One For The Road

7: Time

"I got the love of my life, I got all the free time in the world, and I got the world's greatest playlist. Why didn't I get fired earlier? This is the height of luxury," I said, then looked over to the passenger seat of my car. "Sorry, you don't have to reply to that. You're a taco." I laughed.

Taco Bell didn't judge. Taco Bell was forever.

I was about sixteen hundred miles from Las Vegas, Nevada, and I had everything that I needed packed in the trunk of my Mercedes that costed way more than I should have ever spent on a car. But it went fast, and as a racecar driver, that was the only speed I knew.

I had plenty of thinking to do. Ever since I was a kid, I spent almost all of my time trying to beat everyone else to the finish line, but there was no longer a black and white checkered flag in sight. What did I have to guide me in the right direction?

What did I even have at all, besides too much time on my hands?

Well, I had a car that was way faster than everyone else's on the interstate and no patience. I had that going for me.

Because it was between lunchtime and rush hour, the road ahead of me wasn't too busy, and I just hoped to be in the middle of nowhere when the traffic struck the cities. Even if I never slowed down or stopped, it would still take me over twenty-four hours to get to Vegas. I had all the time in the world to get there, but I was still a fast-lane type of person.

The beauty and draw of such a strangely powerful city wasn't in the lights, the glitz and glamour, or the money that disappeared faster than any car I had ever driven. It was in the fact that it felt like there was nothing else in the entire world, that life was just strippers and bad decisions.

Vegas was the most perfect place on Earth.

When I finally arrived in the city, the streets lit up the evening sky above The Strip. Casinos, nightclubs, shops, and hotels glowed for a second of my attention, but as much as those lights called my name, I had to be smart. Griffin would have gotten pissed if I let myself lose all my money the first night there, so it made much more sense to wait until the next day.

Although the main drag was the show of the city, just a short drive away there were smaller places to go that didn't involve as much glitter, gambling, or stimulants. They weren't nearly as flashy as the Bellagio fountain in the middle of a desert, but I didn't need to be recognized. My name had been to hell and back in the previous seventy-two hours.

As I walked up to the smallest bar I could find, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Griffin.

"Hello?" I asked.

"I was just thinking, and I really don't think it's a good idea for you to go to Vegas at this point in your life. You need a little bit of stability—"

"Christ, Griffin, why didn't you call me and tell me that before I snorted cocaine off a stripper?"

"Oh my god, I should have come with you." By the tone of his voice, I wasn't sure if he was jealous or concerned.

I laughed as I opened up the door. "No, no. I'm actually really okay right now. But tomorrow I'm getting so fucked up."

"Okay. Just be careful, and don't do anything you'll regret later, even if it'll result in a hilarious story for you to tell me. The last thing you need is for someone to make you look even worse than you already do."

"I don't look bad."

"Not appearance-wise, but you seemed like a complete bitch with no self-control during the press conference on Monday."

The bar was stuffy and full of people who weren't a part of my typical crowd. A couple of squeaky-clean guys, one in a bowtie and the other with a screwdriver and a controller of some sort, sat at a table, but as curious as I was, judging was illegal in Vegas.