Game of Hearts (Stacked Deck Book 3)

by Emilia Finn

  Worst of all, to the disappointment that shone in Daddy’s eyes.

  Deck lets out a roaring bark thirty or so minutes after I settle onto the beanbag, so loud, so ferocious that the birds in the trees take flight, and my heart races for just a second. But then Smalls’ voice, “Sit down, doofus! It’s just me,” penetrates my panic, then the loud thunder of Deck’s paws galloping on the forest floor.

  Her presence brings fresh tears to my eyes. Because I’d much rather have my pity party all alone. I want quiet anonymity while I pout and work through my hurt feelings.

  There’s a reason I never told anyone about dancing at Rhino’s; I knew Daddy would disapprove. There’s a reason I never told anyone about my deep, deep passion of dance in general; we’re a fight family. That’s the way it is. It’s the way it’s supposed to be.

  I can strike out on my own, but I’m to do it on my own, in privacy, and not on anyone else’s time.

  “You in there, Beanie Baby?” Smalls’ footsteps echo on the hardpacked earth. “You gotta be, because why else is the dummy dog acting as security?” Her footsteps stop by the make-shift door. Then her hand shoots through the gap, pushes the blanket aside, and her face with all of those surrounding curls take up space in the small room. “Found you.”

  “I wanna be alone.” I place the battered book on my chest and swallow the lump that lodges in my throat. Swipe at the tears that just won’t leave me be. “Please.”

  “Sure.” She drops to a crouch and duck walks her way in. “You can be alone… but with me. The way it’s always been. Scoot over, fatty.” She literally moves me on the beanbag, gets her ass onto some of the fabric, then pulls me in so we’re almost cocooned together. Our legs interlock as we turn to our sides, her hand grabs mine, and when the book falls between us, her eyes flick to it and away. “Thought you’d go for a trip down memory lane?”

  “Just wanted to escape the real world for a minute.” I clear my throat, squeeze my eyes closed when tears spill over. “I was mean. And stupid. And naïve. And soooo fucking ballsy to tell Daddy that I would square up.”

  She grins and lays her head flat, so she squishes her curls between her and the beans. “Can’t say I’ve ever told Biggie I would square up. Not seriously, anyway. You were pretty serious.”

  “He hit Mac.” I draw in a heaving breath, let it out again on a sigh. “That was unfair. Mac did nothing wrong.”

  “He’s outside, by the way.”

  I shoot up. “What?”

  She grins. “They aren’t gonna fit in here unless we want to get hella cozy, but he’s just outside.”

  “Mac?” I lean away from my cousin and glance outside to find him sitting right at the door. His back is pressed to the wooden wall, one leg is straight out ahead of him, the other bent as he stares into the trees. Beside him, Ben mirrors his position, but he leans a little forward to catch my eye and offer a gentle smile.

  “You okay in there? Can we come in?”

  I chew on the inside of my cheek and let my eyes flick back to Mac. “Are you mad at me?”

  He doesn’t look away from the canopy. From the sunlight fighting to break through.

  “Mac?”

  “I’m mad at me.” His jaw grinds with poisonous intensity. “You bet on me.” Finally, his blazing eyes come to mine. The green that I fell in love with at such a young, innocent age, is now so much darker. So much meaner. “You bet on me, the sure bet, and I lost. And because of that, you were indebted to that fuckin’ asshole.”

  “It’s only dancing,” I whisper. “It’s not what… It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  He nods. “I know. I saw, remember?” He reaches up, points to his bruising jaw. “I saw you at the club, I watched you dance. You were safe, and you were dressed, so I let it be.” He turns back to the trees and lays his head back. “My inaction means I lost whatever approval Jimmy Kincaid might have ever given me.”

  “Wait.” Sick of waiting inside, Evie crawls across the space and pokes her head out of the door. “You were really dancing at Rhino’s? You were dancing for money?”

  “Come in.” I grab Mac’s hand and give a gentle tug. “It’s cold out there, and I don’t want to sit in the doorway.” I pull him in, despite his reluctance, and because our group have had practice at squishing together into small spaces, we place the beanbag against the wall to act as a pillow, then in a row, we all lay on the floor. Ben on the far end, then Smalls. I lay beside her, and sandwiching us in, Mac scoops me into his little spoon and helps me breathe easier, simply because he’s touching. He’s mad, but he’s touching.

  And frankly, that’s more than I expected.

  “Speak,” Smalls says.

  Deck barks outside and makes me smile.

  “I made a bet last year at the tournament. I was so sure Mac would win, so I wanted to show my support in my own way. Kyle Baker wanted in on that bet, so when he went big, I agreed. No big deal.”

  “How much?” Ben asks. “How much did you bet that prick?”

  “Ten grand. Which,” I add when Ben and Smalls both hiss, “wouldn’t be such a big deal. I was so sure, plus, if I lost, which was super unlikely, I’d just take it out of the bank. Not a wonderful use of my family’s money, but it was a problem I was certain I could get rid of fairly painlessly.”

  “Except you couldn’t?”

  I play with the band that rests around Mac’s wrist. Dark brown leather, with beads the various colors of the earth. Browns, blacks, caramel, and cream. I play with them, and close my eyes when it all feels too heavy. “He wanted me to dance. At first, I thought he wanted me to dance for him, which was an automatic hell no. But he said no. He wanted me to dance at Rhino’s, and I was to pay back my debt in the tips I’d earn there. The better I danced, the more I made, the faster I could get rid of him.”

  “How many times did you go there?” Smalls asks.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. Seven or eight. But I was never naked. Never topless. I was just as dressed there as we are in the gym. Plus, I like dancing, so this wasn’t actually some horrible punishment for me.”

  “It was an excuse to be a little naughty?” she suggests.

  Sniffling, I rest my cheek on her shoulder and nod. “Right. I guess. I could act like this was all him and his blackmail, but I didn’t hate it. I wasn’t dancing for him, I was just dancing. So whatever, ya know? For once, the attention was on me, and not…” I swallow. “Not you.”

  “I’m always so dramatic,” she admits on a whisper. “Always demanding attention.”

  “And I don’t really want the attention, so it was a decent deal for me. But when I dance, those eyes are on me. They love it, and it feels good. Kyle’s bet helped me find something I enjoyed, something that sort of liberated me.”

  “Are you…” Ben hesitates. “Will you continue to dance at Rhino’s? Because I’m all about empowerment and such. I won’t stop you… but maybe give me a head’s up, so I don’t accidentally stop in that night and ogle my own fuckin’ sister.”

  I burst out into tearful laughter and twine my fingers with Mac’s when he offers. “No, I’m done there. But I learned things when I was there. I learned what it’s like to be the star for a minute. I learned how to speak up for myself. How to say no to things I didn’t like. I learned that I really, really love dancing. I mean, I already knew. But being there helped me understand it was more than a hobby. More than a weekend thing.”

  “Have you paid Baker back?” he asks. “Is that done?”

  “Technically, I still owe him a few hundred dollars. My last night there, Mac was working the door. I panicked, prayed he wouldn’t see me, wouldn’t notice me.”

  “He did.” Smalls laughs. “Didn’t he?”

  I nod. “I wore a wig, makeup, a fake friggin nose.”

  “Can’t hide your legs,” Mac murmurs by my ear. “Can’t hide the way you move. It’s like a voice, right? Authors have a certain voice diehard readers would recognize even without a name on the front of the bo
ok. Actors have their signature look, maybe a smolder, a walk, a whatever. People recognize that in them. You… have this way of rolling your hips. This way you lift your legs.”

  “Gross.” Ben presses a hand to his eyes, like that’ll help him not hear his best friend’s words. “I don’t need to know.”

  “No.” Mac chuckles. “I don’t even mean anything lewd. I mean…” He pulls back, and when I look over my shoulder, I notice his scowl. “Have you guys ever seen her dance?”

  Ben shakes his head.

  Smalls… shrugs. “I’ve seen her sashay around the house. But that’s about it.”

  Mac’s eyes come to me. His lips flatten. “You have to learn to speak up.” Then he looks to Smalls. “She has this rhythm, this way of moving that I learned pretty fast was hers uniquely. It’s like…”

  “How many times have you watched her dance?” Her filthy grin is undeniable. “Jesus, Blair. What do you know that we don’t?”

  “I’ve seen her dance a few times. At the studio. At the gym, even.”

  “At the club,” I add, just to take away some of the power Kyle Baker had over me.

  Mac nods. “Then there was that time at the club. I was able to recognize her past her flimsy costume because of how she moved. She didn’t know I knew, and I kept watch from afar, made sure she was safe.”

  “I panicked,” I admit. “That last night, when Mac saw me, I panicked and ran out on my shift. So technically, I’m a few hundred short on what I owe Kyle. It’s not like I can’t just get the money out of the bank, but he demanded it had to be in tips.”

  “Otherwise?” Ben prods with a tight voice. He hates the Bakers more than me… well, not now. Not after what happened between me and my dad.

  “Otherwise…” I sigh. “I don’t even know. He never had to get that far in his threat. I guess it was otherwise he’ll tell the world that I’m dancing. Which, he did anyway, so…”

  “So he’s lost his bargaining chip over you.”

  I nod. “He can go fuck himself now. It was never about money for him, but power. He lost it the second he shot his mouth off at the gym.”

  “You know Uncle Jimmy never needed you to thank him, right?” Smalls takes my hand again, turns a little to her side so we’re almost nose to nose. “Those things you said, the things you thought he was saying, it was bullshit. This family has never been about blood. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I know.” Fresh tears spill over and drip off the end of my nose. “I popped off because I was hurt. I’ve spent a lifetime keeping everything bottled away, and this time, it blew. I exploded all over him, threw so much shit in his face, hurt him more than I already had.”

  “You’re not the bastard child,” Smalls presses.

  “Well, technically I am.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “He never asked for me. He’d had dibs on Mom since they were kids. The fact I came along… not only wasn’t I welcome, but I guarantee there was a period there when he was pissed. So fucking pissed.”

  “I’m just as much the bastard child as you are,” she whispers. “And Mac ain’t much better.”

  “Thanks,” he grumbles, which makes us smile. “I’m so glad I had nothing to do with that line of thought, but now I’m reminded how unwanted I was.”

  She snickers. “Stop being a baby. The point is, none of us were planned. Ben came from a married family, which all looked great on the outside… but let’s not forget the fact his dad was cheating… and created Bean.”

  “We’re all so fucked up,” Ben laughs. “I’m the only one who looks like their family even half had it together… if you ignore the cheating, the secret affair,” he points at me, “the resulting baby, and then the tidy little fact my dad tried to kill my mom.”

  “None of us are perfect, but together, we make a perfect family.” Smalls brings our joined hands to her lips. Presses a gentle kiss to my knuckles. “It’s always been the four of us. Together, we’re the human version of Deck. We’re the unlikeliest of family, and we should have died a hundred times already because of our shenanigans, but here we are. Together. In this fort that was built by the original family of misfits. Mom and Biggie, Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Iz. Bobby, Jack, Jon… most of us aren’t related by blood, but we’re family anyway.”

  “I need to apologize to Daddy.”

  She nods. Slides a thumb beneath my eye to rid the tears. “You don’t have to rush back yet. We’ve left the guys in charge of weigh-in, so we have all day to do absolutely nothing. Tonight, you can sit next to him at dinner, hold his hand, say what you wanna say. Then tomorrow, we hit the gym and prepare for Friday.”

  I pull in a deep breath, keep going until my chest expands, then let it out again with a shudder. “Yeah. It’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.”

  Together, we hang out at the fort until the sun that was trying so hard admits defeat and the clouds come rushing forward in celebration. The temperature drops fast, and laying on the ground makes a group of fit twenty-year-olds feel stiff enough to groan like eighty-year-olds.

  “Come on, Deck.” I call him as we walk away from the fort and into the crowded forest.

  We head toward town, and take a small detour when Ben leads us that way. We emerge in a tiny clearing to find Ben’s truck and Mac’s ‘Cuda parked and waiting for us.

  Mac and I climb into his car, Deck following me in. And to my left, Smalls climbs into the truck ahead of Ben. As one, we start up and head back toward the road, only to roll toward my family’s estate in a way that reminds me of a funeral procession.

  It all sounds so logical and easy; go home, go to dinner, tell Daddy that I’m sorry, and voila, everything will be better.

  So why does my stomach roll with nausea?

  “It’s gonna be okay.” Mac reaches across the seat and takes my hand in his. He twines our fingers together, places them on his thigh. “Unconditional love means that we’re allowed to fight, but at the end of the day, love endures all. It’s gonna be okay.”

  “He was so disgusted with me.” Shame-filled, I keep my eyes down and study our joined hands. “I’ve never seen him like that before.”

  “You’re grown now, which means you got through your teens unscathed by the I’m not mad, I’m disappointed look. That’s actually a pretty good streak. I got it for the first time when I was like…” He laughs. “Eleven? Stealing cars, according to my mom, is not okay.”

  “You’re trying to joke to make me feel better.” I swipe tears from my cheek and stare out the window. “It’s not helping.”

  He pulls into my driveway, cuts the engine, and turns to me in the darkness. “Hey.” When I don’t answer him, he scoops a hand around the back of my neck and turns me. “You need to relax.”

  “I’ve always been the dependable one,” I choke out. “I was good, I was quiet, I never made trouble.”

  “You lulled him into a sense of security, and now you’re using your voice. That doesn’t make you a bad person, you know?”

  “The things I said to him… that wasn’t using my voice. That was being a bitch. He didn’t deserve that.”

  He pulls me closer. For the first time since we arrived at the gym this morning – was our night together only last night? – he pulls me in and presses a kiss to my lips. “It’s going to be fine. I promise. And if he kicks you out, you can come live with me. My apartment is a step up from the fort, so there’s that.”

  “Don’t joke.” I cry. I laugh. I sob. I’m a mess. “Jesus, don’t put that juju in the air. I’ll move out eventually, but I’d really like it to be on good terms, and not because I was the shitty kid no one wanted to be around anymore.”

  “No one who knows you would ever think that about you.”

  The front door slams open. So hard, it’s like thunder in the skies. I jump in my seat, jump away from Mac, and whip my head around to see Daddy standing in the light that spills outside.

  “Shit,” I whimper.

  “It’s okay. We go in together.” He releases me, b
ut only so he can push out of his side of the car and loop around to my side. He opens my door, takes my hand and helps me out, and when Deck bounces out, he shuts the door again and closes his hand around mine.

  He doesn’t throw his arm over my shoulders in the possessive way Ben might do to Smalls. He doesn’t make a statement that might upset Daddy, because despite his bravado, I know he’s still stinging from the disapproval he was the recipient of at the gym.

  Mac has been a part of my family for half of our lives, so being on the receiving end of Daddy’s glare – and his fist – would have hurt a lot.

  Slowly, as Ben and Evie stand back and hang around the truck, Mac and I head toward my house. Deck gallops ahead like he doesn’t feel the tension in the air. He ducks through the door and goes in search of dinner, while Daddy waits with a grinding jaw — bruised? Who hit him? — and cold, cold eyes.

  “You.” He points at Mac, flicks his wrist. “Leave.”

  “Daddy!” Brand new, heavy, boiling hot tears spill onto my cheek. “Please stop.”

  He ignores me and glares straight into Mac’s eyes as we stop at the bottom of the porch steps. “I trusted you to take care of her. We all know you’re immature. We know you like to get crazy, but I trusted you with her safety. You lost that trust, you lost my respect, and you lost my fucking friendship. Get off my property now.”

  “Daddy!”

  “Lucy, shut it.” His fiery eyes snap to me and break whatever semblance of hope I had. “Just shut up before you make it worse.”

  “Daddy, I’m begging you to stop.”

  “I’ll go.” Mac steps back, slows when I whip around in fear. Abandonment. That’s what it feels like. “You need to go inside and talk.” He licks his lips, works on hiding the pain in his eyes. “I’m not going far, just to my apartment. I’m just a call away, okay?”

  “No! Not okay. Daddy!” I spin back to the door. “You need to stop this.”

  He does nothing, even as the rest of my family spill out onto their porches. Uncle Aiden and Aunt Tina. Uncle Bobby and Aunt Kit. Behind me, Aunt Tink stands beside the man who once read those Famous Five books.