It was a casino. It was always a casino. That was how it always started, in a Casino. And this was no different.
Rusty slouched over a back bar, something amber on the rocks in a well used glass dangling between long fingers. His head was tucked low between tense shoulder blades that managed to appear relaxed. He was dressed in a leather jacket about three decades out of style so that it was some how retro instead of dated. His shirt was the same dated style, but because this was Vegas it fit in. Or maybe because it was Rusty who wore the expensively made, but cheap looking polyester and some how Rusty always made it look cool.
Cool was the name of the game, so Danny leaned his elbows on the bar near Rusty. He waved a finger to grab the bar tender's attention.
"Scotch, neat."
"What not going to order me one too?" Said a rumbling voice from beneath a head of perfectly spiked blonde hair.
Danny glanced over his shoulder. "Well I would, but I couldn't be sure if it was a second or a 15th."
"4th."
"Barkeep, another of whatever he's having." Danny waved a dismissive hand towards Rusty, not bothering to take his eyes away from him.
"Sure thing." The bartender quipped and glasses appeared on the table as if by slight-of-hand.
Danny took his glass and let a slow sip be savored before he spoke again, the comfortable silence in no rush to be filled.
"How's babysitting?"
"Paying the rent." Rusty finished what was left in his former class, and reached for the glass Danny had ordered him.
"So I have this hand. It's two sixes and a pair of nines…" Danny says it smoothly, delivering the line just before another drink.
"I've got three jacks and a pair of deuces." Rusty retorted with a snort.
"Even if I raise you the bees?"
"I've had enough of bees, always sting you in the end."
"It's a solid hand."
"That's what you always say. Never quite works out that way."
"I mean if you don't want dealt in, that's fine. Here." Danny removed a small money clip with folded over bills. He tugged out a few and dropped them on the bar near but not quite in front of Rusty. There was enough for the drinks, a reasonably generous tip and plenty left over. "Just so you don't have to write an orphan paper."
Rusty snorted and kept at his drink. Danny left the bar and headed for the bank of elevators lining the interior structure of the building. He was watching the doors slide closed when Rusty slipped between them at the last possible second before it would have become something out of an awkward Monty Python sketch.
Danny forced his face to remain neutral, the corners of his mouth turned upwards ever-so-slightly; knowing.
"Just so we're clear, I am only playing one last hand. You get pinched I won't wait out your three-spot like last time. Savvy?"
"Crystal." Danny was still smirking. He took a step in front of Rusty, facing him with an easy grace. Both arms arched out and pushed into the wall behind the blonde, closing the gap between them. Danny pressed in close.
Rusty took half a step backwards, his spine landing firmly against the unforgiving wall of the elevator. Both hands held in neutral at his side. "What about Tess?"
"She won't stand in the way."
"Of you or me?"
"She won't stand in the way, Rus."
"Another con, Danny? Are you kidding me?" Tess bellowed, which should not have been possible for a woman of her size, but she managed it just fine. Her nostrils flaring in that way she had that said she was full of a lot more to say, but not quite capable of voicing it coherently. Danny was familiar with that look.
"One more, Tess. Just one more. It's a good deal. The Patsy won't see us coming—"
Tess held up her hand for Danny to be quiet. "It's always one more, Danny. One more con, one more big score and then you'll retire. Well I'm standing here, where is the retirement, Danny? Where?" Tess's voice raised an octave or two towards the end of her shouting.
Danny let out a breath he hadn't remembered holding, rubbing the index finger of his left hand against his temples. The right hand clutched at a jewelry box, an early strike to butter Tess up to the idea of the con.
"You know I can't say that I'm really surprised. I'm not. I'm really not. You just…I wanted to believe you could change, Danny. I did. But you always want to go back. Rusty in on this? You know what, don't even tell me. I'm sure he is." Tess waved her hands around as if to dissolve the thoughts in her head. She turned her back to Danny, taking a deep breath and rubbing the back of one hand against her forehead.
Danny set the lengthy jewelry box down on the kitchen table. He didn't slide it any closer to Tess, but merely left it on the table.
"What is it about you two that you just can't stay away from one another? The second you call he runs to follow you into god knows what trouble, except he's never the one who winds up in jail is he, Danny? You take all the risk and Rusty gets half the reward." Tess glanced backwards over a shoulder to stare at Danny.
Danny shrugged his broad shoulders. "If I knew, I would tell you, Tess. I really would. But it is what it is." He let out a deep breath.
Tess turned to look at him. "Which is the bigger draw, Danny? Is it the thrill of the job, or Rusty?"
"It is what it is, Tess." He turned and left the room.
A few minutes later Tess entered their shared bedroom. "I'd tell you not to go but you'd do it anyway."
Danny looked over at her from where he was folding clothing to put into a small suitcase laid out over the perfectly, neatly made bed. The floral pattern on the spread had not been his idea.
"You get pinched this time, I won't be waiting for you on the outside." She sighed resolutely.
Danny set aside the neatly folded underwear he was packing and moved towards her. He clutched her biceps and looked down at her. "I won't get hung up."
"I'm no fool, Danny. I know what this is about, and I won't ask any more questions. Just tell me it isn't him…" She seemed small in that moment, and a touch desperate when her eyes met his.
"It is what it is, Tess." Danny's face had the apology written all over it.
"I won't stand in the way." Tess took a step back from him, shirking his grip as she gathered her strength and set her shoulders firmly. "But you've got one job, and then I expect it to be done. For good."
Danny's mouth sealed over Rusty's, the gesture foreign and familiar in the same single sweeping breath. It took only half a moment for Rusty's hands to move, finally reaching up and touching Danny. Long, almost elegant, fingers slid along Danny's torso, and over strong arms. They pressed hard into Danny's elbows and forced the other man to gather him up into his arms.
When they came up for air, Rusty spoke breathless: "Two sixes and a pair of nines huh?"
"Maybe I was bluffing." Danny answered his forehead tilting into Rusty's, resting them together.
"Play the hand, Danny, it's a good one." Rusty kissed Danny this time, drawing the slow kiss from the man for no longer than a moment. He slipped away from Danny, thumb rubbing excess saliva from his lip just as the elevator dinged on a top floor.
The door slid open as Danny righted himself, sweeping a hand through salting dark hair and casting a side long glance at Rusty. The smirk was back, Rusty wore a matching one.
"Nice room." Rusty commented as he headed directly for the minibar. He didn't ask before he drew several small bottles and a fresh glass from the counter top.
"It's not the presidential suite, but it will get the job done." Danny shed his tailor cut sport coat, dropping it over the back of a chair as he entered the room proper. His fingers worked on the buttons of the cuffs of an expensive but not as tailored white shirt.
"I've been in worse. Hell I've owned worse." Rusty poured the bottles into the glass, and matched it next to another one.
"Hotels." Danny sighed.
"Hotels." Rusty shrugged and offered him a glass.
Danny took the drink and drank generously from it. He set it back down on the counter surface when it was drained. "Should we take care of business first, or skip right to the formalities?"
"You know, I think we should take care of business before we skip right down to the pleasure." Rusty set his glass on the counter next to Danny's empty one; he hadn't drank from it. He shrugged out of his fitted leather coat and let it rest casually on a small decorative lounge. He fingered at the buttons on his shirt undoing them one at a time with practiced precision.
Danny's shirt joined Rusty's jacket and he was inside the personal space bubble a fraction of a second later. Their mouths met as Rusty dropped his shirt to the ground forgoing the wasted effort of preserving it's buoyant polyester blend any wrinkles.
When Rusty's back hit the bedspread Danny was more then pleased to see there were no flowers on it. He pushed a hand between them, and gripped at Rusty's groin, feeling it firm and full beneath the thin silk fabric of boxers with a designer lable around the waist. It was all Danny could do to keep from groaning into the mouth that was sealed so sweetly over his own.
Rusty's body was only slightly different from what Danny remembered of their last encounter. A few more wrinkles, a touch of grey tucked amongst the stylized blonde hairs. A scar on his wrist he never remembered being there, and Danny felt pride and mingled terror at the realization he had so much of his oldest friend's body committed to the darkest recesses of his memory.
To be continued….