Gluttony

chapter
1

“Anything worth doing,” Kane Geary intoned, gulping down a glowing green shot that looked radioactive, “is worth overdoing.”

“Thanks for the wisdom, O Wise One.” Adam Morgan pressed his hands together and gave Kane an exaggerated bow. “What did I ever do without you to guide me through the mysteries of the universe?”

“Less sarcasm.” Kane clinked his shot glass against the half-f pitcher of beer. “More drinking.”

It was nearly midnight, and the bar was packed. To their left, a whale-size cowboy in a ten-gallon hat tucked hundred-dollar bills down the cleavage of a harem of spangled showgirls half his age. Against the back wall, a table of white-jumpsuit-clad Elvis impersonators argued loudly about whether
The Ed Sullivan Show
hip swivel properly began with a swing to the left or the right. The bartender, who wore a gold bikini and a cupcake-size hair bun over each ear, would have been the spitting image of Princess Leia—were he not a man. The walls were lined with red velvet and the ceiling covered with mirrors.

Welcome to Vegas.

Adam felt like he’d set foot on an alien planet; Kane, on the other hand, had obviously come home.

“Where do you think Harper and Miranda are?” Adam asked, nursing his beer.

Kane rolled his eyes and spread his arms wide. “Morgan. Dude. Focus. Look around you. This is nirvana. Who the hell cares where the girls are?”

“If they got stuck somewhere—”

“They’ll be fine. You’re the one I’m worried about.” Kane clapped him on the back. “You need another drink, kid. You’ve got to loosen up.”

Adam shook his head. “No more. It’s late. And I’m—”

“Lame. Very lame.” Kane grabbed Adam’s glass and downed the remaining beer in a single gulp. Then he filled it back up to the brim and slammed it down in front of Adam. “But we’ll fix that.”

“Oh, will we?” Adam asked dryly.

“Adam, my doubting disciple, if there’s one thing you learn from me tonight, let it be this.” He was silent for a long moment, and Adam began to wonder whether all that beer sloshing around in his brain had swept away his train of thought.

“Yes?” Adam finally said.

Kane leaned across the table, the better to wheeze his sour breath into Adam’s face. “This is Vegas, baby.” His voice was hushed, almost reverential. “America’s Playground. City of Lights. Sin City.” He leaned in even closer, as if to whisper a crucial secret.
“This is Vegas, baby!”
Adam recoiled as Kane let loose an ear-piercing whoop of elation. “Live it up!”

“This is definitely
not
Vegas,” Harper Grace observed sourly.

Miranda Stevens pulled the car over to the side of the road and shut off the ignition. “Thanks for the news flash,” she snapped. “If you hadn’t pointed that out, I might have mistaken that”—she gestured toward the hulking mound of rock and dirt jutting out of the desert landscape—“for the Trump Taj Mahal.”

“That’s in Atlantic City,” Harper corrected her.

“Gosh, maybe
that’s
where we are,” Miranda said in mock revelation. “I knew we shouldn’t have taken that left turn….”

Harper tore open a bag of Doritos and kicked her feet up onto the dashboard. “I really hope that’s not sarcasm,” she said, neglecting to offer Miranda a chip. “Because the person responsible for stranding us here in the middle of East Bumblefuck should probably steer clear of the sarcasm right about now.”

Miranda snatched the bag out of Harper’s hands, though it was several hours too late to prevent an explosion of orange crumbs all over the front seat of her precious Honda Civic. “And by the person responsible, I assume you’re referring to … you?”

Harper raised an eyebrow. “Am
I
driving?”

Harper, doing her share of the work?
Miranda snorted at the thought of it. “No, of course not. You’re just sitting there innocently, with no responsibilities whatsoever, except, oh …
reading the map
.”

That shut her up. Miranda’s lips curled up in triumph. Beating Harper in an argument was a rare victory, one that she planned to savor, lost in the wilderness or not.

“Okay, let’s not panic,” Harper finally said, a new, ingratiating tone in her voice. “Look on the bright side. It’s your birthday—”

“Not for another twenty-four hours,” Miranda corrected her.

“We’re bound for Vegas,” Harper continued.

“Maybe.
Someday
.”

“And we’re not stranded,” Harper added, grabbing a map off the floor, seemingly at random, “just—”

“Lost.

“Detoured.”
Harper spread the map across her lap and began tracing out their route with a perfectly manicured pinkie. “We just need to get back to the main highway,” she mumbled, “and if we turn back here and cross over Route 161 …”

Miranda sighed and tuned her out, resolving to backtrack to the nearest gas station and get directions from a professional. Professional lukewarm coffee dispenser and stale-candy-bar salesman, maybe, but anything would be better than Harper’s geographically challenged attempts to guide them. Especially since Harper periodically forgot whether they should be heading east or west.

This was supposed to be a bonding weekend—or, rather, a
re
-bonding weekend, given all the tension of the last few months. But it turned out that five hours in a car together didn’t exactly make for a BFF bonanza.

Call it the sisterhood of the traveling crankypants.

Miranda turned the key in the ignition, eager to start driving again—somewhere. Anywhere.

A small, suspicious, gurgling sound issued from the motor. Miranda turned the key again. Nothing. With a sinking feeling, she lowered her eyes to the dashboard indicators: specifically, the gas gauge.

Uh-oh.

“Harper?” she said softly, nibbling at the edge of her lower lip.

“Maybe if we circle around to Route 17,” Harper muttered, lost in her own cartographic world. “Or if we—wait, am I looking at this upside down?”

“Harper?” A little louder this time.

“Fine,
you
look at it,” Harper said in disgust, pushing the wad of paper off her lap. “And if you tell me one more time that I don’t know how to read a map, I’m going to scream. It’s not like I didn’t—”

“Harper!”

“What?”

Miranda tore the keys out of the ignition and threw them down on the dash, then leaned her head back against the seat. She closed her eyes. “We’re out of gas.”

She couldn’t see the look on Harper’s face. But she could imagine it.

There was a long pause. “So you’re telling me—” Harper stopped herself, and Miranda could hear her take a deep breath. Her voice got slightly—very slightly—calmer. “You’re telling me that we’re out of gas. We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, and now we’re not just lost—”

“We’re stranded,” Miranda confirmed. “So, Ms. Look On the Bright Side …
now
can we panic?”