Bender (Vegas Venom Book 4)

Sixty days is not enough time for everything I need to do. I wasted the first day on sadness. But I must pull myself up by my shoe straps. Now, it is time to act. Even though #SaveMarco is trending on social media, the ultimate rescue of my career has to be done by me.

Doing a podcast is not so different from doing a TikTok live. Madison comes with me, and Scarlett coaches us through the whole process. So many people are calling with ideas and advice, I cannot believe it. I know that I have the best friends, and the best woman in my life, but it seems I have the best fans, too. At the end of the episode, we even get a call from a rep from Lamborghini asking me to shoot a commercial with them. Lining them up with my agent will be easy.

It is not enough to keep me in America, but it is something.

In the evenings, when she is not working, Madison and I strategize. I have unofficially moved in, a fact that would make me very happy if it was for a reason other than this one. We are spending as much time as we can with one another now because it will not be long before we have no time together at all.

One week into my search for more work, Madison and I sit down with the notebook Noah gave us to look at the options. We have added more ideas and removed some others in the meantime.

“Your agent is checking in with the other teams?” she asks.

“Every day, principessa.”

She scans the list, then bites her lip. “Yeah, I guess that’s all we have right now.”

“If it is alright with you, I would like to make another list.” I hold out my hands, and Madison passes the paper over. I turn to a fresh page and write, in blocky letters, American Bucket List. As I write, I explain, “I saw this on Google today. This idea is to make a list of all the things you want to do before you are gone, and since I am afraid that I must be forced to go, I think I should make such a list. I do not want to have many regrets.”

Madison chuckles, but she doesn’t sound happy. “I know what a bucket list is. Okay, then, put our other two dates at the top. Scarlett’s right: we can’t let the fans down. Besides, every guy knows that you have sex on the third date.”

I pause with my pen hovering over the page. “We had sex on the first date.”

Madison clicks her tongue and wags a finger at me. “There was no penetration. It doesn’t count.”

“My fingers penetrated,” I argue, waving my hands to indicate the gesture. It feels like I’ve slipped back in time to that special moment when I first understood just how much this woman was going to mean to me. “I am touching your spot of G. You liked it very much, I think. And my tongue—”

“I remember.” Her face heats up. “Just write them down.”

I dutifully spell out Date 2 and Date 3 as individual bullet points.

“What else?” I ask.

Madison taps one finger against her lips and stares toward the ceiling, but her eyes are unfocused. She is so cute when she thinks. I want to kiss her.

And because I want to, I do. Time is short, after all. We should not waste it.

“You’re making it really hard to think,” she teases when I pull away. “Not that I’m complaining. Uh, we could ride the High Roller? I haven’t done that yet.”

I note it down. “Anders took Stella to the neon museum once. He showed me photos, but I have not gone.”

“Well, put it on the list.” Madison has her phone out and is scrolling through a list on Trip Advisor. “How about Springs Preserve? It says it’s the birthplace of Las Vegas…”

The swallow I force down my throat burns. “We can go, if you want, of course. But I do not need a list from the internet. I want it to be special. Just for us. For me to remember, after.”

Madison lowers her phone to her lap. “Marco—” she begins.

I am not ready to hear her say again that we will solve this, that everything will be good and fine, that someone will save the day. I want to believe as she does, but that is not the purpose of this list, either. This is a just-in-case list. To distract her, I add another bullet point, smirking to myself as I do so. Madison peers over my shoulder and then lets out a snort of laughter. Even a snort is sexy when she does it.

“Oh my God, are you serious? Are you even into that?”

“I do not know,” I admit. “But if I try it with anyone, it will be with you.”

“Hey.” Her smile fades, and she places one hand on my forearm. “Marco, listen. Even if you leave, this doesn’t have to be over. You know that, right? There are other ways to get a visa. And I can do long-distance. I bet Anna could get me some work in Italy, and you already talked about taking me there. I could visit you. And Skype exists, now, so long-distance is getting easier all the time—”

I drop my pen and paper so that I can slide my palms along her jawline and kiss her like tomorrow doesn’t exist. I am lucky. I am so lucky, with her.

I always thought that a career in hockey was my American dream, but if I had to choose between sixty days with Madison and a lifetime on the ice, I would not change a thing.

* * *

We do everything on the list, and more. The two fan-voted dates, we save for a special occasion, but we do everything else as fast as we can squeeze it in, posting to social media as we go.

At Madison’s insistence, we go to a movie together for the first time. When I admit that I have never watched a movie in an American theater, Madison laughs so hard she cries.

“But you love the snacks!” she exclaims.

“Because the snacks are the best,” I explain. “The popcorn with its golden shower, the sodas they only have at the theater, all those same-sized boxes of candies… it is an experience.”

“Yeah, so imagine how much better it would be if we actually watched a movie during that experience?” She shakes her head at me as if I am a lost cause, as if this is why she is finally giving up on me, but of course, she does not. Instead, she takes me into the theater, where we watch a very loud superhero movie while eating too many snacks. Then we do just a little bit of kissing. And touching. She is right. It is fantastic.

We are doing a little too much of everything these days, although we never admit why. We are each trying to fit years of experience into a few short weeks. I believe Madison when she says that she will wait for me and that we will find a way to make things work, but I cannot picture it. I cannot picture anything at all about my life back in Italy. Alone. Lonely. Even if an Italian team will take me, it was never the same there. I never felt as I do with my team—because no matter what Dante says, the Venom is my team. Even if they never declared it so, Anders, Noah, Latham, even Cash Denaro have invited me into the fold as if I am famiglia. I will miss them almost as much as I will miss Madison.

I will even miss this place with its neon lights and grand facades and barren desert landscape—a place that is so much different from Italia and the orphanage where I grew up among the olive groves.

Stella and Anders take us hiking in Red Rocks. For once, I do not have to ask about the name, because the place is full of rocks that are indeed red. I worry that Madison will not feel comfortable, but she is better at hiking than I am and leaves me in the dust. I find out that our huge, confident, capable team captain, Anders, is afraid of tarantulas. Stella enjoys telling me a story of how one crawled up his leg inside this very park and she had to save him from it. But she chose to let him suffer a bit by taking a photograph of the hairy monster before she shooed it away.

Latham and Scarlett invite us over to spend time with their son, Adler. Out of all my friends, Latham is the one that Anders describes as a bull in a shop of china, and this phrase makes sense to me. But with his little boy, Latham becomes so soft and sweet, taking such care to protect him as if nothing in the world could ever harm him. When Madison takes a turn holding him, my heart almost breaks. I imagine the family I could have with her. I could belong somewhere. Have children of my own. That is not something I can do from far away. It is not something I even wanted for myself before I met her, and now that I wish for it, I am too late.

The thought of leaving her behind tightens my chest into an uncomfortable ache as my anxiety spikes until drawing a complete breath becomes impossible.

Molly and Noah invite us over for dinner. Noah’s daughter and his big dog play in the pool while we make burgers on the grill. I never even wanted a dog before since I worried I would not be able to properly care for it due to my hockey schedule, but Biscuit sets my mind at ease with her sweet soul. The animal would gladly give her life to protect Noah and his family. Now I want to give Madison everything, and to share it all with her. I want my own home in this very neighborhood. I want the babies. I want the dog. I am so jealous and so sad that I can barely speak.

Cash even takes us to the pinball arcade on the Strip. Neither of us knows how to play, but Cash is very good at it. He knows not only the games but the stories behind all the games. There are so many things I do not know about him, or will maybe ever know. And I realize how sad that makes me. Cash Denaro is like the brother I never had, pestering me, correcting me, and pushing me to be a better version of myself. Part of the reason I never moved out of his house was because I did not have more than an entry-level NHL contract. The other part? I did not really want to live alone again.

And each night, when I fall into bed, Madison is there with me. She is the last thing I see when I close my eyes. Her breathing is the first sound I hear each morning. We make love with such desperation, it feels like I have cracked open and my heart is spilling out.

I want her to be my future, but my inquiries go unanswered, and my agent receives no calls on my behalf. If this continues, I am afraid she will be my past instead.

A solution is quickly fading away and my future now seems so bleak it is hard not to lose hope.

* * *

I have never driven a Lamborghini before, but the one I am to drive for the commercial is very nice, sleek and powerful.

“Is there a script?” I ask the head of the film crew.

Yolanda shakes her head as she finishes checking her equipment. “We love when you get idioms all twisted up, ya know?” She looks up from her equipment with a guilty grimace. “Sorry, I hope that’s not condescending. It’s, like, super charming actually. So we’re just going to drive around the Strip while you talk about the differences between Italy and America. Once we have a bunch of footage, we’ll send it off to editing so they can work their magic.”

I frown at her. “And this will sell cars?”

She waves a hand. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll add some voiceover about the differences between Lamborghini and the competition. But we don’t need you to try to sell people on the car itself. We just need you to sell yourself. Have you ever seen the Matthew McConaughey ads for Buick?”

I nod. “So you are selling the personality.”

“Exactly.” She nods to the sound guy still standing on the curb as he makes some final adjustments. “Okay, we’re ready when you are, Marco. Don’t worry too much if you ramble or anything, we’ll work with it to get it just right. Act like you’re talking to me casually and telling me the top things that surprised you when you came to America.”

I ease the luxury car away from the curb and consider my answer. There are so many things that are different, I do not know where to start.

“Alright, here is one thing. In Italy, cars are usually very small. They are more efficient, but also they have to fit down the little streets. Have you ever seen the streets in Rome? If two American cars tried to pass each other, they would be forever stuck. So that is another thing: the roads are very wide here, but I am not sure which came first. It is like the chicken and his egg.” I laugh, forgetting that I am on camera. “And in Italy, it would be easier for him to cross the road, because it is less walking. But more dangerous, because you should see how we drive!”

I pause for a while, watching the road as I pilot the unfamiliar vehicle since I know how much it is worth. I feel very self-conscious about my joke even as the supple leather hugs my body in a caress, and I do not want to complain too much about my life here, since I do not want to give it up.

“You’re doing great,” Yolanda assures me.

“Well, here is the trouble.” I glance over at her with a small smile. “There are many things that Americans do wrong. Like pizza. I do not understand American pizza. You love it, so maybe it is good, but… why? You put terrible things on it. Taco meat. Pineapple. Chocolate sauce. I have seen this with my own eyes: chocolate pizza!” I shudder. “And it is not just this. So many of the foods here are processed. They come in packages. In cans. In bags. It is not like that—” I almost say at home. I am used to thinking of Italia as home. But it does not feel like home anymore. Home to me is where Madison is. “—where I come from. When we eat, we sit down to a long meal. It is not a thing to rush, but to be savored.” Mealtimes in Italia are meant to be spent with family and friends. But all my friends are in America.

If I am sent back to Italia, will I ever savor another meal again?

I feel like a pocket that has been turned inside out, with nothing but lint to show for it.

Hoping to make the feeling go away, I keep talking. “Everything here is faster. Bigger. Newer. Everyone is in a rush. In the town where I was born, everyone knows their past back many generations. Americans only care about the future. They do not even slow down enough to relish the present moment, let alone the traditions and history of the past. And because of that, memories can become forgotten.”

Italia feels like my past. Everything I want in my future is here.

Yolanda gives me a funny look, so I change my subject. I talk about valet parking and fast food and public beaches, about the lazy, baggy way that Americans like to dress. About how fast they talk and how they are addicted to their social media. I try to be funny as I deliberately make mistakes this time.

In the end, Yolanda praises me. Lamborghini is satisfied they got the footage they need to make a great advertisement.

I do not want to give up on America, but I think she is giving up on me.