Ayla rented a house in Henderson which was southeast of the Las Vegas Strip. She shared it with a roommate, Desiree. Desiree was a high school friend who worked in public relations for a small downtown casino, and she had to leave for work by just after 7:00 AM.

Ayla had gone through a succession of babysitters who were willing to show up at her house at 6:00 AM to give Desiree time to entertain Preston once he woke up, so that Desiree could get ready for work. The babysitter was also charged with getting Preston ready for school and on the bus or, during the summer, watching him until Ayla got home from her overnight job.

Her call center day job started at 10:00, so she had a small window before getting her son to day care on days she needed it. She worked through her lunch during the day, eating on her breaks, which allowed her to be out early enough to pick Preston up before day care or the afterschool program ended.

Just in time to go home, fix and eat dinner, get him to bed, and start the entire exhausting grind over again the next day.

The current babysitter, Lupe, had done a decent enough job, although she had the personality of the bread crust Ayla trimmed from Preston’s PBJ’s.

“Murray! Do you have both your earbuds in again? Get out to the belt and clean up your damn mess!” Jeff was growling his commands, his idea of “helping” to yell louder and sprinkle profanity in his commentary.

“Sorry, I’m trying!” Ayla replied, rushing back and forth between checking the time. When Desiree called, she said Preston was awake and she’d given him a banana and turned on his cartoons while she finished getting ready, but that she had to leave soon, no matter what.

As reliable as Lupe normally was, however, on this particular morning she’d neither shown up nor answered Desiree and Ayla’s calls and texts.

Running back out of her truck to the conveyor belt filled with packages, Ayla paused and checked her phone: 6:42 AM. Home was a fourteen-minute drive away if she hit mostly green lights. She’d timed it so that she could enjoy the maximum amount of sleep each night, five hours on average. She could remain at work no more than three more minutes before she’d need to clock out, run to her car, and speed home in time for Desiree to leave for downtown.

After dragging two sixty-pound boxes bound for a local dry cleaner onto her truck (how the hell could hangers weigh so much?) Ayla reached down and hit the button stopping the belt, bringing the entire operation to a grinding halt.

“Jeff!” she called out, waving to her supervisor to get his attention.

“Why did you turn my belt off, Murray?” Jeff growled, marching in her direction with fire in his eyes.

Ayla picked up her keys, phone, and bottle of water from inside the truck. “I have to go home. I’m really sorry, but my babysitter didn’t show up, and I have to go. Right now.”

Jeff gave her a hard stare. He had no children and had little sympathy for problems his employees had with their kids. “I mean, are you fucking kidding me? Can’t you see how much work we have left?”

“I know,” Ayla apologized, trying to slip past Jeff and get to the time clock so she could get going. “But I don’t have anybody to watch Preston. I have to go.”

“That’s a you problem. A personal problem. This is work. We pay you to be here. I’ll take this straight to Randy. You know I will,” Jeff warned. Randy was Jeff’s boss. He was much more sympathetic to family issues than Jeff, but ultimately Ayla knew she was putting her co-workers and supervisors in a bind. She hoped it wouldn’t cost her her job.

“I know. I’m really sorry. But I have to go.” Ayla squeezed herself between Jeff and a stack of boxes. She apologized to J.R., the guy who worked next to her, into whose lap some of her leftover work would surely fall.

J.R. was a workaholic, however, who picked up every scrap of overtime he could get his hands on in order to help him pay child support to two different women for his three kids.

“No problem, Ay, we got you covered,” J.R. offered. Jeff shot him a nasty glare.

Ayla clocked out and ran across the parking lot to her old red Toyota, saying a silent prayer that it would start. It had been making a weird knocking sound the past few days and been hesitant to start at times.

This morning, however, it fired right up, and she left the parking lot and joined the other morning commuters on the congested roads of Las Vegas.

With most of the traffic heading out of the suburbs and toward the freeways, Ayla made record time, pulling into her driveway just twelve minutes after clocking out. Desiree was standing next to her own car, waiting, while Preston kicked and chased a soccer ball around the front lawn.

“So sorry, Desiree. I’ll make it up to you, I promise!”

“Whatever,” Desiree replied, making no effort to mask her annoyance. “I have to go.”

Ayla’s roommate got in her car and sped out of the driveway, trying to make up for lost time.

Ayla immediately felt terrible. She tried to shake it off and pay attention to what really mattered for a moment.

“Hey, monkey,” Ayla called out to Preston, who picked up his soccer ball with both hands and punted it over Ayla’s car and into the neighbor’s yard.

“Go get that right now! And then let’s go have some breakfast. Mommy’s hungry,” Ayla said.

Preston half-skipped around the back of Ayla’s car, giving her a high five in passing, eschewing her offered hug. “Can you stay home with me today?” he asked as he disappeared to fetch his ball.

“No, buddy, I’m sorry, I have to work,” Ayla said. “Though I wish more than anything I could.”

“You’re always working,” Preston complained, trudging back toward the house. “I don’t want to go to stupid daycare. The only two boys my age just speak Spanish and I don’t want to play with the girls.”

Ayla was exasperated. Leaving work hadn’t gone well, Desiree was pissed at her, and Preston hated his daycare. Truth be told, she hated having to send him. She’d love nothing more than spending an early summer day with him at the splash pad at the park down the street or hanging out at the pool eating popsicles.

Unfortunately, however, none of those activities helped to pay the bills. To make matters worse, her day job— the one that just barely kept her from drowning in that ocean of bills— was mind-numbing drudgery.

She sat in a cubicle farm, answering calls for a bank from customers disgruntled with their credit cards. They needed a balance increase, despite being two months behind, or they wanted to dispute that six-dollar fast food meal from three weeks ago, even though it was charged at the same “restaurant” where they ate lunch five days a week, and always for the same amount. Or, in some cases, it seemed like they just wanted somebody to yell at and empty their entire arsenal of creative profanity upon.

One particularly memorable caller, a man whose name contained an incomprehensible, unpronounceable series of consonants with vowels added seemingly just for comic relief, became so agitated with Ayla for not waiving his annual fee that he stammered and sputtered before he settled on calling her a “cuntcock.” Ayla had been so taken aback that she politely asked him to repeat the insult, which got her a verbal warning from her supervisor. The customer screamed “I said cuntcock!” so loudly at her that when she held her headset up in the air above the cubicle dividers, co-workers three deep all around her could hear him.

Mostly, however, it was an interminable series of the same questions, over and over again, the monotony of which was broken only by customers telling her how “stupid” and “worthless” she must be to work in a call center.

This was not the life she envisioned for herself while getting straight A’s in high school and scoring near the top of her high school class on the SATs. That girl— the one she used to be— would be ashamed to know her, much less be her.

* * *

Dropping Preston off at daycare so she could sit in a cubicle for the next eight hours made Ayla want to vomit.

Her son stood at the door, holding it open for his mommy and smiling, and her heart melted. For a moment she considered calling in sick, but the fact that her most recent power bill came in one of those ugly fluorescent orange envelopes with “URGENT” stamped all over it motivated her to be a responsible adult, no matter how badly she didn’t want to.

“Okay, how about this. After I pick you up, we’ll go to Roberto’s for a quesadilla and then to Leatherby’s for ice cream,” Ayla asked Preston, who nodded enthusiastically. “And I think we can make some lemonade at daycare, too.”

Preston cocked his head sideways and gave her a confused look.

“There’s a saying, ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’. Have you ever heard that?” Her son had not, or if he had, he didn’t recall. “Lemons by themselves don’t taste very good, right? You can’t eat one like an orange. But you can use them to make lemonade, which is yummy. Make sense?”

“We’re going to make lemonade at daycare today?” Preston asked.

“Not really,” Ayla explained. “What it means is that we’re going to take something that seems bad, in this case the boys at daycare not talking to you because you can’t speak Spanish, and turn it into something positive. Something good.”

Understanding flickered in Preston’s dark eyes, but he couldn’t make the complete connection in his six-year-old mind.

“You’re going to learn to speak Spanish. And then, maybe teach those boys English. I know once they get to know you, they’ll see how cool you are. And I bet they are, too. What do you think?”

“Spanish seems really hard,” Preston countered. “But I could try.”

“Riding a bike seemed really hard at first, right? But now you ride with no hands and do tricks and everything.”

Preston grinned and nodded his head.

Once inside, Ayla rummaged through the pantry and the fridge for something she could fix for breakfast. In the freezer, she found half a box of frozen waffles, although she knew there was only enough syrup to make a batch for Preston.

He wolfed down his waffles while she nibbled at one dry one, using the remaining syrup on his plate to make it just palatable. She grabbed two sticks of her son’s string cheese to refuel after her shift at the shipping company and packed herself a sandwich to take to work.

While Preston watched cartoons, she snuck in a quick shower and logged onto Facebook. A guy from high school, Mike Curtis, whom she’d had a crush on, had been messaging her lately. He and his wife had just split up, and she figured he was lonely and hoping to coerce her into some “forget-my-ex” sex. He looked good, she had to admit, and he seemed to be doing well for himself, working in sales for a company that made casino equipment; automatic card shufflers and such.

But something wasn’t there. There wasn’t a spark. Even when she tried to envision a future with someone like Mike Curtis, it felt like settling.

And she’d done enough of that.

When Preston was born, Ayla took a personal vow of “relationship celibacy.” She didn’t want a parade of strange men in and out of her life. Too many horror stories about children being molested or abused by the new boyfriend or stepdad.

No, it was and would be Ayla and Preston against the world. She’d given up hope that she’d miraculously bump into his father one day, and even if she did, what could she really expect from such a reunion?

* * *

She’d bumped into him at Scald, a nightclub that had been open for only about six months before being shut down by law enforcement when it was discovered that the promoter was the ecstasy kingpin of Las Vegas, and his club was a thinly-disguised marketplace for his product.

She’d gotten in with a fake ID with her best friend, Tara, as a way to celebrate high school graduation. Tara told her parents she was spending the night at Ayla’s, Ayla told her parents she was at Tara’s, but instead they met up at a mutual friend, Natalie’s, house and “modified” their sexiest outfits to make them club-ready.

Ayla wore a clingy dark blue dress that she’d hemmed to an obscenely short length, showing off far more of her thighs than the designer intended or her parents would have allowed. She also made sure her breasts were pushed up and together, filling the V down the middle. She’d never dressed like this before but she was 18 and wanted to look sophisticated and womanly.

The door guy took a hard look at the three friends’ ID’s, but an even harder look at their cleavage and miles of leg on display, and he waved them through.

Natalie had previously gone out clubbing with her older sister, who’d hooked her up with the fake ID guy, so the club scene wasn’t entirely new to her, but Scald was the hottest place in town, playing host to a cadre of celebrities every weekend.

Ayla felt like Alice in Wonderland.

Guys almost immediately began buying the girls drinks, and it didn’t take long for Ayla to shed her inhibitions, nerves, and any reticence when it came to dancing.

Tara, Ayla, and Natalie tore up the dance floor, and the sweaty grinding and beautiful people all around got Ayla going. She’d never felt sexier.

Taking a break, Ayla looked over to discover Tara making out with a guy who looked like a football player, and Natalie was gone, having disappeared back onto the dance floor.

Ayla sat at the bar when two swarthy-looking guys wearing way too much gold jewelry approached and flanked her. They were talking fast, and between their thick accents, the drinks she’d already consumed, and the combination of lights and music, she felt dizzy.

The bartender produced three drinks, something green in them, and the two men offered a toast. She lifted her glass and went to toss it back, when he intervened.

As Ayla lifted the drink to her lips, a hand found her forearm and blocked her. She, and her two new friends, turned to find a tall, dark-haired guy in a bold green shirt standing there. He was rugged, with a Roman nose and obsidian eyes.

His voice made her quiver.

“You don’t want to drink that,” he warned. “And you two… if you want to keep your teeth, get the fuck out of here.”

The two friends made eye contact and the larger of the two drank his shot and slammed the glass down on the bar top.

“Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” he asked Ayla’s savior. “Captain America?”

The newcomer responded by coolly taking the glass from Ayla’s hand and swirling it, in thought, before replying. “I’m the guy who watched you slip something in her drink. Here, have it back,” he said, tossing the contents in the man’s face.

“Motherfucker!” the smaller man responded, and lunged at the stud in the green shirt. He was summarily deposited on the floor with a lightning-fast judo throw, and when his bigger friend tried his luck, the result was the same.

Security rushed to the scene, and Green Shirt took Ayla gently by the arm and guided her away from the scene.

“Wet spot on the floor. Those two blokes slipped,” he muttered to the first guard on the scene, and he dissolved into the crowded dance floor with Ayla, pulling her close.

She was completely flabbergasted.

“Sorry, love, but those two scumbags put something in your drink,” the large man pulled Ayla close, speaking directly into her ear, over the thump of the music. He had an accent she couldn’t place. Vaguely British, with a hint of something else. “You’d have woken up in their room, or worse, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it. Forgive me if I crossed the line. I have a weakness for damsels in distress, even if they don’t realize they’re in distress. Especially beautiful blondes.” His smile was warm and seemed genuine, and something about the way he looked at her made Ayla tingle all over.

He was all man, not just his physical size, but his voice, his confidence, his rough hands and stubbly chin. She felt small next to him; vulnerable. The only distress she could imagine feeling in his presence would be a desperate longing for him. A physical, visceral longing for his arms around her waist and his hands everywhere else.

A ruckus ensued near the bar, where the two men Ayla’s protector had deposited on the floor were being confronted by security. A shouting match had broken out, and a minor scuffle as they were escorted toward the door.

Guards fanned out around the dance floor, looking for others who were involved in the initial fracas. Ayla knew she’d done nothing wrong, but she also knew she was in the club illegally in the first place, and she had no desire to talk to security, much less to law enforcement. She felt a surge of panic and wished she could find Tara or Natalie.

The man in the green shirt held Ayla’s hand and guided her through the swaying crowd as the hypnotic dance music shook the room. When they’d lost themselves in the throngs of people, she watched his eyes darting around the room. Suddenly, they made contact with hers, and his index and middle fingers formed a letter V, pointing first to his eyes, then to hers. When she nodded, he pointed over her right shoulder. She chanced a peek, and saw a yellow-shirted security guard, scant feet away, speaking into a microphone clipped to his collar.

Ayla’s worried eyes returned to her rescuer, who took her face in his hands, and… kissed her.

Not a peck or a smooch, a deep, powerful kiss. She hesitated at first, caught completely off-guard, but her libido kicked in and she was on autopilot, kissing him back, her hands on his chest finding granite slabs where his pecs ought to be. He made a guttural sound, a satisfied growl, as she whimpered and writhed against him.

It occurred to her that the point of this might have been to camouflage themselves, but there was nothing utilitarian about the smoldering kiss or the wanton way their hands explore each other.

His right hand landed on the small of Ayla’s back, pulling her in close— not that she lacked for encouragement.

She’d never felt a kiss to match it, and she never wanted it to end. Yet it was with a man she’d met just two minutes ago, and she wasn’t privy to even his name.