Out of Aces (Betting Blind #2)

by Stephanie Guerra

  “Dancing?” I echoed stupidly.

  “Don’t be a jerk,” she said with a sharp look.

  It slowly dawned on me what she meant. “I’m not! I mean, that’s cool. A lot of girls do it.” I sipped on my Guinness and tried to act as if I had these kinds of conversations all the time.

  “Anyway, Bobby wanted me to keep working, but I couldn’t. I kept calling in sick. Then I punched this one guy who was . . . doing something inappropriate, and they fired me. So Bobby said maybe I should try being a Marilyn impersonator, since everyone was always telling me I looked like her.” She laced her fingers around her glass. “I went to a talent agency, and they signed me up. I did gigs, like at hotel parties, where I’d walk around and take pictures with people. But then Nick came looking for somebody regular, and I took it.”

  “What was Bobby doing then? Had he found a job?” I asked.

  She gave a funny smile. “No. He was cheating. I found out about a month after I started at Hush. She was totally disgusting. I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk about you. What’s up with that girl? And that gorgeous meathead you showed me?”

  I cringed. “Don’t call him gorgeous.”

  She chuckled mischievously. “Sorry to break it to you. But don’t worry, you’re not so bad yourself. Although kind of skinny. So how is she?”

  “Not good,” I said. And I told her about the New Year’s opera date. As I talked, I started getting hot. I’d been really patient so far, but the whole situation was really upsetting.

  April listened quietly, sipping her Guinness and saying mmm-hmm, and uh-huh. It made me remember how nice it is to have female friends. They actually care about this stuff, and are willing to listen.

  “So her family doesn’t like you?” April said, after I’d given some background.

  “No. They hate me. Her dad keeps such a tight rein on her, it’s sick,” I said.

  April frowned. “How old is this girl?”

  “Twenty-one,” I said, cursing myself for not being more careful.

  “That’s weird that her dad is still trying to control her schedule. She lives at home?”

  “Yeah.” I studied a poster for the World Cup.

  “How old are you, anyway?” She fixed me with her green-blue eyes, and I had the horrible feeling that she was looking right through me.

  “Twenty-three.” My mouth was sticky and dry.

  “I thought you looked really young.”

  I frowned and folded a napkin into smaller and smaller squares. We were in dangerous territory. It was time to move on. “What about you? Are you dating anyone? Or did you give up on guys after that jerk cheated on you?”

  A small smile crept onto April’s face.

  “You are dating someone!” I said.

  “It’s just beginning.” She sounded shy. “I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it.”

  “Has he ever come to the club?” I asked. “If he does, you have to show me. I’ll make him the best drink he’s ever had.”

  April blushed. “Well, actually . . .” It seemed like there was something else.

  “Wait, does he work at the club?”

  “Maybe.” April giggled. She sounded about twelve.

  I was all set to interrogate her when I heard Frank’s deep voice behind my shoulder. “We got a corner booth,” he said, clapping a heavy hand on my back.

  “Hang on, let me settle up and we’ll be right there.” I reached into my pocket for my wad of tips, but April was already dropping a twenty on the bar. As soon as Frank had disappeared, I said, “Is it Frank?”

  “No!” April cracked up. “Are you kidding?”

  I had to admit, Frank looked like a Saint Bernard, with his big droopy eyes and saggy cheeks.

  “It’s not Rob, is it?” Rob had made a few admiring comments about April here and there. He was tall, and sometimes that’s all girls care about. That and money.

  April shook her head. “Nope.”

  I started to scroll through all the guys who worked for our club. There were some buffed-out bouncers who worked the door with Terrell. It was probably one of them—except I didn’t know their names. “You’d better tell me,” I said. “You think meatheads are hot, so it’s probably one of the bouncers, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll tell you if it lasts another month.” April grabbed her drink, and we headed off to join the others.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I hadn’t really been doing the math when I told Nick I only needed two days off. One way in the car from Vegas to Seattle is sixteen hours if you go eighty the whole time. Eighteen if you’re driving the speed limit. I would have bought plane tickets, but they were more than a grand, and most flights were full anyway. So I had to leave way early in the morning on the thirty-first. I bought a box of Red Bull, mainlined two, and hoped for the best.

  Great Basin Highway was like driving back in time to the cowboy days: big, twisted red-brown humps of land, endless white sky, and who knows—maybe even buffalo hiding somewhere. In Idaho, the forest got crazy thick, one of the last places in the country with more trees than people. I took a rest stop in Twin Falls. In the gas station there was a basket of decals: “You say potato, I say fuck you.” It cracked me up so hard, I had to get one.

  Around the Oregon State line, the Red Bull stopped working. I’d been driving thirteen hours. To stay awake, I started to play this extremely screwed-up game where I’d pinch my arm as hard as I could while going seventy. The adrenaline rush would keep me up for a little while longer, and then I’d have to do it again.

  Finally that stopped working, too. I pinched and didn’t get the adrenaline kick . . .

  When I came to, I was heading straight for the guardrail. I got off the road and sat in my car in front of a tiny gas station on the Columbia River, shaking.

  It was 5:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and I was four hours out of Seattle. I was so close, but I couldn’t keep going like this, or I’d get in an accident. I finally calmed down enough to get out of the car and walk inside. I stood in front of the energy-drink case. Black dots floated in front of my eyes as my brain went back and forth in slow motion. Which one? It seemed like a life or death decision.

  “Looking for something?” asked the old lady behind the counter. Her gray hair was in a long braid, and she wore a white plastic apron that was way too big for her.

  “Do you have anything stronger than Red Bull?” I asked. I pulled out a Monster and a Rockstar and tried to make sense of the backs. What if I drink them both?

  “Those are the same as Red Bull,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  “You want what truckers use?” She squinted at me. She had so many wrinkles, she looked like one of those shriveled apple dolls at county fairs.

  “Um . . . okay.”

  The lady bent down and pulled something from under the counter. It was a little tin box with a picture of a puppy on the cover. She flicked it open with a thick yellow nail and fished out a couple of brown twisted things. They looked like vegetables, or maybe tree roots. “Forty dollars,” she said.

  I looked at the wrinkly little brown carrots in her hand for a long minute. I fished out two twenties, handed them to her, and said, “What do I do with these?”

  “Eat them.”

  “Will they keep me awake?”

  She nodded impatiently as she stashed the money in her apron. Then she turned around and fiddled with the magazine display. I was dismissed.

  “Thanks,” I said. I went outside, got in my ride, and stared at the roots in my hand. I looked over my shoulder at the little station with its dream catchers swinging in the breeze. What I was about to do was either extremely stupid or . . . well, it was extremely stupid. And a big gamble. But if I didn’t do something, I would be jelly by the time I saw Irina. Or dead, because I’d get in a car crash and not even make it to Sea
ttle.

  I looked at the roots. This was some wack Alice in Wonderland stuff happening here. But . . . I put one in my mouth and crunched it up. It was like eating a nasty, bitter, dried-up twig. I washed it down with stale Red Bull and then ate the other one. I wiped the brown twig dust off my hands, looked at my new “You say potato” decal, and chuckled. Then I pulled onto I-84.

  The root worked. I mean, it was amazing. It took about twenty minutes to hit me, but I went from passing out to awake. Wide, wide awake. My eyelids felt pasted open. My heart was jogging. My hands were sweating more than my whole body did during a workout. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly fun, either. My skin was sensitive to the point where even the steering wheel felt hot to my touch.

  I made great time because I sort of couldn’t help driving fast. I read every billboard; I noticed every horse and cow; I felt every bump in the road like an earthquake. Oregon unspooled into Washington, and pretty soon I was speeding through Tacoma. Home stretch!

  This was going to be awesome. Irina would be so surprised. And I couldn’t wait to meet Micah. The root made me feel like I had superpowers. No matter what football voodoo Micah had going on, Irina would take one look at me and forget him. This was the most romantic thing I had ever done. Surprise her on New Year’s when she thought I was working. Ha!

  As I got into the Seattle area, I slowed down to just above the speed limit, trying to decide which exit to take. I had this fantasy of surprising Irina at McCaw Hall, but I was starting to wonder if I should just go to her house. I didn’t want to wait a minute longer than I had to.

  I took the exit for 405.

  The first Redmond exit took me right past my mom’s neighborhood. I hadn’t lived there long enough for it to feel like my old neighborhood. It was tainted by Phil. Home for me was White Center, where we’d lived before he crawled into Mom’s life.

  I looked to the right, watching familiar streets slide by. Mom was only a few blocks away. What if I took a detour and visited her?

  She would love that.

  I missed her.

  I started to turn . . . and then I pictured Phil answering the door. It was New Year’s Eve. He’d be with her. I swerved hard to stop turning, and kept on the way I’d been going. The root was making everything feel extra intense, and Phil’s face sent a wave of disgust through me. I licked my lips, a little nauseated. Not Phil. Don’t think of Phil.

  As I got closer to Irina’s place, I took deep breaths to slow my cracked-out heart. This was a pretty bold move I was making. Irina’s neighborhood was the Seattle version of Bel Air, with pines instead of palm trees. I parked in front of her house and wiped my hands on the upholstery. My palms were pouring sweat.

  And . . . oh, no. My armpits were wet, too. That damn root. There were circles the size of headlights spreading down my sides. I hadn’t felt the sweat because the cloth was doing such a good job of soaking it up. I reached into my bag for a hoodie. The shirt I had on was one of my nicest, but now that it was as wet as a bath towel, I couldn’t exactly wear it.

  I tugged on the hoodie, got out of the car, and stood looking at Irina’s house. It was a redbrick beast with white pillars, a rolling lawn, and a driveway as wide as a road. The lights were on. Irina’s dad could be inside. He did live there.

  I wiped my nasty palms on the sides of my jeans and started walking up the drive.

  Irina had said a bunch of her friends were going to the opera together. So me showing up would be just one more person in the mix. Right?

  But Irina hadn’t told her parents we were still seeing each other. So this thing I was doing was maybe not the best idea. But . . . I wanted her parents to know about us, so maybe it was.

  Sober me, which was very small by now, said, It’s Irina’s job to tell them. I pictured Irina, eyes blazing, furious at me for getting her in trouble with her dad. I pictured her dad yelling, Get out! Or something like that.

  What was I thinking?

  Okay, catch your breath. You don’t have to kiss her hello. Just be polite. A friend. They can’t be mad about a plain old friend. Maybe they won’t even be there.

  I’d better do this thing before I soaked through this shirt, too. The door seemed twice as big as normal, with a brass eagle-head knocker and a rectangle of stained glass at the top. I rapped twice. Then I tipped my head back and looked into the cool black night. The root had turned my heart into a jackhammer. The bolt clicked, and my head snapped up.

  It was Mr. Petrova. He was wearing a gray sweater and slacks, holding a glass with a couple of fingers of something clear in it. He was six-five or so, straight Russian Mafia–looking. Balding at the corners, boxer’s nose, and a new black beard that I didn’t remember. He had gold-brown eyes, just like Irina’s, but much colder. He smiled politely. “Yes?”

  Does he not recognize me? “Is Irina here?”

  “They already left for the show. Were you supposed to join them?” He peered at me, and a small line appeared between his eyebrows. He knew who I was now. “What are you doing here?”

  “Honey? Is it the Labats?” Irina’s mom called from somewhere in the house. She had a smoker’s voice, sweet and husky.

  “No,” said Mr. Petrova, staring at me.

  I looked at the ground and pushed my hands into my pockets. Somehow this guy always made me feel like the worst piece of crap in the universe. “Okay, well, thanks.”

  “Come in.” It wasn’t a question; it was a command. I glanced up and Mr. Petrova pulled open the door. “I want to talk to you for a minute.”

  I looked over my shoulder at the car. I could run for it.

  “Is that Gabe?” Irina’s mother looked over Mr. Petrova’s shoulder. “Irina didn’t tell me you were in town.” She looked how I imagined Irina would look in thirty years: high-class and beautiful. She was wearing a long black dress and a silky white wrap.

  “I just drove in,” I said awkwardly.

  “How are you?” she asked, looking me over. She sounded suspicious.

  “I’m okay.” I tried to smile. “How are you?”

  “Fine, thank you. We’re having a little New Year’s gathering.” Her tone said, And you’re interrupting it.

  “Come in,” Mr. Petrova said again, and I decided to obey. Because if there was a chance of getting him to accept me, running away would blow it permanently. I stepped into the foyer. The house was decked out: white-and-gold garlands wound up the staircases, and a shiny wreath with tiny red berries gleamed on the wall. I could hear jazz and soft voices in the living room.

  “Misha,” Mrs. Petrova said in a low voice.

  “We’ll just be a minute.” Mr. Petrova took a step across the foyer. “Let’s visit in my office, Gabe. It’s right this way.” He sounded almost friendly.

  I put my head down and followed him, keeping my hands in my pockets because they were shaking so hard. It wasn’t nerves, it was the root. Or maybe both. I only looked up when he gently closed the door behind me. It didn’t look real in there. It was like a movie set of an office: fire snapping in a stone fireplace; a big, dark boss-man desk; cloth-covered books lining the walls.

  “Take a seat.” Mr. Petrova pointed to a leather armchair. He sat on a long plaid couch and leaned back, swirling his drink. “So how are things going for you in Nevada?

  I was so nervous, I answered almost before he was done asking. “Really well, sir.”

  “Good. You have a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doing . . . ?” he said encouragingly.

  “Um, waiting tables.” My face felt warm. I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, but this was close.

  He smiled. “You probably make great tips. I left home early, too, you know. I was seventeen. I know how hard it can be to support yourself at your age.”

  “Really?” I asked, caught off guard. I always thought of him as the kind of guy who was born to m
oney.

  “Oh, yes. I started stocking shelves at a drugstore and worked my way up through the company. I put myself through business school that way.” He waved his hand. “But that’s ancient history. I want to hear more about you, your plans.”

  This was it. He was giving me a chance. “Well, I have that job,” I said. “And I have my own place. I’m thinking about . . . managing something, too. Like I’d probably want to manage a bar or restaurant.”

  Mr. Petrova nodded. “Not a bad idea. Maybe you’ll do a business degree?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, college applications are expensive.” Mr. Petrova let out a laugh. “College is expensive. Exorbitant, really.” He stood up and went behind his desk, pulling open a drawer. I heard pens rolling around. Then his hand came out and flashed into his pocket, tucking something away.

  Mr. Petrova walked around the desk and sat down on the couch again, elbows resting on his knees, hands dangling. “Irina’s getting ready to start college herself. It’s a new chapter in her life, and . . .” He peered into my eyes, smiling slightly. “Well. I hope you’ll excuse what I’m about to say, but I think she needs a fresh start. You understand?”

  I just stared at him. I felt like a tank was rolling toward me.

  “She’s going to need to focus in school, and she has her music to think of, too. She’ll be somewhere on the East Coast. That’s pretty far from Nevada.” Mr. Petrova shifted, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a folded stack of bills. He flipped it open and began to thumb through. “There’s two thousand here, give or take.” He held it out to me.