I place my chips into the area of play and try not to look down at my incredibly diminished stack. I lost a very large hand to Hudson earlier in tonight’s game, leaving me to limp along for the last hour, trying to claw back some of the chips.
Hudson obviously notices the lack of remaining chips in front of me and nods. “All in.”
Normally, this kind of move would piss me the fuck off, this entire hand, really, playing blind like this. But not today. Not this week.
Emery is okay. She’s safe. And while there is nothing between the four of us and her right now, we have a plan, which she has access to if she would care to read the letter I gave her. I know that it is going to take time, and rushing her will only ruin things further between us.
And we don’t plan to rush her. She can take all the time in the world to come back to us. Or to really let us know that it’s over.But if she does decide to come back to us, to let us back into her life, then we will be waiting.
The power is in her hands.
All I can do is be there for her when she needs me and leave her alone when she asks me to.
Not having the pressure of trying to hold everyone’s futures on my shoulders has been such a relief that I’ve been a little high with it. I can acknowledge now that it was a self-imposed pressure. The compulsion to control all the pieces on our little chessboard is something I will always need to work on, but in this instance, I know it was my fear speaking.
Fear of losing the one person who feels like they’re the missing piece to our incomplete puzzle.
While that fear is still there, I have complete faith that everything is going to work out. Maybe not this week, or next, but eventually.
She hasn’t kicked Xavier out of her life.
She hasn’t changed classes.
She hasn’t returned her key card to the apartment.
She hasn’t disconnected from us on SugarLife.
All the signs point to her not beingdonedone with us. Just hurt, angry, and frustrated. She is one-hundred-percent entitled to those feelings, and I would never say otherwise. To be honest, I’m glad she is having them, because it means that she still cares and that she isn’t ready to walk away from all this.
Losing her would be beyond devastating, but it’s put a lot of little things into perspective for me.
Like the outcome of this poker game.
“Call,” I answer and pick up the last of my chips and toss them into the center. “Another fifteen hundred.”
The bet barely makes an indent in the stacks in front of Hudson as he removes a pile before going to flip both of his cards face up.
“One card?” I interrupt, reclining back in my seat, before he actually flips his cards.
Hudson’s face pinches for a millisecond as he considers me, like he can’t believe that I, Derek King, would offer to make the game more fun. “Sure.”
We both place our cards in the center but only show one, keeping the other face down. I turn over the two of spades, and he turns over the king of hearts. He has two pairs, while I only have one.
To his credit, Hudson doesn’t gloat, externally, at least.
He picks up the deck and deals out the last card. Six of clubs.
“Ready?” he asks as he reaches for his face-down card.
In response, I reach for mine and flip it over, a tidal wave of relief slamming over me. A six. Full house, sixes over threes.
Thank fuck.
Hudson bursts out laughing when he shows a jack of diamonds. “I shouldn’t have played blind. You would have folded on the flop if I had looked at my cards.”
Grinning, I reach into the center to rake in my chips as noisily as I can possibly manage. “Most likely.”
“Okay, while that was fun to watch, will someone please tell me what the threat was?” Darcy interjects, fingers tapping on the felt tabletop.
