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She finally looks up, and even with her red-rimmed eyes, she’s still stunning. And sexy. Fuck, the way she responded to me in the car while she sucked off Kir with Vadik watching was goddamn hot. I’ll be jerking myself to that sight for a good long time.
I’d better commit it to memory, because soon, she’ll be out of our lives, most likely forever. That is, if Vadik has his way.
She looks around the room, gathering her thoughts. “I’m just wondering how someone like my dad gets fifty-thousand dollars in debt. That’s a lot of card games. Right?”
“How do you know that? The amount of your father’s debt?”
“Vadik told me.”
I can see her doing the math in her head. She has no idea. Yes, it took a lot of card games for her old man to rack up that sort of debt, so sure, he played a hell of a lot of cards. But we also have games where guys lose fifty-thousand dollars in onenight. It’s all relative.
Gil Gates did not hang with the high rollers, much as he might have liked to. No, he was on the low bet tables. And he losta lot. Obviously.
And yet kept coming back.
I’ve read it’s not the actual gamblingwinthat thrills people, but the setup.Will I or won’t I?The anticipation, the suspense, the thrill and the fear. The actual winning—or losing—is just the side show. The preparation, and the hope that one’s circumstances could change in an instant, is what keeps people coming back.
The promise ofmore. The promise ofnew. The promise ofreinvention.
What they don’t realize is that these are all just promises. Not guarantees.
I’ve seen people win large sums of money who actually look disappointed because they know that’s the point where they ought to cash out and go home. And sometimes they do. But more often, they keep gambling, sometimes for days at a time, staying awake with all manner of stimulants, until they lose every last penny. It’s almost a relief when this happens, because they know they get to start all over again.
A sad example ofit's the journey and not the destination. Or however that stupid saying goes.
That’s where the trouble starts. People like Gates run out of money, fast. And yes, we make loans, which only gets guys like him in further trouble. But we’re not fucking babysitters. We’re running a business and our players are expected to handle their own shit. A man gets in too deep? That’s on him.
“It took a long time, Charleigh, for your dad to get to the point where he is now. Years and years of winning a little and losing a little. Eventually the losses outweigh the wins and that’s where the debt starts to pile up. But he played for a long time. Before I was even working in the business. I mean, shit, I was still a kid when he was coming to my dad’s card games.”
“You remember him?” she asks, her voice rising in pitch.
“Vaguely. I used to come to work with my father. Against my mother’s wishes.” I laugh. “But I have a memory of you too.”
She frowns. “Me?”
It was only two years ago but feels like a lifetime. My parent’s funeral. Charleigh stood with her back to the wall, watching everything, waiting for her dad to get through the receiving line. She wasn’t like the other women there, overdone and tacky. Her hair was pulled into a tidy ponytail and she wore only red lipstick with her simple dress. Vadik noticed her. We all did. It was impossible not to.
I never expected to see her again. And yet, here we are.
“My parents’ funeral,” I say. The one where the coffins were closed, that’s how badly they were burned.
She swallows hard, the visual clearly not setting well with her. “Oh. Of course. Funny how you remember me from that day. I was trying to support Pops. He hates going to things alone.”
I don’t tell her that when I saw her more recently in her father’s shop, I recalled how her presence at the funeral two years prior was like a breath of fresh air. Coming across her at the pawn shop, when we were trying to get her father to settle his debts, was truly bizarre. There she was, an exquisite beauty, surrounded by all the junk her father was buying and selling.
Like a rose among thorns.
And she was even more lovely than the last time I saw her.
We are quiet for a minute, each of us most likely thinking about the strange turns that life takes.
She looks at me, the new bitterness in her voice now showing in her face. Her lips are a thin line, and her eyes are void of the light I usually see in them.
I wonder if it’s out permanently.
It’s bound to happen. It does with everyone involved in our world. If you don’t build yourself a hard shell, you get pummeled. And Charleigh’s building her shell.
I’m sorry to see this happen to her. I guess I thought she might escape unscathed. But when it comes down to it, no one’s immune.
