Two weeks ago-
Sam walks into the poorly lit bar after a long shift at the club. She pulls at the hem of her short black dress as she passes a group of men ogling her. Having already spent the night being looked at and partially groped by men, she was in no mood to deal with any more of them. She beelines to the bar.
"Hey Vicky" she calls to the bartender.
The older lady, who Sam has become friends with thanks to her numerous nights spent here, offers her a smile and walks towards her. "The usual Sam?" Vicky asks.
"No I think I'll just have a beer tonight" Sam responds.
"That's a good choice" comes a slurred voice on her left. Sam turns and finds a pretty drunk man half-slumped on his stool, a few empty beer bottles already occupying the space before him on the bar as he works on another one. Sam rolls her eyes and turns back to where Vicky has placed a beer on the bar.
"How's the club going?" Vicky asks, her heavy Texan accent making Sam feel right at home. Having left Texas a year before, Sam had aspired to make it to California and pursue an acting career, but lack of finances have delayed those dreams and forced her to earn money at the strip club.
"As it usually goes. You know Margie doesn't like change" she answers referring to her boss.
"Yeah, that old girl is adamant about her routine" Vicky says.
"That's an understatement. We're trying to convince her to expand the club, see if we get new customers but she's happy with her regulars" Sam says as she takes a swig of her beer.
"Nothing wrong with the regulars darling, they're the ones that pay the bills" Vicky says.
"Hey can I have another" comes the voice of the drunken man again.
"Sure thing sugar" Vicky calls out to him. She turns to fetch the young man a beer. "Here you go darling" she says before returning her attention to Sam.
"What's his deal?" Sam asks pointing towards the man.
"Him? Oh he's been here a while. Says he was 'bout to propose to his girl and found her with another guy" Vicky says.
"Oh, that is so sad" Sam answers immediately feeling bad for the guy.
Vicky nods, "I'll be back sweetie, let me run to the little girl's room."
Once Vicky runs along, Sam takes a few sips of her beer. She keeps peeking over at the man just a few inches from her and she can't help but want to tell him that he'll be fine and that drinking his sorrows away will not help him. She should know. After being rejected by a man she was deeply in love with, she tried to find the answers to all of her problems at the bottom of a bottle too and ultimately, it had done her no good.
"Hey" she calls out to him. Seeing him reminded her too much of the worst stage of her life thus far and if she could help someone not end up like her, she was sure going to try.
The man lifted his head a bit to look at her.
"How's it going?" Sam asks as she moves a stool closer to his.
"Much better now" he says flirtatiously, the smell of alcohol is permeating from his body and his blue eyes and bloodshot. Sam laughs at the drunken flirting. Even in this state, she could admit that he was pretty foxy. Despite the redness, his eyes were beautiful and his lips full. She loved how curly and wild his hair is and is almost tempted to run her fingers through it just to see if it is as soft as it looks. He has that bad boy appeal that turns her on, but has gotten her in trouble much too often.
"I'm Sam" she says extending a hand for him to shake.
"Hyde" he says as he shakes her hand.
"Nice to meet you Hyde" she replies.
Hyde nods his head and takes a drink of his beer. She quietly admires as his lips glisten from the liquid and a strong urge to kiss him overcomes her but she resists.
"What brings you to Vegas?" she ask half hoping that in his inebriated state he could carry out a conversation .
"Oh that's a long boring story" he slurs and laughs.
"Let me guess, girl troubles" Sam jokes.
"Ain't it always" he replies sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"Wanna talk about it?" Sam inquires. She is a little curious to hear the story. She can't imagine what kind of girl would be able to break a guy like him down like this.
"Does it look like I want to talk about it?" he asks motioning to the countless empty beer bottles before him.
"Humor me won't you" she pushes on.
Hyde eyes the blonde who seems much too eager to hear about his life story. He checks her out, trying to make out her features through his liquor glasses. She was hot, obviously. Very hot in fact. He likes that she appears unattainable but is seemingly friendly. Also, she kind of looks like most of the other blonde he has already slept with in Point Place which works for him because it takes his mind off a certain brunette he's trying to forget about.
"I'm good man" he says.
"Vicky told me you went to propose to your girlfriend" Sam says. She was not sure why she keeps pushing the subject matter or even why she cares about this random man's life, but she feels a bit drawn to him.
Hyde grunts in response, "whatever."
"You must have really loved her" Sam tells him.
Hyde shrugs his shoulders. Thoughts of Jackie and finding her in a hotel room with his half-naked best friend only makes him want to continue his alcohol binge.
"So what happened?" she asks.
"What's your deal man?" Hyde asks, already growing annoyed at the constant questioning by a stranger.
"What do you mean?" Sam asks. She can tell he is getting tired with all the questions about his personal life and figures it's probably a good idea to drop it if she wants him to keep talking to her.
"You're trying to figure me out, why don't you tell me about your life instead."
"Not much to tell. I moved here from Texas and I work over at Boozy's club down the road."
"What the hell is Boozy's club?" Hyde asks. He hasn't been in Vegas very long and the time he has spent has been spent at dingy bars trying to forget everything that happened in Chicago. He takes another sip of his beer as he feels his drunkenness start to subside a bit. The fact that he is having a somewhat coherent conversation with this girl tells him he needs to step up the drinking. He sees the bartender has returned and puts his hand up to get her attention. The older lady walks over and he orders a jack and coke. She nods her head and returns a few seconds later with his drink.
He notices that the blonde hasn't answered his question so he inquires again. "What's Boozy's?"
She takes a moment to think about what to say. She could tell him the truth, that she's an exotic dancer, but what kind of man would take her seriously? Or perhaps, he's drunk enough and would be interested in what she could do to him. "It's a strip club" she answers truthfully.
"So you uh...dance?" Hyde asks with a slight hesitation as he tries to find the words that won't be offensive to her.
"Yeah" she says and looks down at her hands, waiting for him to say something degrading or try to immediately get her into a bed like most guys have done when she first tells them what she does for a living.
"That's cool" is all he says.
Sam looks back up and smiles brightly. "So can I ask one last question about your girlfriend? I promise this is the last one." Sam says trying to tread as lightly as possible.
Hyde rolls his eyes but nods his head. If this is the last question, he had no problem as long as he could stop talking about Jackie afterwards.
"Do you have the ring? You know, the one you were going to give her?" Sam asks. When she was a little girl, her mother had told her that a girl's engagement ring was very telling of what her personality was like. To this day, she believes that one's engagement ring is an indicator of what kind of person she is and she couldn't help but wonder about the girl who broke this man's heart.
After a few moments, Hyde reaches into his jean pocket and pulls out a black velvet box. He stares at it for a minute, thinking about how excited he had been when he bought the ring. He drove all the way to Chicago practicing everything he was going to say to Jackie, envisioning a life where the two of them would be happy and finally have a stable home...a family. Then all that excitement, all those dreams were torn apart when Kelso stepped into her room in nothing but a towel. He couldn't get the image out of his head, not even now with liquor clogging his mind.
He hands the box to Sam who immediately opens it. She admires the dainty silver band with a classic, clear diamond resting on it. It was beautiful.
"Very fancy" she says as she takes the ring out of its holster and brings it up to the light bulb above them. The stone glitters spectacularly under the light.
Hyde shrugs his shoulders again. He looks at the ring in Sam's hand an he admires it. He had done a good job selecting a ring that fit Jackie's personality and he was sure that she would have loved it.
Sam brings the ring down and slowly slips it on her ring finger. Hyde watches silently as this strange puts on the ring meant for the woman he envisioned as his bride. As Sam looks at the ring on her finger. a knot forms in his stomach and he feels his head pounding, a dizzying effect making the room spin.
"Take it off" he demands.
Sam looks up at him. "It looks good on me don't you think?" she asks, a wide smile on her face.
"Take it off" Hyde repeats himself. Noticing the seriousness in his voice, Sam complies and gives the ring back. Hyde instantly places it back in the box and stuffs it into his pocket. He grabs his warm beer and takes a long sip of it.
"Hey, what do you say we get out of here? We could go back to my place, listen to some records and have a few more drinks" Sam suggests. The ring had felt nice against her skin and this guy was intriguing so she wasn't ready to walk away from him just yet.
"I don't know about that" Hyde responds.
"Oh come on, I can show you a trick I learned at work earlier, make you some drinks free of charge."
Hyde weighed his options for a second. He could stay in this bar, drinking and feeling sorry for himself or he could go with an exotic dancer who was probably more than willing to help him forget about his ex.
"Lead the way" he finally responds.
Three hours later: Sam's apartment-
Hyde sits on the couch with Sam straddling over him, her lips against his neck. He grabs a handful of blonde hair and forcefully brings her face to his. He presses his lips against hers and she starts gyrating her hips against his. He groans at the sensation, wanting to speed up the make out/dry humping session they've been having for about half hour now. He can taste the rum on her lips and he wants more. With his free hand, he grabs hold of the hem of her shirt and starts to lift it over her stomach.
Sam breaks the kiss and shakes her head no. "We should slow down" she slurs.
Hyde groans and throws his head back.
"I'll get us another drink, the ice melted in these" she says as she gets off him and walks over to the mini bar. The two are already much too drunk and sloppy but the alcohol breaks down any inhibition and pushes away any painful memories they have, specially him, so they don't stop.
"I should get out of here" Hyde says.
"NO" Sam says louder than she intended. "Stay" she tells him.
"It's already late man, I should get going" he replies getting off the couch.
"You're in Vegas, there's no such thing as too late" she tells him trying to convince him.
"I'd hate to disagree but I will."
"Wait. There's something I want to show you first, but we have to go downstairs" she tells him.
"I'll rain check" he tells her,
"Oh come on, you're going downstairs anyway it'll just be two minutes" she says.
"Whatever, lets go."
As the two make their way downstairs, Sam points out a chapel across the street from her apartment building. "There" she says pointing at it.
"A chapel?" Hyde asks curiously.
"You haven't been entertained until you see Elvis marrying people off" she says.
"Uh, I think I'm going to pass" he tells her not very intrigued by the idea.
"Come on, just five minutes and then you can go" she says. Without waiting for his answer, she walks towards the chapel, stumbling a few times before crossing the street.
Hyde sighs and follows her. Luckily, he was drunk enough to forget about this in the morning.
Author's Note: One more chapter to go. Stay tuned!