9. Nick

NINE

NICK

In which Nick is shocked and awed and, again, out of Hot Tamales.

Sherry peered at the picture on Doug's phone. Nick didn't see anything like recognition cross her face.

She shook her head. "Haven't seen her today, but I just clocked on before you arrived. Maybe she was here when I wasn't working."

"Okay, thanks."

Sherry left to turn in their orders and, for once, Nick was at a loss for what to say. He'd spent the past few days giving Doug as much crap as he could, and the well was suddenly dry. Maybe because he was getting to know Doug, and it seemed to him that Doug truly cared about the agents. Teasing him was starting to feel weirdly serious, and Nick didn't know how to handle those kinds of feelings. So, like any normal person, he was going to ignore them.

"What do we do now?" he asked.

"Eat our meal and stick around for your autograph, then head to The Ace of Clubs again. I want to check out Agent Carroll's vacation rental, but we don't have access since it's a private residence. They"—he raised his index fingers—"are getting a set of keys."

"Do you think the weird bathroom guy could be our man?"

But if it was him, and he was on to Doug and Nick, why had he let Nick leave? That was a gaping hole in his theory.

"What?" Doug squinted at him.

"The creep in the bathroom last night," Nick reminded Doug. "I didn't like him."

"Keep your eye out for him again tonight. That was odd. I should've said something when we checked in."

"After the club, then what? This whole undercover thing is a lot more boring than I'd thought it would be." It wasn't, but Doug was acting very calm and un-rattled and Nick preferred it when he was not Mr. In Control, like he had been yesterday and in the shower earlier.

Doug rolled his eyes at Nick's comment.

"Don't worry. I'm sure it will get exciting."

"Do you think we can go back to the room and take Tim for a walk before we hit the club?" The tortoise wanted to stretch his legs. Nick wasn't sure how he knew this, but he'd had the thought before they'd left the room and he just couldn't shake it.

"Tim." Doug said the name like he was tasting vinegar. Or kombucha. Nick liked the drink but he suspected that Doug would hate it. "Fine." He looked at his watch. "I suppose even if we spend a couple hours here, it will still be early for the club."

The meal was surprisingly delicious. Nick savored his salad while being jealous of Doug's steak. And, just because he could, he regaled Doug with facts about red meat and the health benefits of being vegetarian in between bites.

"And yet," Doug said after chewing and swallowing, "I see bacon bits covering your salad."

"Yes," Nick conceded, "but small amounts."

"And I'm also having a salad but with no meat on it."

"I just don't think that one salad balances out a massive steak like that one. Especially at your age."

The eye roll appeared again, along with the slightest hint of that dimple in his left cheek. Nick nearly choked on the bite of iceberg lettuce he just put in his mouth. If they'd been back at the hotel room, Nick would've jumped Doug's bones.

"Are you okay? Are you having an out-of-body experience? Should I be worried?"

"What? Ha, ha. No! I'm fine, just fine. Er, thinking about the tortoise."

Sherry came and cleared off their empty plates.

"Dessert? Or perhaps a cocktail?" she asked.

They opted to share a crème brulée. Nick suspected Doug was pandering to him, but who knew? Besides, dessert . While they were waiting for it to arrive, Velvet Elvis made his first appearance.

"Ah," said Nick. "Midsixties Elvis. Not quite gone to the weeds yet."

The entertainer looked just a bit older than Nick and wore a white shirt with the collar flipped up and a black vest over it. Black slacks and leather loafers completed the outfit. Nick had to admit the guy was good; his hair was perfect and so was his Memphis accent.

"How do you know? Are you an Elvis expert?"

"Who isn't an expert? Dead or not, the man is an icon. Sheesh. And also hush, I want to listen."

Their dessert arrived and they—okay, it was mostly Nick—ate the brulée while listening to a smattering of Elvis classics. Nick knew all the songs, of course. The guy was a very good, very traditional Elvis. Had all the right moves and even his facial expressions were perfect.

A couple of tables positioned close to the stage were filled with women in their sixties and seventies who were heavily sparkled, adorned with a good portion of the two billion sequins in Vegas. They were yelling song suggestions and generally acting like they were twenty again. Nick thought it was sweet. He shot Doug a glance and considered baiting him with a senior comment but decided against it.

With the exception of the tables of women, the rest of the patrons seemed oddly quiet. There was no catcalling or whatever else Vegas was famous for. Elvis was singing Can't Help Falling in Love and only the ladies were singing along with him. Nick glanced around and saw even the family with three children under five was quiet. Two of the children had fallen asleep in their highchairs. What the hell was that about?

Nick glanced over at Doug and saw his eyes were half-mast as well. Falling asleep was an old-man move. But no matter how he joked, Nick knew Doug wasn't old.

Nick tapped him on the forearm. "Should we get you back to the room for a nap? I kept you up late last night."

Doug blinked and shook his head, instantly alert. "No nap, but let's pay up and get out of here."

"Sorry your friend never made it," Sherry said after Doug had swiped his card.

"No, worries. We'll catch up with her at some point."

Back in their room—Doug had remembered to hang the Do Not Disturb sign on the hallway-side knob—Nick pulled Tim out from underneath the bed.

"I'm going to get him outside again," Nick said. "Did you think anything was odd about the Elvis?" Now that he knew about subpar powers, he suspected many people had them and probably used them for evil and not good.

"That's a good idea. I don't know how we'd explain reptile poop."

"Tim would never go inside," Nick said in horror. "He's not that kind of tortoise."

"As far as Elvis goes, I didn't notice anything. Did you?"

"Maybe? I don't know." Nick wasn't going to make a fool of himself by speculating that the Elvis impersonator might be able to relax people or even put them to sleep. What would the benefits be?

Once he'd checked to make sure no cleaning staff were making their way down the hallway, Nick hustled Tim to the stairwell and made his way downstairs. The exit door shut behind him with a solid bang and he stopped in his tracks.

"Fuck." He hadn't grabbed a key card.

"Language."

Nick looked around, but no one else was out in the parking lot in the too-bright sunshine. There were just gleaming cars and a lot of cacti.

"Was that you?" he asked the tortoise.

"Yes, who did you think it was? Put me down."

Wondering if he was having an out-of-body experience, Nick gently set the reptile down.

"You are a talking tortoise. Aunt Kat was right."

With the way the rest of his week had gone, he wasn't surprised at all that a tortoise was speaking to him. He was a little offended that Tim had waited until now to come clean with him though.

Tim started crawling toward the corner of the building.

"Where are you going?" Nick demanded.

"To do my business, where did you think? And if you wouldn't mind turning around."

"Turn around?"

Nick realized Tim was looking at him with what could only be a tortoise's disdain. Wow, life got more interesting every day.

"And shut your mouth or you're going to get flies."

Nick shuffled after Tim. When they reached the corner, Tim turned his head in a way that told Nick if the reptile had eyebrows, they would have been raised in his direction.

"Fine."

Nick turned his back and stared out at all the cars driving up and down the Strip. It wasn't as busy as it would be after nightfall, but there was a constant stream of traffic.

"You can turn back around now."

Nick turned around. Tim was in the same position. Had he taken care of business? Nick was going to assume that yes, he had.

"That hay is terrible. Do you think you could scare up some lettuce or maybe even fruit? I also like watermelon."

"Why are you a talking turtle?"

"I prefer tortoise to turtle. And why do you have the ability to roll back time?"

Nick narrowed his eyes at Tim.

"I don't know."

"Touché. Let's go back to the room."

"Can I tell Doug you talk?"

"You are a grown adult, are you not? The question is, will Agent Swanson believe you? And how much do you care?"

Agent Swanson. Now Nick squinted at the tortoise. A thought flitted through his mind but he dismissed it. The turtle couldn't be a SPAM agent. Could he?

He was lifting Tim up again when he remembered that he'd forgotten his key. A loud, frustrated groan escaped him. They were going to have to go in the front door and Nick had no idea how he was going to explain Tim.

As luck would have it, the exit door opened and two men stepped outside. One immediately and vigorously tapped a packet of cigarettes against his palm while the other already had an unlit one stuck between his lips. Nick managed to grab the door before it swung shut again.

"Remind me to never again carry a fifty-pound turtle up six flights of stairs," Nick said when Doug responded to his knock on their room door. On the way back up, he'd decided against mentioning that Tim talked. Doug wouldn't believe him anyway, and he realized he wanted Doug to respect him.

"Weight training is good for you."

Nick set Tim back down by the bed and paused. Heat rushed into his cheeks so quickly he thought he might pass out from it.

"Are you okay?" Doug asked.

Nick sat on the edge of the bed. "Fine. Just fine."

He was fine, just suddenly thinking about Tim being underneath the bed while Nick and Doug had done The Deed. When Tim had just been a tortoise, Nick hadn't really thought about where he was. But now that Nick knew Tim was an intelligent, sentient tortoise, everything changed. The earth shifted under his feet, so to speak.

Doug peered at him. The heat faded from Nick's face. He grinned back at Doug in what was probably an entirely unconvincing manner.

"I'm fine."

"Okay. I don't believe you, but okay."

"What's the plan now, boss?" Nick asked to divert Doug from any more inquiries that might lead to questions about his mental health. And talking turtles. Tortoises. Whatever.

"We'll walk the Strip and slowly head back toward the club again."

"Try not to almost fall in traffic this time. Please."

"That was a fluke."

It seemed to him that the runner had purposefully pushed Doug into traffic.

"Was it though?"

Nick had been thinking about the odd incident at the fountain the other day. It was better than contemplating a talking tortoise—or worse, dwelling on the fact that he was fast becoming enamored with Agent Doug Swanson. What had started out as amusing and harmless flirting for Nick and then some nice extracurriculars with the assignment was quickly becoming something more.

Why did he do this to himself? Worse, he knew he'd blurt it out loud at some point and Doug would do his best to let him down easily. The conversation would be short and painful.

"What do you mean?"

"What?" Shit, had he said something out loud?

"At the fountain, the Humvee… you were the one who brought it up."

"Oh, right. I meant that it's possible he intentionally pushed you."

"Well," Doug said slowly, "the guy was trying to get past me on a crowded sidewalk."

"Yes." Nick nodded. "But he could more easily have pushed me. He chose to push you. I'm just saying it seemed odd. And we both know that odd things seem to be happening to SPAM agents."

Doug eyed him thoughtfully. "Okay, I'll take that into consideration."

"You're taking me seriously?" Nick was a tad flabbergasted, if that was a thing.

"Yes, I'm taking you seriously. I think," Doug began, opening the hotel room door and ushering Nick out, "that you are smart and observant no matter what kind of act you put on for people."

"Huh," was all Nick could come up with. Also, the comment confirmed he wouldn't be telling Doug that Tim could communicate. Any respect he'd earned would immediately return to below zero.

"So, where are we headed? Dancing again? Trying our—your—luck at the gaming tables?"

Doug had his phone out but slipped it back into the pocket of his jeans. How did a superhero manage to look so good in jeans? It already wasn't fair they looked good in Lycra—not that Nick had seen Doug in his superhero heyday, but it just went with the territory, didn't it?—but Doug filled out jeans and that damn polo shirt like nobody else.

"—where Agent Schoenhut was found."

Nick blinked the Lycra image away. "What? I'm sorry, I missed that."

Doug sighed.

"I ordered a Lyft. We're going to check out the scene where Agent Schoenhut was found."

Opening their room door, Doug motioned Nick into the hallway. Nick waited until they'd made their way downstairs and outside to ask his questions.

Taking his place next to Doug under a canopy where presumably the rideshare would stop for them, Nick asked, "Did you forget to tell me about Agent Schoenhut?"

Doug looked blank for a minute.

"See?" Nick took the moment offered him. "Senior minute. Moment. Whatever . You definitely shouldn't be heading off to Montana all by yourself."

A white Toyota swung into the parking lot. Doug pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen—Nick presumed to make sure they weren't being picked up by a kidnapper—before he opened one of the back doors and squished himself inside. Nick climbed in after him.

"How do you drive that tiny car of yours?" Nick said as he did his best to clip his seat belt.

"Happily, every time I have to fill up the tank."

Nick really wanted to ask Doug where the scene was and what they were going to do there, but it was also possible that he'd told Nick already and that Nick hadn't been paying attention. He didn't space out on purpose; sometimes his ADHD brain just took a little vacation. Why did he have to develop feelings for Doug Swanson? He probably wouldn't enjoy ADHD brain all the time, so Nick was going to try harder to be at least sort of normal.

"I suppose you have a point."

Doug confirmed their destination address with the driver, who shot them a what-the-hell look in the rearview mirror but didn't say anything. Nick had the feeling he didn't pick up a lot of tourists who wanted to go wherever they were headed.

"Wow," said Nick, staring out the passenger window at the derelict strip mall where the driver was dropping them off. Several tumbleweeds rolled by them, along with a plastic bag and scraps of paper. They'd ventured into abandoned Vegas. More likely it was the "real" Vegas, whereas the Strip was Vegas dressed up for a night out—forever. Wherever they were now was dirtier and dustier than Old Town had been. At least the neighborhood around Nitti's seemed like the atmosphere was gritty by design. This was just depressing.

"Out, Nick. The guy has places to go."

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Nick opened his door and stepped out into the oppressive heat. Even at this time of the day, the air was stifling.

At one point, someone had dreams. A little gas station, a deli—which would have been handy to reload up on candy—a nail spa, and, inexplicably, a pet grooming shop, were all lined up next to each other. The businesses were permanently closed, the windows boarded up and, because plywood was an excellent canvas, now covered with graffiti art.

"Whoever painted those is pretty damn talented," Nick commented. "Why are we here?" he asked Doug. "Wondering, also, is anyone going to come out here to pick us up or are we going to have to walk back to our hotel? I did not wear the right shoes for this."