’t see them much anymore.”
“Too busy with the band? Will your tour take you through San Diego?”
I took a bite out of the cake, and when I looked up, Kacey’s entire demeanor had changed. She hugged herself though the night was warm with a soft breeze, and the light in her eyes had dimmed as she cast her gaze over the dark water.
“No, it’s not on my schedule,” she said. “I haven’t seen my parents in four years. My dad kicked me out of the house when I was seventeen.”
I nearly dropped my dessert and the bite in my mouth was like a jagged rock. I swallowed with difficulty. “He kicked you out of your house? At seventeen?”
My tone was far too loud and hard. I was demanding an answer from her bastard of a father, not her. But Kacey didn’t flinch or retreat. I think she understood my outrage, maybe even felt a little boosted for it.
“I snuck my twenty-two-year-old boyfriend home through my bedroom window one night. My parents caught us…in a compromising position, and that was it. My dad had never approved of anything I did; he hated my playing electric guitar, but that was the last straw. He let me pack a bag and locked the door behind me. I hadn’t even finished high school.”
I chucked what was left of my cupcake in a nearby trashcan, appetite lost. “What kind of asshole turns his daughter out on the street? And what about your mom? She didn’t help you?”
Kacey’s shoulders jerked up in a shrug as she picked at her cake. “She didn’t say a word. She never has. She’s quiet and meek. My dad isn’t abusive to her, not physically. But he can turnoff like a faucet. Cold, bone-dry silence for days if he’s really pissed, and my mom can’t handle that.”
“So she let you go?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t understand how people could turn on their own children. That kind of parental failure—no,violation—was completely alien to me. My childhood had been ridiculously free of troubles. Sure, Dad was hard on Theo, and Mom was a compulsive worrier, but that was the extent of my complaints. My parents were good people.
They should’ve been your people,I thought, looking at Kacey. In a weird twist of fate, we each ended up with the wrong set of parents. Mine would’ve loved her and doted on her. They would’ve nurtured her music and been proud of her accomplishments. They’d give firm, appropriate discipline instead of throwing her out of the house.
A terminally ill child was something her parents deserved. My plight, given to that cruel father and spineless mother, would make more sense. If Kacey and I switched families, I’d no longer be afraid of the emotional burden I was leaving behind, and she’d be cherished forever.
“My mom didn’t fight for me,” Kacey was saying. She chucked her cupcake away too. “She lost her voice when she married my dad. I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for that. But even so, I still call her sometimes. She doesn’t say much, but I think she likes when I call. To know I’m still alive anyway.”
“How did you survive on the streets?”
