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“Happy?” he asked.
I sipped my rum. “Ecstatic.”
Brooke shot me a half smile across the table, and I gave her the same.
Once all the cards were out before us, I picked up my hand and started sorting my pile—left to right in order of importance. Spades on the far right, and everything else broken up by suit on the left.
The ace and king of diamonds, king, queen, and jack of spades were my only face cards. Everything else was shit. The only clubs I had were low—a three, eight, and five.
I did have five spades total though, and only two hearts—a two and five. The other spades were low—five and ten. I had to count the king and queen of spades, but with the ace out, I couldn’t count all three. Any of my spades could get trumped over by the ace. Still adecenthand, but not a great hand.
Considering how few hearts I had, I had to count at least one of my spades as a trick. I had four for sure, and two that could go either way depending on how the cards fell.
But I wasn’t an underbidder.
“How ya doin’ over there, Tommy?” Eric asked beside me.
“Seen better days. What about—”
“No table talk,” Brooke said just as I opened my mouth to say the same.
I chuckled, smirking her way as I sipped my rum. “Our bet. You ready?”
Brooke’s crystal blue eyes slid over her cards for a moment. She nibbled her thick, red bottom lip, deep in focus. “At max, three.”
“Could count that as table talk too, princess,” Tommy said.
“We’ll call it even then,” Brooke said. “What about you, Declan?”
“Six,” I said. “We going nine then?”
“That’d only leave four books out,” Brooke said.
“That’s the idea.” I glanced between Eric and Tommy, thinking that if we played them right, we could set them a hundred behind if they didn’t get those four open books. We were only playing to two-fifty, and if we got ten books on our first hand, we’d be almost halfway to the finish line. “Up to you though. Nine or eight.”
She bit her bottom lip a moment longer, still squinting at her hand.
That was such a pretty expression. She didn’t look confused or scared, but focused. Like she was flicking through each of her cards and considering how they could play out on the table as detailed as I was.
Her eyes flipped up to mine, and I shot her a smile. Couldn’t call an expression table talk.
She studied me the same way she studied the cards for a moment. I let my smirk widen, and one came to hers too. “Alright. Nine.”
Tommy laughed. “I got three.”
“I got one,” Eric said. “We going four?”
Tommy glanced at Brooke and smiled. The kind that said,This pretty girl doesn’t know what she’s betting. “Five it is.”
“Well, someone’s getting set.” Brooke dropped the ace of hearts to the tabletop.
“Wonder who it’ll be.” Eric laid down a three of hearts.
I placed my two on top. “Guess we’ll see.”
Tommy tossed out a seven of hearts.
I collected the trick, and Brooke threw out the king of hearts, shooting me a look as she did. A look that said,is this gonna go through? Because this was my one of three.
