I just don’t want her to be disappointed.
Unfortunately, I can manipulate a lot in her favor, but there are two things I can’t touch: the New Jersey lottery and her career.
One, because it’s illegal, and I can’t take care of her from prison.
Two, because her career is all hers, and I never want her to think it’s anything but.
I hold my breath as I watch the dice fall, and then stop, a three and a four.
“Oh my god!” she yells, jumping up and down and shouting. The room erupts with her, but she only has eyes for me as she jumps into my arms. “I am so lucky, and everything works out for me!”
“You really are,” I murmur into her hair, relief rushing through me.
“Again!” Claire yells, but June looks over her shoulder and shakes her head. I let out the breath I’d been holding.
“I think that was enough testing my luck, even for me,” she says, giving me a wide, happy grin. I nod eagerly, and Grant laughs from beside her. We cash out, then once more, I pull her into my side.
“Now what, birthday girl?” I ask, pulling her into me, pressing my lips to hers gently. When I pull back, her eyes are just a bit dazed, a happy soft smile on her lips.
“We could go back to the room,” she murmurs, voice low and filled with implication.
I pick up on it and instantly want to live out those implications.
“We could,” I say low, my hand tightening on her waist.
“Absolutely not,” Claire says, moving closer and pushing us apart.
“Claire, babe, let them—” Miles starts, but she gives him a fierce look, and he stops, lifting his hands.
“No, we’re here to party, and we are going to party.” She turns to me. “You got that reservation, right?”
I bite back a groan, remembering that I did, in fact, reserve a party box at a club at Claire’s request. I nod, knowing thatregardless of my desire to take June back to our room, she’ll have fun with what her best friends have planned.
“Let’s go party, lover boy.”
We’re in the private room that Claire and Sutton helped me pick out for a total of five minutes, just long enough for the girls to ooh and ahh over the view and the luxury before the opening chords of some song I vaguely remember fill the club. June and Claire turn to one another and scream.
“It’s our song!” Claire shouts, and then, as if there’s some unspoken understanding I’m not privy to, June kisses me before all of the girls hustle down to the main dance floor. When the door shuts behind them, I stare at it for a moment before looking to Miles, who looks far less confused than I, an old pro at this, it seems.
“Do I want to know?” I ask.
“Would the idea of Claire and June dancing on a bar top scare the fuck out of you?” Miles counters. My eyes widen, and he grins, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, you don’t want to know. Might as well have a drink: it’s gonna be a long night, my man.”
We move to the bar, each of us grabbing a drink before settling into the barstools at the edge of the room. Part of the reason I chose this particular club was the ability to look out over the main dance floor from the private rooms, and I spot June dancing with the girls.
“How panicked were you out there?” Miles asks, and when I look to him, there’s a wide grin on his lips that I don’t quite understand.
“Panicked?”
“She put a grand on a craps table thinking she was lucky,” he says. I stare for a moment, unsure of how to respond, before settling on ignorance, lifting my shoulder with nonchalance, and taking a sip of my beer.
“She is lucky.”
"Sure, she is, but that luck isn’t all natural," he says, his grin widening.
I should have known.
I should have known that stepping outside of my carefully laid plans and asking Miles to tell her that her car issues were just small fixes was a bad idea, but I couldn’t help myself.
