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“I promise. It was ingrained into me early on to never pull a stunt like that.” Not that he’d ever been involved in a game with his friends where a hundred-dollar bill ever hit the table.
“You weretaughtto cheat at cards?” Tess asked, still wearing the remnants of her frown, though his explanation so far had caused its fullness to dwindle.
“Well, sort of. No, actually, yeah, I was. I’ve got an uncle who spent twenty-five years working for casinos in Vegas. His job was tofindpeople who cheated in casinos, keep the swindlers out, stuff like that.”
“Sounds like he should have arrested you,” Avril said, continuing her grumbling.
“He would have, and easily,” Liam said, smiling at the memories his words summoned. “When I was kid, he got me into cards. Rather, he got me into trying to get one over himwithcards. He said he’d take me to Vegas right then and there if I ever did. He taught me all the stuff I needed to know, went back to Nevada, and then I’d have a few months to practice before he’d show up for another visit, catch every move I tried to make, and give me some pointers for the next time. Rinse, repeat.” Liam shook his head. “I still haven’t gotten that trip to Vegas. He gets me every time.”
“Vegasispretty fun,” Avril said, her overexaggerated grumpiness eroding. “So, now that you’ve swindled all of us be a good magician and show your tricks.”
“Wouldn’t that make me abadmagician?” Liam asked, recalling the phrase about what good magicians never did.
“Shut up and show off your damn tricks.”
Anna and Tess echoed a desire to see him reveal how he’d achieved what he’d promised he would in the notebook, and Liam—as he’d always intended to do so—agreed.
“So, I just pretty much manipulated the deck to put the cards I wanted where I wanted them. Which I did with a combination of things. False shuffles being one of the bigger ones.”
He waved at the final hand still sitting in front of the women. Once they’d pushed those cards back over his way, he rebuilt the deck, then began to shuffle exactly as he had during the game. As the cards blurred and noisily thrummed as their stocks were bent and released, he dropped his gaze. There, there, there, and… there.
“Okay,” he said once he’d finished altering the deck as he’d liked. “Did anyone catch that?”
Four sets of eyes looked at him, then glanced between each other, and then returned to him. He received only shaken heads as his answer.
Smiling, Liam flipped the first card. And then second. And then the third. And finally, a fourth.
“Well, damn,” Avril said as she smirked, the last flecks of playful surliness dissipating in the face of the four aces again flipped over on the table.
“I really didn’t see anything,” Anna said, equally wowed. Her mint-green eyes lifted from the table, staring at him with mild astonishment.
“I’ll do it slower this time,” he said. “It’s about finding the cards I want, bookmarking them, then having them end up where I want them to be when I need them. All that’s important is that itlookslike they’re headed back into the deck, even though they’re not going anywhere.”
To elaborate on his point, this time, as he added the aces back into the deck, he let them see how his right hand pushed the aces barely a quarter inch further to the left, which usually would be obfuscated by his left hand sitting in the way, from the deck. Eyes lit up like Christmas trees.
“They’d usually look like they’re back in the deck, right?” Liam smiled. “Now, I just false shuffle a few times, make it look like it’s a fair game, and yet….”
He flipped four cards off the top again. Four aces reappeared.
“I can put them wherever I want—it’s like breathing to me at this point. Sometimes, I’ll even have the card or cards I want on the bottom and then deal those. It’s mostly all basic misdirection and dexterity, though base dealing is way easier if I give myself those cards.”
“That’s very impressive,” Anna said, smiling genuinely. “I don’t think I would have ever realized you’d done all this if you hadn’t revealed it.”
Liam accepted her compliment with a slight bow. “My uncle would cook me on a spit if he found out I cheated anyone for real. I’m glad none of you are upset with me for commandeering the game so I could show off a little.”
“Speak for yourself!” Avril said with a grunt. “You’re not the one losing out in this arrangement.” She crossed her arms. “The whole thing was a sham, so the prize should be voided.”
“I think it’sparticularlyfitting,” Tess said. “You manipulated things to have your way, and now you’ve been manipulated into apologizing for it.”
“Well said,” Victoria agreed. “You deserve worse for doing what you did.”
While Avril continued to grumble and moan, Liam focused on the subtle sharpness he’d just heard in Victoria’s voice. Between her and Tess, hard as it was to judge the olive-complexioned woman, she seemed the more irritable over the reveal of Avril’s grand deception. There’d also been their initial meeting at Tess’s.
Now that he knew she was as close to Avril as she was to Tess, he supposed she might have been an actor in, or at least privy to, their plan to introduce him and Anna. It was also possible that she’d beenagainstthe idea, not for it.
Liam clicked his tongue on the floor of his mouth, deciding that was his current running theory. He planned to confirm its veracity with Tess or Avril once he got the chance.
“Okayyy,” Avril said, sticking her tongue out at all of them. “I’m sorry I helped start a wonderful relationship with my nefarious deeds.”
