The hotel pool sparkles in the hot noon sunlight. Scantily clad women frolic, splashing each other, laughing. The desert air is warm but not roasting, especially underneath the shade of this umbrella. You’d think this’d be paradise, my own personal Xanadu of beautiful bodies and poolside cocktails. Unfortunately, the whole brush with the law problem earlier this morning has kind of taken the fun out of this for me.

Besides, there’s Julia. I’m remembering even more now. And that’s more than a little distracting.

The sun is damn bright, but at least I’m wearing my sunglasses, so my headache isn’t reaching epic proportions. While I sit with Mike in the shade, drinking a beer to try to get over my hangover before the ceremony, I focus. By focus, I mean I watch Tyler make a spectacular ass of himself. That’s been happening a lot on this trip.

“Cannonball!” he yells, leaping into the pool while a bevy of giggling women shriek and get out of the way, squealing playfully.

Squealing. My temples throb.

When Tyler surfaces, he swims over to the side of the pool and lounges there, cracking a lopsided grin. “Ladies. Who wants to get with a cannonball maître d’?”

I think he means maestro, but I’m not about to correct him. I don’t know what’s worse: that he’s saying those idiotic words or that the women appear to be falling for it. Two of them chat by him, giggling. One even runs her hand along his arm.

Has civilization come to this? Women throwing themselves at Tyler Berkley? Where did we go wrong?

“The hell, man. You need to lighten up. Why don’t you get in the pool?” Mike asks, looking over at me with a beer in hand. The sight of alcohol makes my stomach ripple a little, even as the (now lukewarm) taste of it is helping my migraine somewhat.

“Not feeling it,” I say, and pop a couple of Advil, which I’m sure is totally safe to take with beer.

I need it, though, partly because of this throbbing headache. Partly because since revisiting that strip club and remembering everything that went on in there, I keep thinking of Julia. Not the way she rolls her eyes, or how annoying I thought she was yesterday afternoon, but the feel of her skin, the taste of her lips, the way she sounded as I thrust inside of her. The way she dug her nails into my back, keening low in her throat as I fucked her, filled her.

See, right there. This is why I’m not swimming today. I don’t need to fantasize about last night’s hook up, pitch a tent in my swimming trunks, and then get in the water. This is a family pool.

Damn. I’m getting, ah, excited just thinking about it. As I pretend to deliberately hunch over, giving myself time to go limp again, Stacy walks over to us. Apparently last night’s party didn’t faze her at all. She’s in her hot pink bikini, towel around her waist, cowboy hat on her head.

“You boys awake at last?” she says, looking past Mike to me. Her forehead creases slightly. “You okay with the fuzz now?”

“Hilarious,” I say, taking a sip of really warm, shitty beer. “Like I said, it was just a few questions.”

I haven’t told them about the fountain. I will never, ever be able to talk to them again if they find out. Mike and Stacy are the type to never let a funny story die, even if it was twenty goddamn years ago. At their children’s future bar mitzvahs, I’ll still get regaled by stories of my illegal skinny dipping.

Stacy purses her lips. She’s not buying, but at least she’s not going to push it.

“Babe, we need to go for lunch soon. I’m starving,” she groans dramatically, hands on her stomach. Mike laughs and pushes up his sunglasses.

“You can really be this cool when you’re hours from the altar?” he asks, mock serious.

“It’s not an altar, it’s a chuppah in Las Vegas. No worries at all.” She brushes a hand through his hair. It’s a familiar, intimate, happy gesture that I have to look away from.

“Get Casanova in here, then,” Mike says, laughing as he watches Tyler pick up one of the shrieking girls and dunk her in the pool.

Stacy puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles, long and shrill. Everyone at the pool startles, and Tyler actually tips over, going underwater.

“Ouch. That’s at a level only dogs and future husbands can hear,” Mike says, taking her hand and kissing it. He fakes her out and pulls her down into his arms. She laughs wildly.

God, they’re so happy. They should remember they’re in public. Love should be secret and shameful, something you apologize for experiencing.

All right, even for me that’s a little harsh. But not by much.

“Dogs and future husbands are a similar breed,” Stacy says, kissing Mike. He grins.

“Tongues hanging out all the time? Fleas?” He kisses her chin. “Shitting in the house?”

“Scruffy and adorable. And yes, pooping indoors, but nothing a little training can’t fix.” She wraps her arms around his neck. “It’s why I love them. Dogs, I mean.”

“Good. I was afraid you’d say you loved me. I don’t know what I’d do with so much emotion.”

While they keep kissing and giggling and I keep ignoring them, I look over at Tyler in the pool. Stacy’s whistle did the trick; he’s sloshing over toward us, leaving the girls behind.

I should be like him, fucking my way around the greater Las Vegas area. Maybe get a penicillin shot beforehand, of course. Clearly I’m capable of having hot, random sex with strangers. But that one particular stranger . . . .

I can’t get Julia out of my head. Smart mouth and all, I wonder what she’s doing right now. I want to feel her underneath me. Last time it was pitch black in that closet; I want to see her eyes widen, her mouth open as she comes calling my name.

Or maybe I want to go upstairs and jerk off, because this hard-on situation is getting distracting.

“Hey. You.” Stacy nudges me with her foot. She’s seated on Mike’s lap, her arm around his neck. “Things seemed to go well with Julia Stevens last night, huh?” She grins.

In addition to not talking about the fountain, I also don’t want to go into the details of my blackout. That kind of thing makes you look sad in people’s eyes. So I simply nod.

“She’s . . . fun,” I say at last. Stacy snorts.

“Only you can say fun like it’s a disease.” She looks at me, thoughtfully arching an eyebrow. Whatever’s coming can’t be good. “Hey, Nate. Guess what?”

“I can’t even begin to guess,” I say, as blandly as possible. “Your mind is a mystery. You’re the Las Vegas sphinx.”

“If we were at the Luxor, maybe. Listen, buddy,” she says, leaning toward me. I have a bad feeling about this. “It’s my wedding day,” she says.

I get the feeling she’s winding up to ask for something.

“And?” I say.

“And I want you to call Julia and invite her to have lunch with us.” Stacy has that look in her eyes, the I am prepared to fight and win expression. She’s a Chicago social worker, which means she has a ton of experience with impossible cases.

Lunch. With Julia. I groan, showing Stacy how much I’m opposed to the idea by my body language. I don’t let her see the hard-on, though; I keep that under wraps as much as possible.

“Whatever happened last night,” I say, “whatever the hell it was in the moment, I don’t think this is a woman I want to get entangled with.”

Unless it’s upstairs right now, in my suite, entangled in the sheets as we fuck each other senseless. That kind of entangling would be just fine.

Jesus, what the hell is happening to me?

“I don’t think that’s true,” Stacy says, pursing her lips in a knowing smile. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what you want. It’s my special day. Bridal trump card, baby. Today, I get what I want.”

“It’s my weekend too,” Mike says, pulling his bikini-clad fiancée against his chest and nuzzling her neck. She giggles. Mike’s the only man alive who could make Stacy giggle. “Do I get a say in this?”

His tone’s light, but I know Mike’ll back me if I need it.

Ah, what the hell. Let me give Stacy something she wants for her big weekend, even if she has misguided, romantic notions about me and this girl.

“All right,” I say at last. “Because I care so damn much.”

“You’re a treasure,” Stacy drawls.

“I’ll call her,” I grumble, pulling out my cell. I think she’s got her phone at least.

Stacy cheers and takes a long chug of Mike’s beer. While he deals with his alcohol-swiping future wife, I wait as the phone rings once, twice. A strange feeling pulses through me; it’s both lightness and unease. She may not pick up. She said she was having a lunch meeting anyway. Maybe I won’t get to see her again. I can’t tell if that’s a relief or—

“Hello?” Julia’s voice is wary. “Who is this?”

My heart beats faster. Goddamn it, why am I acting like some high school loser calling up his crush? Pull it together, asshole.

“It’s Nate,” I say. I clear my throat. There. Now I sound like a confident jackass. Exactly what I want. “Nate Wexler,” I add in a voice that is five octaves deeper than it was a second ago.

“Oh, good. Your number isn’t in my contacts. What’s up? Did you find my purse?” she asks. Very business, very professional. She doesn’t sound like she cares all that much.

What the fuck am I doing getting excited about this shit?

“Calling on behalf of Stacy. She wants to know if you’d like to have lunch with us,” I say. My tone’s casual. She can take it or leave it. Either way, doesn’t matter to me.

“Oh. I mean, I’m eating now,” she says, sounding surprised.

Right. Of course, she had a lunch meeting. I shrug.

“That’s fine, I can tell Stacy—”

“But I’m a hobbit. We believe in second luncheon. Where should I meet you guys?”

Is it my imagination, or does she sound eager? That thought pleases me more than it should.

“A hobbit?” I ask.

“Please don’t make me recite the entirety of Lord of the Rings to you. It’ll take several hours.”

“I know what hobbits are. Even I’m not that out of touch. We’re over at the pool,” I say, trying not to smile. The hell is wrong with me? “Can’t miss it. You’ll recognize Tyler making an ass of himself.”

Speaking of the buffoon, he pulls himself out of the pool and walks over to us, dripping.

“There’s a sight that once seen cannot be unseen,” she agrees.

Julia says goodbye and hangs up, and I take another swig of my beer as Tyler grabs a towel. My temples have stopped throbbing. Finally, my hangover appears to be lifting.

“Was that so hard?” Stacy says, giving me a damn smug smile.

“Not hard at all,” I answer. And it wasn’t hard. At all.

And that’s the problem.