Show Me How Read online

  Table of Contents

  Show Me How

  Copyright & Legal

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Show Me How

  A Lesbian Vegas Romance

  by

  Harley Slate

  EMILY'S MOM TAUGHT her love was just another con game. When they blow into Vegas, eighteen-year-old Emily has a plan to nab a billionaire of her own.

  Jessica is a cynical club owner who has seen it all and done most of it. She knows exactly what Emily's after, and it's all part of the game.

  Where's the harm in a simple hookup?

  Insta-love isn't a thing in Vegas.

  Until it is.

  And now Jessica's enemies have spotted the perfect way to tear her empire apart.

  Go after Emily...

  Copyright & Legal

  All Rights Reserved © 2019

  Except for brief passages quoted for reviews and/or recommendations in magazine, radio, or blog posts, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. A very early edition of this book was briefly published under a different title.

  While Harley appreciates your enthusiasm for her work, please don't post this book on free, sharing, swapping, or pirate sites, as such activities can cause official retailers to stop offering her work.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone, any time, or any place is not intended and is merely coincidental. The cover models appear for illustration purposes only and have no relationship to any events in this story. Brief mentions of real persons, places, or products are used fictitiously and in accordance with fair use. All trademarks remain the properties of their owners.

  Chapter One

  Emily

  Every time, every town, I say it's going to be different. This time it is. This time is my time.

  This time I'm eighteen.

  My mother always has another town, another man, another plan.

  “You have to listen to your intuition,” she says. “Pay attention to the little clues that tell you it's time to rocket.”

  “Yes, Mom. And it's especially important to know when to rocket if you have a talent for borrowing money you don't intend to pay back.”

  “You're going to love Vegas. It's going to be a blast.”

  The blast starts with the two of us trying to pile everything we own into a tiny purple Porsche Carrera. “Nice car.” I have to give her that much.

  “Graham bought it for my thirty-ninth birthday.”

  Or at least for what Graham thought was her thirty-ninth birthday.

  A Porsche Carrera isn't really intended to be loaded up with suitcases for a trip cross-country. “I can't change schools when I'm a senior. Come on, Mom. This can't wait three weeks?”

  “Honey, this can't wait three fucking minutes.”

  How was this even my life? “All my friends are here.”

  “Hell, baby, one day you'll look back on this and you'll be telling all your cool new friends about the time you moved to Vegas in a turbo-charged midnight-purple Porsche.”

  Maybe, but one day isn't this day.

  Three more weeks of high school. We're past the studying part. It's all the partying part. What's the point of showing up for the new one at all?

  I only do it because I'm the good girl. Because I'm not my mom.

  So. School in Vegas. All my previous moves tell me what's going to happen before it does. Some concerned-looking woman gives me a test and puts her head together with another, older concerned-looking woman. The tests are bullshit. Doesn't matter how I do. I'm always going to end up in the weirdo room with the oddballs and the new transfers. And nobody's newer than me, 'cause nobody else has a mom crazy enough to transfer a kid three weeks before graduation.

  Don't even pretend you don't know what I'm talking about⸻ the unpopular kid homeroom full of wackadoos and jackoffs. That dweebie who got homeschooled for eleven years, 'cause his mom thought he could get socialized during one chewy chunk of senior year. Those scary guys with major ink who somehow missed being shipped over to the alternative high school.

  I don't belong in this picture. Maybe I should make like a tree and leave.

  Doesn't really mean much anyway to get your high school diploma from a school you only attended for three entire weeks.

  “Excuse me.” A girl knocks me on the arm, shoving me out of the door.

  Three more girls push in right after her. Suddenly, the weirdo homeroom gets real interesting, 'cause these girls get my gaydar pinging. Maybe the new school isn't so shit after all.

  Without saying boo or asking anybody's permission, I scurry after the girls to the heavy wooden table in back where they all sit down together.

  “I'm Avery, and that's Leigh, Kasey, and Dakota.” Avery has smart girl looks⸻ long straight legs, long straight black hair to match. The kind of girl who grows up with a plan to end up running a New York hedge firm. “I guess what we're all wondering is, where the fuck did you come from?”

  “I'm Emily.” Two words are enough to tell them I'm from the south, so I don't feel a need to expound on my life story at that particular moment.

  “Alabama kick you off the cheerleading team, honey?” Kasey's blonde and tan, the kind of girl who spends a lot of time laying out by the pool. She has some nerve talking about cheerleader looks to me. “Not too many people transfer three weeks before graduation.”

  I shrug. Nobody wants to hear how I'm a sweet lil virgin, and it's my mom having all the wild and crazy adventures. So I get all creative. “There was a tennis coach.” I drop my voice before I drop the famous name of the former female number one. Everybody's eyes go wide, although I don't sense total acceptance of my claim.

  Leigh's hair is done all over in teeny, tiny braids tipped in silver. The obvious circle contacts in her eyes flash a shade of violet never found in nature. “Huh. That's interesting. What the fuck was she doing hanging around a high school kid?”

  “I'm eighteen,” I say. “Not a kid.”

  “Uh huh.” She folds her arms across her chest. “Still high school.”

  “It was, um, a special mentoring program.”

  Four pairs of unblinking eyes study my face.

  “Hey, I swear. It's true. Nobody's supposed to know, and her people were all I'm distracting her from her big comeback and shit so...”

  “This is real hard to believe.” Dakota has a single streak of baby blue in her asymmetrical bob. I'm not sure if it's meant to be stylish or the opposite of stylish. A hipster thing, maybe. Can hair color be ironic? “Besides, I just saw on the cover of People in the grocery store that she married her long time live-in partner.”

  Don't let her bluff you. They're in the weirdo homeroom too.

  One glance around tells me these girls are the closest thing to the cool kids I'm going to get in this class, so it's fit in with them or die. And die is not an option.

  “Well, the truth is she wasn't doing anything hin
ky. She really was just a mentor. But there were rumors, dude, you know how it goes, there's always somebody around to shit stir rumors, and it ended up with her people paid my mom to move me out of town.”

  “That's wild.” Dakota probably doesn't know she's shaking her head so much. “Your mom is in on this?”

  “Yeah, they bought her a Porsche and everything, if she agreed to get me gone.” When this crew saw Mom pick me up after school, they'd all four of them have kittens. “A custom color. Purple. Did you know it costs thousands more for a custom color?”

  It's the little things. They're leaning in now. Starting to believe.

  “Why do you keep calling us ‘dude?’” asks Kasey, the California beach bunny type.

  Why not? I'm spitballing by this time. Sometimes you get damn sick and tired of playing the part of the happy-go-lucky curvy girl who has to smile and smile while everybody else has fun, fun, fun. In other words, I'm saying shit just to say shit. The more ridiculous, the better.

  “Back home, we had this club,” I say. “It was a tight little group of us that went after hot older women. How about the five of us form the Las Vegas branch? We all try to catch a hot sugar mama, and the one who catches the hottest one wins.”

  Avery, the hedge fund-ish girl, frowns. “Hottest is a subjective measure. Let's say the one who catches the richest one wins.” When she shakes her long, straight hair out even longer and straighter, it releases the rose scent left behind by her high-priced shampoo.

  Distracting but I refuse to be distracted.

  “In four weeks, all five of us could be dating a billionaire.”

  They look at each other, talking without talking in the way a tight-knit clique of girls tends to do.

  “Come on,” I say. “Don't be wussy. Who's with me?”

  More looking around. At last Leigh nods, and then the other three nod too.

  Somehow, I'm a leader. And they're going to follow my lead.

  Forget all those other towns where I was a nobody who never did boo. This time I'm going to rule. Who says Vegas is tough?

  Chapter Two

  Emily

  You have to be twenty-one in Vegas. Eighteen isn't good enough.

  Leggy, straight-haired Avery says she's taking me to DeLeon's place. I keep sneaking looks at her in the car. She's cute, but the vibe I get from her is totally no-nonsense. She doesn't see girls her own age as possible girlfriends. In that, she's a lot like me. Our thing is older women.

  Back home, DeLeon would be manufacturing identification out of his own apartment. In Vegas, he turns out to have a storefront in a half-untenanted strip mall. Red plastic letters pasted to the glass door announce the name of his business: Quality Documents.

  I give him the thousand-yard stare, the camera flashes, and three minutes later the fake Nevada driver's license in my wallet looks more real than the one issued by the Alabama Department of Motor Vehicles.

  That night Dakota of the blue hair stripe picks the club, strictly on the basis of one of the bouncers is her gay boyfriend. Anywhere they need to go two by two as a girl and a boy, it's Dakota and Tyrone. He's big and built, but kinda young-looking. Our age. Eighteen or nineteen. He says something to the matching meathead working the other side of the door, and they lean in to mumble to Dakota, and then she's smiling from ear to ear.

  “Come on, let's get this party started,” she says, brushing a strand of blue hair out of her eyes.

  In the south, a lot of the club action centers on casinos that make it hard to get inside if you're under twenty-one. Supposed to be the same here but I see pretty quick it isn't. There's an interesting mix in this place. A lot of older women in their late thirties or early forties, maybe even a little older, but there are a lot of girls in the eighteen to twenty-one age bracket too.

  Looking around the room, I start to feel a little more aware of my curves than I usually do. There are some seriously tight girls here, and our little sugar mama club isn't the only crew looking to hook up with high-powered older women.

  Do I really fit into this scene? Can an experienced woman tell I'm cherry?

  Fuck.

  A coupled-up pair of thirtysomethings looking for a threeway try to buy me a drink. I'm definitely not ready for a threeway. Anyway, I can tell from their shoes they're not my target market. “I'm waiting for somebody,” I say.

  I don't say, “I'm waiting for somebody who can afford me.”

  They move on to Avery, who's less polite. “Fuck off.” Her smart-girl personality has transformed into something darker after two sips of green apple martini.

  As I sip cautiously at my own martini, I people watch the crowded room. There's a guy I keep seeing, 'cause he keeps circling around. The fuck does he want with a gaggle of five girls? He can take the indirect stroll to our table all he wants, the prickles on the back of my neck tell me he's checking us out.

  He sees me seeing him, and I blink away. When I sneak another glance, he's still staring, so I give him the eye to let him know I see him staring, and then he blinks away. After some more back and forth that would be flirty if we weren't both gay, he closes in with a chocolate martini in both fists. One for him, one for me. I don't normally take drinks from strangers but I can tell from the swirl of whipped cream and the sprinkle of chocolate curls on top that it's all right. And I've never had a chocolate martini before.

  “I have a wristband that'll get you into the VIP room.”

  “I think maybe you've got the wrong girl.”

  “Emma Bourne?” That was the name on my fake driver's license. How did he know that? Fucking Dakota and her gay boyfriend must have told somebody about me. “It's all right, honey,” he says. “I already know you're Emma Bourne. I don't make mistakes, and I don't have the wrong girl.”

  I still hesitate. Am I ready for this?

  “Come on. There's somebody who wants to meet you.”

  The skinny jeans painted on his lean body are Balmain. If she can afford to put her assistant in thousand-dollar jeans, I should want to meet her too. I'm not going to win the Sugar Mama Seekers sweepstakes sitting on my hands staring broodily into a distant horizon. I've gotta network, gotta make those connections.

  Kasey, the designated sober girl, lifts her phone, not high but high enough to let him know somebody's watching out for me. The Sugar Mama Seekers aren't about getting stupid. We're the players, not the played.

  Making a little nod with my chin to tell her I'll text later, I follow the boy in the skinny jeans. We thread through the throngs of people to a private elevator with an armed guard standing in front of it. They nod at each other, and the door comes open. Balmain and I step into a silver box. The walls and ceiling are silver mirrors, hell, even the floor is a mirror.

  Somehow, there are blue stars set in those mirrors, and I can see those stars flickering across our reflections everywhere I look.

  Don't be too easy. Don't be impressed.

  Rich women don't want it easy. They can just buy easy.

  My mom told me that. Well, not in so many words, of course. She taught me by example.

  When the mirror doors ping open, we're in a bigger box with black velvet walls. A rotating lampshade spins around throwing little star-shaped sparkles of light all over the walls and ceiling. There's live music, but it's no good for dancing. It's an actual old guy in a tuxedo playing piano so softly you can barely hear it. Subliminal, if you get my meaning. Suggestive.

  Balmain puts a hand on my arm, but I don't need any guide. There's three tables in this private room, and two of them are empty. The woman who stands up to greet me is maybe thirty-eight or forty, but it looks good on her. Tall and fit, she clearly isn't afraid of putting in her gym time. Up close, I can see a single silver streak in her sandy hair on the left side. Her calm eyes are the color of spherical ice cubes in a sapphire martini. The kind of eyes that see right through me. The kind of eyes that have already seen it all and done most of it.

  My knees wobble from the idea she's reading my soul. I
t's a crazy idea. Even silver eyes like those don't possess some kind of metaphorical X-ray vision. But the idea persists.

  Little girls like you are so easy to read.

  She knows all about it. The little fibs I told to be popular in my new school. The club I started to meet up with hot rich women. She can't know, but for a moment I'm utterly convinced she does.

  Don't be ridiculous. They're just eyes.

  I clutch onto that chocolate martini glass with both hands. Now is not the time to spill chocolate and vanilla infused vodka all over the carpet.

  Stay cool, girl. Calm, cool, and collected.

  She's the one who called you up here. She wants you. Let her work for it if she wants it.

  The guy in the skinny jeans fades away to give us some privacy. I don't see where he goes. I don't care.

  I can tell myself to be chill all I want, but it's still getting a little hard to breathe. For a time, there's nobody in the world except me and her. The piano stops playing, the spinning lamp spirals down, and the star-shaped light stops sparkling over the ceiling.

  We're frozen in time, looking into each other's eyes, reading something there.

  The future.

  Our future?

  Chapter Three

  Jessica

  All I need to do is lift a perfectly plucked eyebrow, and two of my men take Dario by the elbows. He started out as an enforcer for the Vegas branch of the Gavrolovic crime family, but his bulging, heavily inked muscles aren't going to do much for him up against my crew's Glocks.

  “This meet's over,” I say. “And if you don't watch your step, you're going to have way bigger issues than getting tossed on your ass out the back door of my club.”

  Dario squeaks like a mouse as they lead him away. It's so utterly satisfying when your six-foot-three opponent squeaks.

  What's all that testosterone doing for you now, boy?

  He isn't a Gavrolovic, hell, he isn't even a Serbian. In fact, I have it on good authority Dario's a federal informant, and I'm not talking about the federal government of Serbia. Any time you're a club owner in Vegas with a billion or two, you're going to get investigated. It's the nature of the beast. My Macau division should have never done business with the creep, but what's done is done.