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“Can you warn a man first?” he asked.
“Don’t bang down my damn door if you don’t want to know what I’m doing behind it,” I said.
“Just wanted to come by and let you know that the bulk of us are headed down to the slot machines and the poker tables downstairs. Jessica and Andrea just left with Flynn.”
I wanted to ask him if Andrea looked okay, but I bit down onto my tongue.
“Then is there a reason why you’re still standing here?” I asked.
“Nope. Got the hint. See you down there.”
Then Lucas turned on a dime and jogged toward the elevator.
Gambling. Great. An activity at the hotel. We couldn't go gambling anywhere else? I mean, anywhere else in the whole of Vegas? We hadn’t once left the hotel. Now would be a good time to do just that.
All of us. As a group.
It was our last full day in Vegas, for fuck’s sake. Why weren’t we going out and painting the town red? Taking in the restaurants? Gambling at all of the high-end casinos and treating the girls to a wild time? Not that Andrea needed any more of a wild time. What we didn’t need was one of the hotel employees slipping up on us and fucking us over. I tossed my towel into the corner and slipped an outfit out of my suitcase. If I didn’t come down to gamble, the brothers would know something was it. And Andrea would probably think I was avoiding her, which would only add fuel to her raging fire. And none of that was something I wanted. So, I pulled on my clothes and made my way downstairs.
My brothers and the girls were gathered around a blackjack table. Flynn was making all sorts of noise. Probably trying his hand at card-counting, though he was fucking terrible at it. Jessica sat by Lucas and was practically draped over him, hanging off him in a teeny little dress like most women did with their men in places like this. I saw Andrea standing at the corner of the table near an empty seat. She wasn’t sitting down. More like trying to keep everything bottled up inside.
If a puckered asshole manifested itself into a person, it would look the way Andrea did now.
“Relax,” I said as I walked over to her.
She jumped, like she didn’t even register the fact that anyone else was there.
“You look tense. Relax.”
“Easy for you to say,” she whispered.
I slid into the empty seat next to her and had the dealer deal me in. I tossed some chips onto the table and played a couple of rounds, and each one garnered me a few more wins than the last. Lucas kept clapping whenever I won, and Flynn was cheering like a drunk maniac already.
I looked at his drink and saw he wasn’t drinking anything else but a damn beer.
Lightweight.
“Looks like someone’s on a roll,” Jessica said, grinning.
“Nope. You can skip us. I want to see how much Everett’s going to rack up before tanking hard,” Lucas said.
The dealer kept her eyes on me and my wins kept pouring in. I had no idea how it was happening, but the chips in front of me kept piling up. Card after card was dealt, and I kept making good decisions no matter where I turned. Flynn clapped his hands while Lucas whooped and hollered. Jessica made some comment about the rest of the trip being on me as I looked up into Andrea’s eyes.
Even I could see her shock as the dealer dealt me in again.
“Looks like your wife is your lucky charm, Mr. Wilder.”
My eyes widened at what the dealer said as Andrea’s face paled. Off in the distance, I heard Jessica laugh. She made some crack about Andrea never doing anything with her life, much less getting married. A comment I would’ve been more than happy to fix on the spot had I not been so speechless. The dealer’s eyes flickered from Andrea’s to mine before she registered her fuck up, but by then it was too late.
Andrea’s face was stoic and pale, and my jaw practically swung on the top of the table.
“Andrea?” Jessica asked.
“Yes?”
“Could I see you for a second?”
I peered over at Jessica and saw her eyeing Andrea closely. She slipped from Lucas’ lap as my brother’s eyes landed on me and Flynn’s eyebrows hiked up. I whipped my head over to Andrea quick enough to watch Jessica pull her away from the table. She stumbled over her own two feet and I had to resist my immediate reaction to get up and help her steady herself.
