10. No Good Deed

10

NO GOOD DEED

Asher

As the afternoon draws to a close, our black town car cruises along the Strip, nearing The Extravagant, when a billboard of me looms overhead.

Maeve points and grins. “Hello, sir!”

I roll my eyes. I had no idea CheekyBeast had rolled out a new billboard of me cooking eggs and bacon in nothing but giraffe boxer briefs. The slogan Elevate Your Breakfast Game stretches across the bottom of the sign. That photo shoot was months ago, but the new campaign is running all year—online and, apparently, in front of the entire city. “The slogan’s not bad, but they should have gone with Go Pants-Less at Breakfast, ” I quip.

“And all day long,” she adds, giving me a playful once-over. “Are you wearing giraffes now?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I tease.

I hope so.

Nope. Don’t go there. Don’t think about that .

“Actually, I would like to know,” Maeve says, her eyes wide with curiosity.

The words find out hover on my tongue, but I bite them back. “No,” I murmur, leaning in closer to her, unable to resist teasing. “That’s not what I’m wearing right now.”

I don’t say anything more because the car has just pulled up to the entrance of The Extravagant. I step out first then hold the door for her. The late-January air of Vegas greets us with a crisp, refreshing chill as the sun dips low in the sky. The city’s lights flicker on, the bright neon summoning the night.

After the driver pops the trunk, I sling my duffel over my shoulder and reach for Maeve’s bag too.

“I can carry it,” she says.

“I know, but I want to,” I say, taking her small roller bag.

“Do you always get what you want?” It’s asked playfully. Teasingly.

But as I look at her, an unexpected pang lodges in my chest—a pang that feels like it’s trying to tell me something I don’t want to hear. I quickly look away, trying to dismiss this irritating emotion as best I can. “No. But maybe I’ll win at blackjack tonight,” I say, hoping to cover up the ache I’ve no business feeling.

We head inside.

The hotel’s jewel-themed lobby is over the top, even for Vegas, with ruby-red velvet couches and an emerald-green carpet. A huge chandelier dripping with faux gemstones hangs from the ceiling.

“This place looks like a jewelry box. Good thing I brought something nice to wear,” Maeve muses as we weave past the Friday sleek and stylish crowd on our way to the check-in desk. “Or they’d kick me out.”

“Why do I feel like you’d enjoy being kicked out?” I joke.

“Because I would. It’d be another adventure.”

“You’d get your ‘Kicked out of a Vegas hotel’ badge,” I say, grateful for the levity.

Her eyes widen. “Yes!”

“I suspect I’d be picking you up at the police station,” I tell her.

“And you’d love every second of it,” she says.

The thing is, I would, a thought I don’t want to examine too closely right now.

We reach the long, shiny brass check-in desk. The first available clerk, a young man with a sharp suit and perfectly gelled black hair, greets us with a practiced smile. “Welcome to The Extravagant. How was your flight?”

“I have zero complaints because my best friend upgraded me to first class,” Maeve says, looking my way with a smile.

“Well, he’s a keeper, then,” the clerk responds with a wink.

“Don’t I know it,” Maeve replies.

As the polished clerk takes our IDs, a harried sigh draws my attention to a couple checking in with the next clerk. A man and woman stand at the counter with three kids circling the luggage at their ankles. One child is maybe in middle school, but the other two are younger, the girl tugging relentlessly on her mother’s sleeve while the younger boy darts around the adults, making airplane noises.

The woman looks at the older man behind the desk with an exhausted plea. “Is there any way we can get an extra room? For the kids?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The clerk glances at his screen through gold-rimmed glasses. “We’re fully booked tonight.”

Her shoulders slump. “Thanks for trying.”

The husband, judging by his wedding ring, rubs her shoulders. “We’ll make the best of it, honey.”

“I know,” she murmurs. It sounds like an attempt to stay upbeat, but both their expressions say sleep is the new sex.

Ouch. I’ve had some sleepless nights myself. More than I’d like, so I feel for them. Maeve and I exchange a quick glance of sympathy, then she mouths, “ We should share.”

For a couple of seconds, I don’t move. I picture her and me in one room together. Navigating showers, and bedtime, and changing into going-out clothes. That sounds fuck-all hard. No way will that help me stay on the friendship path. After these passing thoughts I’ve had, I don’t need temptation.

But I’m a grown-ass adult. I can handle a hotel room, no problem. This family has a problem we can fix, and it’d be the right thing to do.

I give Maeve a nod that says, Go for it , and she claps in excitement. Her delight in helping someone is worth my discomfort.

Maeve lifts a hand to catch the tired mom’s attention. “Hey,” she says with a cheery smile. “I couldn’t help but hear that you were looking for an extra room. We happen to have two. They’re both on the eleventh floor—pretty close to each other too. East Tower. Would you like to trade? ”

The mom’s jaw falls open. “Oh my god. We’re on the twelfth floor. Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Maeve says.

“It’s not a problem at all,” I agree, then turn back to the slick guy checking us in. “We’ll take their room and give our two to this family.”

“How kind of you,” he says, then quickly makes the adjustment in conjunction with the other clerk.

“Thank you,” the mother says with visible relief as she pulls her kids closer.

“We seriously appreciate it,” the man with her says. Then he peers at me more closely, as if my face is a math problem to solve. “This might be weird. But you look familiar.”

I hadn’t thought about people recognizing me here. It happens more in San Francisco than in other cities, but it still occurs. Maybe he’s seen the billboard on the drive in, but asking a strange guy if he remembers seeing me in my briefs probably isn’t the conversation starter his wife wants to hear.

I offer a fan-friendly smile. “I play hockey.”

He scratches his jaw, admitting, “I’m more of a baseball guy.”

“Can’t fault you for that. I’m counting the days till spring training myself.”

“Me too,” he says.

Before I can ask what team he roots for, Maeve slides next to me and clears her throat. “Baseball is fine, but may I suggest you try the hockey entree from the sports menu this season? Studies show hockey is a more satisfying sport.” Maeve flashes a smile my way. “Plus, I’m pretty sure all those Canadians can’t be wrong. ”

The man laughs. “Sold. I’m Hal, by the way. Otherwise known as New Hockey Fan. ”

It’s my turn to introduce myself, but their son tugs on his mom’s hand. “Can we go play in the pool?”

“Once we check in, sweetheart. If you can just let Mommy finish this.” She turns back to me with a glint in her eyes now. “I’m Jen. And I know you’re having a great season.”

Hal jerks his gaze to his wife, questions flashing in his eyes. “You follow hockey?”

“I know his stats are good,” she tells her husband.

More like excellent, but I don’t correct her. Besides, maybe Jen’s just being nice. Even so, I rap on the counter for luck, though it’s not wood. “That’s all her doing—my season,” I say, curling a hand over Maeve’s shoulder. I don’t want to leave my companion in the dust. I’m here with Maeve, and I want to include her. “She’s my good luck charm.”

“Clearly,” Jen says. “She brought us good luck tonight too. Thank you again. This is exactly how I want to get lucky in Vegas.”

Laughing, Hal nuzzles his wife. He might have other luck in mind. And yeah, maybe the extra room is exactly what this couple needs. Maybe sex is the new sleep.

Their clerk continues with their check-in while ours hands us our key cards. We thank him, then say goodbye to the family.

But Jen whispers something to her husband, then is looking a little sheepishly at me as he fiddles with his phone. And I know that look. I see it in the fans who wait by the players’ parking lot after games for photos, where I happily stop and take them. He nudges her, whispering something like go ahead .

“Did you want a pic?” I ask helpfully, to make it easier for them.

Her eyes widen. “If it’s not a problem.”

“Not at all,” I say.

She beams, then points to her husband, blurting out, “I bought him the fire-breathing dragon ones for our anniversary after seeing an online ad.”

Oh . It all makes sense now. She doesn’t know me from the sport. She knows me from the CheekyBeast campaign.

“Go pants-less,” Maeve snickers, then clears her amusement and says, “I can take a pic of both of you with the world’s hottest underwear model. Would you like that, Jen?”

“Oh yes,” Jen says, right as I say to Maeve in a stern tone, “Hockey player.”

Maeve parts her lips in an O. “Oops. My bad. I meant…pants-less hockey player.”

Hal nods to Maeve. “But we need you in it, since you bring all the good luck, I hear.”

“I also take great selfies,” Maeve says, then takes Hal’s offered phone, snapping a shot of the four of us as the kids wait patiently. That’ll be up on social soon enough, I bet, which will probably make Everly happy since she did say she hoped the winners would post pics of their dates.

And we’re on it.

“Will you tag me?” I ask. I can reshare it then.

“Definitely,” Hal says, then squeezes his wife’s shoulder. “And thanks again. It’s the little surprises, like dragon underwear, that keep the spark alive.”

“Glad to hear,” I say.

Jen gives a soft smile, gratitude in her eyes. “And seriously, this was amazing. Is there anything we can do for you? ”

It’s sweet they asked, really. But I just wave a hand and say, “Enjoy yourselves tonight.”

“We will,” Jen says. “We’ll pay it forward.”

“Sounds great.”

Maeve and I head toward the elevator. Along the way, I shake off the bit of unease I felt walking into the hotel. There’s really no need for it. This room switch is more proof of how seamlessly Maeve and I can slide from a smoldering kiss last week right back into friendship this week. More proof of how necessary our friendship is too. We’ve handled the flight, the room, the whole damn trip so far like pros. And when it comes to the room, who cares if we’re sharing one? We had an extra, after all.

I step into the elevator. Right foot first.

The doors close and Maeve asks, “Was that your first sighting as an underwear model?”

“No.”

She shoves my shoulder playfully. “You never told me you’ve been spotted in the wild in your underwear.”

“Because I haven’t been spotted in them .”

Maeve holds up one finger. “Your honor, I object. Some might say that underwear in a Zoom call is indeed in the wild.”

“It was in my home, and they weren’t sponsorship boxers anyway,” I wave her objection off.

“It’s even more impressive that she recognized you before you started walking away.”

Groaning, I drag a hand down my face. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

“True. But back to these sightings. Do they come up to you and say Google is right. You have the best ass ever ?”

Wait. She knows the Internet says that about me? I raise my face. “Been googling me, Maeve? ”

“Sometimes I do,” she says.

I shouldn’t like that so much. I really shouldn’t. And yet…I do. “Well, don’t believe everything you read online.” Then I shrug casually. “But this one is true.”

“I know,” she says with a smirk, then nods toward me, like she’s checking out my backside. “Do you have fire-breathing dragon boxer briefs with you?”

“Maybe I’m wearing them right now.”

“Did CheekyBeast give you all its styles?”

“That is one of the perks,” I say.

I’m poised for her to let loose a sassy response, but her gaze goes thoughtful. “I know I tease you all the time, but that was seriously cute—how she knew you. How she’d given them to her husband. This might sound kind of out there…but it’s almost like they needed that in that moment. It’s like, I could feel them reconnecting right in front of us,” she says, her eyes lively.

I nod. “I could too.”

“Maybe it was all meant to be—us having two rooms in the date package from the auction.”

“Yeah, maybe it was meant to be,” I say, agreeing as I linger on those three words— meant to be .

Some things do feel that way. But if I believe in meant to be, then aren’t bad things meant to be too?

I shake off the darker thoughts. There’s no place for them. Not in this city where a good time is the only item on the menu. Where good times are meant to be.

The elevator shoots up twelve floors, then dings. We walk down the hallway to our room. I unlock the door, and we step inside. It’s a large room, with a king-sized bed and floor-to-ceiling windows offering a sweeping view of the Vegas Strip. Not ideal for a family of five. The room is decked out in luxurious shades of sapphire and silver, with plush furniture and a marble-topped bar in one corner. A bucket with a split of champagne sits in it. The hotel must have brought that up when we switched rooms with Jen and Hal.

Maeve drops her bag on the chair by the window and stretches. “Yep. This is what I need tonight,” she says, sounding relieved, but also a bit melancholy as she gazes at the view of the neon-lit Strip below.

Something in her voice catches my attention. “Did something happen earlier? Did you hear from your agent?” Last I heard Maeve was still waiting on that job.

She snaps her gaze back to me, her expression clearing. “No. Just that I have a lot to do when I get back to town. But I’m sure you do too. I mean, you do have a game in two nights’ time, and you’d better not miss it,” she says, waggling a finger at me.

But her tone’s too bright, too cheery. “I won’t. But is everything okay with you?” I ask, sensing that she’s holding back in some way.

Ah, fuck.

Is she holding back now because of the kiss last week? We never talked about it. We just went our separate ways. A knot tightens in my chest, and along with it comes a familiar twinge of worry. A twinge that rears its head every now and then and has ever since Nora died when I was twenty-two, a few weeks after I’d broken up with her since I’d fallen out of love. I’d tried to do it gently, to say I wanted to be just friends , which was true. She said she didn’t know if she could be friends with me since I’d broken her heart. But then, a few weeks later, she said she wanted to try. We were supposed to meet for lunch one Sunday—in an attempt to truly stay friends post-breakup. But before I even left my home to meet her, I learned that, during a regular training ride down through the Marin Headlands on her new road-racing bicycle, she’d been hit by a car.

Becoming friends with Nora was never going to happen.

A reminder that you never know what’s coming. And it’s important to talk through things, to listen to people, to hear what’s going on with them. When you don’t, you might regret it.

No, you will regret it.

With tightness in my muscles but a determination to fix whatever’s wrong powering me, I walk over to Maeve where she’s standing by the window. “Hey,” I say, setting a hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on?”

She turns to me, wearing a sad smile. “It’s silly,” she says with a sigh. “Sometimes I get down about work. You know? Sometimes it just seems like…things aren’t going to happen for me.”

My heart squeezes for her. “I’m sorry you’re feeling that way. I’m sure they will though.”

“Maybe. Who knows? I’m trying to be hopeful. But at some point, am I just chasing something I can never catch, Asher?” Her throat hitches.

Heart lurching, I reach for her, pulling her into a hug. “You’re going through self-doubt. That’s normal. For any artist.”

“I wonder if my mom ever did,” she whispers into my chest.

I run my hand down her back. “I’m sure she did.”

“I don’t know. I think she was always successful,” Maeve says, her voice…small. Her usual bravado is noticeably absent .

I pull back and tuck a finger under her chin. “You are successful. You’re always working.”

Rolling her eyes, she scoffs. “Always hustling.”

“And the hustle pays off,” I say.

She shoots me a look like I’ve gone mad. “I don’t know about that.” She sighs heavily, like she’s resigning herself to finally sharing since she adds, “Not everyone makes it. Not everyone pulls it off. What if it’s time to throw in the towel when it comes to painting? You know that’s what Vivian wants. She wants me to go full-time with her. And then maybe to take things over when she retires. Like me running a catering business is a good idea,” she says with an eye roll.

But it’s a real pressure she feels from her aunt, who’s tried in her own, sometimes misguided, way to look out for Maeve.

I want to tell Maeve not to worry about her aunt, but family is complicated. Mine seems easy on the surface, but we’ve had our exhausting years.

I want to tell Maeve, too, that the decorative art she makes is great, but that’s not what she wants to hear right now, I suspect. “You know I don’t think it’s towel-throwing-in time, now or ever. You know I think you’re amazing at what you do. But I hear you that it’s hard, and I’m sorry you’re feeling that right now,” I say.

“I hate to admit it, but I guess I’ve kind of been in a…spiral this past week.”

Well, that’s no good, but she came to the right guy. “What can we do about it?” I ask, cupping her shoulders, rising to the occasion. “How can we un-spiral you?”

She peers around the room, then to the windows overlooking the glittering streets below, then back to me. “I just want to have fun tonight, okay? How does that sound?”

“Well, it’s what I was planning on too,” I say dryly.

“I know,” she says, tone playful again, and that’s a promising step in the un-spiraling. “I just mean—let’s have a great time. Let’s not think about anything else. Just…this night.”

I know just what the doctor ordered. “One second,” I say, then hustle over to the bar, grab the champagne split and loosen the cage. I hold the bottle at an angle, then pop open the cork.

Maeve joins me, her hazel eyes twinkling with mischief. “Do not even bother with a glass. Let’s drink it just like that.”

I lift the open bottle. “To fun. Just fun. Nothing else is allowed tonight. Got that?”

“Just fun,” she echoes, then snags the bottle from me, lifts it, and brings it to her lips. I don’t stare, I swear I don’t stare, I seriously promise I don’t stare.

Ah, fuck it.

I stare unabashedly as her lush lips meet the green glass and she tips some bubbly down her throat. Then she lowers the bottle, and hands it to me. “Your turn.”

“To just fun,” I say, then knock some back. I’m not thinking of where her lips were. I’m not tasting her raspberry lipstick.

News flash: I fucking am.

But I set down the bottle like a good friend. Not a dirty fucker. “It’s my personal mission to make sure you have fun tonight. Think of me as your fun guide.”

And failure is not an option.

Her smile is buoyant, and it feels like old times between us. “We’re going to have the best time at the concert tonight,” she says, patting my chest. It’s a friendly gesture, like she did after the kiss that we don’t speak of.

Her hand on me feels annoyingly good—so good I want to cover it, press her palm closer to my pecs, kiss that lush mouth one more time, and tell her to sink to her knees.

And that inappropriate thought was brought to you by Las Vegas.

I shake it off as I check my watch. We should get a move on. “I’d better shower before we head out.”

Then I picture stepping under the water and great. Fucking great. That won’t be awkward at all with her in the next room. I guess I didn’t think this one-room thing through clearly. But there’s a door in the bathroom. It’s no big deal. It’s fine. It’s totally fine.

“Good idea. You shower first, and then I’ll go,” she says with a dash of awkwardness in her tone. Or maybe it’s me hearing things.

“Sounds like a plan,” I say, doing my best to keep an even tone, already unzipping my bag to unpack. This is supposed to be a night of no complications, an evening of fun with my best friend. And dammit I will make it fun. I will make it easy. I will make it care-fucking-free.

That’s what she needs, and that’s what I can do. But as I unload the contents of my bag onto the bed, something black and shiny catches my eye. Nestled between my clothes is a box of condoms. I freeze, staring at the black box as the pieces fall into place. Those assholes in the locker room must have slipped it in after practice.

Before I can shove it back into the bag, Maeve pads across the carpet. Her eyes go wide, and then, with a smirk, she says, “Got a hot date tonight after the concert? ”

For a split second, I wonder if she’s joking or if she actually thinks I’m planning to hook up with someone here. The idea leaves me momentarily speechless. “No,” I say quickly, irked. “I’d never do that while I’m with you. This is just a locker room prank.”

But saying it’s a locker room prank raises the question of why this would be a locker room prank. I’m definitely not telling her a thing about the whiteboard.

Maeve raises an eyebrow, her smirk deepening. “Sure, sure,” she teases lightly, but there’s an edge of curiosity in her voice. “You can if you want to. Just fun and all.”

I quickly shove the box back into my bag, trying to recover. “First off, I didn’t come to Vegas with you to hook up with someone else. Second, the guys were being dickheads.”

“For suggesting you might need condoms for—?” But she stops before finishing the question, maybe exactly aware of where that sentence was going—that I’d need condoms for her. “For Vegas,” she course-corrects with a strangled sound.

“Yes. Exactly,” I grit out, and I need some space right now. I need hot water and a moment to clear my head. But right when I’m about to claim the shower, I realize how selfish that’d be—showering before her when she probably needs more time to get ready. “Do you want to shower first after all?”

“Sure,” she says and grabs some items from her bag, then turns back to the window. But there’s a new tension in the air, something unspoken lingering between us. So much for the just fun toast. The easygoing vibe from earlier has shifted.

What seemed like an easy solution to someone else’s problem—giving up our second room—now seems like a dicey solution to my problem.

Actually, it seems like it’s a whole new problem for me. Because once she’s in the shower, I can’t stop thinking about her naked.