Page 2 of Gambler's Fallacy

Havoc sighs. “I don’t know, Seven.” He looks at the other cards on the table, and I know he’s doing mental math. “Hit, I guess.”

“Go for it,” I tell the dealer.

She flips over another card, and bitter disappointment races through me as I get another fucking seven.

Twenty-two.

I let out an aggrieved sound and shove the chips to her, realizing I have now lost almost seven thousand dollars.

I should take a break for a few days, but I know I’ll be back in the morning to try again.

“Okay, okay,” I tell Havoc. “Let’s go.”

Havoc lets go of me, but he glances at the dealer. “Hey, Tina, this is Seven. He’s a regular. Don’t let him play more than one thousand before you kick him off the table.”

“Hey!” I say hotly.

Tina’s eyes widen, and I can tell she’s trying to figure out how much trouble she’s in. “Yes,sir,” she says.

Great. I glare at Havoc and shove his arm. “Now it’s going to takedaysto win back what I lost,” I snap.

Havoc rolls his eyes. He draws me away from the table, and I press against him even though I’m mad at him. “Remember that thing where the house always wins, Seven? You aren’t going to earn it back,” he says quietly. “You have to cut your losses.”

“My luckhasto change,” I tell him earnestly. “I lost like… five times in a row. I was eventually going to win, and with…” I trail off when I see the look on his face, then sigh. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try to be more careful. I just… I have nothing to fucking do all day.” He probably won’t buy the misdirect, even though it’s not entirely untrue.

I’m really, really fucking bored.

“Vortex says Linda could use your help backstage,” Havoc says mildly as we walk toward the restaurant. “I bet the queens would love having you as a stagehand, too.”

I shift uncomfortably at the mention of Linda.

I know she’s nice, and the drag queens consider the event manager a mother figure. But it’s not like I have any reason to like mother figures, and I know that her persona could be a front.

I don’t want to be hurt by that when I see her true colors.

Smile for me, baby. We’re having a good time.

“Yeah, maybe,” I say unenthusiastically.

“You gotta do something other than gamble,” Havoc says. “I know I’ve got no place to judge, but… Caleb says you aren’t watching TV, you don’t touch the video game system, and you haven’t bought a single book on that e-reader we got you.”

I haven’t been able to find much of anything on TV I enjoy, the video games are overwhelming, and I don’t know how to find books — but that isn’t something I want to tell them because they’ll insist on teaching me.

And when they decide I need to learn something, they go all out.

I hate it.

“Gambling is more fun,” I lie.

“It’s not,” Havoc disagrees.

By the time we arrive at the restaurant, I’m stewing with resentment. I take the opposite end of the table from Havoc, even though normally I would slide into the same side.

“Okay, so. What are we going to do in the afternoon?” Havoc asks after the waitress gets our drink order. “Caleb says it should be okay for us to take a car and visit a museum or something.”

I stare at him, uncomprehending. “What?” I had to have heard him wrong. There’s no way Caleb would’ve decided that it’ssafefor me to leave the casino when we’re still waiting for some sort of retribution from my family. “Really?”

“Yeah. We’ll be careful, and Vortex will be there too,” Havoc says. “We can’t walk the streets but a quick hop over?” He takes a sip of his water. “I argued for a small hike in the mountains, but that got vetoed.”

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