A MOMENT OF LOVELY SEASON 4 - LIFE IN THE MOMENT - CHAPTER 5 - VEGAS (Part 1) - A @Britney_Amber story book

 SPIN OFF STORY - DREAMS ARE MY REALITY

 

 I am cursed forever. I told Amber.

"Would you hush?"

 "I didn't say anything…."
 

"Well, stop thinking so loud."
 

I heard Amber huff from somewhere in the room behind me, but my eyes were glued in front of me.
 

I lifted the small detailing brush from the palette with stiff and aching fingers and leaned forward, ignoring the pain in my lower back.

Holding my breath, I gently swept the brush along the canvas, letting the beige acrylic paint cover the markings of where I had outlined with a graphite pencil.
 

I let out a long, exasperated sigh of relief as I finished the last upward stroke of the brush. "Are you done? Can I see?"
 

I felt Amber's presence invade the space behind me as she leaned forward to get a better look at the canvas propped against the wall that I sat in front of
"Carrie, that looks great."
 

"I hate painting hands," I admitted, feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion
pass over me.
 

"No, it looks perfect."

I glanced over the canvas that was partially painted and partially outlined with a graphite pencil. An old, dusty picture was clipped up at the top of the canvas, serving as my guide to what the painting itself would look like when it was finished.
 

"I'm exhausted."

"I don't see why you felt the need to stay up all night doing this," Amber said. "You could just paint little bits and pieces at the time, and you would be able to finish it gradually instead of only working on it in bursts of sporadic energy."

"That's when I paint best," I argued, throwing my brush into the plastic cup filled with water.
I slowly began to get off the stool I had been sitting on for hours, wringing out my hands. Stretching my arms out behind me and in front of me, I felt my spine pop in several places. Letting out a deep breath, I bent down to grab the back of my calves as I stretched out my
back even more.

"Besides," I continued, "I have to have that done by their anniversary at the end of next month."

I stood up slowly to take one last look at the incomplete painting that would soon be a gift.
It was a portrait of my parents as they walked down the aisle, the two of them newly married.
She was in her long, flowy wedding dress, her veil billowing behind her and a beaming, youthful smile on her face. He was in a simple black tux as he marched forward confidently, holding my mother's hand. A similar smile was plastered across his face.
I reached above me to turn off the light that hung over the canvas.
 

"What time is it?" I asked, rubbing my tired eyes.
Amber looked down at her watch.
 

"Almost three."
 

| groaned.

"I'm going to bed," she said, yawning.
 

I felt guilty. She and I were supposed to be finishing the last season of the show we'd been binging for the past few weeks, but I'd gotten side-tracked with the painting.
 

"I'm sorry, Amber," I said earnestly. "I didn't mean to get caught up."
 

"No worries. I was able to finish my reading for civil procedure, so it's all
good."
 

I grimaced at the thought of assigned reading.
 

Amber was in her first year of law school. She was studying to get her juries' doctorate to become an attorney and, one day, a judge like her dad.
1, on the other hand, was happy with my bachelor's degree in English. It allowed me to live as a professional starving artist, even though | technically never starved since I worked as a part-time librarian and a part-time art teacher at the elementary school.
 

"What time are we leaving tomorrow morning?" I asked her.
 

"I intend to be over there by ten."
 

I nodded as she turned to leave the room.
 

"See you in the morning," she said.
 

"Night."
 

Once she had left, I heard the door to her bedroom open and close, groaned, and fell back onto my bed.
 

Ten in the morning was way too early, given that it was nearly three, and I was just then about to go to sleep.
 

To make matters worse, I hadn't packed yet either, meaning I would be waking up around nine so that we could still leave on time. I always ended up making us late wherever we went, and I was determined that it wouldn't be the case tomorrow morning.
 

Amber and I were meeting our parents at her family's house to go with our dads to a conference.
 

Her father was the Alpha of our pack in southern Oregon, and my father was his Beta. The two of them also happened to be leaders who represented Oregon on a committee of Werewolf affairs in the western.
The United States.
 

Every so often, the two of them traveled to Las Vegas for meetings with other committee members. Typically, these meetings were biannual, but they happened as often as needed. With it only being May, and they were traveling to their fourth meeting so far this year, I believed that something was going on in the world of Werewolves and pack business that was not routine.
 

However, this meeting fell on a holiday weekend.
Because Amber and I had made an executive decision that we needed a break from school and work, we decided to tag along with our fathers for a three-day vacation in Vegas.
 

As I reached over to turn my lamp off, I noticed the dried acrylic paint that stained my hands. Exhausted, I resigned to the fact that I would have to wash sheets in the morning.
I didn't even have the energy to get under the comforter before I fell asleep.
It felt like only seconds had gone by before Amber opened my bedroom door, telling me to get up.
 

"It's almost nine forty-five," she said. "We need to leave in fifteen minutes."
I sat up quickly, my hair falling on my face.
 

"Oh shit," I groaned, seeing the mid-morning rays of sun coming through the window.
I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood up.
She disappeared down the hallway as I quickly made my way over to my closet and pulled my duffle bag from the top shelf in a drowsy daze.
 

Thaphazardly pulled clothes from their hangers and shoved them into the bag before also taking a handful of underwear out of my drawer and stuffing those into the bag as well.
I barely had enough time to brush my hair, pull it back into a ponytail, and change out of my pajamas before Amber was yelling that it was time to go.
 

"Just a second!" I yelled back, putting on my shoes.
 

I grabbed my phone from off the bed, sighing as I realized I had forgotten to charge it overnight. Not only that, but I threw it into my purse along with the charger, my sketchbook, and a pencil bag.
Taking one last look around the room to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything, it occurred to me that I hadn't washed sheets that morning as I'd planned.
I shrugged before turning to run down the hallway.
 

"Your shirt's on backwards," Amber told me as she watched me walk towards the front door.
I looked down to see that she was right, and I pulled my arms back through the sleeves to turn it around.
 

"Did you pack a toothbrush?" she asked.
 

"Yes, mother."
 

"Toothpaste?"
 

I stopped short, and Amber laughed as she followed me out of our shared townhouse.
 

"I packed some," she told me, locking the front door behind us.
I sighed, thankful that at least one of us had turned out to be a responsible adult.
It was a quick, five-minute drive from our townhouse to the neighborhood where our parents lived. Amber's mom and dad lived across the street from mine, as they had our whole lives.
 

I could still vividly remember being scolded by both mothers because I never looked both ways before crossing the street whenever I went over to play. I also remembered the times during high school when the two of us would meet under cover of night to sneak off to our friends' houses.
 

The childhood memories made me smile as we pulled into her parents' Driveway.

 

Both of our dads were outside already, her father and mine loading their luggage into the back of my dad's truck.
 

"Well, look who it is," her dad said, glancing down at his watch. "We were about to leave you two."
 

"You wouldn't have left us, Mr. Reid," I said confidently as we got our luggage from the back of my car. "You threaten us with that every time, but you never have."

He raised an eyebrow. "There's a first time for everything, Miss Blair."
I walked over to my dad, and he took my duffle bag to pack it away."Ready to go?" he asked.
Amber and I nodded.We waved to our mothers, who were watching us from the kitchen
window.
 

Amber's mother raised the window.
"Drive safe! Be sure to text us when you get there!" she yelled.
"And don't spend all your money in Vegas!" my mom added.
 

Giving them a thumbs up, Amber's dad and mine got into the truck. She and I followed suit, blowing kisses and waving to our respective mothers.
 

We hadn't gotten very far down the road before my father's phone went off.
 

"Hello? Yes, this is Dr.?"

I looked down at my watch before showing it to Amber.

"Only took two minutes for that thing to ring," I said to her.

"I'm betting his will go off in the next five minutes," she whispered, pointing to her dad.
"I can hear you," he whispered loudly from the passenger seat.

The both of us chuckled, trying not to disturb my father, who was discussing a patient's prescription with a nurse.
When my dad wasn't a Beta for one of the most giant packs in Oregon, he was a family medicine doctor in a clinic that he ran with my mother, who was also a doctor.

As their only child, I struggled because I knew they had planned on me going to medical school and taking over the clinic one day. But I could barely pass my college-level biology class, much less make it through medical school successfully.

My passions and talents didn't involve science or medicine, but that didn't stop me wishing they did.
As predicted, Mr. Reid's phone rang not long after my dad had ended his call.
The back and forth of phone tag between our fathers and their courthouses and clinics lasted the remainder of our day-long drive.

When we finally arrived in Vegas that night, we checked into our hotel, and all went our separate ways.

"So," I said, nudging Amber as we passed the casino entrance on our way to the elevators.
She shook her head.

"Absolutely not, I'm exhausted. We were up until three, and I woke up early this morning."
"Oh, come on," I said. "We haven't done anything exciting all day."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, hitting the elevator call button. "I loved staring out the window at the miles of dirt and cacti for nine hours."

"You're hilarious," I said, my unamused tone matching her sarcastic one.
We rode the elevator up to our room on the eighth floor.

"Let's at least go and find something to eat for dinner," I argued, stepping off the elevator. "We haven't eaten anything since we pulled through the drive-thru for lunch."

"Carrie, you're a grown woman. If you're so hungry, go and find something to eat."
"By myself? While we're on vacation?" I scowled. "That's not fun."

We found our room, and Amber scanned the key card to open the door.

"I'm not desiring fun right now," she said, entering the room and sitting down on her bed.
I threw my duffle bag onto the bed.

"When are you ever wanting fun, Miss Party Pooper?"

She narrowed her eyes at me before drawing in a deep breath.

"Fine, I'll go and get something to eat with you, but then we're coming back here, so I can go to bed."

"Deal."

When we left the hotel, I could hardly tell that the sun had begun to set. All the neon lights that flashed around us were as bright as daylight.

After wandering around for a few minutes, we found a restaurant and went inside to eat.
As we were being led to our table, I was so focused on the lights and memorabilia plastered to the surrounding walls that I ran into someone who was trying to walk past me.

He grabbed my shoulders to keep me from falling into the people sitting around us.
"I'm so sorry," I said quickly, regaining my footing.

"Hey, not a problem," he assured me with a chill tone.

He had brown eyes, a deep tan, and light-brown hair peeking out from under a backward-facing trucker's hat.

He flashed a disarming smile before letting go of me.

"Sorry," I found myself repeating.
 

I turned to Amber, who watched the spectacle with an amused look on her face.
 

"So embarrassing," I said, feeling my cheeks flush.
 

Amber just shrugged.
 

"He didn't seem to mind."
 

I shook my head as I followed her and the hostess to our table.
 

We ordered our food, which came out quickly. This left us plenty of time to walk around and sightsee before it got too late.
 

It turns out all Amber needed was some food in her system, and she was out of a bad mood and into a touristy one. We wandered around the city for quite a while before the both of us were ready to call it a night.
As we headed back to our hotel, we noticed the security detail outside the building and in the lobby.
 

"Who do you think is here?" I asked her. "Do you think it's a celebrity?"
 

"I honestly don't care," she yawned, hitting the button to call for an elevator. Deciding that Amber had already put up with enough of my curiosity for the night, I let it go and followed her into the elevator.
 

"Maybe we'll see whoever it is tomorrow," I said.
She just shrugged.
 

While Amber was exhausted, I was nearly giddy at the thought of what the next two days would hold. It had been too long since I'd had a vacation.
After all, what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas. 

Or so I thought.