Portia MacIntosh - The Accidental Honeymoon

‘I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff,’ he laughs. ‘You might just go back into the casino and clean up.

‘I won’t, I promise,’ I giggle. ‘I just find this fascinating.’

‘More?’ he offers.

I nod my head eagerly. Jack obligingly takes a poker chip from his wallet.

‘So, if you win, you can cap your bet, which means you sneak more chips onto the table, which means you win more for less risk. You can also try and sneak chips off if you lose a hand – all of this is illegal,’ he reminds me.

When Jack performs these manoeuvres they look effortless. He makes cheating seem easy, but I know this stuff isn’t as simple as it seems.

Once he’s done explaining, Jack rolls the poker chip across his knuckles before making it disappear and then seemingly pulling it out from inside his mouth.

I laugh.

‘Are you a frustrated magician?’ I ask.

‘I’m not really anything,’ he explains. ‘Born and raised right here in Vegas. My dad was a magician, quite a well-known one, too. This playing card is actually signed by him – that’s why I carry it around. I know what you’re thinking, that it’s weird to have my dad’s autograph. But this is a card from one of the last tricks he did before he died.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

Jack bats his hand.

‘It’s OK. It was a while ago now. My dad taught me a lot about sleight of hand and the art of deception. I knew I could use these skills for good or bad, and here we are. Or here we were,’ he corrects himself. ‘So, what do you do?’

I push my few remaining fries around on my plate anxiously.

‘Erm, I’m sort of between jobs at the moment,’ I admit. ‘Moved here from England to study acting at UCLA, graduated. I work a few part-time gigs but my fiancé doesn’t like me taking on too much. He travels a lot for work and said it would be easier for us to spend time together if I worked less.’

Jack’s face falls.

‘You’re engaged,’ he suddenly realises.

‘Not anymore,’ I point out quickly. ‘You were right, on the roof, when you guessed a boy was the reason I was crying. I caught him cheating on me a couple of days ago.’

Every time I say it, it comes out more casually and very matter-of-fact.

‘Bastard,’ Jack says softly. ‘So, you ran away to Vegas?’

‘Just stopping over,’ I tell him. ‘On my way to England for a family wedding.’

‘Your family will help you through it,’ he reassures me.

‘Yeah, I can’t tell them. I’m just going to pretend he has to work, and tell them when it’s easier.’

‘What did you say he did?’

‘He’s a pianist,’ I reply.

‘Yeah, he sounds like one,’ Jack jokes.

‘A pi anist ,’ I correct him with a chuckle. ‘I don’t know if it’s all that believable, but the truth isn’t an option.’

Jack thinks for a moment.

‘I know you were upset about it earlier, but you seem very… numb right now,’ he observes. ‘Do you think you’re having trouble admitting it to your family because you’re struggling to admit it to yourself?’

‘All right, Magic Psych,’ I cackle. ‘Calm down.’

Jack throws his head back as he laughs.

‘What is it with the stripper comments?’ he asks. ‘And where is your accent from?’

‘Lancashire,’ I tell him. ‘It’s in the north. And if I seem more numb than I did earlier, it’s because of this.’

I give the empty bottle of champagne a little shake.

‘Yes, I do seem to be caring less about being unemployed,’ he reasons. ‘I guess we should keep drinking then, right?’

‘What else have we got to lose?’ I reply.

Chapter Six

I wake up suddenly, gasping for breath, but the thumping in my head is too overpowering for me to move.

I open my eyes slowly, one then the other. My hotel-room blinds are open and it feels like the harsh light of morning is dissolving my eyeballs.

My head feels like it’s full, but my memory of last night is almost completely empty. I remember bumping into Jack in the bar, I remember going to dinner with him, and then I remember us deciding to go out and drown our sorrows and… not much else. Oh God, tell me I haven’t had rebound sex with Jack. I’m almost too scared to roll over and check.

The fact I’m in my hotel room is some relief and the reason breathing is so uncomfortable right now is because I not only slept in an underwired bra, but my dress is still on.

I listen carefully, for snoring, breathing or any sign of life coming from the other side of the bed. I just need to roll over and check, but I don’t want to deal with the consequences. Right now, it’s Schrödinger’s one-night stand – if I don’t roll over and see him there, it never happened.

I’m usually so quiet and sensible – some might even say boring since I met John a few years ago. A crazy night for me involves binge-watching more than six episodes in a row of something on Netflix. The height of my wild behaviour involves trying a new topping on my pizza. The only thing unpredictable about me is my menstrual cycle. How have I got myself into this mess? Why did I get so drunk last night? What did I do last night?!

Thinking hard only makes my headache worse, and trying to remember isn’t going to change the facts. I just need to get him out of here.

I roll over slowly, so as not to provoke the bear who is currently living in my head and pawing and heaving at the inside of my skull. But there’s no one there. I’m in bed, alone, fully dressed. Well, of course I am. I don’t know what I was thinking. Jack is so far out of my league, why would he want to sleep with me? A single, cheated-on, skint loser who doesn’t even have the courage to tell her family how bad her life is. They might think I’m living it up in LA with my successful fiancé, but Jack knows the truth, and that’s why he didn’t come back to my room with me.

It’s better this way. Now I don’t need to worry about getting him out of here and getting to the airport before… shit! My flight!

I grab my phone off charge and check the time. I’m officially running late, but not so late I’ll miss it. Thank God I woke up when I did.

I grab my things and stuff them into my suitcase, rushing around the room to make sure I’ve got everything. I might have left behind all the boring clothes John used to suggest I wore, but my mountain of cheap alternatives is taking a lot of cramming in. What I need is someone to sit on the case while I zip it – just another downside to being single.

Chapter Seven

After packing up, heading out, racing to the airport and checking in, I was actually just about on time for my flight. Now I’m panicking about something else…

With some time to spare, I popped into a coffee shop to grab a drink, but when I tried to pay, my card was declined. While I’ve been with John, because he’s actively encouraged me not to work so I could travel to gigs with him and hang out with him during the day, he’s been a large part of my financial support. Not long after I walked out on him, I destroyed the card for his account – something I deeply regret because it would have saved me the embarrassment of not being able to pay for my coffee. The clothes I bought for the trip didn’t cost much at all – my hair was the most expensive part of my transformation, but even after that I should have had about $800 left, which is definitely enough money for a drink, even in an airport.

So now I’m sitting on the plane, stressing out, and waiting for it to take off – except it isn’t, because they just made an announcement calling for one last passenger. You can bet that, if it were me who was late, they would have left without me. Instead, whoever this person is has all the luck because we’re not going anywhere until they arrive.