People all around us cheered. A couple of them even surged through the crowd to place a hand on my arm or my hand for good luck. I was too excited to find it creepy. My heart was going a million miles a minute.
“Mr. Afsal,” the dealer interrupted. “I’ll need you to watch while I count out your winnings.”
“Of course.” He stepped around me to where the dealer began counting out stacks of chips.
I took that as my cue to leave, though that didn’t stop me from lingering just a moment longer to check out my mysterious savior from behind. He was wearing a deep purple button-down shirt that probably had my face print on the front of it now but was immaculate from the back. His pants were jut normal black dress pants, but they fit him so well that I suspected winning twenty thousand wasn’t nearly as big a deal to him as it would be to me.
I took one last look and slipped off back toward the slot machines, dreaming about what that kind of money would mean for Sam. I would put most of it away for college, of course, but I would spend a little of it now. Maybe we’d go on trip together somewhere fun, like Disneyland. Maybe even Disney World, if I was feeling really spendthrift.
I found my friends exactly where I’d left them. Elyse turned to me as I sat down, her expression stern.
“Sorry, that seat—oh.” She smiled. “Skyler. You’re back!”
The rest of the girls glanced down at me from the line.
“We thought you’d got lost,” Heather said.
“Sarah wanted to send a search party,” Ariana added. “I told her you’d make it back to us eventually.”
“You told me she probably fell asleep somewhere,” Sarah objected.
I laughed. “You guys won’t believe what actually happened.”
“If it’s crazier than the idea of you falling asleep on a busy casino floor, then I’m all ears,” Sarah said, sliding back from her machine and sipping at her drink. The rest of the girls followed suit, until I had a line of cheery faces waiting to hear my story.
I told them about falling face-first into the guy at the craps table and about his lucky throw. Before I even had the chance to tell them how good-looking he was, Elyse interrupted to ask if he was sexy.
“He was,” I confirmed. “Really sexy. He had these dreamy, expressive brown eyes. If he hadn’t turned away from me for a minute, you guys might never have gotten me back.”
“Go back there and talk to him!” Sarah insisted. “He sounds like a total babe.”
I shook my head, chuckling. “I can’t do that,” I said. “Just because I fell into him and caused him to win a ton of money doesn’t mean he wants me hanging around.”
“You can’t profess to know that about him,” Heather pointed out. “You never asked. Maybe he did want you to hang around and you totally ditched.”
“In which case, he probably wouldn’t want me coming back,” I reasoned. “Going back would just be really awkward.”
“You’re talking yourself out of it because you’re scared,” Sarah observed, pointing one perfectly manicured finger at me. “You always do this.”
“Hey!” I objected. “I’m just being realistic.”
“You’re being a scaredy-cat,” Elyse said. “You’re in Las Vegas—this is the place to do crazy stuff like chatting up a handsome stranger.”
“You don’t understand,” I reasoned. “He’s too handsome. I haven’t dated anyone since Sam was born, and the last time I flirted with a guy it was a complete accident. If I’m jumping back in the pool, I need to start at the shallow end.”
“Since when has that ever taught anyone how to swim?” Sarah took a sip of her drink and raised an imperious brow. “If you can touch the bottom, you’re never going to learn how to stay afloat.”
“I’m getting mixed messages from this metaphor,” Elyse said.
“I’m with you,” Ariana chimed in. “But I do agree that you should go talk to this guy.”
I released a sigh of frustration. “He was model hot, you guys. And really tall. He looked like the kind of guy who would pop up if you googled ‘tall, dark, and handsome.’ The only time I’d ever have enough confidence to approach a guy that attractive would be if I was really drunk and he was taking my order at McDonald’s.”