We had planned for it for months, 8 friends, who mostly lived in different parts of the country, were going to meet up in Las Vegas watch football, gamble, and have fun. We had not seen much of each other since the start of the pandemic and now we were going to change that.
I arrived on Thursday meeting two others, and the other five were going to arrive on Friday. We were all in our thirties, some married, a couple divorced, others single. We met playing sports, united by fantasy football, disciplined by weightlifting as adults, if nothing else we were physically imposing, but, really, most of us kept to ourselves and we were just looking for a great time.
I had recently broken up with a live in girlfriend during the pandemic. The walls got a little too tight. I needed this week to be around trusted friends who I could be honest with and could not wait for the weekend to start. My best friend in the group was driving in from California on Friday and I flew in from NYC on Thursday.