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Lachlan wasn’t a big one for plans, but once he set his mind to something, he accomplished it. And this would be no different.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HERINVITATIONTOLachlan’s poker game came over text, and she decided to whip up some cookie dough, since they had demolished all of it the night before. She also decided to bake some crescent roll appetizers, and collected some chips and dip. She liked to have a lot of snacks, and she found that Lachlan was often woefully under snacked. She hummed happily while she put everything in her car and got into the driver’s seat, ignoring the band of tension that seemed to stretch in her chest.
It had been a strange few days.
She was only human, she supposed, and the fancy restaurant, lovely meal and good company had made things feel a little bit more...genuine than they should have. It felt like something out of the ordinary, something that their friendship didn’t normally encompass.
And tea...
That moment where his beauty had felt specific. Not like a factual truth for anyone to observe, but something that lived deep within her.
But seeing him would make it better. Seeing him at a poker game, this very normal thing they’d done so many times.
There were a lot of trucks parked in front of Lachlan’s cabin. It was a pretty small space, but they had gotten good at cramming in when he hosted a poker night. She recognized Tag and Nelly’s truck, and Hunter and Elsie’s. But there was a golden, newer truck that she couldn’t place.
She got out of her car, her bowls of snacks stacked in her arms.
She walked up the front porch, and to the door, tapping it with her foot, since she didn’t have any free hands. The door jerked open, and Lachlan was standing there. “For heaven’s sake.” He reached out and unburdened her completely. “Don’t try to carry everything in one trip,” he scolded.
“But if I do two trips, I lose the game.”
“What game?”
“The one-trip game. Which I’m playing only against myself.”
“Wow.”
She shrugged that off and walked in, and when she saw the spread of people there, she froze. Because there was Fia Sullivan. Sitting in a chair at the table, with a deck of cards in front of her, her red hair swept up into an effortlessly messy bun. She was pretty. Incredibly pretty.
“Hi, Charity,” Fia said, completely oblivious to the momentary pang of... Well, she wasn’t actually certain what it was, but it was intense. And very real. And it made her feel about like she needed to double over to catch her breath.
“Hi,” she said.
She went straight to the kitchen where her bowl of cookie dough was and preheated the oven, then went hunting for a cookie sheet. She was just going to keep busy.
“Go ahead and do the first round without me,” she said. “I’ll just... I have the cookies.”
She listened as everybody negotiated and haggled over the first hand—what the game would be, who would deal, what was wild and what the minimum and maximum would be for betting.
They had done this so many times over the years, that even Charity had her own poke full of change that was reserved just for this pretty low-dollar poker. A quarter was the highest you could go. So really, the most anybody ever made was a good twenty-dollar pot if they went in for a long time. She kept her focus firmly on each scoop of cookie dough that she put onto the cookie sheet. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Except that it was just the surprise of all this. She knew that he had been considering Fia, but he must’ve asked her out, and he hadn’t told her, which seemed strange, because she had been included in this entire thing. For him to actually make a move, but not tell her he was making a move, seemed off-brand to the whole endeavor.
“Read them and weep!” Fia had won the first round, and she was laughing gleefully over taking what was probably a five-dollar pot.
Charity bristled.
She was new. She shouldn’t take that much obvious joy in beating everybody. It just wasn’t done. Not a good look. In her opinion.
“Come on, Charity,” Lachlan said. “Next game.”
“I’m waiting for the cookies to be done.”
“You probably have ten minutes. Come on.”
The only seat available was on the other side of Lachlan. Fia was in the one to his right.
So Charity took the one on his left and felt like a weird accessory. Lachlan was the dealer and declared that it would be five-card draw, which was a game Charity was familiar enough with.
