Like a Best Friend | ✓

chapter five

We land at nine forty-five, though it's after ten by the time we're off the plane and walking through Harry Reid International Airport in search of the exit. I tried to sleep on the plane, I really did, but I don't think I managed to do anything more than doze for a few minutes at a time. Even when they dimmed the cabin after the dinner service and my body knew it was eleven p.m., later than I usually go to bed, I couldn't shut off my brain, couldn't tear my weary eyes from the little screen in front of me.

I spent a lot of time looking at the map. Watching our route across almost the entirety of the US, from my comfort zone of the top right corner down to the southernmost point of Nevada. Scrolling through the random selection of TV episodes and movies. Checking on Kitty.

She put in her AirPods after we ate – I don't know why people talk so much shit about airplane food; whatever we had tasted pretty good even if it wasn't identifiable by sight or taste – and an hour later, she was asleep. For three straight hours. So now, with our body clocks telling us it's after one in the morning, I'm dead on my feet and she is full of beans as we drag our bags to the ground transportation. It's hot and humid, the air still thick and sticky even at ten thirty, a sheen of sweat beading on my forehead the minute we step out of the air conditioned airport into the Nevada night.

There's a shuttle bus to our hotel but it leaves every thirty minutes and one left ten minutes ago, and I'm as impatient as I am happy to splash a bit of cash on a taxi to the Strip. Kitty has paid for this honeymoon, after all, so I am fully prepared to take on any and all costs we incur over the next two weeks. I have prepared my bank account for the hit it's about to take, and I know I'm beyond lucky to be able to do that. It helps that I'm childless and petless, that I've had a great job for the last six years and my landlord isn't that hot on current rental prices for the area, nor is he in a rush to lose me as a tenant. I can afford this. And this is Kitty we're talking about: even if I couldn't afford it, I'd find a way.

I know Vegas's reputation. I know it's going to be busy, the city throbbing with life, but I'm still shocked by just how much life. There are people everywhere, filling the sidewalks and spilling off, throngs gathering by the Bellagio fountains and the miniature Eiffel Tower replica like the night is only just beginning. My eyes are wide, glued to the window, taking it all in. Bright and gaudy and neon, light and color, shrieking bachelorette parties stumbling in too high heels and groups of squinting men tumbling out of casinos with no idea what time it is. I'm in awe of how over the top it is, even more so in person. I fit right in with my pink hair.

Our hotel, the Cascade, is further up the Strip, halfway between Treasure Island and Resorts World. It's one of the newest in the city, the height of everything Las Vegas has to offer: four pools, including an adults-only top-optional rooftop one open until one a.m. Friday through Sunday (a rarity in this city, which would rather you spend your nights gambling than swimming); twelve restaurants; an entire shopping center and spa and multiple theaters. It's a million miles from any kind of hotel experience I've had before, which is usually a poky little room and free pastries in the morning if I'm lucky.

I can't fucking wait.

The taxi takes us right up to the front door. I tip the driver and the concierge rushes over to help us with our bags, loading them onto a cart that he wheels into the lobby. And oh, what a lobby it is. Kitty gasps when we step into the Cascade, a waterfall at one end of the lobby and a fish tank behind the front desk at the other end, a jungle hanging from the ceiling and growing up the walls.

"Holy shit," she says, clutching my arm. "This is so cool!"

It's been so long since I booked this place, thinking I'd never get to see it, that I'd forgotten how cool it is. It's magnificent, and this is only the entrance. The entire hotel is more than forty floors and the casino alone is over sixty thousand square feet, plus an extra four acres of outdoor space beyond the casino floor with a secret garden and a lazy river, an outdoor bar and private poolside cabanas. Cascade is new enough that it doesn't have a reputation yet, but it offers everything. Including a thirty percent discount on our two week stay when I flashed Kitty's Instagram handle in my booking enquiry email. I didn't expect anything, but I guess the manager was swayed by her hundreds of thousands of followers, one percent of whom could probably fill the entire hotel. Hopefully that discount won't be rescinded if they find out this isn't a honeymoon trip anymore.