Page 15 of Run for the Money

“How many have you had?” Nick asks.

“Cherries? Just the one.”

“Drinks, Melanie. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Zero,” I say with a shrug.

“Bullshit. There’s a drink in front of you. That’s at least one. I know today didn’t go the way we hoped, but that’s no reason to get sloshed tonight and torpedo the final before it even starts,” he says in a low, dangerous voice.

“Not drinking pisses off the bartender, drinking pisses you off…can’t please anyone tonight, can I?” I muse.

The bartender comes back with Nick’s beer and my unnecessary water. Nick hands him some cash, then asks, “I’m her coach, and I need to know how drunk she is. How many have you served her tonight?”

“None of your business,” I say at the same time the bartender says, “Just the untouched cocktail in front of her.”

Nick clears his throat uncomfortably. “Right. Keep the change.”

Then we’re alone again, inside the happy hour crowd. The music is too loud, and someone nearby is wearing way too much cheap cologne, but it’s better than staring at the ceiling above the bed and feeling sorry for myself.

“Seems I owe you an apology,” Nick says gruffly. “Any particular reason you’re not-drinking in the bar tonight?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Needed company. Noise,” I answer.

He nods and takes a gulp of his beer. I stare at the foamy bubbles from the egg white froth floating slowly through the golden liquid in my highball glass. My tongue is sticky from the super-sweet cherry, so I sip the water. Despite the hours I spent ignoring Nick today, this silence is somehow the most awkward. Every minute or so, he turns to me like he’s going to say something, then stops.

“You’ve got…stuff,” he says finally, poking at the corner of his eye with an index finger. “Just here. Black flecks.”

Wonderful—leftover mascara from my hysterical sob-fest. I thought I’d gotten that all mopped up. I swipe at my left eye a few times and the tiny flecks of mascara transfer to my fingers. I wipe them off on a napkin, but Nick shakes his head.

“You missed—here, I’ll get it.”

He angles my head toward the ceiling with both hands, and then wipes an unexpectedly gentle thumb against my cheekbone, just below my left eye. My stomach flips over and my lungs forget what they’re supposed to do. Then his hands fall away as suddenly as they grabbed my face. I blink at him, slack jawed and speechless.

“I owe you another apology,” he says.

Who is this man, and what did he do with Nick Korbel?

“Can we let the alcohol thing go?” I beg. I’ve moved on to the part of the night wherehe just cradled my face in his hands. What was that? Ishedrunk?

“I meant about this morning. In the car. I went by your room to apologize, but you weren’t there, so…anyway, can I just do it now? Then we never have to talk about it again.”

“Be my guest,” I say, my interest piqued.

He cracks a few knuckles and his jaw tenses. “It’s…kind of a long story. But you’re right that it’s your business, since I dragged you into my life. I don’t have financial problems. I have a problem with my father, and he has financial problems.”

He pauses, but I get the sense that interrupting him would only make it harder for him to keep talking. Instead of fixing me with his usual piercing glare, he’s staring at the last third of his beer. His right heel taps rapidly against the rung of his barstool. Sharing this is a big deal to him, clearly.

“He’s a gambler. Has been as long as I can remember, but it probably started earlier,” he continues. “It was a pretty big part of my parents’ divorce. After they split, he wanted custody of me, so he worked hard to clean his act up enough to convince a judge I’d be safe in his house—and worthy of child support payments from my mom. It worked. Mom traveled a lot for work, but Dad had a stable job at the racetrack in Del Mar, so that’s where I had to live.”

“California?” I ask, confused. “But Lisa was based out of Colorado.”

“You’re skipping a few chapters, Miss Manners,” he chides. “Be patient.”

I mime zipping mylips.

“Yes, I’m from California. Mom was based out of San Diego back then, so I still saw her when she was in town. Getting back to the relevant story—my dad was in Del Mar. Stupid choice for a gambler to work at a racetrack, but that’s the kind of choice Nicholas Korbel, senior, excels at. He wasn’t supposed to, but he bet on the races at work. He was good enough—or lucky enough—to keep his head above water most of the time. Barely. I started working as soon as I was old enough ’cause I was tired of eating ramen noodles and having the power shut off every few months. Eventually Mom got sick of California and asked me to move to Colorado with her so we could both have a fresh start. So I did.”

“That must have been hard,” I say, my chest aching for the unhappy kid trapped inside the man beside me. “How old were you? I can’t imagine having to pick between my parents.”

---