Like a Best Friend | ✓

chapter twenty-three

I am so relaxed.

Beyond relaxed.

Somehow, in my twenty-eight years, I have never had a massage before and now I have been shown the error of my ways. Ninety minutes sounded like a drag when Kitty and I lay down on adjacent massage couches in a candlelit room but it flew by, the calming music and skilled hands and warm oil enough to lull me into a state of utter bliss.

The problem with a voucher for a free massage is that it actually involves spending a lot of money, because how could we then say no to a facial treatment and the sauna and a mani pedi?

After four hours in the spa, we have been pampered and preened to within an inch of our lives and I don't think my heart rate has ever been this low before; my skin has never felt so soft and supple. I am detoxed and carefree and my nails look the best they've ever looked. Gone is the chipped nude polish I painted myself over a week ago: I have been buffed and filed and gelled and now my nails are strong and shiny and they match my hair. Is this how rich people feel all the time?

"Face it," Kitty says when we leave the spa just after three o'clock, "that was way better than spending half the day in bed."

"I'll admit, I've never felt so good in my entire life," I say, struggling to contain a yawn. "Although now I'm so relaxed I might have to spend the other half of the day in bed."

"It's like some kind of hypnosis," Kitty says, my yawn setting her off. "We've been lulled into a trance. A state of total relaxation and submission where all we want to do is order more treatments until before we know it, the spa is closed and they tip us into the casino when we're feeling way too good about ourselves and we sink two grand on Blackjack."

To be honest, the way Vegas works, she probably isn't far off with that assumption. But we are too aware to fall victim to their tricks, and we have plans.

Although, when we go back to our room to change, I sit down on the bed to wait for Kitty to do her make-up and I end up lying down, my body sinking into the soft mattress as though I am becoming one with it. Every knot of tension in my body has been loosened and now I am nothing but a pile of ropes, untethered.

"Felicity!"

"Just five minutes," I say, closing my eyes.

"If you fall asleep, I will draw on your face and I have been known to accidentally mix up my eyeliner pencil and my permanent marker," Kitty scolds. "We made plans. We have to stick to them."

We did make plans. On the way down to the spa earlier, I texted Leila to check what she's up to this afternoon, making good on our promise to meet up. She's staying at a small hotel off the Strip, not far from the Neon Museum, and it's on her list of places to check out so we arranged to meet her there at four.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I say, rolling off the bed and dragging myself to my feet when all my bones want to do is free themselves from their ligaments and make themselves a cozy pile in a sunbeam.

Kitty takes my hand and tugs me to my feet. She can be very forceful when she wants to be. In her words, we have all the time in the world to lounge around in bed (not true, we both have jobs) but we only have two days left in Vegas before we go back to Boston and Leila goes back to Amber Creek (true). Of course I don't want to be late to meet Leila, but on the other hand, it's hard to care when I'm so relaxed.

"Remind me to never let you get a massage again," Kitty says, laughing as she leads the way to the line of yellow cabs outside the hotel.

"Unfortunately for you, the first thing I plan to do once we're home is get a spa membership," I say as we get into a taxi and Kitty gives the address to the driver. "Anxiety? Don't know her."