“I said hard, not sloppy,” Hayley said, shaking her head, the small smile pulling at her lips, ruining any scolding she may have intended. She tugged on the end of Eve’s shoulder-length blonde hair. “You might want to pin this up before bed, because no one will be holding it back for you.”

Eve leaned closer to Hayley, pursing her glossy red lips. “Honey, I plan on burning all the alcohol out of my system with vigorous exercise.”

Beth laughed. “Let’s make a toast to that!”

We ordered our food when the waiter returned, Beth and Eve still sizing up their potential prey. I circled the rim of my glass with my fingertip and felt a set of eyes on me. Hayley studied me with her curious blue eyes, a tiny crease between her eyebrows.

Out of everyone, it was Hayley I was closest to, the first out of this group of girls I’d met. They pulled me into their orbit in a blur of cocktails and club music. Beneath the man-eating exterior of these women were big hearts and kinder spirits. I adored them all, but Hayley was the one I felt the deepest bond with. But like any close relationship, it had its perks and its downsides. Like right now, when I knew she could see more than the others.

“Last night blues?” she asked, her tone light.

I gave a swift nod. “Something like that.”

Hayley patted my knee under the table. “We’d better make it a memorable one then, hadn’t we?”

“It’s already been pretty memorable, Hayley,” I said, giving her a genuine smile.

And it had.

Surprisingly.

None of us had been to Vegas before and I had been hesitant to come. Sin City… Who wanted to go there? A city where people flocked to make stupid decisions and change their lives…for better or worse.

Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea…

I wasn’t altogether sure what I’d expected of this place. When the plane had begun its descent toward the ground and I’d seen the bright lights of this unusual world, a flicker of excitement had rumbled low in my body. I’d all seen the movies, the TV shows, but really, nothing could have prepared me for the intensity of Vegas. I’d had my preconceived ideas, the mental image that was a far cry from the glossy, fluorescent reality. I’d thought I’d known what to expect, but it wasn’t until we’d driven down the Strip with the lights reflecting off the windows that I’d discovered there wasn’t actually anything—real or imagined—that could have prepared me for Vegas herself.