My headache had turned into a dull pounding with the help of the aspirin JC had given me, and I watched him keep moving around the room, trying to keep himself busy. He rearranged our suitcases twice, he kept playing with the remote control, he opened and closed the windows about a hundred times, and finally I had had enough.
“Jace, you can go down to the casino if you want to.”
“No, Lance I really don’t-”
“Go, Josh,” I told him.
“Are you-”
“Go.”
He smiled at me and walked over to where I was laying on the bed, kissing the top of my head, grabbing his wallet, and walking out.
“My boyfriend the gambler,” I said with a sigh as I turned on the television and started flipping through the channels.
*
About three hours later, the phone in my hotel room started to ring. It was Joey.
“Hey Joe, what’s up?” I asked.
“Lance... I need your help. I’m... I’m kinda lost.”
I was silent for a moment. “You’re lost?”
“Um... yeah. I’m lost on the Strip.”
This I couldn’t believe. “You’re lost on the Strip? Joey, how could you get lost on the Strip? It’s just one strip of road, that’s why they call it the Strip!”
“No, I... I hit a couple of the bars and I’ve been walking from hotel to hotel. I don’t remember where I parked the rental car.”
I sighed. “Where are you, Joey?”
“Mandalay Bay.”
Damn, that was going to be a long walk from our hotel. “All right, meet me in the lobby.”
*
I had to laugh at how pathetic Joey looked when I walked into the lobby of Mandalay Bay about a half an hour later.
“Can you try and remember where you started out?” I asked.
“I’ve been trying. I know that I came here, obviously. I’m pretty sure I went to the Luxor, and I think I went to MGM Grand. Oh, and Excalibur, I’m pretty sure I went there.”
“Okay, well the Luxor and Excalibur are right around here, and the MGM is across the street. So you’re sure you stayed around this general area?”
Joey nodded, and I could tell he was pretty drunk. It wasn’t even dark yet, I don’t know what he was thinking, getting himself drunk in the middle of the day.
We walked over to the Luxor, and when we got to the parking lot, I turned to Joey and asked, “Do you have the keys?”
He nodded and pulled them out of his pocket. I took them and looked for a button on the automatic box that I could hit to make the car make some kind of noise.
I found the button and clicked it, listening for a noise. I heard nothing. Joey sighed and said, “Up to level two.”
This was going to be a long afternoon.
*
By the time we had checked the last parking level at the MGM Grand, it was eight o’clock, and I was tired and hungry.
“I don’t know what else to do, Lance, we’ve been to every hotel I went to, twice.”
“Are you sure you didn’t just walk here, Joey?” I asked, massaging my temples, feeling a headache coming on.
“Yeah. Pretty sure.”
I looked at him. “Pretty sure?” I asked.
He sighed and sat down on the sidewalk in front of the entrance into the hotel, and I could tell he was trying to think.
“Lance?” a voice asked from behind me, and I turned to see Jake coming towards me.
“Hi Jake,” I said.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Our rental car is lost,” I said with a laugh, but it sounded forced to me and I’m sure to Jake too.
“Well, I can give you a ride back to the hotel,” Jake offered, and the way he said it, they way he looked at me as he said it... it put me on edge.
“No... we need to find the car. Thank you, though, for offering.”
Jake shrugged. “Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be around.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged again, and I wondered if he had followed me all the way from the hotel, and if he was planning on following me some more.
“Lance... I remember where I parked the car,” Joey said, standing up. “Let’s go.”
“Bye Lance,” Jake said as Joey took my arm and we walked off. I nodded good-bye, and as soon as he was out of ear shot, I asked Joey, “Did you really remember where you parked the car?”
“No, but I didn’t like the way that guy was looking at you, and I know JC wouldn’t like it if he were here. Come on, let’s go try the hotel next door, we haven’t looked there yet.”
Thank God for Joey.
*
At ten, I walked into my hotel room, not expecting to find JC there. He was, though.
“Where have you been?” he asked, getting up from the bed and coming over to me.
“Joey lost the rental car,” I told him.
“Well, did you find it?”
I nodded and sat down on the bed, just wanting to go to sleep. JC got back onto the bed and I curled up next to him while he turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels.
I decided I wouldn’t tell him about Jake. Not yet.
*
