“Itissimple,” I said defensively. “You’ll get it. Trust me.”
“Trusting you sounds like a bad idea.”
“Probably,” I said, and there was a hint of honesty in that. I flipped three cards into the center, taking in each number and suit. “This is the flop. Then we bet.”
“With what?”
I paused. Right.No money. So much for taking him for everything he was worth, which, based on his whole yogi vibe, didn’t seem like much anyway. He probably lived in a tent on the beach like some kind of minimalist. “We’ll just play for pride, I suppose. Or fun, if you will.”
“I’m unfamiliar with the value of that.” His face remained stoic, and I couldn’t tell if he hated this or just had anextremelygood poker face.
“Wow,” I muttered. “You’re really fun at parties, aren’t you?”
“I don’t attend parties.”
“Yeah, that tracks.” I laughed and continued explaining the rest, filling in the details as we went, and before I knew it, we were actually playing. Or, more accurately,Iwas playing andhewas learning.
At first, he was cautious, watching everything too closely, like he was trying to calculate every possible outcome before committing to anything. He folded early and often, clearly not trusting what he didn’t understand yet.
“You’re allowed to take risks, you know,” I told him.
“I prefer not to lose.”
“That’s not how poker works. Besides, every time you fold, I’m basically winning, so grow a pair and play,” I said with a laugh, shaking my head as I revealed my hand. “See? Pair of eights. You could’ve beaten that with anything decent.”
“I didn’t have anything decent,” he said, though there was a slight edge to his tone now, something just a little more invested. And I had a feeling this whole “playing for pride” thing was starting to matter to him more than he wanted to admit.
By the fifth hand, he had started to catch on, and by the eighth, he wasn’t watching the cards anymore.
He was watching me.
I didn’t exactly mind the way his gaze lingered, like he was trying to read something beneath the surface. It made me wonder if he was watching me to see through my poker face in the game, or if he was trying to see through my poker face and crack the façade I’d built to stay hidden in this town. Either way, it left me feeling a little nervous.
We played a few more hands as the thunder faded into background noise. For a moment, it almost felt normal. I leaned back slightly, eyeing my opponent, taking in the way he still held himself just a little too stiff, like even this simple game required control.
I bet, with the right motivation, Octavius Grouchy-Pants Yasu could actually be fun.
“You know what?” I said, like I’d just had the best idea I’d ever come up with. “Let’s make this interesting.”
I stood, crossing to the small cabinet and pulling out the one bottle I had managed to salvage from my previous life.
Whiskey. Expensive whiskey, at that. Well, stolen, technically. From Hugo, along with a few other things that had made my escape possible, including the pearl still resting against my collarbone, my quiet lifeline to Crescent Cove. But right now, the whiskey was what mattered.
I held it up, giving it a small shake in his direction. “What do you say?”
“I don’t drink often,” he said immediately.
I turned back toward him, lifting a brow. “Well, often is not a no.” I set the bottle down, grabbed two mismatched glasses, and poured a small amount into each. “Whoever loses the hand takes a shot.”
He looked at the whiskey like it had personally offended him, like he was considering interrogating it before making a decision. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“That’s the point,” I said easily. “It’ll be fun. Raise the stakes a little. So if you want to keep your wits about you, I suggest you start taking more risks in this game.”
He stayed quiet, clearly weighing it, his expression caught somewhere between suspicion and reluctant consideration.
“What?” I pressed, tilting my head. “Are you scared?”
His eyes flicked up to mine, something sharper settling into his gaze. “No, but—”
