Page 14 of Fortuity

“I was just defendingmyself,man.”

“You should’ve let us do our jobs, Mr.Montgomery.”

“It was pure instinct without any thought behind it.” I dropped my hands and shrugged my shoulders. “Hell, I didn’t even know I was going to throw that punch until it wasalreadydone.”

“Next time, step back and let us handle the situation. It’s why they keep us around, and we’re damn good atourjobs.”

My attention locked on his first two words. “Can I take that to mean I’m notbanned?”

“Keep your head down, stay outta trouble, leave the fighting to us, and you should be fine.” His gaze moved to my cheek, and he shook his head with a low chuckle. “At the very least, we’re more likely to be the one giving someone else a black eye than ending up with one of our own at the end of ashift.”

I lightly pressed my fingertips against the upper part of my cheek and winced. He was right; a bruise was already forming underneath myeye. “Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna leaveamark.”

The guard smirked at me, but I didn’t see the humor in the situation. I wasn’t going to be able to hide the bruise from my parents since I was supposed to have dinner with them in less than two hours. They were bound to assume my black eye was connected to gambling since we’d fought about it over the past couple of years. I could try coming up with a convincing cover story, but I was a shit liar when it came to my parents and they were bound to see through it anyway. I was sofucked.

“I’ll be sure to leave it to you guys if anything happens again,” I promised before walking out the door they’d led me through after the altercation. I kept going, moving quickly through the casino and out to the parking lot since I didn’t want to give them a reason to reconsider their decision to let me come back again. Although the rush of punching that asshole had felt damn good, it wasn’t worth losing my gambling fix. And that’s just what it wasforme.

Afix.

Ahigh.

And if you asked my parents, one I needed to avoid like the plague because I was perilously close to becoming addicted. But I wasn’t. I had it under control. Completely. I just enjoyed the escape gambling gave me, and it was a hell of a lot better than turning to alcohol or drugsinstead.

To anyone on the outside looking in, I had everything a twenty-one-year-old guy could possibly want. Great parents. Good grades. A brand-new car. Money. A killer internship and more job prospects than I knew what to do with. But it was only because they didn’t look too deep. Either that or I did too good of a job at hiding the pain I struggled with each andeveryday.

---