Friends With Benefits

She recited their orders to her assistant over the phone, then handed him a drink.

She took a seat on the white velvet sofa next to him. “I see you haven’t brought me a gift, so I hope the news you’re intending to share with me isn’t too bad.”

He pulled a small package out of his sweatshirt pocket and she blew out a breath. She didn’t want bad news when she’d been having such a good day.

“There are two things, but I’ll tell you the mostly good one first. We’re building a satellite office in San Francisco, so it looks like I might be gone for a while.”

Alexa stared at him, jittery anxiety pooling in her middle. “You’re leaving Las Vegas?”

“Not permanently, but for probably at least a year.”

“An entire year?” she spluttered. “Are you serious?”

At his affirmative nod, she tried to digest his bombshell, but the wrenching in her gut made it hard to think. She stared blankly at the sign on the coffee table in front of her of a famous singer/dancer who was starting Halcyon’s first residency in a month. She’d worked day and night to put the event together, enticing the performer to her casino instead of one of the more established places, but the accomplishment felt like dust in her mouth now.

Carter was her best friend, her rock and her brother all rolled up into basically the most important person in her life, and they’d been together since elementary school in the same city. She didn’t doubt the strength of their friendship, but a lot could happen in a year. They’d miss so much of each other’s lives—the small, mundane details of the day-to-day, late-night drinks and quickie lunches that made their friendship tick. Plus, he’d been right earlier—she’d barely seen him the past couple of months as it was.

“But it’s not final yet?” she asked hopefully.

“The final plans for the office need to be approved by the board, so it’ll be a month or so before we can start officially hiring, but it’s definitely happening.”

“Well,” she managed, her voice unnaturally cheery to cover up the sudden urge to cry, “congratulations on the expansion, but you really should have brought me more chocolate considering the circumstances.”

He handed over the package, a small box wrapped simply in silver paper with a periwinkle satin bow. Pulling it off, she lifted the lid and found eight delicate and colorful chocolates. “I know these didn’t come from anywhere around here,” she told him.

“I got back from Paris earlier in the week.”

“Parisian truffles,” she cooed, slightly mollified by his typical thoughtfulness. “A man of taste and sophistication as usual.” She closed the box and stuffed it into her purse. “Were you planning on giving these to some other girl before you found out you were leaving?”

He met her eyes, amusement dancing in his. “You’re the only woman I give truffles to, Alexa.”

That rang true, since he gave other women more expensive gifts. He’d sent Maggie an Hermès scarf after they’d slept together. Of course, that was the last time Maggie had ever heard from him, but still, an Hermès scarf was an Hermès scarf for pity’s sake.

“How nice to know I’m special,” she returned.

Their eyes met, the muscle in his jaw twitching, and it looked as if he was about to say something but changed his mind. “Unfortunately, there’s more bad news,” he told her, his expression mild again. “Chris Miller is stealing from you.”

“Chris Miller?” she repeated, completely floored. “My best general manager? That Chris Miller?”

At his solemn nod, she digested the truth of the news even though she was loath to. However, she trusted Carter literally more than any other person in the world, so there was no way he was lying, which meant she needed to accept the inevitable.

“How? How long? And how much?”

“He’s been working with one of the new poker dealers, having him lose to one of their friends. The three of them are splitting the takes. Probably two days and over $100,000 so far.”

Alexa laughed because it was an insignificant number for Chris to risk his job over. He made over three times that as his yearly salary. “He must be in some kind of trouble,” she speculated.

Carter shrugged. “You need to fire him. And the dealer.”

She bristled at the order. Of course she would fire them, but she didn’t need Carter to tell her so.

“Would you like to tell me how to do the rest of my job as well?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. He could be down there right now overseeing another run.”

“I’ll fire him after we eat,” she assured him, taking a much-needed sip of alcohol. She liked Chris and he’d been a good general manager, but she’d learned not to take this kind of stuff personally. The lure of so much free money was quite frequently too much temptation for employees to resist. She did, however, instruct the other general manager on duty to send the poker dealer in question on break.

“I’m sorry about this,” Carter told her. “I thought you’d rather hear the news from me instead of one of your tech guys.”

“That’s nice of you, but it happens.”

Besides, she was more broken up by the fact that her best friend was basically moving light-years away even though he hated San Francisco and the whole Silicon Valley scene. Just two months or so ago after a particularly nasty client meeting, he’d literally spent an entire evening ragging on everything about it, including the relatively blameless and objectively delicious sourdough bread.

Carter responded to a text, which was a thing he did all the time while they were hanging out. His undivided attention didn’t really exist. She assumed it was work-related, but when she glanced over, she saw that a cute blonde girl had literally sent him a nude picture. She looked away quickly since it wasn’t any of her business, but the image was burned in her brain.

Instead of being embarrassed like she was, Carter looked as if getting nudes was just an everyday occurrence for him. And maybe it was. Lord knew her DMs were crammed with dicks both figurative and literal. Of course, unlike Carter had just done, she never responded to said dicks.

“That’s one way to say hello,” she joked.

“Yeah, and a pretty effective one, too.”

She laughed, but the fact that Carter might be dating someone was inspiring something new and terrible in her—pure and simple jealousy. Maybe it was PMS hormones or something, because she’d never cared who Carter dated before. Of course, he’d never been leaving before, either.

Thankfully, a knock sounded and Carter got their food from the delivery guy before she could analyze her wayward emotional state.

While he set out the food, she texted her uncle about Chris Miller’s theft, making sure he knew she had everything under control.

“You got a hot date tonight?” Carter asked, referring to her texting.

She shook her head, setting her phone aside and piling a couple of tacos on her plate. “Nope, tomorrow.”

“So I get woman-about-town Alexa Lawson to myself for an entire night. I can’t remember the last time that happened.”

She snorted. “We hung out just last month.”

“On a Tuesday,” he pointed out. “For coffee.”

“I think we can admit we’ve both been guilty of getting bogged down with work lately,” she acknowledged. “Why don’t we go back to my place and catch up on some movie time? I’ve had to wait for you to finish that documentary series we started and I definitely resent you for it.”

Deep-cut documentaries were one of the first things they’d had in common as kids and had sustained them ever since.

“Sounds perfect,” he agreed.

CHAPTER TWO (#u858095a9-30e7-57c1-8bd3-0d4fe0c73b74)

THEIR DINNER, from their favorite Mexican place, was fantastic as usual, and a comfortable silence fell as they ate, wherein Carter wondered if Alexa was going to say more about his move to San Francisco. She seemed upset, but since she basically never admitted she had emotions it was typical of her to pretend everything was fine.

Their history was littered with complications. The fact that all those years ago he’d created a program for her casinos mainly so he’d always be in her life should have been clue enough for her that he wanted to be more than friends, but she’d been willfully oblivious. After college, he’d even told her straight-out that he loved her, but she hadn’t taken the admission seriously, which had been the wake-up call he’d needed.