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Right back at you,Liam thought.
Recollecting the cards, he shuffled. And as he shuffled, he glanced at the deck. More specifically, he glanced at the card he’d already buckled at the bottom of the deck by sliding his index finger underneath the deck toward his body, bending it in such a way that, with his specific grip on the deck, no one else could see.
A king. Perfect.
It took him barely any effort to bookmark that card and then false shuffle the deck, the cards sliding like they were being randomly shuffled, when in reality, the king was in the precise spot he wanted it to be the entire time—on top of the deck. Finishing his false shuffle, he then followed up with another act of sleight of hand.
He smoothly dealt the second card to Tess, which he’d spotted as a six, and not a soul at the table noticed. The king, now face down as they were playing normally, went to Anna.
His first two swindles went unnoticed. Before all was said and done, he had a couple hundred more in store for the game.
Anna won, twenty to his eighteen, as did Victoria. Tess only managed seventeen before standing, and Avril busted. Liam opened the notebook to the first page and tallied the round.
This was why he’d told them not to bet anything valuable. As he shuffled and dealt the second hand, he decided Avril would play more aggressively if she got an early Blackjack—so he gave it to her.
There weren’t many times he wanted to show off, but cards were his domain, and he wanted to strut his stuff a little bit, especially after Avril’s continuous crooning the past few days. He wasn’t sure if it would earn the chuckles and playful glares he was hoping for when he revealed what he’d written on the second page of the notebook, but he hoped no one would leave the table angry. Since most of them had followed along with Anna’s bet, he didn’t think they’d be upset when she won.
And for the one who might be, he suspected she’d be more impressed with his boldness than the fact that he’d manipulated the results.
Which he did every single hand, giving four sets of eyes dozens of opportunities to catch him in the act. No one did. Because of it, nearly every hand went as he intended it to.
He set up Anna’s comeback early on. By giving Avril the lead but then making her fight for it with himself, Tess, and Victoria, he quietly kept Anna two or three rounds behind for most of the game. Her acumen and quick growth as a player helped; he’d have had to make things a lot more blatant to keep her where he needed her to be otherwise. She played the hands he gave her pretty well for a novice player.
Avril celebrated each hand and groaned at each defeat. She was the best kind of player for the scheme he was running, a focal point for the rest of the table. Whenever he shuffled, the small talk that permeated the game picked up, further enabling him to run away with false shuffling, bookmarking, and all manner of illegal dealing.
It was hard not to show any satisfaction at how smoothly everything was going.
“You know,” Avril said, eyeing him during a pause while Anna had headed to the restroom, “I tried my best to get these three to dress up all formally, like we were playing in a high-stakes casino. Wouldn’tthathave been something? Cocktail dresses, long slits down the thigh, sexy, sexy, sexy. I almost convinced a couple of them to go along with it.”
“You most certainly did not,” Tess said, drawing Avril’s attention to her mild exasperation. “You overestimate how persuasive you are.”
A languid grin appeared on Avril’s face as she redirected her gaze toward him. “Is that so? I think I can be pretty persuasive.”
Color seeped into Liam’s face, but Tess and Victoria’s attention thankfully remained affixed to the redhead, not his red face. It also prompted a rare response from Victoria, who’d mostly remained quiet during the game.
“Tricking two people is not the same as being persuasive, Avril.”
Avril’s eyes lingered on him a little longer, and they both knew her cellphone gambit wasn’t what she’d been referring to.
“Not this again,” she said with an embellished groan. “Things worked out in the end for everyone involved. I’m practically Cupid.”
“The ends don’t justify the means,” Tess said.
“Agreed,” Victoria added.
Avril swiftly held up her hands. “Okay, okay, let’s not turn this into an ethics debate, professors! Let’s just agree to disagree. I know I could never keep up with you two.” She looked back at him. “You see these two picking on me? I’m just a lowly environmental studies major.”
Words that brought forth a snort from Tess. “In all my years of teaching, I’ve never had a student willing to debate with me as often as you—and you don’t just roll over, either. Don’t spread lies, Avril.”
Victoria nodded along with every statement. “I don’t even teach a class designed for debate, yet you find a way to include one nearly every lesson.”
“See?” she insisted, still staring at him. “They just pick on me relentlessly.”
Liam tilted his gaze slightly to the right. A question he’d wanted to ask since she’d arrived finally felt cooked enough to pull out of the oven.
“What do you teach at Bellmore?”
Two icy blue eyes refocused on him. “Ecology.”
