Page 32 of Hell or High Water

“What about a six?” Gathe asked.

I turned to him. “My ranking.”

He frowned. “What ranking?”

I shrugged. “Than said all guys have a ranking. They rank females in their heads.”

Gathe nodded slowly with a confused look. “Yeah, we do, but”—he glanced at Than, then back at me—“my scale is a one to ten. What the fuck kinda scale is Than’s?”

“The same,” I replied.

Than remained quiet.

Gathe turned to him. “You told her she was a six?” he asked, and then he laughed and shook his head. “You’re not only an asshole, but a fucking liar.” Gathe’s eyes came back to me, and he reached out and took my chin. “Sweetheart, you look in a mirror every day. You gotta know that you’re not a six.”

“Are we gonna play, or are you gonna feed her ego?” Than asked.

My eyes cut to him as they narrowed. “I don’t have an ego.”

“You fucking should,” Gathe said, letting go of my chin and tapping the tip of my nose. “You’re a ten, and he knows it. He’s just being a dick.”

I wasn’t a ten, but Gathe liked me. He wasn’t hiding that fact. Than was annoyed with it because of Jericho. But it had been sweet of Gathe to say it.

“Are you gonna deal the flop, or do you want me to deal?” Than asked.

Gathe gave him an annoyed glance, then laid the next three cards face up on the bar. I slid another yellow to the pile in the middle.

Thirteen

Than

The first hand I’d passed off as beginner’s luck. Even the second hand. It was funny. Because although I wasn’t letting Gathe take her money, I sure as shit was making him pay her. But the third hand? I watched as she pulled the cereal pieces from the middle her way. She’d now won over a thousand dollars.

Reaching for the whiskey bottle, I poured another glass. “Looks like we’ve been swindled,” I told Gathe. I wanted to laugh, but I held it back.

I lifted my eyes to meet hers, and she stared at me. The uncertainty in them was mixed with a trace of amusement.

“Who taught you to play like that?” I asked her. “Because it sure as shit wasn’t Gathe’s poor instruction.”

She glanced at Gathe, then me before responding, “Tank. He was a bouncer at the Diamond Club. Where my mom worked. There were times I had to go to work with her because Ms. Bartheson couldn’t stay with me. Tank would let Sting, the other bouncer, handle the door while he sat in the back office with me and we played cards. Sometimes, Peg, the owner, would join us.”

Damn. Her mother had taken her to a strip club? How old had she been?

Gathe chuckled and shook his head. “Here I was, thinking you had some fucking incredible luck.”

She smiled at him and scrunched her nose. “Sorry. I’m not actually going to take your money though. I did it mostly for fun. I never get to play anymore.”

“Yeah, you are,” I said before Gathe could speak.

“I mean, if she doesn’t want to,” he started, and I cut him off with a warning glare.

“No, that’s too much,” she said, shaking her head. “I was just seeing if I could still do it.”

“We were scammed by a girl,” I told her. “You’re taking the money. We deserve to lose it.”

She rolled her eyes at me, and then a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You were scammed by a six,” she said smugly.

Gathe burst out laughing, but I continued to watch her. She was actually grinning at me. The kind of smile that made her dimples pop and her eyes twinkle. I liked it. Too much. I needed to not fucking like it, but I didn’t think that was humanly possible. Unless I found something out about her that made her the villain she was being accused of, I was screwed. At this point, I wasn’t sure she could do something that would make me not want her. Not to just fuck, but to savor. Slowly. In many ways.

---