Page 94 of Heir

He thrust his right hand forward. “Ambrose Charlston.”

“Omaera Playfair,” I said, taking his sweaty palm in mine.

“What’s a little thing like you doing out so late and down here?”

I glanced at him, chomping down hard on the inside of my cheek. “As I said, I play the local circuit. And my size has nothing to do with my ability to play poker. I’m also old enough to be out later than when the streetlights come on.”

He huffed and reached inside his suit jacket to tug on his suspenders. “No need to get emotional. It was just a question.”

No need to get emotional? I wasn’t getting emotional. I was getting defensive, but even that was handled without any anger in my tone.

“Let’s just play poker, hmm?” I said, as everyone else around the table settled down. There were ten players in total.

Cane gave a quick rundown of the rules as he always did. Then he dealt the cards.

I had an okay first hand. Nothing to get too excited about. Nine of spades and king of diamonds. I quickly calculated the probability of what each player could get, based on my cards being out of the deck.

My odds of winning weren’t spectacular, but with that king, they weren’t completely terrible either. Sure, the same suit would be nice, but I could work with these two cards.

Slowly, we went around the table and placed our bets. The man to my left with the ginger mustache placed his bet—five hundred.

Already, just based on the way he cleared his throat and popped another peppermint in his mouth, I could tell that he had nothing. He was a bluffer through and through.

The buy-in for this game was five thousand. I bet five hundred to start.

The man to my right bet five as well. Then, it was the cigar-smoking asshole beside him who chuckled like he smoked a pack a day, and pushed six hundred in front of him.

I refused to make eye contact with him, even though I could feel his gaze on me.

The remaining players placed their bets based on their two cards.

Then the dealer burned one card before dealing three cards from the deck face up for the start of the community river.

Three of diamonds. Two of diamonds. Nine of clubs.

Okay.

That nine of clubs with my nine of spades at least puts me in the game with a pair.

I glanced around the table, watching the tells.

When you play poker for a living, you don’t look at it like gambling. You view it as the grind, just like every other working stiff out there. This was what I did to pay the bills, buy food, and keep a roof over my head. The goal was to keep the money safe and never leave with less than I showed up with. Win one, big bet an hour and don’t get cocky. Quit while you’re in the black. Folding is not failing.

I repeated these things to myself several times throughout each game. Even when I wanted to bluff and play my opponent, I knew better than to get too arrogant and risk losing more than I came with. Folding wasn’t the end. Folding wasn’t failure.

The other thing about playing poker for a living was that you learned a lot about people without ever asking them a single question. Like the man next to the ginger mustache beside me, he was a Nervous Nelly. His nails were gnawed down to the quick. A few Band-Aids on his left said he’d already nibbled those down enough to make them bleed.

The question was: did he nibble when he had something good? Or something bad?

I shouldn’t be here. I’m a terrible player. My hand is bad. They’re going to take all my money and I won’t be able to pay rent. Why did I let Ricky talk me into coming?

Oh, that was interesting.

The man beside him kept flaring his nostrils and fiddling with a chip in his right hand, flipping it back and forth. Then he’d check his cards after five flips, put them down again, smile discreetly, and flip five times once more. I’d played with him before. This meant he had a good hand.

No fearful thoughts filled his mind.

The woman beside him blinked a lot and kept side-eyeing everyone. She also refused to put her cards down. She kept them in her hand as if she’d forget them if she set them down.

---