The Good Life

Alex

"Yeah we're checking in to the hotel now so I'll call you back later." I said to Jack through my phone.

"Okay, I love you. Bye." He said and we hung up.

Aus, Rian, Oli, and I drove to Vegas and now we were checking into our suite at the Bellagio hotel. I knew when Jack said he was going to book our room he was going to get one of the most expensive suites they offered.

We were going to wait for Vinny to meet us so we could go enjoy the city together. This was just the vacation we needed with all the crazy shit that's been happening to us. I was hoping that being here in Vegas would make me feel young again before I had to become a grandpa.

We received our room keys and took the elevator to the second to top floor. When we found our suite and opened the door our mouths almost hit the ground. It was beautiful, almost too beautiful to be in a hotel. It literally looked like a small house.

"Okay I call dibs on Jack if he and Alex ever get divorced." Oli joked.

"Yeah you guys can adopt me if you want." Rian chuckled.

"No thanks we're about to have a new baby to take care of." I said.

"You guys should come check out the bedrooms!" Austin yelled from one of the rooms. We all walked towards the sound of his voice and found him. The rooms were decorated and huge each had queen size beds and their own bathrooms.

"Is it possible to just live here for the rest of our lives?" Rian asked.

"Not for $4200 a night." I laughed.

"Seriously? Alex, dude, I swear you're so lucky to have someone as rich as Jack. I think I would turn gay for him too." Oli told me.

"Shut up, Oli." I said and we laughed.

We heard a doorbell ring and all kind of freaked out because we had a doorbell. I walked and opened the door for Vinny.

"Alex!!" He yelled as he pulled me into a hug.

"It's been so long, Vinny!" I exclaimed.

"Bro you haven't changed one bit. You still look like the same asshole from high school just with shorter hair." He laughed.

"Yeah and you're still shorter than me." I chuckled. "Oh guys this is Vinny! Vinny this is Rian, Austin, and Oli." I introduced them all. I'm pretty sure Oli and Vinny met before when were younger, but they probably didn't remember each other.

"It's nice to meet you all. I hope you're all ready to get fucked up by Vegas." Vinny said and they laughed. Vinny's personally hadn't changed at all. He was still the loud easy going guy he was in high school.

"We're up for whatever you're up for." Oli told him.

"Awesome! I was thinking we'd do a little gambling before going to this club appearance I need to be at tonight." Vinny suggested.

"Yeah I wanted to try my luck with black jack tonight." Rian said. He had a serious problem with that game.

"Alright let's go down and play!"

I went with Rian to the black jack table while Vinny and Austin went to go play poker and Oli went to the slot machines. I wasn't playing I was just watching Rian play. I wasn't really much of a gambler.

"Alex I know how hooked I can get to this game so make sure I don't go over five-hundred dollars." Rian said as the dealer gave him his cards and I laughed.

"You need help, Ri." I told him.

"No no I just need a five." He said while waiting for the dealer to flip over his card. I shook my head at him there was no way it was going to be a five out of all of those cards.

"And it's a five! You have twenty-one!" The dealer congratulated Rian as he paid him some casino chips.

"Woooooo!" Rian cheered looking at the one hundred dollar worth of chips he just received.

"Dude that was amazing!" I praised.

"Yeah I'm going to go again." He said placing the casino chips on the table to play with.

"What? No! You're going to lose the money you just won!!" I scolded him.

"No no I-I just want to double it then I'll go." He stammered. I could tell he was hypnotized by the game now. They probably only let him win the first time to keep him playing.

"Okay I'll let you play for a few more minutes, Rian." I told him as I walked away to where I saw Oli sitting at a slot machine and smoking a cigarette.

"Where's Vinny and Aus?" I asked him.

"They're still at the poker table." He answered. "Why aren't you playing anything?"

"I'm not into gambling really." I said.

"Yeah but we're in Vegas, you literally have to gamble while you're here." He exaggerated.

"Ugh fine." I sighed and pulled out a ten dollar bill from my wallet. I sat down at the slot machine next to Oli's and put the bill in. It's was a five dollar slot machine which meant I would only be able to spin two times with ten dollars. It pained me to pull the handle and see five of my dollars go away. I got two bars and a red seven so I won my five dollars back.

"How is this fun?" I complained to Oli.

"The possibility of winning lots of money is what makes it fun." He smiled at me.

"Well all this is doing is stressing me out. Give me that." I said pointing to his cigarette. He handed it to me and I took a drag of it. I hadn't smoked a cigarette since college so the burning in my lungs felt new. "Oh my God." I coughed as I handed it back to him. He chuckled and went back to smoking with ease.

"I'm leaving." I said and attempted to get up.

"Wait! You still have money in the machine." Oli said.

"Oh yeah. I might as well use all of it." I sighed and pressed the double bet button using the whole ten dollars I put in. I pulled the handle and waited for it to finish spinning. I watched as the machine landed on "Wild Wild Wild." Bells and whistles went off as my winnings began to increase.

"What the hell did you do?" Oli asked, amazed.

"I have no idea." The total went from one hundred to two hundred to three hundred and on until stopping on eight-hundred and fifty dollars. I sat quietly and amazed that I won so much money from ten lousy dollars.

"Alex." Oli said sounding shocked.

"What do I do?" I asked.

"Go cash out and let's go." He told me.

I pressed the 'cash out' button and the machine gave me a ticket with the amount of money I just won on it. I followed behind Oli to the cashier/teller booth and handed the lady the ticket.

"Wow you did good!" The cashier lady told me and she began to count out eight-hundred and fifty dollars to me. "There you go Hun!" She handed me the money in an envelope.

"That's it?" I asked still kind of shocked that it was so easy.

"Yep! Have a nice day!" She said.

Oli and I walked away to go put the money in the safe in our room. I held the envelope to my chest tightly as we went. Once it was securely locked away I called Jack.

"Hey Babe, how is it so far?" He asked when he answered.

"Jack it's so amazing. Guess what? I just won eight-hundred dollars from ten dollars!!" I exclaimed.

"Wow that's a lot!" He tried his best to sound excited, but that amount was nothing to him.

"Yeah I locked it away so I won't spend it at the casino."

"Lex you're supposed to keep spending it. That's the whole point of gambling." He laughed.

"No I don't want to become addicted like all the other people here and spend it all in one day."

"You have more money. I put some in your socks in your suitcase." He chuckled.

"You did what?" I went to my suitcase, unzipped it, and grabbed a lone sock I didn't pack. Sure enough there was ten one hundred dollar bills crammed into it. "Jack!"

"What's wrong? You're supposed to be enjoying yourself so keep the eight-hundred you just won as insurance and go play the thousand I gave you." I could hear his smile through the phone.

"You're so annoying." I said and he laughed.

"Yeah yeah I know. Now go have fun."

I sighed and told him bye. Then I grabbed three hundred out of the money he gave me.

"Ready to go back down?" Oli asked.

"Yeah I need to get Rian off the black Jack table." I said.

We went back to the casino and saw Rian still sitting in the same spot I left him.

"Rian you ready to get up, buddy?" I asked.

"No guys I'm on a roll! Look how much I won!" He pulled back and showed us all his chips on the table. There was at least three-hundred dollars.

"That's good, but I think you should take a break. We can go grab something to eat and then we'll come right back." I said using the voice I would use when Izzy was little and didn't want to leave her toys.

"But but!...Okay." He sighed and forced himself away from the table looking back at it as we walked away.

We went to where Austin and Vinny were. They had just finished a game so as soon as they saw us they got up and walked to us.

"Hey do you guys want to get something to eat so we'll have food in our stomachs when we start drinking?" I asked them.

"Yeah that's a good idea." Vinny said. "There's a restaurant on the first floor we can eat at."

***

After eating we walked out to the strip of Vegas. It was night time now so all the lights on the hotels were on and the streets were filled with people. We were walking to the club Vinny was supposed to DJ at in a few minutes. He said it was inside of a hotel called the Wynn and it was also on the strip so we would be there in no time. Plus public intoxication was legal here so it wouldn't matter if we were drunk on our walk back.

"So are you really married to a dude or were you just fucking with me?" Vinny asked me as we walked.

"I really am. His name is Jack Barakat, we went to school with him." I told him.

"Jack? Did we have any classes with him?"

"Yeah he said we had math with him and I that used to copy his homework all the time. I honestly don't remember him from school, but he had the biggest crush on me." I smiled.

"Show me a picture of him." He demanded and I pulled out my phone. I went to my pictures and choose one of the pictures from that banquet Jack drug me too.

"Oooh yeah I remember him. I had him in my AP science classes like sophomore, junior, and senior year. Wow and you guys are actually married." He said still kind of shocked.

"Yeah and we have a daughter." I added.

"Really? Did you adopt her?" He asked.

"Yep!"

"Jesus Gaskarth. You're a completely different person. Like I thought you and I would be the same, both single and partying every night but I guess you decided to grow up. I guess I should have done the same." He chuckled, but he sounded sad.

I didn't know what to say to that so I just stayed silent. The hotel was coming up so it wasn't quiet for too long.

We followed Vinny through the hotel and to the back where the club was. It was already packed with younger people and loud music blasting through the speakers. There were people coming up to Vinny to make sure he was ready to go on. All he needed was himself since the turntables were already on the stage.

"Alright we have ten before I go on." He informed us. We were going to go out to the bar and watch him preform from there.

We were all sitting down laughing and talking when Vinny bought out a small Ziploc bag with a white powder inside. I had to wipe my eyes to make sure I was seeing what was in front of me. He dumped the powder onto the table in front of use and pulled out a razor blade to cut it into fine lines.

"You guys want some?" Vinny asked while holding the straw to us. We all sat there speechless trying to process what he was asking us.

"I'm sorry...are you offering us cocaine?" Rian asked condensing tone.

"Yeah I also have E if you guys are into that!" Vinny exclaimed not realizing how put off we were.

"Um okay well I gonna go ahead and speak for the whole group and say no, but thanks? I guess." Rian said.

"Eh suit yourselves." Vinny said and went down to do three lines. I couldn't tell if that was a lot or not.

I've tried Ecstasy once before when I was in college and I didn't really like it. So this was so unappealing to me. I think the only reason I did it then was peer pressure. Plus we were all adults with jobs so we weren't going to risk it.

"Ah fuck!" Vinny yelled as he wiped at his nose. He took out one of the pills and popped it into his mouth. This was not the Vinny I remembered from high school. I mean of course we smoked like weed together, but I'd never seen him do anything more serious than that.

"Is this real life?" Oli asked making himself and Austin laugh.

"Alright I'm ready to go on stage. I'll see you after the show." Vinny said and walked out to the stage.
"So um should we go to the bar?" Austin asked trying to break the awkward silence.

"Yeah let's go." I said.

We left backstage and went to the crowded bar area. There were lots of people here to see Vinny perform, he must have been really good at what he did. It just sucked to see him do drugs like that.

***

Vinny's gig was over and we somehow let him talk us into going to a strip club. I know I promised Jack I wouldn't go to one, but I blame the shots and all the drinks we had at the bar. I didn't want to seem lame and say no I wasn't going too. Now we were walking into a surprisingly classy strip club.

"Are you sure we should be here after all we're all married." Rian worried.

"I'm not saying you guys have to fuck the chicks. It's not cheating if you're just watching them dance and throwing money at them." Vinny laughed. "Besides, everything stays in Vegas."

"Yeah everything will be fine." Austin said. It was easy for him to say that given he was about to get divorced.

"Yep it will. And take your wedding rings off, it scares the dancers away." Vinny announced.
We all slipped our wedding rings off and put them in our pockets. I don't know why, it wasn't like we were actually going to go after one of the ladies.

I walked to a table with Rian and we sat down facing one of the stages while Oli and Austin sat down at a table next to ours. Vinny, who was high as a kite, was standing at a stage throwing money at a dancer.

"This isn't so bad is it?" Rian asked. I could tell he was trying to confirmation that what we were doing wasn't wrong.

"No it's okay." I said sounding unsure.

One of the waitress came up to us wearing almost nothing, "Hey babes, can I get you two anything?" She asked Rian and me.

"Yeah I'll take a Jameson and Coke." I told her politely.

"I'll have the same." Rian said.

"Is that all you need from me?" She asked and started to run her hands up and down my thigh.
"Um yes?" I said.

"Okay my name is Bailey if you need me." She whispered in my ear sensually. I'm pretty sure these girls weren't just strippers and waitresses. They were most likely prostitutes too.

"Well that was awkward." Rian said.

"Very." I agreed.

"Guys come on we're not having the wild crazy night we said we would." Austin said while taking money out of his wallet.

"That's easy for you to say. You're about to be single in a few months." Oli said.

"But still you should live a little." He took the money he took out of his wallet and went to stand at the end of the stage. The dance up there came over to him and began to dance for him. Austin stuck the money in her thong as she shook her ass in his face.

"See Austin has gotten the hang of things." Vinny said as he walked over and threw money on a different stripper. He had went to the bathroom to do more drunks so right now he seemed high out of his mind.

I looked at Oli and Rian who shocked their heads agreeing that we wanted no part in this. I didn't want to make any mistakes that would leave Jack suspicious. We just sat back and watch Vinny and Austin enjoy themselves.

Notes

Do you guys think I post a new chapter too quickly? Or too slowly? I don't want anyone to skip any of the chapters on accident!!