Paris Hilton is a control freak, or how I spent my winter break

"That," Stephanie said, "might be the ugliest sweatshirt I’ve ever seen."

There were eight of us sitting around an intricate wicker table on a patio at the Wynn casino in Las Vegas. The chairs and lounges were also made from dense spools of wicker with big white cushions and were almost deep enough to stretch out on, so the group’s posture ranged from perching to sprawling. I had some coffee.

To my left, a broad reflecting pool with nude statues and huge bushy trees scattered around it led up to a textured wall a few hundred feet across with water streaming down its face. On my right were thick windows leading into boutiques and everyone was looking through one of them at a young guy wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a sparkling death’s head design on the back.

I didn’t think the gems were real diamonds, but they could have been, because the guy had walked in with Paris Hilton. They were carefully ignoring each other, but every time one of them rolled their eyes and gazed disinterestedly at something, the other would steal a furtive glance before resuming casting hopelessly about for something, anything, that didn’t just bore the hell out of them like everything else in this backwater town. Showing affection is the first step toward giving up control, I guess.

I was quietly pleased to note that Paris looked about like I’d expected and that she really did not have a very pretty face, a position I’ve maintained for several years now. Of course, she could probably have bought my love, but it would have taken more than a $1,000 hoodie with Ghost Rider on the back.

She didn’t rush outside and make an offer, so I drank some coffee and lounged back on the lounge and talked. I didn’t have a lot to say at the moment, but fortunately that’s one of the last things I consider before joining a conversation. After a bit, I realized that, with the exception of Stephanie and my buddy Ray, I hadn’t known anyone at the table more than three days and I already liked them. I wondered if that meant I was giving up control. Paris probably wouldn’t approve. I decided I could live with that.

It was a little overcast, cool for Vegas but sultry for most places, and a faint breeze made me glad there was a heat lamp above us. One of the girls was drinking a White Russian and I watched as thin veins of cream ran down through the Kahlua underneath. During a pause in conversation, I noticed that she was looking at me with her dark eyes slightly narrowed and the smallest of creases in her forehead, like she was trying to decide if I was sort of cute or sort of annoying. It seemed like a lot of people had been looking at me like that on this trip. I assumed the best and finished my coffee.

Later, we all went back to Stephanie’s house, where most of us were staying, to change clothes before we went to an Irish bar for a drink. We had to take turns in the bathrooms and got in each other’s way in the kitchen and had to jostle, bargain and wrestle to fit everyone into the car.

We piled out in front of McMullan’s pub and ambled inside. They didn’t have a table long enough for all of us, so we sat at the bar and took up most of its L shape.

As the bartender pulled taps and surreptitiously checked his hair in the mirror, it dawned on me that I had lived alone for four years and had never had company for more than a week at a time.

When I’d first let a room by myself, it had been because I was sick of racing for the shower every morning and finding other people’s underwear in the refrigerator when I got home from work. Now I was getting downright misty about it. I’d forgotten that living with someone not only makes you the first in line to give them a nice deep guillotine choke when they finish off the cereal without for Christ’s sake putting it on the shopping list, it also makes you de facto friends. As if you needed an excuse.

We had to lean way into the bar to get everyone’s glass involved in the toast, but no one complained. Stephanie and her boyfriend argued softly with big grins on their faces, which were very close together. Ray gestured emphatically as he explained the proper role of government in America to a tall guy from Chicago. The girls from New Jersey played up their accents and laughed. The girl with dark eyes sipped her Disaronno on the rocks and looked over at me. I gulped the head off the top of my Harp draft and smiled.