“True,” Saul said.
“And I’ve come to you straight away.”
“Nearly straight away.”
“Come on, Saul. How could anything underhand have happened?”
He looked at me a long time. “I don’t want to be thinking about what has been happening in that time.” I let that sit. It’s uncomfortable until I start remembering. Then I’m fighting the urge to fidget and squirm and wish I could get back to where it was just uncomfortable. Genies, bottles. Toothpaste, tubes. Tension, release. Damn.
At last Saul cracks the silence. “You broke the code.”
“I couldn’t help it, Saul.” I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t even realize how true it was until I said it. But now, now it’s out there, I can’t get away from it. The strength of my feelings scares me.
“Okay.” He speaks slowly. “You’ve broken the letter of the code,” and he lets it hang there for a moment. But then his voice softens. “But there’s no evidence of any actual wrong-doing so far as the casino is concerned. It looks good for you from that point of view. And you did come to me,” his lips tense, “Nearly straight away.” His hands flatten on the table. “But it can’t continue this way, Ms. Moretti. What do you propose?”
“We can’t easily choose which of us will step away. We both have too much to lose.” And I tell Saul my plan for Adam to only play here when I’m not on shift.
Saul looks up slowly, and he watches my eyes for what seems like a long time.
“It’s serious, then.”
I nod.
“But you only just met. Under the ice-bucket.”
I shrug. I like that he’s making a joke, though. I take it as a good sign. But he’s also telling me that he knows about it.
He says, “I can put you on suspension.”
I’m shocked. My chest rises and I’m about to speak. Saul lifts a finger, cautioning.
“Don’t make me make a harder choice, Grace.” I’m shaking. Suspension? “Let me lay it out for you. I have to choose. A guest is well-financed and looks to be bringing a lot of valuable play, as well as potential gaming excitement to the private tables and making a stir. That’s good business, Grace. Good casino business. Don’t make me choose between banning a guest of that quality and firing a poker dealer with one shift’s experience.”
I look down.
“I’m not letting this go by without a consequence. You have to pay a price, Ms. Moretti.”
I’m silent. Deflated.
“I’m putting you on suspension for a week. In that time, Doyle can make his play and there’s no chance of a conflict.”
I’m starting to see how this can be a good thing, but I’m still worried about how I’m going to cover the rent.
“After that,” his voice is granite, “there has to be a solution for the longer term. One of you is out of here. And right now,” he looks hard in my eye, “I don’t much care which one.”
I know it has to be that way. I knew it from the start. It was just a nice dream that it could go any other way.
I’m in the sun chair, in the patch of shaded balcony outside my apartment. The aircon inside is so feeble, most of the time it’s unbearable. The tip he gave me was big enough to cover the hole in my rent for now, but not for the chasm that’s going to open up in my earnings. I’m making a list of the bars I know where I might get some pickup work.
Maybe I could a shift or two dealing in one of the houses downtown, though, and I’ll try that first. The tips are better and the work is less hazardous than bar work. Customers are already occupied with a game. People seem to go to bars here with the sole purpose of harassing cocktail waitresses.
When my phone buzzes, I see his number. I wonder as I lift the phone whether it’s worth giving a name to the number in the phone’s contact book.
He said, ‘This is something,’ and he was persuasive about it, but I wonder if the ‘something’ will last any longer than his stretch of poker games.
His voice whips up a storm of mixed feelings inside me.
“I kept the suite.”
“I’m on suspension.”
“Oh.”
“For a week.”
“You’re going to be okay, then.”
“It’s not a good look on my record, Adam. Plus, I don’t work for the laughs. I need the money.”
“Come by the suite. I’ll tell reception to give you a key. Move in here.”
“Oh, it’s all so easy, isn’t it. Just so long as Player One gets his bonuses and re-ups, we’re all good.”
“Oh. Where’s that coming from? Okay, I understand. You’re upset. But we can both see, there’s something between us.”
“Something that will last the whole of your stay in Vegas. Right? Could be as much as a week.”
“Come by the suite.”
I’m wearing loose pants and a thin top. I think about changing. But I’m too anxious to get there. I just drop a few things into my rucksack and step into a pair of sandals.
On the way, I swing by a couple of gaming rooms on Fremont street downtown to check in and say I was available for some casual work. None of the pit-bosses I know are working, so I’m not holding out too much hope.
I still have parking privilege in the PleasureDome, so I leave my little Honda between a BMW SUV and a huge Maybach.
In the Lucky King elevator, rising back up to the suite, the scene of our afternoon’s lovemaking, the reckless lunacy that cost me my job, at least for now, wild sensations blow in my stomach like flutterings of fear, excitement, even guilt. By the time the doors slide open, I’m clenched and almost bent double.
At one end of the elevator lobby, I drop onto a couch in an alcove. Take a few breaths and compose myself.
In less than a day, I’ve started the most important job of my career, been drenched and humiliated in public, been fired, well, temporarily, had the most dynamite fucking I could ever have imagined from a dark and scary love god, fallen in, what… ?
That’s what’s causing me the most turbulence.
That’s why my emotions are in violent free-fall.
I need to have a proper talk with him and figure out what all this really does mean. It’s already thrown my life off course. If it’s just a fling, well, okay. But I need to know. Now. Before it goes any further.
But if I ask him, can I believe what he tells me?
Chapter 16
Adam
I’m pacing the lounge of the suite. I check my phone for the time about every ninety seconds, and again to see if she’s sent me a text about every thirty seconds.
Finally, the door swings open, and she’s here. She looks fabulous. But she is. I know. Still, she shocks me with her glow. Her gorgeousness. It’s like I never saw her before.
“Grace,” I grab her. Pull her to me. Wrap her tight in my arms. It feels like it’s been days, weeks since I saw her. I’m searching her eyes, taking a moment to appreciate her. Ready for the kiss I’ve been wanting since she left.
Her eyes widen and she moistens her lips. She tells me, “We have to talk.”
I can’t hold back any longer for a kiss. As soon as our lips meet, her body surges against mine. We’re a current. A flow. Getting hotter. I’m swelling. My blood pumps hard.
Too soon, she pulls back. “I need to ask you some things. Tell you some things, Adam.”
“Yes,” I kiss her again, feeling her swell and flex in my arms, “Me too.” Once more. This kiss is hard. Deep and hot. But this time I have to pull away. “Later, though.”
Her face is brewing a storm. I turn to reach for my jacket. “Two of my targets are in. I have to go.”
“But… wait…” I kiss her again.
“Later.” I tell her. “I can’t wait,” that makes me chuckle, “In every sense.”
This is all going to be so good. “You’re wonderful. You’re perfect,” I tell her, as I bolt through the door and run for the elevator. I have to arrive relaxed. Loose. Indifferent.
But, now, r
eally. Now.
It’s four fifteen in the morning when I get back from the most draining, exhausting session I ever played. My concentration drifted the whole time. The games went as they should have, mostly, and I’ve got the whole gang of players together, all apart from the oligarch. The money launderer was delayed. Now he’s due in tomorrow.
I forced myself not to calculate what the effect will be if he doesn’t show. I couldn’t risk having that on my mind during play. But now, back in the lobby of the Lucky King, I know that I have to figure it out while all the details are still fresh. My brain is drenched in bourbon, but I know my limits and I stayed well enough inside them.
On the top floor, back in the Atomic bar, I order up a tonic water and lime, and a club sandwich, and take a seat by the ‘Nuclear View’ wall.
When Jason brings my drink and my sandwich, I tel him, “Jason, I can’t believe your shift is still running.”
He smiles. “Hammering for the overtime.”
The name of the bar reminds me how people came to Vegas and drank cocktails while they watched the nuclear tests. In outdoor bars. Amazing.
While I set my brain to calculate the permutations of play if the Russian whale, Bresinsky the oligarch doesn’t show up, my eyes wander over the view out of the window. Lights glitter and flash. The town is one big electronic jewel-box, acres of impossible structures, from the pyramid of Luxor to canals of the Venetian, the Eiffel Tower and the fountains of Bellagio.
“What the fuck are you doing up here?”
“Grace!” with a face like thunder.
“I’ve been waiting in the room for ten hours and you come up here for a drink first?”
“Wait… it’s not…”
“Something you need to tell me and you came here to steel yourself to it?”
“No…”
“Or am I just supposed to dangle until the great Player One deigns to spend some time with me?”
“No! I had to work out…”
“What? Are you up here thinking how to handle me?”
“NO! Please. Listen.”
“I’ve been waiting to…” her cheeks redden. “This is not going to work out,” she turns on her heel. By the time I’m on my feet, she’s reached the door. She turns and stops me in my tracks. “I’m not going to wait by the stove or the cocktail cabinet like little wifey until you or anyone else is good and ready for me.”
“Grace…”
“Player one? Game over.”
She’s in an elevator before I get to the lobby and she must have hit the close button, because the doors shut before I can reach it.
Chapter 17
Grace
I get everything of mine from the suite into my rucksack as fast as I can. I do not want to see him.
As I’m opening the door, I hear the elevator ding. I’m certain it’s him, so I hurry the other way. There are three sets of elevators. I’ll just take a different one.
I speed up when I hear his footsteps behind me. My feet don’t want to move, but I make them.
When he calls my name, my legs want to stop. But I make them run. It feels like they’re weighed down with lead.
At the next elevator lobby, I hear his feet breaking into a run. Two sets of doors slide open at the same time. I jump into the farthest car and hit the ‘close’ button. His face is outside, shut off by the narrowing slit. I wave, but there are tears in my eyes.
By the time I get to the lobby, I’ve got my tears under control, dried my face, calmed and cooled down. And as soon as the doors open, my eyes are streaming again.
I hurry through the lobby. Not running—casino security will always intercept you if you run—just moving swiftly. Hustling through the steady crowd, it’s still as weird to me as it always is, that most places on the strip are almost as busy at five in the morning as they are at noon. Not that you can tell what the time is if you’re inside.
I hear an elevator bell as I reach the entrance doors.
“Grace!”
He calls my name, loud enough that, for a moment, everyone stops. My heart aches. I always thought that was just something people said. It’s not.
“Grace, wait! Please!”
I keep moving, but I slowed down.
He shouts. “Don’t leave me. Please!”
It’s hard to keep going. I want to stop and wait for him. But I press on. He’s done me enough damage for one day.
“If I have to choose, Grace,” now he’s got everyone’s attention. “I choose you!”
What?
I turn. He’s in the middle of the lobby. I walk back to him. His arms spread wide. “I’m choosing you.”
Everyone has stopped to listen now.
Damn.
“You’re the most precious thing I ever held in my hand. For me, you are the pyramids. You’re the sands, the mountains, the oceans and the sky. If I lose you, I will have lost everything.”
I’m rooted to the spot. “You’re what I want most in this world and I need you.” A girl dabs at her eyes. A little white-haired lady nudges her husband with her elbow. His eyes are pleading with me. I never knew a man could look so sexy.
“If keeping you means that I have to lose every other damned thing, Grace, then I’m doubling down on you. Grace, I’m all in. I’m yours. Be mine.” and with his arms outstretched, he drops to one knee. “Please.”
The air in the lobby crackles with a thunder of applause. Even the doormen shake their heads and clap with their white cloves on.
As I step toward him, there’s a whoop from the crowd.
I run to him and he rises to take me in his arms. We spin under the crystal chandelier as we kiss and everybody is clapping.
“Come back upstairs?”
I nod.
“If I have to choose, then I choose you. But, please, Grace. You don’t have to make me choose. Do you?”
I still don’t know what he means about choosing. I discount the idea that it’s another girl. I don’t know why, I just know that’s not it. Is he telling me he’s an alcoholic? What?
As soon as we’re back in the elevator, we wrap our bodies tight together. I pull him to me, push my hand up his back, reaching up to his shoulder while the fingers of my other hand rake and tug through his hair. Our tongues are in each other’s mouths. The tang of bourbon on his breath and the heat of his hard body make me light-headed.
As soon as I can stand to break apart, I ask him breathlessly,
“What was all that about having to choose? I don’t understand.” We kiss again. Hard. Fast. “Choose what? Why were you up in the cocktail bar?” My senses swim as my pelvis rocks against the hard heft of his ridge.
“I needed a few minutes to think.”
He squeezes my ass as he tells me about one of his target players not showing up.
“And now?”
We’ve reached our floor. As we step out, we stop to kiss again halfway out of the car.
Along the hallway, I hang on to his ass. His hand slides up and down my back. Rubs my arm as he pulls me closer. It’s a slow and clumsy way to walk, but it’s nice.
He says, “I want to stop and make some notes,” he stops and kisses me, “But I don’t know if I can keep apart from you long enough.”
He tells me about the Russian whale delaying and maybe not showing up, and how he’s mapped the games out in his head. It’s an amazing plan.
“None of the calculations I made look even a little bit good. My most optimistic projection is that I lose about sixty-five percent of my earnings without him, and that’s not even accounting for how much play his presence alone will stimulate.”
“Too complicated.” I tell him. “Look at it another way.”
He takes my hand as we reach the doors to our suite. “There is no other way. Apart from all the worse projections.”
As he slips the keycard into the lock, I trace his lip with my finger. Then the cleft in his chin. “How did you learn so much about him? You must know someone, or at least someone who k
nows someone who could get a message to him.”
“I do. But I don’t think he’ll fly halfway around the world on my say so.” He spins me around the door, leaning me against it to close it with my back. His weight presses against me as he kisses me. Full, hard and hot. His breath is heavy. Mine too as I reach for the front of his pants. When my palm feels the size and the heat of him, I light up inside and my mound shoves hard against him.
Gasping for breath, I tell him, “I don’t think so either.” He’s pulling off my top and unhooking my bra at the front. His mouth is closing on my nipple.
My voice cracks as I tell him, “The message shouldn’t appear to come from you. Have someone else let him know that he shouldn’t come.”
“What?” He’s sucking my breast and I’m squeezing and rubbing his cock. He’s opened my pants. They’re sliding down my legs and he’s rubbing around my clit. Circling. Pushing his fingers up. Inside me.
I grip his shoulder. I have to hurry my words as my voice judders. I’m drenched and I’m approaching a crest already.
“Message reads, A new kid’s on the block. He’s a bit of a nerd—a bit full of himself,” I bite my lips as I squeeze his cock harder. “But he can’t be beat and he’s going to clean everyone out. So Bresinsky should stay away.”
He stops. Blinks, like he’s taking it in for a moment.
“I do know who could give him that message.” I rip his zipper down and seize his hard, hot flesh inside. I want to swallow him again. I want him all over me. I want him everywhere.
I lift my knee and pull him toward me.
His eyelids drift lower and he says, “It might work. You’re a genius.”
As I pull him into my opening, I say, “Telling them they can’t win works on every poker player I ever met.” I pause and look in his eye. “Let’s test the theory. You can’t make me come at the same time as you.”
Double Down: The most precious pot (Hot Kings and Curvy Queens of Las Vegas Book 1) Page 5