“We’re goin’ to Vegas, baby!”
Buffy watched as Xander did a little happy dance in the middle of the bus.
“He seems excited,” Buffy commented as she fanned her cards.
They had been on the road for almost two hours now and in a fit of boredom, Oliver had pulled out a deck of naked lady cards and asked for poker volunteers. So now Oliver, Spike, a roadie named Frank and Buffy were deep into the game.
“That’s because Vegas is the only city he can get laid in,” Oliver remarked with a smirk.
“Hey!” Xander and Buffy exclaimed at the same time.
“What? It’s true.” Oliver shrugged without looking up from his cards.
When she had first met Oliver a couple years back at one of Dru’s Christmas parties, she had liked him almost instantly. But the more she was around him, she was beginning to wonder if her sixth sense for judging character was off. He had done nothing but bitch and insult everyone since the minute they set off on the road.
“You didn’t have to tell her that!” Xander cried, sulking off to the back of the bus.
Oliver chuckled a little and Buffy felt her temper rising with every note of his laughter.
“That wasn’t very nice,” she told him.
His black eyebrows raised and he set his cards down on the table. “Well, I’m not a very nice man, sweets.”
She gaped at him for a second, her mouth open. “No, you’re not a very nice man,” she replied, throwing her cards down. “As a matter of fact, you’re a grade A asshole.”
Glancing over at Spike, she was amazed to find him trying to hold in his laughter. At first, she thought he was laughing at her, but when their eyes met she knew he wasn’t.
“Oh, is that right? Well, I don’t think you have any room to be making judgments about people you don’t even know, sweetheart,” Oliver spat out.
“First of all, stop calling me sweets or sweetheart. I’m not your little sweetie-bear. Secondly, I don’t know what your freakin’ problem is-” she pointed a finger at him “-but get over it!”
Oliver’s intense green eyes stared at her, blinking a few times. Much to her shock, he didn’t say anything in response. He just picked his cards back up and studied them.
She gave Spike a quizzical look. What he always like this? The guy had more personalities than Dru did and that was saying a lot. Spike just shrugged and shook his head as if he was truly perplexed as well.
“I’ll take one, then,” Oliver announced as he threw one card onto the table.
“I’m out,” Buffy said, before getting up and leaving the table.
“C’mon, luv.” Spike turned sideways to face her as she sat down on the red velveteen couch next to Oz. “You don’t have t’ stop playin’.”
“I’m tired of playing games,” she replied, glaring at Oliver.
Spike pouted a little, his lower lip poking out. He always used that cute little puppy-dog pout on her and usually she gave in, but not this time. Oliver had acted like a complete ass and she didn’t have to put up with it.
When his pathetic look didn’t have its desired effect, Spike turned around and elbowed Oliver in the ribs. “See what you did?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m a right git,” Oliver mumbled, fiddling with his cards.
Looking over at Oz, who had yet to say anything, she watched as he strummed his bass guitar. She couldn’t hear what he was playing since he had earphones plugged into the amp, but he was nodding his bright green-colored head along with what ever beat he was fingering out.
She tapped him on the shoulder and he glanced up at her. “Can I listen?”
He pulled the earphones off his head and placed them on hers, then went back to playing. The song was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. She let her head bob from side to side with the music and she tapped her fingers on her knee.
Feeling a finger on her own shoulder, she turned to see Oz offering his guitar to her.
“Really?”
“Yeah, sure,” he replied, handing her the instrument.
It was pretty heavy and it almost slipped from her hands, but luckily she got a good grip on it and pulled it up onto her lap before any real damage was done. Testing one of the strings, she ran her fingers up the neck. She had no idea how to play the guitar, had never even picked up an instrument until today, so she just fiddled around with the strings making random noises.
“Here,” Oz said as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, grabbing her hand, and positioned her fingers over the strings. “Now, put your index finger on this string and press down.”
“Now pull with that first string with your finger. Yeah, that’s right,” he praised before showing her several more finger positions.
After an hour she could successfully play ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ without too many mistakes. She was beaming.
“Wow, pet, I think you might be a natural at that,” Spike told her after Oz had put the guitar away.
“Nah,” she replied, “I think Oz is just a good teacher.”
“Well, he’s got the patience for it. I tried t’ teach Dru once, but I gave up after twenty minutes because she wasn’t taking it seriously.”
“Maybe you could teach me.”
His eyes got big at that. “Really? You’d like that?”
“Yeah, why not?”
The bright lights of Las Vegas greeted them as the bus exited the freeway and made its way to the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino where their concert was being held.
Spike watched Buffy staring out the windows with wide-eyed wonder. “Have you ever been here before, luv?”
“No, I’ve always wanted to, but I’ve never had the time,” she replied.
He smiled. “Well, maybe I’ll have some time t’ show you around before we leave, hmm?”
“Isn’t that a little dangerous? I mean, with you being famous and all?”
“I’ve had my fair share of scary fans, but I’ll just wear a hat an’ nobody will be the wiser.”
Normally when someone recognized him it was due to his shockingly white hair, so a while back he had gotten wise and started bringing hats everywhere he went. Most people seemed to ignore him then and even during a worst case scenario where he was stopped by someone, they tended to believe he was some sort of look-alike rather than the actual Spike.
“Somehow I have a hard time believing something as simple as putting a hat on would deter your groupies from mauling you,” she replied, her eyebrow raised.
He winced. Why did she have to keep bringing up groupies? As far as he knew no one save Oliver ever dipped into the groupie pool and it bothered him to think that she had the notion in her head that he was going to do the same.
The entire time he’d been with Dru he had never gone outside of their relationship and he hadn’t been with anyone since their break-up. He didn’t know where Buffy had gotten this groupie idea in her head, but he was determined to set her straight.
“No, he’s telling the truth. Hats really do work,” Oz offered, gathering up his guitar case as the bus pulled up to the hotel entrance.
Good man, Spike thought, fully intending to thank Oz later.
Buffy frowned as if she was going to argue but remained silent.
The bus driver opened the doors and everyone began piling out. Anya was in the lead, making her way straight to the front desk.
“Hi, the Dingoes are here for check-in,” she told the clerk.
“Okay, ma’am,” the clerk replied as she furiously began typing into her computer. “I have five suites, is this correct?”
“Yes.”
“Just give me one minute and I’ll get your room keys ready. Do you need bell service?”
“Yes.”
Hotel check-in’s were probably the only time Anya ever kept her talking to a minimum. The more she talked, the slower it would take for them to get their keys and the longer they would be sitting ducks to fans. So she usually kept to a strict ten minute rule. If the clerk failed to get it done in ten minutes, she would call for the manager.
But this clerk seemed to be on top of things and Anya was handed the room keys seconds before the bellman came to pick up their bags.
“Seven minutes flat,” Anya said walking to them as she glanced at her watch. “She’s good. Maybe we should give her a ticket for the show at a discounted price.”
“Why don’t you just give her a ticket, Anya,” Oliver replied, taking his key.
Anya shook her head in disbelief. “Give away a ticket? Are you crazy?”
“Yes,” he told her slowly. “I thought you knew that already.”
They made their way over to the elevators and went almost up to the top. Getting off, Anya directed everyone to their rooms.
“Where’s my room?” Buffy asked.
“You’re staying with Spike, aren’t you?” Anya replied, looking between Spike and Buffy.
“I am?”
Ooops. He may have forgotten to mention sharing a suite with her.
“Yeah, pet, you are.”
Anya seemed satisfied by that answer and she nodded. “Good. See you in the morning.”
Buffy watched Anya’s retreating form before turning to Spike. “I can not share a room with you, Spike.”
“Calm down, luv. There’s two beds.”
That didn’t calm her down; in fact, Spike suspected it made her even angrier. “Oh, wow, two beds,” she said sarcastically. “I’m still not sharing a room with you.”
“Fine, I’ll call the front desk and get you your own room.” He walked down the hall to his room and swiped the key.
Buffy was furious. The nerve of that man!
Following Spike into the room, she felt her anger drain out.
It was huge! The front portion of the room was bigger than the first floor of her house and was decorated in tropical colors. A large couch and two recliners sat in the middle of the room in front of a humongous picture window that overlooked the Strip. A bar was off in the right corner and in the other was an indoor waterfall.
Wandering over to one of the doors, she opened it to discover a large master bedroom complete with a California king and fireplace. She glanced over her shoulder and frowned when she saw two other doors on the opposite side of the suite. One had to be a bathroom, but the other… She had no idea.
Spike was playing with the phone when she asked, “Spike? What are those two doors for?”
He looked over to where she was pointing. “One’s the bathroom and the other is another bedroom.”
“Wait a minute. There are two bedrooms?”
“Yeah, I told you that.”
“No, you didn’t,” she told him. “You said there were two beds.”
“Well, there are two beds.”
Rolling her eyes, she marched over to him and grabbed the phone out of his hand, hanging it up with a loud crack.
“Hey! What are you doin’? I was-”
“I’m fine, Spike. If I’d known there were two bedrooms, I wouldn’t have asked for a room of my own,” she told him.
“But I told you there was, Buffy.”
“No you didn’t!” God, sometimes she wanted to shake him or slap him around. He was an intelligent man but so dense at times.
“So, we’re okay?”
“Yeah, we’re okay.”
He grinned at her. “Wanna go play with the Jacuzzi tub?”
It was going to be a long night.
A/N: Okay, I’m taking liberties with the Mandalay Bay suites because as far as I know they don’t offer a two-bedroom suite. Creative license…gotta love it! Not a lot happened in this chapter, I know, but it was kind of a jumping point for the rest of the story. Hope you enjoyed it anyway. ~Jae