It was a risk to take, but that’d save my ass if I won. I could do a lot with ten-thousand dollars, even live in a nice hotel for a month while I got back on my feet.
But if I lost, then there would be no turning back from that.
I had always lived my life taking risks, and it had given me a life of many highs, and just as many lows. I couldn’t survive by doing what other normal people did. It was way too boring for me, and it was the reason why I dropped out of college to play poker professionally.
There was a train that shuttled in and out of the city to the Falls. I still had a bit of time to join an evening tournament. I looked at the clock tower above the city’s skyline to see that it was five minutes to seven.
I could catch the train if I ran.
I picked up my pace and made my way through the crowd.
It was January and freezing, yet the streets were still filled with people. They were holding festive cups despite Christmas being over.
I hated this time of year.
The holiday season had always been stressful for me. I found that no one was ever actually happy around this time but everyone had to pretend to be.
I maneuvered around the hordes of people on the street.
I tried not to bump into other pedestrians, but it was hard. The few people I did run into shot me dirty looks.
I couldn’t afford to care about being a decent human being. I had a train to catch, which would potentially get me off the streets if I played it right.
I wondered if Dominic planned to give me two hundred dollars because he knew that would be my plan.
Two hundred was the exact amount of money needed to enter an evening tournament at the Falls. It was high stakes, but the reward was huge for the small amount of buy-in.
I guess two hundred dollars was not a lot of money considering I’d win tens of thousands playing online each day. But only having that amount in my pocket made me realize how much every dollar mattered.
I didn’t even have my phone with me and I couldn’t check it to see what time it was.
I knew that if I didn’t hurry, I’d miss the train, and I’d potentially have to sleep on the streets that evening. I had done so in the past. But I was hoping that I would never have to again, especially after living so luxuriously at Dominic’s place.
I could see the train station. When I glanced up at the clock tower, I saw that I had a few more minutes to catch the train.
I sprinted through the rotating door and headed to the ticket booth. There was a woman behind the glass counting money.
“Hey, I need a ticket to the Falls,” I said, trying to catch my breath.
She continued counting the bills in her hands.
“Hello?” I said.
She ignored me until she counted the last bill. Then, finally, she looked at me. “You missed it, the train is about to take off.”
“What?” I looked at the large clock in the atrium of the station. “I have one more minute until seven!”
“Right, and I can’t sell you a ticket because you won’t make it in time.”
“That’s horseshit! The train hasn’t even left yet.”
I didn’t have time to argue with her, so I just jumped the turnstile and ran for the platform of the train.
“Hey!” She called out.
I turned around while running to see that she was standing up in her booth with a walkie-talkie in her hand.
As I turned back around in the direction I was running, two police officers were standing right front of me. I tried to slow down, but ended up running right into the chest of one of them, and fell to the floor. I tried to get up, but one of them held me by the arm, while the other grabbed my feet.
I tried to kick them off, and I glanced up at the monitor to see that it was now a minute past seven. I had missed the train.
I stopped resisting as the officer grabbed me and slammed me onto a seat in the waiting area of the train station. He handcuffed one of my hands onto the armrest.
“What do you think you’re doing?” One of the officers asked, crossing his arms.
“The lady wouldn’t sell me a ticket and I had to catch the last train.”
“Well, you are trespassing without a ticket,” the other officer said.
I shook my head and looked down. I hadn’t felt this defeated in a long time. But it was the consequence of living a life purely off risks.
They both stepped to the side and talked to each other, shooting me glances, then came back towards me.
“Now, we have a few options,” the first officer said. “We can bring you back to the police station, or we can let you off with a warning if you promise to not do what you just did again.”
I hated how patronizing they were. They reminded me of living with Dominic, which was the reason why I started disobeying him in the first place.
“I won’t do it again,” I uttered, not looking them in the eyes.
It was so stupid that I was in this situation at all. Maybe if I went to jail for the night, it’d afford me one evening out of the cold.
“Good,” the second officer said.
He un-cuffed me and made me stand up. Then grabbed onto my wrists and put them behind my back as he escorted me out of the station.
The ticket booth lady gave me a death stare as I walked past her. This could have all been avoided if she had sold me a ticket.
“Can you loosen your grip?” I said to the officer. “I’m not going to get very far.”
He ignored me and gripped my wrists even tighter. They walked me out of the train station and pushed me outside.
“I don’t want to see you in here again for the rest of the night,” one of the officers shouted.
I rolled my eyes and left without looking back.
Fuck, it was cold.
My plan failed and now I was pretty screwed. I also needed a drink of water, but was I really going to spend money on that when I only have two hundred dollars?
I looked around and saw there was a park across from the train station.
I decided to sit there for a bit, hoping that the trees would keep me warm. There was a bench along the winding path in the middle of the park that was illuminated by one streetlamp.
The trees were dense and they protected me from the harsh evening wind. Maybe I could spend the night here, I thought. It wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to being on the streets.
I sat down on the bench, but then I realized that it would be warmer if I laid down.
I could see a hint of the stars through the trees, and it reminded me of how small this planet was in this universe. The problem I was facing, though it seemed big at the time, was pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
That thought somehow made everything a bit warmer. It gave me a bit of confidence that I was going to get out of this situation.
I closed my eyes, and I could hear people’s footsteps along the path, though no one really paid any attention to me.
I was no different from one of the many homeless people scattered in the city. There were probably a few who were already in the park that I was in that evening. I hoped that I wasn’t taking some other homeless person’s bench.
When I opened my eyes again, I noticed that there was a man who had stopped along the path and was looking at me.
That creeped me out for a second. When I made eye contact with him, he didn’t look away. But it was so dark that I couldn’t see who it was.
“Hello?” I said, unsure of who I was greeting.
“Hey…I might be mistaken, but is your name Adrian?”
I rubbed my eyes and sat up on the bench to try and get a better look at the strange man.
He took a step closer, and when the streetlamp illuminated his face, I recognized him right away.
Professor Sawyer. My first-year math prof before I dropped out of school. I felt blood rush to my cheeks. The last thing I needed was for someone I knew to recognize me.
“Hey
, prof,” I said, trying to maintain my cool. “How’s your evening going?”
“It’s alright. Just making my way home after teaching a class,” he said.
The professor looked me up and down, obviously trying to get an idea of why I was laying down on a bench in the park in the middle of January.
I was still in clean clothes and a jacket so I didn’t look homeless, even though I technically was. But he was smart enough to know that something was up.
Chapter Three
Sawyer
It didn’t take me long to recognize the handsome freshman who I taught last year in my math class. It was a class of over one thousand students but Adrian had managed to leave quite the impression.
“Are you okay?” I asked, furrowing my brows.
He nodded, but he was shaking from the cold. I had no idea how long he had been in the park for, but I had a feeling that he didn’t have anywhere to go to.
I decided to sit down next to him, seeing as I had no pressing things to do that evening. I would just return to my house anyways, alone.
He inched over to let me sit down, and we both just looked out ahead, waiting for the other person to speak first.
“How’s school going?” I finally asked, after I realized that he wasn’t going to say anything if I kept quiet.
“I…dropped out before my second year,” he said.
I figured that was going to be his response. He wasn’t much of an academic, which seemed to be a waste of his brilliant mind.
Had it been any other student, I would have continued on my way home. But there was something about Adrian that had always intrigued me.
I met him for the first time last year when he showed up during my office hours.
He had come to give me a note from his doctor regarding his missed midterm exam. When I looked at the note, I could see that it was an excuse for missing his test. But I believed in giving people second chances, so I accepted it.
When Adrian had written the final exam, I picked up his from the rest of the pile and decided to grade it myself. I wanted to see if he deserved to pass my class.
He scored perfectly on the exam, despite missing every single assignment and midterm.
Looking at his exam, I could see from the way he answered the math problems that he did the calculations in his head. There was no work shown to how he arrived at his answer. He just knew somehow.
I wanted to reach out to him to find out more. But I never saw him again until this evening in the park across from the train station.
“What are you doing instead of school?” I asked.
“Not much,” he said. I could tell there were things on his mind, but it wasn’t going to be that easy to pry it out of him.
“Doesn’t sound very productive,” I said.
He shrugged. I could tell he wanted to tell me something, but like most young men, he didn’t know how to say it.
“Were…you planning to stay here in the park tonight?” I asked, making sure to be careful with my words, so I wouldn’t offend him.
He opened his mouth and hesitated to say something, then he looked at me.
“I’ll listen without judging you,” I said.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone?” He asked.
I nodded.
At six-foot-five, I was taller than most people, but I made an effort to not be intimidating because of my height. I was dressed in a beige pea coat that evening, and a white button-up underneath that was tucked into my trousers. Most people who knew me trusted me because I was a renowned mathematician and a professor.
“I realized that I could use math to gamble and win a lot of money,” Adrian said. “Which is why I dropped out of school. Things were going well until I got kicked out of a club I was in for breaking the rules. The leader of the club kicked me out of his house tonight, and here I am.”
I could see the confusion in his eyes, as he told me his story. It was clear that he was still processing the events himself.
I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, since I had been there myself once.
“You must be talking about poker,” I said.
“How…how do you know?” He asked.
“I got into it during my college days. I stopped playing over twenty years ago to focus on my career. It’s a sick and twisted world. Once you get sucked in, it’s hard to get out.”
“You played poker too?”
“Yeah, it was for the same reason that you probably play. Because a lot of it is math-based, and it’s a way to get rich quick, but…it could also land you in really bad situations,” I said.
I could feel his body loosen up as I talked to him more. It was something I’d always been good at. I understood other people, which I guess was a good trait to have as a professor. It was also something that landed me in trouble sometimes when I extended too far to help someone.
“Don’t tell me you were planning on sleeping here tonight?” I asked. “We’re expecting freezing rain.”
He stayed quiet which I took as a yes.
“If you want, I have a guest bed at my place that you’re welcome to stay in until you figure out a plan. Or I guess at least until tomorrow morning. It seems like you’re not too deep in whatever mess you got yourself in yet.”
His eyes lit up, and I could see that if I didn’t take him in, he’d probably end up in a not-so-great situation.
“You sure?” He asked.
“Of course, I’m sure. It’s winter, no one deserves to be out here alone this time of year.”
I stood up and gestured for him to follow me. Adrian hesitated, then got up off the bench.
I hailed a cab to head back to my house.
I opened the door to the cab and let him go in first, then I climbed in after him and gave the driver my address.
Adrian was pretty quiet during the car ride.
I assumed that it was because I had given his ego a blow by helping him that evening. I was young once too and had been just as prideful. Young men in their twenties only had two things, it was their pride and their ego. Anything that shattered either was a pretty big deal to them.
We made it the whole way to my place without either of us saying anything.
The driver had the radio on, playing jazz music in the background. The stretch of road from the city to my house used to put a smile on my face. But after my wife, Sarah, passed away last year, I no longer had anything to look forward to. Coming home to an empty house was depressing.
I dreaded going home.
I made as many excuses as I could to stay in my office at the university. Even going as far as sleeping there some nights, while working on something, to avoid the darkness of my own home.
The house itself was actually quite nice.
My wife and I had bought it when we got married. She had decorated everything herself, claiming that I had no sense of style. So I let her, but now stepping foot inside, all I could think about was her.
I thought about redecorating, but I didn’t know where to start. Would I just throw away a perfectly good couch? Would I go as far as redecorating the kitchen? Would it all matter in the end or would it still feel the same?
Maybe the best thing for me was to move into a smaller place.
The driver arrived, and I realized that Adrian was sleeping with his face leaning against the window. Poor guy must have been so exhausted.
I paid and thanked the driver, then lightly shook Adrian’s shoulder to wake him up. He seemed a bit dazed when he opened his eyes.
“We’re here,” I said.
We both got out and headed up the steps to my front door.
I unlocked it and let Adrian in first.
“You live here alone?” He asked.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“I thought you were married,” he said, looking at the wedding band on my finger.
“I guess I technically still am. But it’s just me now.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” he said, taking his shoes off.
He didn’t ask me any further questions about it. He had always struck me as a quiet guy.
I led him into the kitchen and opened my fridge. There was some lasagna that I had made last night and I figured that Adrian would be hungry.
Adrian took a seat on the bar stool on the island and swiveled around on the chair. He couldn’t keep still.
I microwaved some lasagna and slid the plate towards him.
“Eat as much as you can,” I said.
He picked up the fork and ate so quickly I was afraid he’d choke.
“Goddamn, you’re hungry, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “I hadn’t had dinner yet, and I didn’t notice how hungry I was when I was in the cold outside.”
I smiled and watched him devour the lasagna. I took it as a compliment that he seemed to be enjoying it.
It felt weird to have someone else in my home.
I’d kept to myself for so long that I’d almost forgotten what to do in the company of another person. Sure, I was surrounded by my students at school and by other colleagues. But I had made an effort to keep those conversations as brief as I could.
So, we kind of just ate lasagna quietly. Neither of us knew what to say to each other and it stayed that way until there was nothing left on his plate.
Adrian clutched on to his stomach, and there was a slight grin on his face.
It was the first time I’d seen him smile that evening. Though, he was still fidgeting in his chair.
“Professor, thanks for the nice meal...but I think I should head out,” he said.
“Head out? And go where? We’re not even downtown anymore.”
“I’ll figure something out. I always do.”
“I appreciate your optimism, but you’ll die in the cold tonight if you don’t have a place to stay. There’s a guest bedroom you’re welcome to stay in. You should get some rest.”
I could see the wheels in his head spinning like he was trying to organize his thoughts.
“Okay…I promise I won’t be here long,” he said. “Just enough time for me to win some money and I’ll be on my way.”
“Win? Don’t tell me you’re going to be playing more poker.”
Kings of Hearts (An M/M/M Romance Novel) Page 2