Page 61 of Gambler's Fallacy

It’s a picture of Nacho, who’s sleeping with his face planted in the covers. I smile at it, sending a quick text back.

Cute, but not as cute as you.

I pause, then add a smiley face that makes me feel like I’m fifteen years old again.

I tense when Connie approaches and looks at my phone screen

“Aww, what a cute kitty.” She reaches out for my phone, and I instinctively pull it away. “What? I wanted to see a bigger version of the pic.”

I don’t want her to see the line of texts, though, especially if Seven decides to get graphic in his reply. “I’ll forward it to you,” I tell her. “Come on, let’s finish up here.”

Connie pouts but gets into position. She takes a wild swing and groans. “Great. That’s never getting past…”

She trails off when her ball miraculously avoids getting deflected by the devil’s axe. It goes into the left tunnel, and we both rush to the other side to see where the ball ends up.

It’s still going strong, going right past the hole. That should be the end of it, but it hits the beam on the other end, bounces back—and lands neatly into the hole.

We both stare at the hole for a few seconds.

“Oh my god,” Connie says. “Oh my god!”

“Holy shit.” I shake my head. Neither of us have ever managed this hole in less than four strokes.

“A hole in one!” Connie shouts, and she grins widely. “I did it!”

Her joy is contagious, and I slide my phone into my pocket so I can give her a high five. “That was great,” I tell her with an answering grin before teasing, “Not that you can ever do it again.”

“I won!” Connie declares. “This hole is worth like, ten times the other holes. This is an insta-win!”

I pull out the small scoring sheet. “Nope, I’m pretty sure I’m still in the lead?—”

“Nuh-uh! I win!” Connie takes the sheet from me and rips it in half. “I beat the devil, and I didn’t even have to sell my soul!”

I chuckle at that, deciding to let her have this. “All right, all right. You win. This time. But that hasn’t happened in… oh, five years?”

Connie knocks her fist against my shoulder. “You’ll see! This is the start of my winning streak.” Her expression turns sly. “This means you’re buying lunch, right?”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah,” I tell her. “Where do you want to go?”

“We can grab hot dogs from the vendor across the street,” Connie says. She gets the ball out so we can return all the equipment. “I’ve got a meeting with Ylona—my new TerBaby—in forty minutes anyway.”

I want to groan at the mention of herTerBaby, but I keep it in check. “Yeah, okay,” I tell her. We check the equipment back in and head over to the vendor, where I buy us both hot dogs. “Thanks for coming with me,” I tell her. “It’s been a while since we’ve been here, huh?”

“Yeah,” Connie agrees. She takes her hot dog, which is loaded with every topping available. “Work’s been keeping us both busy. But I had a lot of fun.”

“I did, too.” I take a bite of my hot dog, my attention wandering back to Seven. He’d texted back, but I haven’t looked at it yet.

“So, um,” Connie gets suspiciously quiet. “You know, now that I have a TerBaby, I need more product to sell to her.”

“I thought you had plenty of product,” I tell her, baffled. “You’d had a ton left over.”

“Well, it’s how it works, right? If I don’t keep up with the releases, I lose my discount and have to start back at the bottom,” Connie says. “I’ve got a forty percent discount now. After I get Ylona signed up, I only need two more TerBabies to level up for the half-off.”

I know where this is going, and it kills my appetite.

“What about the rest that you had to sell?” I persist. “Didn’t you make enough to cover new purchases from that?”

She’s going to tell me it’s out of season or something. I brace myself for some other story that’s going to result in her asking me for money again.

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