The Crown

Greg

I weave my way through the crowd with a vodka cranberry in one hand and a gin and tonic in the other. By the time I make it back to where Kip is sitting, I’ve lost some of my drink from people bumping into me.

“Here.” I hand him the vodka cranberry. “Drink that and come dance with me.”

He takes the drink but otherwise ignores me. I turn around and spot Noah on the dance floor with his date, grinding against each other to the thumping house music. I still can’t remember the guy’s name.

The club is outrageous, but most things in Las Vegas are. The PR firm I work for was hired to handle the launch of the new resort, The Crown. The Prince family is already well known in Vegas, but there’s been a push in recent years to expand their business globally, and The Crown is supposed to be the start of that. I handle some of the environmental initiatives. Sustainability, green technology, reducing waste. All the stuff that looks good in a press release and draws in the younger crowd. Like me, I guess.

I begged my boss for a plus three instead of a plus one for the grand opening weekend and somehow got it. So I brought Kip and my best friend Noah, who brought the guy he’s been seeing for the last couple of weeks. We have adjoining rooms on the 38th floor with a beautiful view of the Strip.

The party tonight is at The Crown Jewel, the resort’s nightclub. It’s 20,000 square feet with three-story ceilings, an LED dance floor, two bars, a VIP lounge, a roof deck and private sky boxes along three sides of the room. There have to be close to a thousand people here tonight.

By the time I finish my third gin and tonic, Kip still hasn’t danced with me, so I make my way onto the dance floor and find Noah.

“Greg!” He grabs me around the waist and pulls me against him. His date laughs and joins us.

Jinx. That’s his name. He goes by Jinx.

Noah was my freshman roommate in college. We became best friends after a failed drunken hook-up that ended with both of us laughing so hard we couldn’t finish what we’d started. We haven’t tried again.

The three of us dance for a while, and I forget about Kip. That’s what I wanted to do tonight anyway. Get drunk. Dance. Have fun. Enjoy the free hotel room and everything else that came with working on this account for the last eight months.

I look up at the sky boxes overlooking the dance floor. I don’t understand the point of coming to a club just to sit in a little room above everybody else. I suppose you could dance up there without having someone’s elbow in your ribs or getting a drink spilled down your back. But what fun is that?

When I look back toward Kip, he’s talking to two guys. One of them has Kip’s phone.

What the fuck?

I leave Noah and Jinx and push my way through the crowd. “What are you doing?”

“Hang on.” Kip barely looks at me. “This guy knows someone who does tour managing. I gotta give him a call when we get home.”

Not this again. “Kip, it’s a party. Come dance with me.”

“Yeah, I will. Just let me—”

“Fuckin’ forget it!”

I turn around and go back to Noah. “He’s still over there talking about fuckin’ touring,” I yell into his ear. “Like, who cares about that tonight?”

“Fuck that guy!” Noah shouts and starts grinding against me.

I laugh and shove him away.

Kip and I have been together a little over two years and living together for about six months. I fell in love with him the first time I saw him. It took him a little longer.

He’s brilliant. He sings and plays several instruments. He paints and writes poetry. But music is what he really wants. It’s how I met him. He was playing an open mic night at a club in Hell’s Kitchen that Noah and I used to go to all the time, and I thought he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

Open mic nights didn’t get him anywhere, though, so now he spends more time trying to find the right people to talk to than he does actually playing. Every stranger might know somebody who knows somebody, and he never passes up the chance to make a connection.

And I spend a lot of time alone.

Getting him onto the plane to come here with me was a chore. I thought once we got to Vegas he’d relax and we’d have fun together. I was wrong.

Noah and Jinx are making out now while they dance, and that’s my cue. “I need another drink!” I shout, although I don’t think either of them hears me.

I grab my jacket from the bench beside Kip. He doesn’t notice. On the way to the bar, I take a shot off a passing waitress’s tray and swallow it before she can stop me. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t bad.

The bar is packed, so I get in line behind a woman in a strapless sequined dress. She orders four bright pink drinks. When she finally gathers all four glasses and squeezes past me, I step up to the bar expecting it to be my turn, but the bartender moves on to someone else.

I lean against the bar and wait, looking around while I nod along with the music.

After a minute, I get a weird feeling.

Someone’s watching me.

I don’t know why I’m so sure of it. There are hundreds of people in the room. Somebody is probably always looking at somebody. But I can feel it enough that I start looking around.

I check Kip first, but it’s not him. Noah and Jinx are nowhere to be seen. I scan the dance floor and the tables behind me, but I don’t see anyone looking in my direction.

When I turn back toward the bar, I spot him.

Dominic Prince is standing at the other end, staring at me.