We let poor Carl lose his shirt, not letting him in on the joke until we take the usual bathroom break. “You guys are assholes,” he mutters, throwing his cards down on the table before stalking off to the restroom. Frank follows him out, chanting, “You got beat by a girl. You got beat by a girl.”
“You must have gotten lost on your way to my office after lunch this afternoon,” I say when the door slams shut, leaving just the two of us. “Avoiding me won’t solve the problem.” The room is so quiet I can hear the distinct hitch in her breath, even though she tries to conceal the effect my words have on her.
“What will?” She busies herself collecting the cards from the table and speaks without looking at me.
“Working through it.”
“Am I supposed to believe you’re here by coincidence? If you want something, set it free, if it comes back to you, it was meant to be … or something like that?”
“Do you believe in that stuff?”
She pauses for a moment, considering my question, and then begins shuffling again. “I think I do. Do you?”
“I’m more of the school of if you want something bad enough, pursue it aggressively until you wear it down and it gives in.”
Her mouth twitches with suppressed amusement, but she still doesn’t look up.
“You didn’t push my hand away today,” I say, my eyes never leaving her face.
“I didn’t want to make a scene.”
“You liked it there. The way my fingers traced the outline of the lace. I could feel the heat. You wanted me to dip my fingers inside and feel how wet you were as much as I did.”
She closes her eyes.
I stand and step around the table.
“It made me insane to see his hand on you,” I admit as I graze my knuckles lightly down her cheek. She still doesn’t look up.
“Look at me,” I say, quietly but firm.
Her eyes close again.
“I can’t, Cooper.” There’s sadness in her voice. “I can’t spend time around you and do what I need to do.”
I take her chin in my hands and force her gaze to meet mine. “And I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Bet me.”
“What?” Her brows furrow.
“If I win, give me tonight.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Is it? Leave it up to fate. You just said you’re a believer.”
“Cooper,” she warns uncertainly.
I kiss her lips. Sweetly this time, even though all I really want to do is grab her and pounce.
“Last hand,” I breathe, hating to pull my lips from hers.
“I don’t know …”
The door opens, and the boisterous sound of Frank still needling Carl interrupts us before I can get her to agree. A part of me wants to clear the room. Tell Frank and Carl I need them to leave so I can finish our conversation. But I don’t. I respect the hell out of these guys, and when we leave work at the door, we leave me being the boss there too.
We play for two more hours. Frank peppers Kate with all kinds of questions about her family and plenty about her infamous father. I suspect he has a bit of a crush on Kate; my guess is she knows it too. She flirts playfully with him. It makes me smile almost as much as it does Frank.
“That’s two in a row you lost to Frank. Are you letting him win or is your luck starting to turn?” Tipping my beer up, I eye Kate.
“My luck must be running out. I only let people win to build their confidence.”
“Well, my confidence is dwindling here, maybe you should throw some charity my way.” I motion to the sparse pile of chips in front of me.
“I don’t think you’ve ever experienced a shortage in confidence, Mr. Montgomery.”
Frank snickers. “You got this one pegged. Hard to be lacking in confidence when you’re walking around with Ms. Laroix on your arm.”
“She’s beautiful. I saw you with her today. Is she your girlfriend?” Kate asks, a sly smirk on her face.
“No.” I throw two chips into the pot, even though I have another shit hand.
“Looked cozy.” She shrugs. “Friends with benefits?”
My eyebrows jump. “No. Not friends with benefits either.”
“Ohhhhhh,” she says, as if something dawns on her for the first time. Then says nothing more.
“What?” Eventually I take the bait.
“I didn’t realize you played for the other team.”
Cute. Really cute. I’ll show you what team I play for. “No. I don’t play for the other team. I actually just met someone.”
She tosses her cards on the table, folding for the third time in a row.
“Looks like your luck really is running low,” I say. “You know what, guys, I have an early morning tomorrow. What do you say we make next hand the last hand?” She knows exactly what I’m doing. Yet I don’t have a damn clue what she’s up to. For all I know, she can be playing us all. Folding three hands in a row and taking my mind off the game.
“You have those diamond four-leaf clover cufflinks your old man used to wear? I’d love to get my hands on them in a last-hand pot,” Frank says.
“No. Wish I did. He lost them in a game. He swore it was the reason his luck changed.” Kate’s face saddens.
“Sorry, kid.”
She forces a conciliatory smile.
Frank rakes in the final pot of chips for the night and everyone digs for their final ante. Frank tosses in a business card holder with my initials on it. I haven’t seen that thing in ten years. Carl tosses in Frank’s high school ring, and I throw a custom Montblanc platinum pen engraved with Ben’s initials into the mix. Kate is busy in her purse.
Just like the first time we met, she tears a piece of paper. Grinning, she picks out the fifteen-hundred-dollar pen from the pot and scribbles something, her hand covering the content like a schoolgirl writing a note. She folds it a few times, concealing what she’s offering to the winner.
Frank chuckles. “You know I already have your phone number?”
“Maybe it’s not my phone number,” she says cryptically, smiling at Frank fondly. But her eyes blaze when they turn to me.
Carl’s the first one out. He hisses and pushes back from the table.
I eye the stack of chips in front of Kate and dig into my pocket. My eyes never leave hers when I toss a wad of hundreds into the pile—Tiffany money clip and all.
Frank bows out. “Too rich for my blood with the crap cards I got.”
And then there’s just the two of us again.
Kate and I stand off, her eyes gyrating through an assessment I’ve become familiar with. First she squints, looking deep into my eyes, then her eyes relax again. Her gaze drops to my lips and then slowly makes its way back to my eyes. An ever-so-slight uptick on the right side of her mouth is the only indication that she thinks she’s got me.
She pushes all of her chips in.
I take a deep breath and turn over my cards.
Three kings.
And two tens. I haven’t had a full house this high since, well … ever.
The guys whistle.
Kate’s eyes sparkle. I hold my breath as her eyes drop down to read my cards and then quickly return to mine. She throws her cards into the pot. Face down. Defeated.
Laughter erupts in the room. Carl stands, grabbing his jacket. “Damn. That was intense. Nice job, Coop. Glad one of us didn’t get beat by a girl. It was a pleasure, though,” he says to Kate. Then he nods to Frank. “Come on, I’ll help clean this up.”
“Go ahead, guys. I got it.”
“You sure, Coop?”
“No problem. Have a good night, gentlemen.”
Frank slaps me on the back as he leaves. “If I can’t have your old man around, you’re the next best thing. You turned out good, kid. You turned out good.”
The room goes quiet as the two men exit. Neither Kate nor I have moved from our seats. We stare intently at each other. I watch as her pupils dilate and the rise and fall of her chest seems to grow deeper with each breath. And then something happens. It hits me. And I realize playing the game really is all about reading people. So I reach into the ante pile and my hand hovers over the folded-up paper for a long count. Then I veer slightly to the left and flip over her cards.