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Daisy edited photos and videos, made content for her blog, and planned how to best use the last few days to win votes.
Noah concentrated on his laptop, head hunched over, typing furiously to get everything prepped for his consulting job. He was hyper-focused and in the zone when Daisy got up and started into a downward dog.
“Of course you do yoga,” Noah said.
“My butt is numb from sitting for so long. Isn’t yours?”
“Now that you mention it, yes,” he grumbled. “I hadn’t noticed until you said something.”
“Come try this pose with me,” she said, doing some sort of slow lunge with her hands over her head.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s not gonna happen. I think I’ll take a walk around the block and stretch my legs though.”
“Oh, yes. I’ll come with you. We can stop by the antique mall I saw a few blocks over.”
“Antiquing? You’re killing me. I was just talking about a quick break. I still have lots of work to do.”
“Okay, fine. We’ll skip the mall. But let’s pick up something for dinner.”
“Sold.” Hunger was approaching, and he had to stay ahead of that beast.
They walked to a Chinese restaurant and got Kung Pao chicken, chow mein, and egg rolls to go. After eating in the hotel room, Noah worked until his eyes wouldn’t focus while Daisy messed around on her phone.
As he stood to stretch, Daisy came up with a deck of cards she’d fished out of her bag. He wondered what shedidn’thave in there.
“Wanna play a game?” She tried to shuffle, but the cards got away from her, and she had to scramble to corral them.
He shrugged. It couldn’t hurt, and it was better than watching TV. “Okay. What game? And what are the stakes?”
“How about poker?” she said, still struggling to keep the cards together while shuffling. “Strippoker.” She raised an I-dare-you eyebrow.
He’d already seen her naked—an image he would never forget—and he didn’t think she’d go that far anyway, so what the heck?
“Sure.” He moved to the table where she sat and took the seat across from her.
“Okay,” she said. This time when she shuffled, she did some fancy bridge thing where all the cards fluttered perfectly in line. She cut the deck with one hand and tapped it decisively on the table. “Five-card draw. Duces wild.” The wicked gleam in her eye told him he’d just been played.
Fifteen minutes later, he sat in his boxer briefs, staring at her, still fully clothed. “Are you cheating?”
“No!” she said with an indignant look, which melted into a smile. “I probably should have mentioned though, that I was a dealer on a cruise ship for about six months.”
“Dealing doesn’t mean winning. You still have to come up with the cards.”
“Poker is more about reading people than having good cards. I mean, obviously, you need those too, but I’m just saying…”
He threw down his cards. “I quit,” he said, pulling on his pants.
“But things were just about to get interesting.” She laughed. “You deserve it for lying to me about not knowing ‘Country Roads.’ I knew you knew it.”
“Hah. The look on your face when I started playing was priceless.”
“Fine,” she said. “We even?”
He nodded. “Yes. We’re also done playing cards.”
She dealt out a game of solitaire and played a few games while he tried to refocus on his presentation.
Daisy’s phone, blaring Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” broke the silence. She looked at the caller ID. “My dad,” she muttered. “Probably gonna try to convince me to forget all this and come home.”
