King's Treasure (Oil Kings Book 3) by Marie Johnston (great novels .TXT) 📗

who gave them a wide arc and shoved his hands in his pockets like he was afraid they’d grab him and incorporate him. “Your energy is bright, my friend.”

He shot her an incredulous look and rushed past.

That was how my family saw me. Naively idealistic. Young and innocent and incapable, like a floppy-eared puppy. At home, I dressed like them. My family looked at me like that tourist had responded to news that his energy was bright.

Movement on the outer edges of the group only fueled my irritation. I was stranded in Vegas unemployed and struggling to be independent of my parents’ money. It was bad enough my father would arrive shortly to witness me at my worst. And there were these tourists being followed by a photographer, no doubt capturing their most cringeworthy moments too. Like Chief, this photographer would make an example of how their best intentions weren’t enough for the “real world.”

He crouched, his camera aimed at the group blessing their way down the Strip. He brushed shaggy, dark brown hair off his forehead as he shoved a large camera to his eye. His folded legs were long and his biceps flexed through his hemp hoodie. His wide chest was on display, thanks to the camera bag slung low over his torso. Faded blue jeans hugged his thighs and broke over cowboy boots.

Just some dude taking pictures of beautiful women? No. I didn’t know much about camera equipment, but the one he held looked serious. The lens was as big as a pomelo. He crouched, twisting himself into a pretzel to get the right angle. He was no amateur.

His half smile and the way his eyes narrowed on the group resembled the cynical grins of the older tourists passing by.

Protectiveness rose. Was he going to do some puff-piece making fun of the people here? That was how everyone in my life saw me, how they rolled their eyes when I inquired about the free-range status of the eggs I ate, or the pesticides used to grow the fruits and vegetables in the juice I drank. This man was going to immortalize that derision in photographs for others to make fun of.

My heart raced. No one from the group had noticed him, and if they did, they wouldn’t care. I cared. I cared way too deeply and that had always gotten me in trouble. I didn’t know how this would play out, but I had to stop it. I was in danger of acting before thinking, a crime my parents too often accused me of, but I’d run him out of Vegas before I let him make this crowd feel small.

Xander

I refocused and took another shot, the neon lights around us filtering down onto the men and women dancing their way down the Strip. I caught two with their hands in the air, one in a skirt that twirled around her ankles, her flip-flops held high in the air like an offering to the gods of Vegas. Highlights in her hair caught the reds and yellows of the glowing signs lining the sidewalk, giving her an ethereal quality.

“Praise Mother Earth,” one of the women called over the tour guide’s fact-dispensing speech.

Those people stood out among the other tourists roaming the night. Valentine’s Day in Vegas. For a day all about spreading love, people here were surprisingly isolated. Couples walked hand in hand, or somehow even closer, absorbed in each other and oblivious to the spectacle around them. Some singles walked by too, hands tucked into their pockets, gazes never meeting. But everyone, coupled up or single or giggling in a group, kept firmly in their bubbles. Maybe they were avoiding their family like me. Maybe they had a birthday in two days that was a milestone for all the wrong reasons. Maybe they’d made excuses like I had to get out of a family dinner and sink into some blissful anonymity.

I didn’t know what they were thinking, but those hippie tourists felt different. They didn’t ignore the people around them. They weren’t oblivious. They were ignored or ridiculed in return, but they persevered, their self-confidence winning every time.

Their free love for the world made me forget about the questions Dad had peppered me with and the way I’d avoided answering them. He asked about Grams’s persistent hounding, about what my twenty-ninth birthday meant, and about my much more successful siblings.

I’d ditched my brother’s anniversary dinner, changed clothes, and grabbed my camera. The city was full of inspiration. I should be able to get a few pictures that reaffirmed my life’s decision. Then this group had danced by and I’d wanted some of their unfettered happiness. I wanted to capture it in my lens and somehow take some for myself, to forget that I was two days away from being noncompliant with my trust fund.

I clenched my jaw and snapped a few more shots. There was a couple making out like they were going to meld into the same person. I didn’t focus on them—it seemed too intrusive, but I could include their desire in my pictures. My mind worked over various angles and how to utilize the shadows from the man-made lighting. My pulse thrummed. I hadn’t had the drive to take pictures for years. A big issue for a photojournalist. Well, a wannabe photojournalist no one wanted to buy stories from.

What had Mama always said? Don’t assume a hobby makes good business. You have to be good at business first, and be damn sure that half the appeal of your hobby isn’t that it makes you forget about business.

When I was a kid, I had no clue what Mama meant, but I got it now. The hustle of trying to make money from my photos had sucked a lot of the joy out of taking them.

But something about this wild and free group that gave zero shits about what everyone thought of them prancing down the Strip made me want to focus that energy through