Neon Vows and High Stakes

Sutton Montgomery stepped off the plane into McCarran's recycled air with her laminated binder clutched against her chest like a flotation device. Gate C21 smelled like pretzels and jet fuel. She adjusted her tortoiseshell frames and checked the first tab: Arrival + Ground Transport. Green. On time. Good. She could work with on time.

Three days ago her fiancé had stood in their Denver kitchen and said he was done. He had packed his shirts, his espresso machine, and the version of her future she had color-coded down to the boutonniere. She had not cried in front of anyone. She would not start now, not in Nevada, not with Skye's weekend sitting on the next page of the binder like a verdict.

Summer spotted her first, waving a paper bag that clinked. "There she is. General Montgomery, reporting for duty." Honey-blonde hair, boho dress, already too loud for an airport concourse. Skye stood a half step behind her, bleach-blonde lob neat, elegant linen creased from the flight, twisting something on her left hand.

"Hi," Sutton said. She hugged them both, quick and firm. "Bags?"

"Carousel four. I already tipped the skycap in my head," Summer said. "Also I bought these at the Hudson News like a responsible adult." She shook the bag. Mini tequilas. "Welcome to Vegas, bitches."

Skye laughed, then bit it off. Her thumb worried the band of their grandmother's antique diamond. Sutton knew that ring. She had seen it in the old velvet box at their mother's house, the one nobody was supposed to touch without a signed affidavit and a priest.

"You brought Gram's ring," Sutton said, keeping her voice even.

Skye's cheeks pinked. "For luck. Mom doesn't know. Please don't start."

"I'm not starting. I'm noting." Sutton flipped a page. "Cab's prepaid. Fifteen minutes to the Oasis Grand if traffic cooperates. Pool slot is four. Dinner is seven-thirty. No improvising before dinner."

Summer popped a cap with her teeth. "Improvising is the point. Drink."

"I'm driving the itinerary, not the cab." Sutton took the tiny bottle anyway. The tequila burned. It was cheap and mean and she wanted another. She did not take another. "Let's move."

The taxi smelled like pine air freshener and old smoke. Summer sat in the middle, passing bottles like communion. Skye kept twisting the ring, staring at the strip as it rose in the windshield, cheap daylight making the hotels look tired.

"You okay?" Sutton asked her, low.

"Fine. Excited. Obviously excited." Skye's smile was pretty and thin. "It's just a lot of forever for a Saturday."

Summer snorted. "Jesus, Skye. Save the cold feet for the chapel. Today we drink and lose money and look at men who oil their chests for a living."

"Summer."

"What? That's the job description." Summer toasted the driver with an empty miniature. "To my baby sister not dying of good taste."

Sutton watched the city smear past. She thought about the empty closet at home. She thought about the email she had drafted and deleted, the one that said she could not come. She had come. She would keep the weekend inside the lines if it killed her.

The Oasis Grand sat off the main drag, mid-century glass and terrazzo, a turquoise pool visible through the lobby like a postcard someone had left in the sun too long. Sutton paid the cab, counted bags, herded sisters. Reception was a long walnut desk and a clerk whose smile flickered when he typed their confirmation.

"Ms. Montgomery. One moment." Keys clicked. His face did the thing faces do when software wins. "I'm so sorry. It appears your three-bedroom executive suite was reassigned last night. International poker convention. Full house."

Sutton set the binder on the counter with a quiet click. "We prepaid. Confirmation is in tab blue. You are not going to tell me a poker convention ate my sister's bachelorette suite."

"I can offer two queens and a rollaway."

"You can offer the general manager."

Summer leaned in. "Or you can offer us the presidential whatever and a bottle that isn't from an airplane."

"Summer, stop helping."

Skye murmured, "It's okay, Sut. We can squeeze."

"We are not squeezing. We booked a suite." Sutton's pulse sat in her throat. Project slippage. Scope creep. She hated both. "Manager. Now."

The clerk disappeared through a door marked Staff. Sutton straightened her blazer. She would be polite. She would be lethal. She would not think about the fact that her own wedding suite deposit was still sitting in some bank, unspent, like a joke.

The door opened. The man who came out was not the pinched executive she had pictured. Broad shoulders, tousled dark hair, henley sleeves rolled to the forearm, scuffed boots that did not belong in a lobby this polished. Amber eyes. Laugh lines. He looked like he had walked out of a weekend and decided to keep it.

"Alexander Robinson. I'm the GM." His voice was unhurried. "I hear we owe you an apology and a room that isn't a disaster."

Sutton held out the binder. "You owe us the suite we paid for. Double-booking is not an act of God. It's a process failure."

He glanced at the tabs, then at her, and something almost like amusement moved across his mouth. "Color-coded. That's either impressive or a cry for help."

"It's how buildings get finished on time."

"Fair." He leaned a hip against the desk, not crowding her, not backing down. "The convention ate six rooms. Yours was one. I can put you in the terrace junior suite plus an adjoining king. Same square footage if you squint. Comp the minibar. Late checkout Sunday. And I'll personally walk you up so the key cards actually work."

Summer whispered, "He's hot. Accept the minibar."

Sutton ignored her. "I don't squat on square footage. I measure it."

"Then come measure it with me." Alexander's smile was small and real. "If it's short, I'll find you something else if I have to evict a poker player myself. They're mean when they lose. I'm meaner when guests are right."

The jolt surprised her. Clean, unwanted, like static after a dry winter. She had no business feeling anything except logistics. She still felt it. "Fine. Show me the rooms. If the terrace is a euphemism for a parking-lot view, we renegotiate."

"Deal." He looked at Skye's hand, at the old diamond catching lobby light. "Nice ring. Don't play high-limit with that on. This town has a sense of humor."

Skye tucked her fingers into her palm. "I wasn't planning to."

"Good." Alexander's gaze returned to Sutton, warm and too observant. "You look like you haven't slept since Denver. Coffee after we settle the keys? On the house. I make a better apology than the software."

Sutton almost said no. The word sat ready, crisp, professional. Instead she said, "Coffee is not on the itinerary until sixteen hundred."

"Then we'll call it an emergency amendment." He picked up three key envelopes. "This way, Montgomery. Try not to audit the hallway carpet."

Summer grinned like Christmas. Skye exhaled. Sutton followed him toward the elevators with the binder under her arm and the leftover burn of airport tequila in her throat, telling herself the heat in her face was only climate control, only Vegas, only a man who had not yet learned she did not do amendments.

The elevator doors closed on their reflection: three sisters, one stranger, and a weekend already off the rails. Sutton watched the floor numbers climb and did not look at his hands on the rail. She had a schedule. She had a secret. She had no room left for amber eyes and late checkout.

Still, when he said her name again, quiet, like he was testing the weight of it, she answered.

"I'm listening."

"Good," Alexander said. "Most people don't, once the neon starts."