It was all I could do to not similarly bolt from my seat. Sara’s name echoed in my every heartbeat. I loved her so wildly, it was a wonder this wasn’t also my stag weekend. The number of times I’d almost proposed to her was bordering on absurd. And somehow, I knew she could see it in my face: that moment when I started to beg her to leave for the weekend with me, marry me, move in with me . . . and then thought better of it. Without fail, she asked what I had meant to say, and I told her she looked beautiful instead of releasing the words, “I’m not going to feel sorted until we’re married.”

I often had to remind myself it had been a mere six months—almost nine including our initial arrangement—and Sara was skittish about all things matrimonial. She’d kept her apartment, but honestly I don’t know why she bothered. For the first month or two after we reconciled, we’d split our time at the two places, but my home was larger, better furnished, and my bedroom had better lighting for the photographs I loved to take of her. Soon she was in my bed every night of the week. She would be mine forever, but—fuck—I had to remind myself we didn’t need to rush it.

After what felt like an appropriate amount of time since Bennett left, I put my own tumbler on the table and looked up at Will and Henry.

“Gentlemen,” I began, “I’m headed down the hall to have a fabulous Vegas bird dance on my lap.”

Both barely looked away from the dancers on the stage, and I was fairly confident I could leave and they wouldn’t think to look which hall I was headed down.

The hall to the left of the stage led to private rooms named after the planets. These rooms were for lap dances mainly, much like the one Bennett was currently getting. In my opinion, the only interesting thing in those rooms tonight was the fact that he was getting his dance from Chloe.

But the rooms to the right of the stage, labeled simply by color, were for an altogether different purpose. No one could enter those save for certain club employees and a very select group of clientele. The roped-off section was for the patrons who paid for the privilege of watching sex acts. Much like Red Moon in New York, Black Heart in Vegas catered in part to a population of the rich and passionately voyeuristic.