Chapter Eleven

I checked out of both our rooms and sat in the lobby for six hours. It was ridiculous of me to do. All of his clothes were gone; he obviously had no intention of returning when he’d snuck out while I was sleeping. Yet for some reason, I refused to leave. Sitting on a leather couch in the bustling grand atrium, I stared at the hotel entrance doors. Maybe he’d change his mind? Maybe he’d hopped on a bus and made it half way to California and then regretted leaving? What if he came running back, and I wasn’t here? Then, I remembered he had my phone number and hadn’t called me. Reality was sinking in even deeper.

A couple walked arm in arm through the front doors. She was wearing a tight white dress and wore a long veil, carrying a round bouquet of red roses. He was wearing a suit with his undone tie hanging loosely around his neck and a rose pinned to his lapel. I watched as he pulled her to him for a long, passionate kiss before heading to the reception desk smiling. Tears rolled down my cheek. It wasn’t the first time today.

“Just get married?” An older woman carrying a tub overflowing with quarters sat down across from me. She had white hair styled in a big puffball that looked like it could withstand a typhoon. The blank look on my face was a dead giveaway that my mind was somewhere else.

“I’m sorry?”

Her eyes pointed down to my hands. I was absently twisting the ring on my finger. My wedding ring.

“Uh. No. It’s not a real wedding band. It was…a joke.” The joke was on me.

She nodded. “Would have been married fifty years next week.”

I assumed she lost her husband. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“You said ‘would have’. Did your husband pass away?”

“Hell no. I’m not that lucky. Bastard turned out to be a liar, cheat and a gambler.”

“So what did you do?”

“Pulled up my big girl panties, kicked him out and divorced his ass almost forty years ago.”

I smiled. It was the first one since my shower this morning.

“There you go. Pretty girl like you, that smile should always be on your face.”

“Thank you.”

“So what did the bastard do?” The name she used for the man who wronged me didn’t go unnoticed.

I shook my head. “He left without saying goodbye.”

“Sounds like he’s a coward.”

I was crushed and felt like a fool. But she was right, and I was only making matters worse by sitting around waiting for him—I knew he wasn’t coming back for me. I hated to admit it, but Chance was a coward. A selfish prick who didn’t have the balls to even say goodbye. I let out a frustrated sigh and stood. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Reminding me to pull up my big girl panties.”

The owner of the pet boarding place greeted me with a smile. “Overall, he was very good. Scared the heck out of us when he dropped to the ground at one point. But then we remembered what you said about the occasional fainting. We gave him a bath, so he should smell fresh and clean for your ride back.”

Esmerelda Snowflake ran into my arms before circling around me repeatedly. He seemed flustered. Taking him by a leash, we walked out to my packed car in the parking lot. This was the final stop before leaving Vegas.

I was walking around in a daze. None of this seemed real. At any given moment, I still half-expected to hear his voice coming from behind me.

AH-BREE.

“You didn’t think I’d really leave you, did you, Princess?”

My chest felt full, like it could burst any moment, but shock was preventing me from letting out the sadness and despair held captive inside of me.

I let Esmerelda into the back and took my place in the driver’s seat, unable to garner the energy to start the car. Looking behind me, I said, “This is it. It’s just us now. Are you ready?”

The goat startled me by jumping through the center console and into the front. I watched as he sniffed the passenger seat repeatedly and let out a few loud, frantic “baa” sounds. It seemed like he was really trying to communicate something to me.

I wondered if he sensed that Chance wasn’t coming back. Animals are funny that way.

“He’s gone. No more Chance,” I said, rubbing the back of his furry head gently and swallowing the pain of my words. I repeated in a whisper, “He’s gone.”

The animal started circling around in the seat until he finally stopped and rested his head down.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

What sounded like a whimper escaped him. He couldn’t be crying.

As the sounds got louder and louder, I came to the conclusion that he was. This sweet animal wanted Chance and either understood what I just said or had a sixth sense.

When he looked toward me with his sad eyes, it was at that moment that I finally let go. Everything came pouring out as I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel and sobbed. In just a little over a week, I’d found my greatest happiness and suffered my biggest heartbreak. It felt like I was born again only to be destroyed by the very thing that gave me a new lease on life.

Even though we’d slept together less than twenty-four hours ago, Chance seemed so far away now, like it was all a dream. The soreness between my legs from our one night together—our first and last—was the only evidence that it was real.

I wiped my eyes.

Big girl panties. Big girl panties. Big girl panties.

When I finally developed the courage to drive off, it seemed I had a new copilot. Esmerelda stayed curled up into the passenger seat.

As we passed a sign that read, Leaving Las Vegas, I wished that the saying were true, that everything that happened in Vegas stayed there. I knew better. What happened to me in Vegas would be something that would follow me around for a long time to come.