by A. C. Grey
* * * * *
At the first opportunity, Tess approached Zoey, eager to hear about her conversation with her father. She was hopeful that maybe he’d called to apologize.
“What did your dad want?” Tess asked tentatively.
“He called to make sure I was still okay with my decision. And to remind me that he’d always been there to protect me and that I was really on my own now.” She lowered her eyes and shook her head, struggling to hold back the tears.
Tess laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Zoey. If there’s anything I can do . . .”
Zoey shook her head. “I’m fine. I just really need this win. So can we talk about something else? I need to focus on winning.”
Tess nodded and proceeded to distract Zoey the best way she knew how, with some gentle flirting. As they headed back to their respective tables, Tess’s thoughts returned to Zoey’s situation. There had to be something she could do, if only she could figure out what. Some way to help, even when Zoey wasn’t willing to accept help. But how?
The two women spent the better part of the day playing the tournament, both accumulating large amounts of chips. Eventually, as the field of players was whittled down to ten, they both arrived at the same, final table. After a while, the remaining players were knocked out one-by-one, leaving just Zoey and Tess to vie for the prize money.
Zoey sensed that something was off about Tess’s demeanor. She wasn’t her normal perky, outgoing self. There was no banter, no flirting, no playful taunting. Instead, she seemed overly serious and deadly silent. Additionally, despite having made it to the final two, Tess did not seem to be bringing her A-game to the table. Tess made some incredibly odd choices, such as betting aggressively as though she had a big hand, only to fold later, thus practically giving her chips away to Zoey.
After battling it out for about an hour, the tournament director informed them that they would have a ten-minute break. Zoey pulled Tess aside. “Are you feeling okay, Tess?” Zoey’s eyes reflected her concern.
“I’m super. Why?” Tess’s response was suspiciously perky, even for her.
“I don’t know. You’ve just been uncharacteristically quiet. And you seem distracted or something. You’re playing differently than I would have expected.”
Tess shrugged noncommittally. “I’m just trying to mix it up a little. If I play too predictably, you’ll figure me out. I’ve got to keep you on your toes.” She leaned up and kissed Zoey on the cheek. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to make a quick phone call. Angie left me a voicemail. She’s probably just having man trouble again, but she made it sound urgent, so I’d better check.”
Zoey nodded and watched her walk away. Something was definitely up. She wasn’t sure what, but Tess was definitely acting cagey.
Tess strode away and pulled out her phone, before pretending to call Angie. She hadn’t really had a missed call, she’d just needed to escape Zoey’s grilling. She chided herself for not having a better poker face. It was her job after all. But somehow, she couldn’t fool Zoey. It was like she could see right through into her soul. She felt guilty, but she really couldn’t let Zoey know what was up. Zoey would freak out. After waiting out the rest of their break time, she headed back to the table.
After playing a few uneventful hands, Zoey looked down and saw that she had two tens. It wasn’t a bad hand to start with, especially when playing heads up with only one other player. She bet and Tess immediately raised the bet. After a moment, Zoey called. This betting pattern continued through the next two rounds of betting. Zoey would bet, Tess would raise and then Zoey would match the bet. She was nervous that Tess had a better hand than hers, but there were no community cards on the board to suggest this.
After the last community card had been revealed, Zoey placed one more bet. Tess thought for a moment and then raised again. “I’m all in,” she announced as she pushed all of her remaining chips towards the center.
Zoey took a moment to think. The community cards were all seemingly innocuous, not much for her to fear. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Her whole career, her whole “make it on her own” thing, was riding on this moment. Finally, gathering her courage, she announced that she would call Tess’s bet. Zoey turned over her tens and waited to see what Tess would reveal.
Tess smiled shyly. “You beat me. Good game, Zoey.” She started to slide her hand, unrevealed, towards the pile of discarded cards. Zoey reached out and stayed her hand.
“Wait. Show me what you’ve got. I’m curious.”
“Why does it matter? I said you beat me.” Tess again attempted to muck her cards unseen.
Zoey, suspicious at this point, shook her head. “You know the rules, Tess. I’ve got a right to see your hand.”
Sighing, Tess turned over her hand. It was a seven of clubs and a two of diamonds. Zoey was confused. An unsuited seven-two was the worst possible starting hand in poker. And nothing in the community cards had improved Tess’s hand at all. She’d been betting with nothing.
Zoey looked up, fixing her gaze on Tess’s eyes. Her eyes gave her away, immediately reflecting a look of guilt. A feeling of hurt, of anger, stabbed through Zoey’s gut like a knife as the realization washed over her. Tess had thrown the tournament so that she’d win the money. Zoey controlled herself until the focus was no longer on them. After collecting her winnings, she grabbed Tess’s arm and pulled her off to a secluded corner of the room.
“What the hell was that, Tess?!?” Zoey’s voice was laced with anger and made Tess shrink back slightly.
“What do you mean?” Tess replied, unwilling to admit anything without a fight.
“You threw the tournament. You let me win. How could you do that? I told you that I needed to do this on my own!” Zoey ran an exasperated hand through her hair.
Realizing that denial probably wouldn’t get her anywhere, Tess let out a breath and tried to explain herself. “I’m sorry, Zoey. I just wanted to help and I knew you wouldn’t let me. Now you’ve got a bankroll to get you through the World Series. I just want to see you succeed and want to help you do it. Is that so wrong?”
Zoey struggled to contain her anger. Tess’s actions, which right now felt like a betrayal, along with her father’s phone call, made it hard for her to think straight. All she knew was that she incredibly angry. “Did you not listen to a word I said earlier?! I don’t want anyone’s help. Not my father’s, not yours! I need to do this on my own. What part of that don’t you understand? I can’t believe you have so little faith in me. I guess everything you said before was a lie. You clearly don’t believe in me. I can’t even look at you right now.” Her eyes shone with hurt, which broke Tess’s heart. With that, Zoey spun on her heel and walked away, hoping she could find some place private before she broke down completely.
“Zoey!!!” Tess called after her, to no avail. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she slumped down in the nearest chair, head in her hands. She’d messed up big time. She needed to find a way to make things right. The question was how.
Chapter Eighteen
Zoey fled from the poker room as quickly as she could, thoughts spiraling through her head a mile a minute. She knew she should be happy. She’d just won a substantial amount of money. She wouldn’t have to worry about her finances for at least a little while. She’d had her first big win. Yet it left a bad taste in her mouth. It was tainted. Tess hadn’t had enough faith in her to let her do it on her own. Her girlfriend had exhibited about the same amount of faith in her as her father had – none. She shook her head. Okay, that wasn’t exactly fair, but the level of betrayal felt the same. Completely out of sorts and unable to figure out what to do, she pulled out her phone and called Max. After asking him to meet her at the bar, she made her way there.
While waiting for Max to arrive, Zoey quickly downed three shots of tequila before settling in with a jack and coke. If she couldn’t stop the warring thoughts running through her head on her own, she’d have to douse them in alcohol unti
l they shut the hell up. Today had ended up being one hell of a day. Such a high tarnished by such a low. First her father, then Tess. She shook her head and took another gulp of her drink as she saw Max heading towards her.
He slid into the chair opposite her, concern written across his face. “Hey, Zoey. What’s up? You sounded pretty messed up on the phone and judging by the look of you, that was a fair assessment on my part.”
Zoey sighed, struggling to figure out where to begin. “Well, you already know about the whole thing with my dad.” Max nodded, waiting for her to continue. She bit her lip as she struggled to put her thoughts into words. “Well, he stuck to his threat. He cleared out my bank accounts. I’m broke . . . was broke,” she corrected. “I won a big tournament over at Caesar’s today.”
“Other than the fact that your dad is an unfeeling jerk, I’m not sure what the problem is. Where’s Red, by the way?”
Zoey smiled wanly. “Therein lies the problem.” She downed the rest of her drink and signaled to the waitress for another as she continued. “I’ve told you a little about my dad, how he was always there to make things easy for me. How I wanted to try my hand at poker without that safety net, wanted to try and make it on my own.” She signaled the bartender for another drink. Rehashing the day’s events made her wounds sting all over again. “Well, I was pretty short on cash and knew that if I didn’t do something soon, I’d have no chance at a poker career. It’s kind of the nature of the game. You’ve got to have money to make money. So anyway, I entered the tournament and Tess tagged along. Right before the tournament, my dad called and basically reminded me that I’d never done anything without his help, pushing me to come home.”
“What did you do?” Max asked.
“I told him that I’d already made my choice and hung up on him.” She took another swig of her drink before continuing. “The call kind of threw me for a loop, but I somehow managed to focus. As luck would have it, Tess and I ended up heads up at the end. Since it was a freeze out tournament, it meant I needed to win to get any money.”
“And you did win. What’s the issue?”
“Tess threw the tournament.” Zoey fiddled with the straw in her drink as the heartache overwhelmed her again.
“She what? How do you know?”
“Because she was practically giving away her chips. And then, she went all in with nothing, when I made quite clear from my bets that I had a pretty decent hand.”
“I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t she just give you money? Why go to all that trouble?”
Zoey looked at Max sheepishly. “Maybe because I turned down her offer for help before the tournament.”
“I would have done the same thing, Zoey, if you’d have been too proud to accept my help.”
Zoey shook her head. “I just want to do this on my own. I thought she understood that. I’ve always had help, always had someone there to back me up. I need to do this for me, but Tess obviously didn’t have any more faith in me than my father did.”
“Now we both know that’s not true. And sometimes, you need to remember that it’s okay to lean on somebody, to ask for help. There’s a difference between being independent and being stubborn. Just because you might have needed a little help getting off the ground with this poker thing does not mean you’re not doing it on your own. Hell, Zoey. You made it to the final two all by yourself. Tess had nothing to do with that. And this isn’t the first tournament you’ve cashed in. Sounds to me like Red was just trying to help. Maybe she was a little misguided, but I think you’re overreacting a bit.”
Zoey struggled to analyze what he’d just said. The fact that her emotions were a maelstrom of conflict and that fact that her drinking was starting to fog her brain made it difficult to figure out what to do, what to feel. Finally she shook her head. “Maybe you’re right Max, but right now, I can’t think about it. All I know is that I feel like crap. And when I feel like crap, tequila is my friend. So do you want to hang out with me and my friend tequila?”
Max sighed and shook his head, knowing that she was going to need someone to keep an eye on her tonight. Not exactly the night he’d planned, but he wanted to make sure his friend was okay. “Okay, if you’re sure that’s what you want. I think you should be talking to her about this, not to me, but I’ll hang with you tonight, if that’s what you really want.”
Zoey nodded before reaching into her pocket to retrieve her ringing cell phone. Seeing that it was Tess, she hit ignore before shutting it off. She couldn’t deal with her tonight. She needed some time to process, to let her emotions and thoughts marinate. And right now, she wanted to marinate them in tequila.
* * * * *
Tess went to her park, to her bench, to process what had happened. On the way there, she’d stopped and bought a pack of cigarettes. She knew it was a filthy habit, and hadn’t smoked regularly since high school. But nothing else, except maybe donuts, made her feel better when she was stressed and in trouble. And she was definitely in trouble.
She blew out a long stream of smoke as she thought about the day’s events. She’d thought she’d been doing the right thing. Zoey had been unwilling to accept help, even when she so desperately needed it. Her girlfriend had a definite stubborn streak, which was something Tess could appreciate since she was practically the Queen of Stubborn Land herself.
Tess shook her head, thinking about the whole thing. Zoey’s reaction had surprised her. She’d expected that Zoey might have been a little upset, but she hadn’t been prepared for the level of fury she’d seen as Zoey had stormed off. It didn’t make sense.
She fidgeted and tapped the cigarette with her fingertip, before taking another long draw of smoke as she tried to analyze what had happened. She suddenly saw the problem – the catalyst to Zoey’s overly sensitive reaction. The phone call from her father. He’d basically told his daughter that she was nothing without him. Then she, Tess, had reinforced that notion by letting Zoey win. She’d unintentionally made Zoey feel as though she felt the same way. That she’d felt that Zoey was incapable of making it without backup. Tess sighed and ran a hand through her redheaded curls. Stomping out her cigarette, she headed to the car. She’d really mucked things up. There was only one thing to do – find Zoey and apologize until she couldn’t see straight. She knew that her heart had been in the right place, but she’d struck a very raw nerve with her girlfriend and needed to make it right.
On her way back to her car, Tess tried Zoey’s cell phone, but got no response. After leaving her a voicemail, she headed back to Caesar’s, hoping that Zoey was still around. After searching high and low to no avail, she let out a sigh and began to head out to her car. Just as she turned to leave, she happened to look into the bar and saw Zoey standing there with Max.
* * * * *
Zoey had made good friends with the bottle of tequila. Max, who had sensed that Zoey would need a designated driver that night, had been sipping water all evening. After downing her last drink, Max stood and motioned for her to get up as well. “I think it’s time we got you home, Cameron.”
Zoey, who was beyond tipsy, stumbled and fell into Max’s arms, wrapping her own around his shoulders. Smiling up at him, she slurred, “finnnne, but we have to go to your housssse. I’m a homeless bum and need a place to stay.”
Holding Zoey upright, Max shook his head. “Well, you do stink like a bum at the moment, Cameron. I can smell the tequila a mile away. Let’s get you out of here.”
“That’ssss not fuunnny, Max,” Zoey said as she swatted at his arm playfully.
Max rolled his eyes and wrapped an arm around her waist, leading her from the bar.
* * * * *
Tess had been about to head into the bar to talk Zoey when her heart dropped. Zoey snaked her arms around Max’s neck and seemed to be flirting with him. After a few moments, he wrapped a possessive arm around her waist and they left.
How could she have been so stupid, so blind? It had a been a risk to give her heart to a girl just barely out of t
he closet. A terrible risk apparently. The first sign of trouble and Zoey went running back into the arms of a man. Knowing that she was dangerously close to a breakdown, Tess quickly dialed Angie.
“Hey, Angie it’s me.”
“Hey, Tess, what’s up?”
“Can you meet me at my house in thirty minutes? I need you to talk me down.” Tess let out a defeated sigh.