Page 3 of Underground Prince

All heads were bowed amidst a pungent, milky haze. I sniffed, not entirely repulsed. Most of it was cigar smoke, a scent I associated with my dad and childhood.

The room was heavily wood-paneled, the smell of pine a mild odor underneath the tobacco. It was otherwise bare, with a round table at the center and a makeshift bar in the corner. It was one of those cheap cabinets with thin wood panels, but mostly made up of cork filling. Scratches adorned the sensitive surface, with a cluster of liquor bottles shoved at the end.

Low mumbles could be heard, but otherwise it was quiet. Instinctively, I felt beside me for Verily.

“Are we meant to…dance?” I asked. Verily had to let out a few sounds as she pushed me over to the bar, but let go long enough to stifle the laughter bubbling out of her throat.

“Oh my God,” she said.

I placed a hand on the bar. These damn, damn shoes of death. “What?”

“That’s why you’ve been so freaky!” She shoved me, a huge smile on her face. I frowned, rubbing at my poor, abused bicep.

Lowering her voice after a few glares cast in our direction, she said, “As if you thought I was a stripper.” She paused, her expression going slack but her whisper rising high. “Wait, you thought I was a stripper?”

Yes. “No way.”

“You thought I was taking you to a stranger’s basement to get naked?”

“No! I mean…” I picked at the chipped varnish. “Maybe.”

She gave a bewildered shake of her head. “There will be no tits or ass today so rest easy. I wasn’t lying when I said I was a waitress. See those men over there?”

Verily pointed to the cluster in the center, and with my new vantage point I noticed the cigars dangling from some mouths, and others with elbows on the table. But all were holding….

Cards.

“Poker,” I said, though it came out as a whisper.

Verily gifted me with another of her you’re special looks. “This is a young crowd, so the most you’ll have to do is get chicken wings or burgers, refresh their beers, sell them cigarettes, that sort of stuff.”

I pulled at my pinafore. “In this?”

“It’s what these boys like. But they won’t touch you. Sax will pound them if they so much as brush a chip against your ass.”

“Sex?”

“Girl, you have got to stop thinking I’m whoring you out.” She tipped her chin to the doorway. “The guy we met. The tall, lean one. Theo Saxon, but his friends call him Sax. He’s over there, by the dealer.”

I assumed the Asian man in the white button-down shirt was the dealer. He was the only one who seemed “dressed,” as in, more than a t-shirt and flip-flops, clothed in a white collared shirt and jeans, his coal black hair scraped away from his face. There were ten men in total, plus the dealer, with some sporting ball caps while others masked with sunglasses. Most were long, lanky and young, of varying ethnicities and possessing a laissez-faire attitude slightly at odds with the stakes they were wagering.

The only strange anomaly in this room was me. I stuck out like a—well, like a French maid standing in the middle of a basement poker game.

This Theo Saxon though, could be one of two people, but I guessed he was the one without the green exercise band wrapped around his head.

He was all harsh angles, the line from his jaw to his chin shaped into an almost perfect “V”, his nose slightly off-kilter, probably due to a previous break. He had creamy skin with a hint of tan, his hair a messy russet brown. The pale blue t-shirt he wore showcased the planes of his collarbone, bare and flawless in the hazy, filtered light.

So that was the sexy part. Scary was happening because I wasn’t sure if he knew how to smile, and while he seemed as though he was languishing in his seat, he wasn’t really. His shoulders were too tense, his head lowered too much. But his eyes…

They tracked everything.

My lips parted. “Whoa.”

“Not you, too,” Verily said.

I was better than this. Shocking good looks weren’t supposed to bother me, or render me speechless, or give me butterflies—none of that shit. All fluffy feelings had left me a year and a half ago, and I had no qualms with never finding them again.

So why do your cheeks feel warm?

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