“That guy freaks me out,” Rich muttered behind his cards.
Raphael tossed a chip into the pot. “Midgets freak me out. Period.”
“He’s all right,” I said. “I should invite him to this.”
The room went silent.
“Kidding,” I said.
“Midgets cheat,” Brandon said.
“That’s a fact,” Mark said.
“Shut up and play,” I said. “And I really don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m trying to fix it.”
“What does that mean?” Mark asked.
“It means I’m looking for the money.”
Paul shoved two chips to the middle of the table, and several of the guys groaned. “You still like the investigating gig?”
“It’s fine, yeah.”
“But it’s not, like, a job, right?” Tom said, snickering.
“It’s a job.”
They all laughed and rolled their eyes.
“I’m benching all your kids this weekend,” I promised. “All of them.”
The night continued on like that, and I managed to hang even for a while, losing a little and winning a little. The best part of the game was that no one ever went home broke. Unless they did something really stupid and bet way over their head. There was no limit on the game, and we prided ourselves on letting each other do something absolutely ridiculous if we chose to do so.
I was down a little and full of M&M’s and chicken wings when I threw it out there.
“You guys ever hear of betting on kids’ games?” I asked.
Tom eyed his cards. “What kind of kids’ games?”
“Soccer. Football. T-ball. Whatever.”
“I bet Jeff his kid would cry before kickoff one time,” Paul said.
“And you won,” Jeff said, shaking his head.
We laughed.
“Not what I mean,” I said. “I mean on the actual games.”
“Think I bet one of the guys I work with one time,” Brandon said. “Football game. We bet ice cream or something.”
I shook my head. “No. I mean real betting.”
They all made the kind of noises grown men make when they want to make another grown man feel stupid.
So it was like a third grade PE class.
After the noises and razzing settled down, Tom said “Yeah.”
I looked at him. “Yeah, what?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about it.”
“You’re full of crap,” Paul said, perusing his cards.
Tom shook his head. “Nope.”
“Tell me,” I said.
He stared at his cards for a moment, then laid them flat on the table. “I’m out, anyway.”
The others laid their cards down, listening.
“About a year ago,” he explained, “guy at the office asked who Emma’s team was playing. I had no clue. I never know that crap.”
They all nodded knowingly. They were nothing more than glorified chauffeurs to their families on the weekends. They went where their wives told them to go.
“So he pulls it up online, off the Web site or whatever,” he continued. “Pulls up the records . . . You know how they post everyone’s wins and losses and stuff?”
Everyone nodded again. They might not have known when the games were or who the opponents were, but they knew our win-loss record for every season we played. It was a man thing.
“And he says, ‘I can get you good odds on your kid’s team,’” Tom said matter-of-factly.
“Bull,” Jeff said, frowning.
Tom shook his head. “Swear. I laughed, thought he was kidding. But then he punched in some Web site, and up it came. All the games, odds, payouts. It was all right there.”
They murmured, exchanging looks of surprise and confusion.
“And you know me,” Tom said, suddenly looking uncomfortable and shifting in his chair. “I bet on everything.”
The rest of us were amateur gamblers at best, but Tom was the pro, if we had one. He traveled to Vegas, introduced new games, and rarely missed a monthly meeting. He knew how to gamble and how to bet, and he rarely went home in the red.
“You friggin’ bet on the Mermaids?” Paul asked, his jaw hanging open.
“Three-to-one odds,” Tom said, raising an eyebrow. “We were four and two at the time, facing a team that was oh and five.”
They all grumbled for a moment, before they uttered what I knew was coming.
“The Anteaters game,” they all said in unison.
Tom winced and nodded.
I remembered the game, too. The Anteaters were supposed to be one of those teams that everyone beat. They had new players every season, a new coach every season, and it usually added up to utter chaos. They rarely scored and rarely held teams under double digits.
But that fateful day everything aligned for them. Their kids came to play, and ours . . . did not. Girls were crying, didn’t want to run, got hurt, basically forgot how to play soccer. I got so frustrated, I benched our starters and finished the game with our reserves. It was tantamount to throwing in the towel, and we lost four to three.
“We lost four to three,” Tom said, right on cue. “Four to friggin’ three.”
“Because our coach decided to make a point,” Paul said, his eyes narrowing in my direction.
“Hey. Your kid finished the game.”
“His kid sucks,” Rich said.
The others nodded in agreement.
“Exactly!” Paul cried. “She’s awful. We had no chance when you put in my kid.”
I rolled my eyes.
“And I lost a hundred bucks,” Tom muttered.
All eyes moved to him.
“You bet a hundred bucks?” I said, incredulous. “On the Mermaids?”
“It was the Anteaters, for Christ’s sake!” Tom said. “It was a sure thing!”
“I woulda made the coach pay,” Raphael said. “Was his fault.”
“Oh, shut up,” I said.
“Three to one on our girls against the worst team known to man,” Tom said. “Don’t act like any of you wouldn’t have done the same.”
It was quiet.
“I would’ve bet more,” Jeff finally said. “It was the friggin’ Anteaters.”
They all roared.
We settled into another game before I asked Tom another question.
“Did you place the bet, or did your coworker?” I asked.
“He did. You had to open up an account, and I wasn’t comfortable doing that,” Tom said. “I had to draw a line somewhere.”
“After you bet on your kid’s soccer game,” Brandon reminded him.
“I gave him the money,” Tom said, ignoring him. “He placed the bet. When we lost . . . or when you lost . . . the money was drafted out of his account in, like, half an hour.” He shrugged. “It was all professional.”
“Other than the preschool soccer part,” Paul said.
“Other than that. But I promise you it was real, and I guarantee you if that site is still up and running, they are taking money on this weekend’s games.”
“You don’t remember the Web site?” I asked.
Tom shook his head. “Nah. He wouldn’t let me see it. He was protective of it. He wasn’t supposed to let anyone else use it.” He raised an eyebrow. “And he said that whoever ran the thing meant business. He wanted no part of messing with them. So he always had money in his account and always followed the rules.”
That sounded familiar.
“From the way he talked, there were lots of other dads doing it,” Tom said. “It almost seemed . . . normal.”
So there was my answer. It was happening around me, and I didn’t even know it. Sometimes, even though Rose Petal was small, it felt like I didn’t know a thing about it. And if it was going on in Rose Petal, chances were it was happening everywhere. Who knew how extensive the operation was?
Well, Amber and Suzie probably did.
“When you pulled the starters that day,” Tom said, shaking hi
s head, “I nearly came over and strangled you.”
“Sorry,” I said. “You should’ve said something.”
He burst out laughing. “Don’t blow this. I’ve got a hundy on it.”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Well, I hope that teaches you a lesson, Deuce,” Paul said, shaking his head sadly.
“And what lesson is that?” I asked. “Find out who has money riding each weekend?”
“No,” Paul said, shaking his head again. “Every game matters. Even when they are five.”
“They were four then,” Tom said.
“So every game matters,” Paul said. “And one other thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“My kid is awful.”
36
I stumbled home sometime around midnight and slept on the sofa because I didn’t want to wake Julianne, getting home that late. It was the one night a month we slept apart, and it still felt like one night too many. I knew she wouldn’t mind me coming in that late, but I never liked the idea of stirring her in the middle of the night if I didn’t have to.
The next thing I knew, Carly was pouncing on my stomach.
“Daddy smells like beer!” she said, leaning her head down on my chest.
I cracked my eyes open. It felt like I’d just closed them, but the sun was up, so I knew I was wrong. And I probably did smell like beer.
Julianne joined us on the sofa, clutching her coffee mug. She slipped under my feet.
“Win or lose?” she asked.
“Even. Why are you still home?”
“Took the day off.” She sipped from the mug. “And if you aren’t losing too much money, then I guess we won’t send you back to work full-time just yet.” She winked at me.
“Daddy can’t go to work!” Carly cried. “He takes care of me! I would be lonely!”
“I’m only teasing, kiddo,” Julianne said.
Carly set her chin on my chest, our noses a few inches apart. “Don’t go to work, okay, Daddy?”
“Okay. If you say so.”
She rolled off and danced around the living room. “Yes! Daddy will stay home with me forever!”
Julianne and I laughed. I wanted to bottle those moments, not just for me, but so when Carly was a teenager and telling me to get out of her face—because, whether or not I liked it, that was going to happen—I could play back that video and show her that at one time, I was her favorite person on the planet.
“What about me?” Julianne asked. “Should I stay home?”
Carly froze in place in the middle of the room. “You go to work, though. So we can have food and stuff. Right?”
“Well, yeah,” Julianne said, glancing at me. “But maybe I could do that and be at home a little more, too.”
I saw something unfamiliar in Julianne’s glance, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen.
“You serious?” I asked.
“Could you do that?” Carly asked, wide-eyed. “Would we still be able to have chicken nuggets?”
Julianne smiled at her. “We will always have chicken nuggets for you, Carly. I promise.”
Carly put a hand over her heart. “Okay, good. Because I love nuggets!”
She started dancing again.
Julianne looked at me. “Yes, I’m serious.”
“About quitting your job?”
“Quitting the job I have,” she said. “Yes. I’ve been thinking about it.”
I leaned back into the sofa and took her words in. Ever since I’d known Julianne—really known her, not when we were kids and I was too stupid to notice her, but known her since I ran into her on a street in College Station—she’d placed an emphasis on her career. She didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mom. She had too much energy, and she didn’t have a need to stay home and do aerobics and gossip about people and things in town. She was certain that she could be a great mom, as well as a great lawyer.
And she was. She didn’t come home and bury herself in an office full of work. She came home at night and she was a mom. She had far more energy than I’d ever had, and she didn’t cheat Carly out of any of it. She was super lawyer and supermom, not to mention superwife.
When we’d learned she was pregnant with Carly, it had been an easy decision for me to leave my teaching job and for her to continue working. It was actually her idea because she was opposed to day care when we could obviously afford to have one of us stay at home. Her salary was the one we lived on, and I was more wired to stay at home. We made the decision in about nine seconds.
So hearing that she had any notion of staying home was huge breaking news to me.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “Quitting the job you have.”
She snuggled onto the sofa next to me and wrapped her arms around one of mine. “Don’t worry. I’m not thinking about sending you back to the classroom.”
“I’d go back,” I said.
“No!” Carly yelled. “You just promised you’d stay home forever!”
“But I’ve always gotten to stay at home with you,” I said. “Mommy hasn’t gotten to do that, and maybe it’s her turn.” I looked at Julianne. “Might mean fewer nuggets, but I’d go back if that’s what you want.”
And I meant that. As much as I loved being at home, there was a fair amount of guilt that came with seeing Julianne leave every morning and miss out on the days with us. I appreciated that she was sacrificing her time with Carly to give it to me, but there was a part of me that wanted to give it back to her, to let her share in all the things I’d gotten to do with our daughter.
Julianne squeezed my arm tighter. “Thank you for saying that, but no. You are the greatest dad ever, and you belong at home with her.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“I’ve been thinking that maybe I need my own practice,” she said. “Here. In town.”
“In Rose Petal?”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“But you’re a partner. You just wanna leave that?”
“It’s not the leaving,” she said. “It’s the things I’d be going to.”
“Like?”
She pulled away from me and raised an eyebrow. “Do you not want me around more?”
I made a face. “You know I do. But this is all very un-Julianne like.”
She smiled, then nodded. “Yeah, it is.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, Deuce. I really want another baby, and I don’t want to work so hard and be gone so much for this one.” She gestured at Carly, who was now lying on her back on the floor. “I feel like she got to this age in about five minutes, and I don’t want to miss the next five minutes. That make sense?”
I pulled her back to me. “Yeah, it does. So do it.”
“Easier said than done.”
“No, it’s not. If that’s what you want, let’s make it happen.”
“Probably mean less money,” she said. “Might be a little tight getting started.”
“If it means having you around more, I can take it.”
Carly jumped up and came over to us. She slapped one hand on my knee and another on Julianne’s. She moved her eyes back and forth between us, and they were full of seriousness and gravity.
“We cannot tighten up on nuggets,” she said.
37
The girls went into the kitchen to make pancakes, while I went upstairs to shower and wake up.
I dressed and sat down on the bed with my laptop, waiting for them to call me down. I powered up the computer and punched in the Web address Amber and Suzie had given me.
It didn’t look much different than the tip sheet except that it had an account button. I followed the steps, and in five minutes I’d dropped two hundred bucks into my account and bet a hundred of it on two college football games for that morning. I wanted to get the ball rolling fast, and I figured the sooner I showed them that I was interested in betting, the sooner I might be able to gain their trust and get closer to getting access to Moises.
We ate a quick breakfast, and
the girls headed out to do a little grocery shopping and a few other errands. Julianne never specifically asked me to stay home, but I was happy to let them have some Mommy-and-daughter time any time that I could.
I walked outside, thinking it might be a good day to actually do some yard work, and was surprised to see Elliott sitting at the curb in his orange Bug.
He was wearing the horrible mustache and wig again.
I waved at him, and he got out of the car and came up the drive.
“The church money,” he said without saying hello. “Moises doesn’t have it.”
“You know that for sure?”
“He says he doesn’t.” He looked around nervously. “Can we go inside?”
“Think someone is going to recognize you?”
“Those girls freak me out.”
“Let’s go in the backyard.”
We walked around the side of the house, through the gate, and into the yard. We sat down in a couple of lawn chairs near the deck.
“He says he doesn’t have it,” Elliott said.
“Not what I was told,” I said.
“Well, he wouldn’t lie to me.”
“No? Hate to tell you this, but he sorta seems like exactly the kind of guy who would lie to you.”
Elliott shook his head violently. “No. Not over this.”
“Why? How are you so sure?”
“I know my cousin.”
A couple of bees buzzed our way, and I waved them away. I didn’t think Elliott knew his cousin at all, really. I thought he had blinders on and refused to see what was going on with Moises.
“When did he start gambling?” I asked.
Elliott thought for a moment, his mouth twisting. “I don’t know.”
“What does he gamble on?” I asked.
“Sports. And other stuff.”
“Which sports?”
“I don’t really know.”
“How long has he worked at the church?” I asked.
“Awhile.”
“What’s awhile?”
Elliott shifted in the chair. “I’m not sure.”
“But you know your cousin.”
His face flushed, and he looked away, staring at the grass for awhile.
I wasn’t trying to embarrass him, but I was trying to make a point. He seemed to be loyal to a fault, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Moises was taking advantage of that. Family had a way of turning people blind in a hurry.
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