Page 34 of Crossroads of Innocence
“Pretzels?” Mia asked, clearly puzzled.
As if on cue, Chet plucked an unopened bag of pretzel sticks from beside his chair.
Jude groaned and let her head fall to the table.
Chuckling, Wade opened the bag and handed them each a pile of the fake currency. “We never had any money or poker chips when we played, so we always used pretzels. Jude just wanted to eat them, but we told her she couldn’t unless she won—which she never did.”
Jude snapped up her head and pointed a finger at Wade then Chet. “You guys cheated.”
Wade threw up his palms. “I would never, and I’m appalled you’d accuse me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well, I suck at poker,” Mia said. “So don’t worry, you won’t be the last one out this time. I’ll be gone way before anyone else. And don’t even think about scolding me for eating my currency.”
“I think Chet stacked the deck,” Jude said, studying her hand. “That was always your favorite trick. Remember the time Laurie caught you cheating? She was so mad. Picked up the whole deck and tossed it across the room.” She winced then shot a nervous glance at Mia. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t…”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Chet said, smiling. “We talk about Laurie and Riley a lot. It’s nice to tell old stories.”
Mia reached for his hand. “I wish I could have met them.”
A ping of sadness echoed inside Wade. He was happy as hell Chet had found Mia, but it’d never erase the pain of what had happened to Laurie and Riley. Chet’s wife and daughter would always be missed, but it was nice to keep their memories alive. Something Chet never allowed before he’d fallen for Mia.
Jude plucked a pretzel from her pile and hoisted it in the air. “Well then, to Laurie. And Riley, who I’d give anything to have met.” Her voice caught and tears made the blue of her eyes shimmer.
Chet dipped his chin and picked up a pretzel of his own.
Wade and Mia followed suit, saluting the missing members of their circle who’d never be forgotten.
The next two hours were filled with laughs, reminiscing, and Jude asking Mia countless questions. Wrigley and Macey slept by the fire, heads popping up at sudden shouts or rounds of laughter. As Chet and Mia’s pretzel piles dwindled, Jude’s smile grew. A lot had changed since the last time they’d sat at a table and played a friendly game of cards, but he’d never expected Jude to be good at poker.
“Four of a kind,” she said, a smug grin lifted one side of her mouth. She swooped her hand over her bounty and pulled it into her growing pile. “I won again.”
Shaking his head, Wade tipped back in his chair. He only had a few pretzels left, and his pride dangled by a string. “How are you doing this? You were always so bad at this game.”
She shrugged and shuffled the cards. “Maybe I wasn’t as bad as you thought.”
“No,” Chet said. “You were pretty terrible.”
“Or was I a silly girl who didn’t want to injure her boyfriend’s confidence and also hated playing cards?”
“What?” Chet and Wade shouted in unison.
She giggled. “Laurie hated this dumb game, too. We’d pretend to lose so we could stop playing. When she threw those cards? We wanted to go to a movie you guys wouldn’t have taken us to. Gave us the perfect excuse to leave in a huff and go without you two following.”
Wade’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me? All that time, it was just a lie?”
The accusation exploded in the room like a grenade, as though the statement encompassed more than two teenage girls tricking their boyfriends a decade ago. It was like he’d scraped up the balm they’d slapped over the ugly truth of all the circumstances that had led them to this place.
The teasing glint left her eyes, all amusement gone from her smile. “No. Not a lie,” she said, her stare fixed squarely on him. “Nothing about what happened back then was a lie.”
He swallowed hard, unsure of how to respond. An awkward silence settled over the table, louder than he thought possible. Dammit, he was an idiot to think a friendly game of poker could erase the dark cloud that hovered above him since he’d laid eyes on Jude the night before. Erase the tension and simmering bitterness from the conversation he and Jude hadn’t finished before Chet and Mia arrived.
“It’s getting late,” Mia said, raising to her feet. “Chet and I should get back home. Early mornings tomorrow.”
Chet scooped all the cards from the table and shoved them back in their holder.
“I’m sorry,” Jude said. “I made it weird. Wade was just teasing, and I turned it into something I shouldn’t have.”
