Texas Hold 'Em

by A Parker

  Alone in the bathroom, I gripped the counter and stared at my own reflection. Beads of cool water rolled down my cheeks and dripped from the end of my nose, landing soundlessly in the porcelain sink. The woman staring back at me had lost weight. Her cheeks weren’t quite as full as I remembered, nor as rosy, and her lips were chapped. Her eyebrows were thinner from days of anxious and absentminded picking and plucking. Her hair was disheveled and one might go as far to say unkempt. Baby hairs around my hairline curled every which way when I usually had them slicked back into my bun.

  “Who are you?” I whispered to myself.

  Naturally, the woman in the mirror didn’t answer. She continued staring back at me, her blue eyes deadpan and endlessly hollow, like an ocean cave that went on forever, full of truths and horrors both realized and never to be known.

  What horrors would I come to know over the next few days?

  Who would I see in the mirror if I lived to see Saturday morning?

  Tex called my name from the bedroom and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Coming,” I called back, my voice shaking as my grip on the counter tightened and white-knuckled.

  I didn’t want to go to bed. If by some miracle I managed to fall asleep, I’d wake and be one day closer to Friday night. I wanted to cling to every minute I had and hold it tight.

  Instead, I turned off the bathroom light and made my way into the bedroom, where Tex was already in bed with his hands clasped behind his head. His eyes were closed, but he cracked one open when he heard me come in. He watched me undress.

  I climbed into bed with him and he enveloped me and pulled me into him. His chest against my back was warm, his heartbeat steady, his breath on the back of my neck hot and reassuring that he was, at least for now, breathing.

  He kissed my shoulder. “Goodnight. Try to turn that mind of yours off. You deserve and need rest.”

  He buried his cheek into his pillow and nestled in even closer to me.

  I clung to my pillow and listened to the silence of the apartment as the minutes passed. All I could hear was his breathing, and in time, it evened out and he fell asleep. His grip around my waist slackened, and I found myself mindlessly running my fingers over his knuckles and tracing the veins in his forearm until the feeling was committed to memory.

  Eventually, sleep took me too.

  My eyes fluttered open.

  I wasn’t sure what had woken me, but as I lay in bed, I became aware of several things that weren’t quite right. Somewhere close by, something dripped in a steady pattern and echoed as if in a well. It was full night, but a pale blue light shone down on me. I sat up and shielded my eyes as I looked around and tried to get my bearings.

  There, at the end of the bed, sat a man in a chair.

  I gasped and scrambled back until I hit the headboard. I drew the blankets up to try to conceal my nakedness as the man chuckled. I knew the laugh before a cigar appeared seemingly out of thin air in his mouth. Smoke curled about his head and glowed blue in the pale light.

  He spoke in a menacing mumble that sounded like he had a sound system attached to his voice. The base of it rumbled through the bed and rattled my ear drums.

  “Miss Hart,” Walter Bates purred, “I’m impressed. You do good work.”

  Good work?

  What work had I done?

  My mouth formed the shape of words, but my voice was caged in my throat. I clawed at my neck as my voice threatened my windpipes.

  Walter Bates stood up and walked around the other side of the bed. I watched, horrified and confused, and he stopped on Tex’s side of the bed and smiled down at the rise under the blankets beside me.

  With a flourish, Walter Bates pulled the blankets down.

  I tried to scream, but no sound came out.

  Tex lay on his back in the bed beside me. He was covered in blood, his skin slick with it, and he was naked. His eyes were wide open and staring unseeing at the ceiling. Blood splattered the headboard, and when I looked down, I realized it was splattered all over me, too.

  My palms were dark with his blood. My thighs were stained. My knees, my forearms, my stomach, my breasts—all of me was covered in Tex’s blood as if I’d murdered him and rolled around in it.

  Walter Bates began to laugh.

  I scrambled out of the bed and landed hard on my ass on the floor. Pain bit into my tailbone and lanced up my spine, but I managed to get to my feet and run to the door.

  My way was blocked by a blonde-haired man with broad shoulders and angry eyes.

  Jackson.

  “What have you done, Carrie?” he asked, his voice ghostly and muted before it became a monstrous bellow. “What have you fucking done?”

  I tried to tell him it wasn’t me. I hadn’t done it. But still, no words fell from my lips. All I could manage to do was whimper and grunt, and this just seemed to make Jackson angrier. He shoved me aside and rushed to the bed, where he fell to his knees beside his dead friend and bowed his head.

  I had to get out of here. I had to run.

  Austin.

  Yes, I needed to go to Austin.

  I ran out of the bedroom and into the living room, where Brody stood with a defibrillator in his hands, the paddles held up in front of him as he stared at them in a daze. He looked up at me, his broken heart reflected in his eyes. “Why did you make me do this?” he whispered.

  I plunged my fingers into my hair and fell to my knees. There, with my forehead pressed to the cool hardwood floors, I finally managed to scream.

  Chapter 27

  Jameson

  Something dug into my lower back in the middle of the night. I hissed in pain and recoiled as Carrie’s heel struck me again right in the soft spot below my kidneys.

  “Damn it, woman!” I barked and tried to squirm away from her. At first I thought she was just trying to get comfortable, but as I rubbed at my eyes and woke up properly, I realized she was thrashing around in her sleep. Her fists were balled up, her brow was furrowed, and every now and then she made thin noises of distress through clenched teeth.

  “Carrie?” I called out to her, but she didn’t hear me. Sweat beaded on her brow and matted her hair. Her whole pillowcase was soaked and so were the sheets beneath her.

  What the hell was going on?

  “Hey,” I called louder, rising to my knees and leaning over her as she thrashed and kicked. I took a knee to the ribs as I held her face in my hands and called her name over and over.

  Finally, her eyes opened.

  But she didn’t see me. And if she did? Well, it scared the hell out of her.

  She screamed and kicked more furiously. Her knee drove up into my hip and her elbow clocked me in the nose. I grunted but didn’t back off. She tried to claw at my face, but I caught her wrists and held them down on either side of her head.

  “Carrie! Damn it, it’s me! It’s Tex!”

  She writhed but only for a few seconds longer before falling still and staring up at me. The whites of her eyes disappeared as the panic in her face ebbed away. She searched my face as her breaths came in ragged gasps.

  “Tex?”

  “I’m here. You’re okay. It was just a bad dream.”

  “A bad dream,” she murmured. “Yes… a bad dream.”

  I released her wrists and rubbed at my nose. “Do you remember what happened?”

  Her brow creased more deeply and she closed her eyes. She shook her head fiercely. “I don’t want to. Tex. Please.”

  “Hey,” I said, stroking her hair and wondering what the hell had scared her so badly. She sniffled and reached for me, and I did the only thing I could think to do. I rocked back on the mattress until I was sitting cross-legged, and I pulled her up into my lap.

  Carrie fell to pieces in my arms.

  She sobbed harder than ever—so hard I worried she couldn’t breathe—and curled into the fetal position in my lap. She was naked and so vulnerable, and I didn’t know what else I could do for her. She felt so fragile in my arms, li
ke a small bird with broken wings, and she needed me.

  But what if I wasn’t enough?

  “Carrie,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  She sobbed harder.

  Fuck.

  I stopped trying to talk. Nothing I could say would spare her this pain, so I held her tighter, kissed the top of her head, and let her cry. She didn’t hold back. Her pain poured out of her and threatened to destroy me. I hated how helpless I felt.

  What was worse?

  I hated that I was the only one who could fix this, but I couldn’t. The only way to spare her this suffering would be to go back on the plans we’d made. To bow out. To give in.

  I simply couldn’t do that.

  So I let her cry.

  When she started to tremble, I brought her back down under the blankets with me. I kept a strong hold on her, keeping her crushed up against me as I brought the blankets up and tucked her in. Her shivering stopped quickly, and she wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her tear-soaked cheek to my chest. Her sobs slowed, and her breathing evened out, but we didn’t move.

  Finally, she spoke. “I dreamed you were dead.”

  I felt shallow. While she was tortured by her nightmare, I dreamed of coming home late one night and finding Carrie, naked, straddling my motorcycle in the middle of my apartment. No, the dream didn’t make sense, but everything we’d done after I found her?

  Well, nothing made more sense than that.

  “I dreamed it all went wrong,” she whispered. “I’m so scared for you, Tex. I don’t want to do this.”

  “I know.”

  “Please don’t make me.”

  Her words threatened to drown me.

  Gently, I pulled her away so we could lie face to face on our pillows and talk. I needed to look her in her eyes. I needed to see her understand my words.

  I cupped her cheek. “Have you forgotten who you are, Carrie Hart? You’re the tough as nails Ranger who doesn’t take shit from anyone. You came here to expose police corruption and put an end to Walter Bates. And you’re doing it. You knew it wouldn’t be easy. You knew there would be risks, and you did it anyway, because that’s who you are. It’s who we are.”

  She sniffled. “We?”

  “Rangers.”

  Carrie’s sniffles stopped.

  “If I still wore the badge,” I said slowly, “you would let me make this choice, wouldn’t you? You would trust me?”

  She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek more firmly into my palm.

  “Answer me, Carrie.”

  She licked her lips. “Maybe.”

  “Open your eyes.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and danced with tears.

  “I’ve escaped death more times than I can count on both hands,” I told her. “If tonight is the night I go? Well, I’ve already made my peace with that, especially if it means finding justice for William.”

  “Please don’t talk like this. I can’t bear it.”

  “But,” I said, running my thumb under her eye to wipe away a new tear that escaped, “if Brody brings me back and I get to fight on Friday night alongside my brothers? Well, that will make me the luckiest man alive, because after the fight I’ll have your lips to kiss. Your body to make mine.”

  Carrie’s eyes danced back and forth between mine. Her lips were parted ever so slightly, and as she gazed into my eyes, the tears stopped. “To make yours?”

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “Mine.”

  Carrie drew herself up to me and pressed her lips to mine. She tasted like salt and couldn’t breathe through her nose after all the crying. I didn’t care. She was sweet and soft in all the right places. I gripped her ass and held her fiercely to me, loving how she hooked a leg over mine.

  When the kiss ended, she closed her eyes and left her forehead pressed to mine. “I’m already yours, Tex.”

  Chapter 28

  Carrie

  Tex’s apartment bustled with energy on Thursday night. All of the MC members were there along with Suzie and Sam, both of whom had given me fierce hugs when they first arrived in the afternoon. I wanted to believe none of them could tell that I’d spent almost the entire night crying, but who was I kidding? My eyes were still swollen and puffy and the skin around my nose was dry from blowing it a hundred times over.

  They all knew. They just had the decency not to say a word about it.

  I sat in the corner of the sofa with my legs tucked under myself and a blanket thrown over my lap. In my hands was the burner phone from Bates, and every pair of eyes in the room was on me. I could feel the apprehension in their gazes, their fear, frustration, and hope.

  “Go ahead,” Tex said, putting a hand on my knee over the blanket.

  My hands trembled.

  Abel, who stood over my right shoulder behind the sofa, lightly touched my shoulder. His hand felt reassuring and steady and not full of hate like I expected. Maybe some of them really did trust me. Tex and Mason had been advocating for me for some time now. Did more of them believe I was in their corner than I thought?

  “Carrie,” Abel said softly, “give me the phone.”

  I looked up at him.

  He smiled. “Come on. Give it to me.”

  I turned to Tex, who nodded.

  I’d already typed out my message to Bates. It was simple and to the point, but it had left a knot in my throat and a stone in my gut. I’m doing it tonight. Stand by.

  My hands still shook as I reached up and passed the phone to Abel.

  He read the message and looked around at the group. “Here we go, boys. There’s no going back now. If anyone has a reason to not go through with this, now is the time to speak up.”

  I didn’t dare look around the room. Instead, I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and stared at the coffee table. Nobody said a word. The silence threatened to swallow me whole, and it might have if Tex hadn’t brought me back by giving my knee a good squeeze.

  Abel cleared his throat. “Very well.” His wrist flexed and a button clicked. The old flip phone made an animated whooshing sound before he dropped it back in my lap. “It’s done. Now we wait.”

  Tex sighed beside me. “Now we wait.”

  The phone, an old Nokia something or other, was smaller than my palm, but in my lap it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. There was no going back now, and that truth felt heavy.

  Cursed.

  Abel moved away from the sofa. I heard him rummage around in the fridge or freezer behind us. Nobody paid him much mind, but when he made a particular ruckus and bottles clanged against each other, Tex turned around.

  “What the hell are you doing back there?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, too. Abel pulled a frozen bottle of some sort of liquor out of the freezer and showed all his teeth in a devilish grin.

  Tex arched an eyebrow. “By all means, make yourself at home.”

  Abel shook the bottle around by the neck, and amber liquid sloshed around. “I propose a shot. You know, in case it’s your last.”

  My stomach heaved.

  Tex, however, laughed. He pushed up from the couch and met Abel in the kitchen. All around me, the other men left their positions and went into the kitchen. As he passed me, Brody offered his hand.

  “On your feet, Ranger,” he said. “You and I have the worst jobs tonight out of the rest of these assholes. If anyone deserves a shot, it’s us.”

  “Worse than Tex?”

  “Tex,” he said with a smirk, “will get a nasty but fleeting shock, and then none of what happens will matter much to him because, well, he’ll be dead. But us? We have to keep our game faces on. A bit of tequila might help.”

  I stared at his outstretched hand a moment before accepting it. Brody pulled me to my feet and clasped my shoulder in a friendly way, using it to guide me out ahead of him into the kitchen, where Abel was loading up shot glasses with tequila.

  “That big one is for Carrie,” Brody said, laying claim to the one Abel had just filled to the brim.


  Abel slid it across the counter to me while Jackson silently brooded on the other side of the kitchen. Samantha leaned in toward him and whispered something in his ear. Perhaps she was telling him to fix his resting bitch face. Perhaps she was merely reassuring him that things would be okay. Either way, he wrapped an arm around her waist and held her close while the remaining shots were distributed around the room, and he didn’t say anything when she declined hers, saying something about having to drive them home soon.

  Very few people knew why Sam wasn’t drinking.

  Abel lifted his shot glass. “To Tex, our recklessly brave, and one might say shamelessly stupid, brother.”

  “Fools come in all shapes and sizes,” Gabriel added.

  “Don’t feel bad, Tex,” Knox teased. “Every group has a dimwit.”

  Tex laughed in earnest, and I wondered how he could be so calm and collected as we closed in on the final hours. “Thank you for reminding me why I’m risking my life for you bastards.”

  The room echoed with deep laughter. Brody nudged me in the ribs with his elbow before everyone tossed their shots back. Only delayed by a second, I followed suit, and I relished the way the tequila burned my throat and belly. I hadn’t eaten a full meal in the last forty-eight hours, so my head already started to feel a little fuzzy as Abel screwed the cap back on the tequila and placed it back in the fridge. Wordlessly, the group all knew tonight wasn’t a night for indulgence. We needed our wits about us. One shot was about as good as it was going to get.

  If we all survived Friday, I was sure there would be a rip-roaring party to celebrate their immortality.

  Everyone placed their shot glasses in the sink. I hovered in the corner of the kitchen while Tex went out to the pit and lit a cigarette. The men made passes to visit him and to say a few words in private. I wondered if they were saying goodbye.