All In: A Vegas Reverse Harem Romance

by Cassie Cole

  I chuckled. We’d gotten complaints from some neighbors about the noise level coming from our apartment. I always ignored them. I had to practice!

  “You could have just texted to ask where I lived,” I said.

  He grinned his boyish grin. “Now where’s the fun in that?”

  “So… What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He hefted his guitar case. “We’re gunna expand your musical repertoire today.”

  “Guitar?” I said, surprised. “You’re going to teach me how to play the guitar?”

  He sat on the couch and opened the case. “I’m going to try. You ever try to play an instrument?”

  “Not really…” I said. “One of my mom’s boyfriends let me play his keyboard when I was a teenager. That’s about it.”

  He pulled out the acoustic guitar, a gorgeous instrument made from rich wood. The swirls in the grain stood out, oiled to perfection. “Good. That means I have a fresh student to mold.”

  He handed me the guitar. It was lighter than I expected, and fit nicely in my lap.

  “First I’ll show you how to hold it,” he said, coming around behind me. He took my hands in his and moved me like a puppeteer. “Wait. I should have asked: are you a lefty or a righty?”

  “Righty.”

  “Whew,” he said. “It’d be a lot tougher teaching you if everything was backward. Okay, so hold the neck of the guitar like so. Fingers curling around.” He molded each of my fingers one at a time. “Don’t worry about what strings they’re touchin’ for now. I just want you to get used to how it feels in your hands.”

  I like how it feels, I thought, and I didn’t mean the guitar. I could smell Xander’s cologne or deodorant, and his breath was warm and soothing as he breathed on my neck. This was nice.

  “Take her for a spin,” he said. “Give her a strum.”

  I obeyed, running the fingers of my right hand over the strings. The guitar made a nice melody of random notes.

  “I like it,” I said.

  Angela’s door opened and she stuck her head in the living room, annoyed by the noise. “Oh,” she said when she saw Xander. “I didn’t realize you had—hey. You’re that singer.”

  “I’m that singer,” he repeated.

  She grinned. “The one at the Volga! You’ve been playing every night.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Sorry to bother you. I was just getting something to drink.” She gave me an eyebrow raise before disappearing.

  Xander rumbled with soft laughter behind me. “What’s so funny?” I said.

  “Nothing.”

  “She’s as ditsy as they come,” I whispered. “Don’t let her fangirling go to your head.”

  “If you say so. Alright, time to teach you the basic chords. A chord is just a combination of different notes played all at once…”

  I knew what a chord was, but I enjoyed the way his voice sounded—and felt—just over my shoulder. Warm, masculine, and relaxing.

  For the next half hour we did nothing but learn, and practice, chords. First he taught me A Minor and C Major, and had me practice playing those notes back and forth to hammer the muscle memory into my fingers. Then he introduced D Major into the rotation, which was tougher because it scrunched up my index and middle fingers. Every minute or so he had me let go of the guitar and shake out my hand to keep from cramping.

  After that he taught me G Major. “Now, I don’t want you using your index finger,” he said. “You’re gunna use your middle, ring, and pinky fingers instead.”

  The shape was tough to hold with my weaker fingers. “Why can’t I use my index?”

  “Because I’m the instructor and I said so,” he said like a strict teacher. Then he laughed and said, “This is the right way to learn because it’ll make switching between a C chord and a G chord easier. Lots of songs switch between those two chords.”

  “Makes sense,” I said, trusting him.

  Those were the only four chords we learned today. After another half hour of practice my fingers were aching from all the new exercise, but I was starting to get the hang of those chords.

  “You’re a natural,” he said. “Long fingers make for a good player.”

  “That’s what my mom’s boyfriend with the keyboard used to say,” I said. “Hey, thanks for teaching me. I’ve always toyed with the idea of picking up an instrument to add to my act but I’ve never had the time, or even the money to hire an instructor.”

  “My pleasure.” He gave a little grimace of nervousness. “But, uh, my motivations aren’t entirely altruistic.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took a long breath and let it out his nose. “I was maybe hopin’ you could help me improve my singing. You said I should practice stretching my range?”

  I winced. I’d been hoping he would have forgotten about how I’d made fun of his singing, but clearly it had cut deep. “Xander, I didn’t really mean what I said in the car…”

  “No,” he shook his head. “My britches aren’t too big that I can’t take constructive criticism. A good performer tries to improve however he can. Tell me what I should do.”

  For the next half hour I had him run through basic singing drills. Murmuring, “Me me me me me,” in deep octaves and then running up the range of notes like an opera singer warming up. He seemed embarrassed while he did it, but he genuinely wanted to get better.

  By the time practice was over we were laughing and making fun of ourselves like a couple of silly kids. “I’ve got to get to my shift,” I said, grabbing my shoes from the hall. “Practice those same drills by yourself at least once a day and you’ll start feeling stronger while singing the notes at the far end of your range.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said. “I’ll work on that while you work on your guitar chords, and then we can meet back here in a day or two to go over what we learned.”

  “I can’t practice guitar without, you know, a guitar,” I said.

  He placed his instrument in the case and closed the lid, then leaned it against my wall. “Good thing you have this bad boy, then.”

  It took me a heartbeat to realize what he meant. “Wait, what? You can’t give me your guitar!”

  “It’s only a spare,” he said. “I’ve got a dozen of ‘em. Better for that guitar to see some use than to collect dust backstage.”

  On the way out, Angela poked her head out of her door again. ‘I didn’t know you were giving someone like Xander lessons,” she said.

  I was about to say that this was the first time, but Xander quickly said, “Oh yeah. Sage is the best in town.”

  “Wooow,” Angela said. “Hey. Do you ever get to meet the owner of the Volga? Vladorovich whatever?”

  “Vladimir Yegorovich?” Xander said carefully. Sure, once or twice. We’re not best buds, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Huh, neat,” she said.

  Once we were outside he asked me, “What was that about?”

  “Who knows with Angela. She works at the Volga too so she’s probably trying to find a way to get a promotion or something.”

  We started to go different directions. Xander said, “My truck’s over here. Hop in and I’ll drop you off at work.”

  “I won’t say no to that.”

  The whole thing felt like a date as he held open the passenger door for me. The guitar lessons, then singing lessons, laughing at each other playfully. Things were different between us now. Better than the bickering we’d been doing the last time he drove me somewhere.

  We were halfway to the casino when I said, “I’m sorry I made fun of country music.”

  He looked over at me. “Aww hell. Country music makes fun of itself. Honestly it deserves it for some of the crap that’s out there.”

  “Still. I was trying to be hurtful, and for that I’m sorry.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  We drove in silence for a few breaths.

  “Have you always wanted to be a country singer?”

  “
Since the first concert I ever sneaked into.” He smiled to himself while driving. “It was at this outdoor bar called The Truckyard. My sister took me but they had a cover charge to get in. We had enough for one of us but not both. So I had to sneak around the side where the kitchen staff takes the trash out and wait for my sister to come open the door.”

  “You little scoundrel!”

  “Funny thing is, I don’t even remember the band’s name. Some local group from a few towns over. But when the music started and the guitars played…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t peel my eyes from the stage. I knew what I wanted to be from that moment on.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Topeka.”

  I cocked my head. “I didn’t know you were from Kansas.”

  “You never asked. I told you this country boy persona isn’t an act.”

  “Fair enough.”

  20

  Sage

  He dropped me off at the employee entrance like a perfect gentleman and then drove off. I felt a lightness in my chest and there was a smile on my face that wouldn’t go away as I went inside to change.

  Throughout my shift when I had a spare moment I curled my fingers, practicing the chords I’d learned in the air. Learning an instrument, especially one as versatile as the guitar, would open up my career to a whole slew of new songs. I daydreamed about which ones I would try to learn next, and the ways I could incorporate a guitar into my existing act. The future was bright.

  And I had Xander to thank for it.

  I glanced at him while he got ready on stage, chatting with an employee in a wheelchair and other members of the crew. He was a lot more handsome when he wasn’t wearing his cowboy hat, I decided. With it on he was too much of a caricature. Without it I could take him more seriously. Like he was a real person instead of a walking, talking, singing stereotype.

  And then I caught a glimpse of Eddie on his patrol.

  He was on the far wall, moving diagonally across my view. Thumbs tucked into his belt like a police officer, his sharp eyes watching the room for trouble. What had happened last night was still on my mind too. Xander’s impromptu guitar lesson had distracted me, but Eddie and I still had unfinished business. We at least needed to talk about what had happened.

  His scanning gaze passed across me… Then stopped and returned. Even from across the room I could feel his eyes on me. He might have even smiled, though it was tough to tell.

  I smiled back before turning down my aisle of tables.

  Oh Sage, what are you doing?

  I’d slept with one member of my heist crew and had fooled around with another. Now I was maybe-possibly-totally developing feelings for the third, although we hadn’t done anything physical yet. What was wrong with me?

  This was why I had a strict rule about not dating. It led to confusing feelings which got in the way of everything. Feelings which distracted me from what was important. I needed to push everything aside and focus. We were trying to steal dirty money from a Russian oligarch. The slightest misstep could mean disaster for us.

  I forced myself to imagine that terrible scenario again: being kidnapped, dumped in the desert, and then ordered to dig my own grave. I couldn’t forget it because it was a real possibility. I needed to remember the danger, lest I make a fatal mistake in the casino.

  Money was useless if you were dead.

  The Russian mules showed up early tonight. They went to the back room and returned a few minutes later. Then they spread out among the card tables and began gambling away their money.

  Money that would soon be ours.

  Watching the mules made me just as emotionally confused as thinking about my three heist cohorts. While they pissed away the money on the card tables, injecting it into a legitimate revenue stream for the casino, I felt like we were missing out. That we should be trying to take the money now, that every $10,000 the mules blew on a bad hand of blackjack was $10,000 coming out of our pockets.

  It was an irrational thought since we had now established that new money arrived every Saturday night, but I couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of urgency.

  On my next break I swung by the poker room on the other side of the casino. It was like a large ballroom partitioned away from the main casino, with at least 50 poker tables spread throughout. Most of them were empty now, and a large crowd was gathered at the opposite end of the room. I walked in that direction until I was close enough to see the big screen TV up on the wall. It showed a top-down view of one poker table occupied by three men.

  I grinned as I saw one of them was Bryce. He’d made it to the final table of the tournament!

  The announcer’s voice echoed through the loudspeakers around the room. “We’re four hours into our final table, down to the last three players, and there are no signs of anyone giving in yet.”

  One of the players had a huge stack of chips. The next guy had maybe half as many. Bryce had the smallest stack of chips, though he was close behind the next guy.

  “The dealer hands out the cards, and we have our first round of betting. Russo checks. Andresen raises. Blackman, lagging behind in third place, calls the raise, as does Russo.”

  I realized that was the first time I’d learned Bryce’s full name. Bryce Blackman. I maneuvered my way around the crowd until I found an open spot near the railing to squeeze in. The table was 30 feet away with lots of harsh lights shining down on it.

  “And here comes the flop.” The dealer turned over the first three cards: Seven of Hearts, Eight of Hearts, Jack of Diamonds.

  I wasn’t much of a card player, but I knew the basic rules to Texas Hold’Em. Players were dealt two cards each. Three additional cards were dealt face up on the table for everyone to see, then a fourth card, then a fifth. Players then had to make the best hand of poker between their two cards and the communal cards face up on the table. And of course wagering happened at every stage of the process.

  “We’ve got a blood red flop,” the announcer said. “Russo must not like what he sees because he checks. Andresen raises again. Blackman calls the raise, as does Russo after a moment’s hesitation.”

  The dealer placed a fourth card face down, then flipped it over. Nine of Clubs.

  “Uh oh, we’ve got a potential inside straight going for anyone with a 10.”

  Russo, the leader, tapped the table to check. Andresen spent a moment fingering his chips and then placed a handful out on the table. From here I could see Bryce’s face—he eyed Andresen’s raise like he’d found a fingernail in his soup.

  “Woah now, Andresen’s raising high. Blackman mulls it over, we’re starting to cut into his dwindling stack of chips now, but nope, he calls Andresen’s raise.”

  Russo, the leader, tossed his cards away. It was down to just Bryce and Andresen.

  “Time to see the river… Two of Hearts. We’ve got a Two of Hearts as the river card, bringing a possible heart flush into the mix.”

  Both players seemed unnerved by the river card. Once again Andresen played with his chips, stacking and re-stacking them with deft fingers. Bryce stared back calmly, waiting.

  Andresen tapped the table with his finger, indicating that he wasn’t betting.

  Bryce didn’t hesitate a moment. “All in,” he said, pushing his stack of chips forward. An excited murmur and even a few claps went up in the crowd.

  “Blackman is all in! He’s all in!”

  I held my breath and studied Bryce’s face. He was perfectly calm and collected, piercing blue eyes staring back at his opponent. Was Bryce bluffing, or did he have something?”

  “I call,” Andresen said.

  “Andresen calls! Andresen has called Blackman’s bet!”

  Bryce flipped over his two cards for all to see: Ten of Diamonds and Queen of Hearts.

  “Oh my goodness ladies and gentlemen! Not only does Blackman have the inside straight, but he’s got a straight Eight to Queen!”

  There were gasps and shouts of excitement in the crowd but Bryce kept h
is eyes on his opponent.

  Andresen leaned his head on one fist. “Thought you had the straight,” he said in a disappointed voice as he flipped over his cards.

  But it wasn’t a disappointed voice after all, because he had a pair of hearts.

  “ANDRESEN HAS THE FLUSH!” the announcer screamed, his voice going into a higher pitch with giddiness. “Andresen landed the flush on the river. Folks, it doesn’t get more heartbreaking than that…”

  Bryce winced like he’d been shot. He recovered quickly and stood, leaning over the table to shake his opponent’s hand.

  “Sorry, mate,” I heard Andresen say over the crowd applause.

  Bryce only smiled. “That’s how it goes.”

  The applause rose as Bryce bowed out. Russo got up to shake his hand too, along with the dealer and two other men standing nearby. Bryce seemed in good spirits but my heart ached for him anyway. He’d been so close to winning that hand!

  Bryce waved to the crowd and saw me. He smiled and started to come in my direction…

  …And then was intercepted by a bald man in an expensive white suit.

  Yegorovich. Oh shit!

  The Russian oligarch shook Bryce’s hand and used his other hand to grab his shoulder, holding him in place. I was close enough to hear their words.

  “You were a fierce competitor,” Yegorovich said. “Better luck next time, yes?”

  “Hope so,” Bryce replied simply.

  The handshake went on just long enough to be awkward before Yegorovich finally let go. Bryce slid between him and his muscular bodyguard to leave, coming straight in my direction.

  “Follow me,” he said in a voice only for me.

  I waited a few seconds then followed him across the poker room. Other people shouted words of encouragement to him in passing and he put on a good show and waved back. Then we were in the main casino room, following the outer wall toward the employee section with the locker rooms.

  A waitress and a bartender were flirting in the hall, so Bryce led me through two more doors until we came to a secluded area.

  “Sorry. I didn’t want anyone to see us together while the cameras might be on me.”