Page 47 of Reckless Pawn

His smile deepened, and again I got a familiar comforting vibe from him. "Besides," he said. "I could use a little luck tonight if you have any to spare. Lady luck seems to have abandoned me this evening."

I almost laughed. I was pretty sure I was about the unluckiest person on the planet. But my new job consisted of nothing more than giving these men what they needed and if all they needed was a little company at the table, I could certainly provide it. "I'm not sure how much luck I have," I said as I took the seat he offered. "But I'd be happy to sit and offer my support."

"How about instead of yapping, you pay attention to the game, Sam. Unless you plan to hand over all your chips now in favor of the pretty girl."

We both glanced up at the man across the table, except Sam growled while I remained silent.

"Hand over my chips? Yeah, that'll never happen." My new friend picked up several chips and tossed them to the middle of the table. "I'll meet your bet and raise it. How's that?"

The other man shrugged and met the bid. The game went on like this for a while in a flurry of cards, chips and curse words. As much as I enjoyed the game, I was starting to get a little antsy when one of the men decided to go all in and shoved all his many, many chips into the middle of the table.

"Chuck, have you gone mad?"

The portly gentleman only laughed. "What can I say? When you got it, you got it."

Around the table the men nodded their heads and called him all kinds of names that amounted to the fact they thought he was a fool. I'd been studying each one of them and I still couldn't tell if the man was bluffing or not. But this action made several of the men nervous as one by one the first three folded, refusing to take Chuck up on his insanity.

Sam looked hesitant. The smart play at this point would be to fold. Chuck seemed pretty confident in his hand and I guessed he probably wasn't bluffing. However, I got the feeling these men knew each other well and maybe Sam saw something that I didn't.

The seconds ticked by as the tension between Sam and Chuck grew. The remaining men were also on edge to see the outcome even if they weren't directly involved. The rest of the room was quickly forgotten as the dealer hovered, waiting for someone to make a move.

"C'mon, Sam. Don't fall for this again."

"Shut up, Joe. We're out. That means we keep our opinions to ourselves."

That got most of the men around the table laughing, none of which seemed to distract Sam and Chuck from their showdown.

"Fuck it. Whether he's messing with me or not, I want to see those cards." Sam shoved his remaining chips into the middle of the table. "But first." He grabbed one of his thousand dollar chips and held it out to me.

"I almost forgot my new lucky charm. Want to give it a quick kiss for good luck?"

The men around the table groaned, including Chuck.

"Such a fucking flirt."

"He's just stalling."

I smiled. So far these men had asked me for nothing and I found them very entertaining. While I got the impression they all had a lot of money, they weren't stuffy and/or scary like my father's friends.

I leaned forward. "I'd be happy to kiss it for luck. But don't say I didn't warn you about my luck."

I kissed his chip and he tossed it into the pile.

"Let's see em," Sam demanded.

Chuck grinned and laid out his cards, revealing his four of a kind.

"Dayum," someone exclaimed.

But Sam wasn't tossing down his cards in frustration. Instead, he turned them over and revealed a straight flush, thus winning the hand and bankrupting Chuck from the game.

"Well, shit." Chuck slammed his hand down on the table and shut his eyes. "Thought for sure I had it on that one."

"Good game, gentleman." The dealer began cleaning up the cards. "I've got five minutes on the clock. Seems like a good time to take a break."

Everyone nodded.

I wanted so badly to congratulate Sam, but I didn't want to make Chuck feel bad about losing what seemed like a considerable amount of money. So I turned my attention to him.

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