Vegas Baby

by Winter Renshaw

  “More than you could possibly know.” He looks at me when he talks to her.

  “Give me a call next time you want into the next one. I’ll always make sure there’s a seat for you.” She blows him a kiss and winks before strutting off in heels that make her tower over every woman in a hundred-foot radius.

  “That was Myla. She’s an executive with a poker chip company. They sponsor me at tournaments sometimes,” he says into my ear.

  He doesn’t need to explain. It’s not like we’re dating.

  “It feels late in here.” I change the subject. It’s so loud I can barely hear my own thoughts. “I know it’s night, but it feels way later.”

  “That’s the point,” he says, eyes scanning. “Notice the lack of clocks in here? Time of day is the last thing they want you thinking about.”

  We keep plowing ahead, toward a set of double doors with golden handles and a set of guards on either side. The more we move away from slot machine paradise, the more the rambunctious pinging and ponging subsides.

  I could see how gambling could be therapeutic. Addictive even. Those people are zoned out, in another world completely. Every pull of the lever is another chance to make your problems disappear, another chance to forget the troubles of the real world and escape into an alternate reality.

  “What do you think so far?” Crew asks as he leads me through the double doors.

  We step into an open space that might feel romantic if it weren’t for the sprawl of table games covering every square meter.

  “This,” he says. “This is where the magic happens.”

  “You’re not a penny slot kinda guy?” I tease.

  “Do I look like a penny slot kinda guy?”

  He releases my hand and for a second, I miss it.

  Crew points. “So what’ll it be? Your fun’s on me tonight. Blackjack? Roulette? Baccarat?”

  “I don’t know how to play any of those. I don’t want to waste your money. I can just watch.”

  His head tilts and his eyes roll. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” I know exactly what.

  “Don’t be a wet blanket,” he says.

  My jaw falls, but my lips want to twist into a smirk. “I’m not a wet blanket.”

  A cocktail waitress in a tiny skirt and glam makeup passes by, balancing a wide tray on her palm.

  “Ma’am, can we get a couple of drinks, please?” Crew orders. “A beer for me and something strong for my lady friend. Maybe an Amaretto and Coke. Double.”

  The waitress nods and sashays toward the bar. Her heels must be at least four inches. If her feet are killing her, you can’t tell.

  “Is that your plan for tonight?” I ask. “Get me all liquored up?”

  “Liquored up. Loosened up. Whatever it takes. We’re having a good time. We’re doing this.” He digs deep into his pocket and pulls out a hundred-dollar bill. Who the hell walks around with a loose Benjamin crammed in their pocket? Apparently Crew Forrester. “Let’s get some chips.”

  My brow lifts.

  “Poker chips,” he says. “We’re playing Blackjack.”

  Miraculously, our lovely cocktail waitress manages to find us in a sea of gamblers a few minutes later, where we’re perched at some standing table covered in green felt. A quick-drawing dealer shuffles his cards and a man with a hunched back points to the empty space in front of him.

  “Hit me,” the man says.

  Crew leans into my ear, his scent filling my lungs.

  “This is a game against the dealer,” he says. “You get two cards; each card is assigned a value. Face cards are worth ten points, except the ace. He’s worth one or eleven depending on your hand.”

  The man beside us folds his cards and shoves them away, a disgusted groan coming from his lips as the dealer drags a few chips his way.

  “That man,” Crew says, “went bust. The dealer gave him a third card and he exceeded twenty-one. Any time you go over twenty-one, you lose.”

  “What happens if I get twenty?”

  “If you get twenty and the dealer has nineteen, you win.”

  “What if the dealer gets twenty-one his first time?”

  “He wins.”

  Easy enough.

  I square my shoulders and clear my throat before taking a sip of my Amaretto.

  “You ready?” Crew asks. The warm grip of his hand on my shoulder sends a wave of tingles down my arm.

  I nod.

  Crew gives a two-fingered wave to the dealer, who grabs a fresh deck of shuffled cards and lays two before me. Face down.

  “All right, Calypso.” Crew squeezes my shoulder, his voice vibrating against my ear. If I turned my head about thirty degrees, my lips would be on his.

  I know damn well now is not the time to think such frivolous thoughts.

  I need to get my head in the game.

  Crew grabs some chips with a twenty-five on them and throws them down in a white square on the green felt. Two, to be precise. It takes a moment for me to realize those aren’t worth twenty-five cents, but rather twenty-five dollars.

  “Take a look,” he guides.

  Dragging the cards closer, I lift only the corners, keeping my face as poker-straight as possible.

  Crew laughs. “This isn’t poker.”

  “I don’t know how I’m supposed to act.”

  “Just be cool.” He shrugs. “What do you have?”

  “An . . . ace . . . and a queen.”

  He takes my cards, checking them like he doesn’t believe me.

  “You got a fucking blackjack.” His fingers rake through his hair and his mouth widens. There’s some kind of liveliness dancing in his blue eyes. I’d venture to say he’s impressed.

  Not that I did anything.

  “Really? So what happens now?”

  The dealer clears his throat, and Crew lays the two cards flat. A second later, six twenty-five dollar chips are pushed our way.

  “You get a true Blackjack, and you win three dollars for every dollar you bet. Otherwise, all other wins are one to one.”

  Whatever that means.

  “We sat down here with fifty bucks on the table, and now we have two hundred,” he clarifies.

  “Nice.”

  “Wanna play again?”

  “Shouldn’t we quit while we’re ahead?”

  Crew laughs, sweeping a strand of hair away from my eyes. I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it.

  “Not tonight,” he says, placing a hundred dollars in chips in the betting square.

  The dealer places two more cards face down, and I lunge for them. I take a peek before showing Crew.

  A three of hearts and a king of spades.

  His lips purse and shift from side to side.

  “Does my hand displease you, my lord?” My body is ultra-warm, my face numb. I giggle like a drunken teenager who broke into her parents’ liquor stash, not that I’d know what that was like. Shiloh Springs had its own legal drinking age, which happened to be sixteen. When you’re allowed a glass of wine at dinner, the appeal of breaking into someone’s liquor cabinet and getting sloshed isn’t as exhilarating as it should be at that age.

  “It does not, milady. Not entirely,” he teases, studying my hand. “Okay, so you can stay, which I don’t recommend. Or you can tell the dealer to hit you. He’ll give you another card. If you go over twenty-one, we lose everything.”

  I blow a breath through my lips. “No pressure.”

  “No pressure.”

  “What should I do?”

  “You decide.”

  “I’m at thirteen now, right?”

  “The girl can add.” He flashes an obnoxiously adorable smirk and finishes his beer. “You want an eight or below.”

  “What are my odds?”

  The dealer glances at the two of us, his face stone cold, but I detect irritation in his bloodshot eyes.

  Crew’s finger covers my lips, silencing me as he leans in. “Don’t talk about card counting and statistics and prob
abilities. Not out loud. Not in front of the dealer.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t know.” I lean back but he pulls me in, his hand hooking the back of my neck. I look toward the dealer for a second, but when I turn back our lips graze. It’s a poor substitution for the real thing, and it’s all I can do to ignore the swarm of butterflies igniting in my belly.

  We laugh and he lets go, and I try not to let disappointment sink into my bones. It doesn’t belong there. He didn’t bring me here as his date. Kissing is not a part of this equation.

  I need to pull myself together. Ignore the tingles that consume me every time he touches me. Completely disregard those tiny moments when our eyes meet and it feels like we’re the only two in this carnival ride of a casino.

  “Hit me,” I say.

  The dealer slides me a card. My heart thumps hard, and my eyes squeeze tight until everything is black.

  Please be an eight.

  Please be an eight.

  Please be an eight.

  Or a seven. I’ll take a seven.

  Just not a nine.

  Or a face card.

  “Flip it,” Crew says.

  I pull in a quick breath, open my eyes, and flip my card.

  Queen. Of. Fucking. Hearts.

  “Damn it.” I sulk, my arms crossed.

  Crew massages his temples as the dealer rakes away our bet. I just lost us one hundred dollars.

  I think of that money in terms of wholesale books. In terms of Bryson and Presley’s wages. In terms of heating bills and rent payments and groceries. A hundred dollars. Gone.

  “I’m so sorry.” My chest tightens and my stomach knots. I can’t look at him.

  “Calypso, it’s fine.” His hand circles the small of my back, quick, small loops. “Really.”

  “That’s a lot of money to lose in a short amount of time.”

  The left half of his face pulls into a smile and he huffs. “Sweetheart, you ain’t seen nothin’. I’ve lost more money in one bet than the average American makes in a year. A hundred dollars is nothing to me. I promise you. I don’t even miss it.”

  Must be nice to live in a world where a hundred dollars is nothing.

  “Why don’t I just watch from now on?” I don’t think I can stomach losing another dollar of his tonight, whether or not he misses it when it’s gone. I’m the kind to order a meal at a restaurant and ration the leftovers to last me at least three more meals.

  Waste not, want not was practically our motto growing up.

  “What’s wrong?” Crew turns to the dealer, telling him to give us a moment.

  “It felt really good to win that money,” I say. “But losing it . . .”

  “They’re plastic chips,” he says. “Don’t think of it as real money. Think of them as game pieces.”

  “But I know they represent real money.”

  “Shit, Calypso.” He shakes his head at me, laughing. “You act like we lost a thousand dollars. It was a hundred bucks. I’ll make that back tonight tenfold. I’m not worried.”

  I worry my bottom lip.

  “If you don’t have fun tonight, I’m going to take it personally,” he says. Our eyes lock as his palm covers his heart.

  The last thing I want is for this night to go down as the lamest Friday in Vegas history all because of me. I don’t want him to look back on this night and cringe.

  I can do this.

  I can swallow my pride.

  Stop being a big fucking baby.

  And blow every last nickel he throws my way.

  Because that’s what he wants. And he was kind enough to bring me tonight. He didn’t have to do that.

  Crew glances at the dealer, who flashes some sort of hand signal, and then I follow Crew’s gaze as it lifts to a camera positioned above our table.

  “We can’t linger here,” he says. “You in or you out?”

  He looks so fucking hot in his teal shirt with his dark hair all disheveled and his brows raised. Crew’s full lips form a straight line while his hands hook on his hips. This gorgeous man could be hanging out with anyone he wants. Getting laid. Doing whatever guys like him do around here on a Friday night.

  But instead he got a sitter for his baby daughter and took me out.

  What kind of asshole would I be if I ruined this lovely evening with my new friend all because of my personal reservations?

  Fuck it.

  It’s Vegas. He’s hot. I only have this one life, and we only have tonight.

  I grab my crystal tumbler and slam the remnants of my Amaretto and Coke until every last melting ice cube slides down my throat.

  “Teach me how to play poker,” I say.

  Blackjack was easy. Too easy.

  Crew’s face lights. I realize I’m asking a poker world champion to teach me his game, but I don’t care.

  “You really want to play poker?” Crew wears a lopsided, boyish grin worthy of Christmas morning. He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face if he tried. “Because I’d be more than happy to take you to the penny slots. Nickels, if you’re feeling bold.”

  “Uh, uh.” I shake my head, and I swear the liquor drowns my veins in slow motion. I’m blanketed in warmth all over again. “I want to learn your game. You want me to have fun tonight, right?”

  “Yeah.” He reaches for my hand and pulls me away from the table and our beady-eyed dealer.

  “It’s got to be a fun game since you made a career out of it.”

  I amble after him, my hand in his, and I nearly stumble, but I catch myself before he notices.

  “Something like that.” His eyes flash. “You feeling okay?”

  “I feel amazing.” The words come out faster than my lips and tongue can move. “Why do you ask?”

  “Your drinks must be hitting you now,” he says. “It’s like a switch was flipped.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I’m pretty sure that came out like one big, long word.

  “You don’t drink much, do you?”

  I shake my head while simultaneously scanning the room for another one of those plastic-looking cocktail waitresses. If Barbie ever came to life, I’m pretty sure she’d work here.

  “For someone who owns a bookstore with a bar in it . . .” His gaze follows mine.

  “The liquor’s for the customers,” I say. Every sip of wine, every late night mixed drink, is stealing from my business. I’ll drink on occasion, like when I’m having a moment and Bryson needs to give me a talk, but it’s not like I sit around the shop every night sipping my driest red and paging through a Proust tome.

  Crew watches me intently, and I make a personal vow to hold my liquor tonight. There’s a fine line between drinking enough to warrant your own personal babysitter and drinking enough to have a good time.

  “One more drink,” I say.

  For now.

  “I’ll pace myself.” I make it a point to enunciate each word, and I wear a poker face like no one’s business.

  But the look on Crew’s face makes me bust out laughing. I’m pretty sure he has no idea what to think of me right now.

  “Alcohol makes me giggly.” My fingers lift to my mouth as I hide my teetering smile. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  He cocks his head, and I can’t get a read on him. I’ve either turned him off immensely, or he’s debating whether or not to hail a cab and send me home. I can’t blame him for either.

  “You’re a cheap date, Calypso. You know that?” he says.

  “Good thing this isn’t a date,” I say. The swirling lights around us blur in and out. All I see, clear as day in this vibrantly dark casino, is his face. My eyes land on the dimple centered in his chiseled chin.

  His hand takes mine, and a second later our bodies are pressed together, chest to chest. My bottom lip falls just a hair, but no sound comes out.

  “It’s a fucking date, Calypso,” he says. “We’re on a date. You’re my date. This . . . is a date.”

  THIRTEEN

  Crew

 
“I-I had no idea this was a date.” Calypso’s pretty eyes widen and flutter.

  Me neither.

  Somewhere between meeting “Elvis” and watching the way her face lit when she got that Blackjack, I decided we were on a date.

  Calypso’s the most refreshing fucking person I’ve ever met. What you see is what you get with her, and I guaran-fucking-tee she’s the only woman like that in this entire city.

  The way she watches me from the corner of her eye, the way she laces her fingers through mine, the way she gets upset when she loses my money . . .

  Every little thing embarrasses her, like she’s under a microscope tonight. There’s only one reason a girl would be like that.

  “You’re lucky, ‘cause I don’t really date,” I say with a smirk in my tone.

  “You should’ve said this was a date. I would’ve worn lipstick.”

  “You are wearing lipstick.” I trace my thumb along the pale pink pad of her upper lip, and she reaches for it, blushing.

  “Right,” she says. “I forgot. Presley had her way with me earlier.”

  “You didn’t need to get all dolled up, you know. I mean, you look sexy as fuck, but the way you usually look is fine too.”

  She fans herself, staring everywhere but at me.

  “Okay, we just went from like zero to sixty in three seconds.” She laughs, though it’s more of a nervous titter. “Let’s pump the brakes for a sec.”

  A toupee-wearing retiree with Coke-bottle glasses and a cane limps toward us. We turn, in unison, and wait for him to go around us. Only the closer he gets, the more we realize he’s not going around us—he wants to go through us. His gaze is fixed somewhere in the distance, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t realize we’re having a moment here.

  We each step back, leaving a gap three or four feet wide for the man to pass through. When he gimps away, our eyes meet again.

  “I need to get a drink,” she calls.

  And then she disappears.

  ***

  I check my watch. It’s been twenty minutes, and I’ve been stuck at this European roulette table betting on black since the second she walked off. There are a half-dozen cocktail waitresses and two bars in this game room. Calypso should’ve been back by now.