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“Ask that question you were going to ask me. The one that came with a bended knee and a velvet box.”
He lost concentration and fumbled the cups. The primary marble rolled off the table and went missing in a jumble of feet. There was a scramble to find it, people shifting, laughing, pointing, their eyes down on the sidewalk. He watched it, a comedy of motion, oddly more graceful than the lurching about going on in his body, though he stood completely still.
Fin was undoing him, making hope simmer on low heat in his gut. But hope was for dreamers, dupes, and patsies. Certainty was the only thing that mattered.
“This game can get rough. It can be hard on the soul if you’re not born into it,” he said.
“Yeah, I can see that, but I’m stronger than I look, and I learned something about myself recently. You want to know what that is?”
He wanted her to take the money and walk away before he had a chance to hurt her again. He bundled it into her hands.
“I’m a better actor than I gave myself credit for. You see, I took this part. I didn’t know I was going to have to play it, but you don’t always get to choose. Sometimes a part is thrown at you, and you have to do your best with what you’re given. And sometimes a part you didn’t want can make your whole career.”
They were never going to find the marble, it had vanished, and so had Cal’s ability to pretend this uncertainty with Fin wasn’t agony. Their audience started drifting away.
“And sometimes you don’t see that until you’ve quit,” she said. “This part I had, I loved almost all of it, except there was a twist I didn’t see coming. My character was confused, and she felt humiliated because she didn’t know about shell games. She didn’t understand how sometimes the wrong thing was also the right thing. And just when she thought she was starting to get her life straightened out, to do work she was proud of, to be happier than she thought possible with a man she was in love with, she discovered she was the shell game. And she kind of lost it.”
“I see what you’re saying. Sounds rea
sonable to me.”
“Does it? I thought so at first. I was convinced of it.”
“But now?” He stacked the cups and pocketed them. Wasn’t sure he wanted her answer.
“I realize the truth was a distraction, a sleight of hand. You never lied about the most important thing.”
He folded the table and leaned it against the shop wall, keeping his hands busy because she was so near and there were fewer and fewer barriers to taking her in his arms. She came back. She wanted to play. She understood the rules, and she was willing to take a risk on him. But this could be a crude trick because he wanted her so much it clouded his judgment.
“What’s the most important thing?” She could tell him up was down, death metal was opera, and he’d believe it.
“You don’t know?”
He jammed his hands into his pockets. No cue he sent her would be appropriate. “I’m a con on a street corner running a shell game. I’m a man who deceived the woman he loved and made her run. What would I know?”
“The most important thing is that you didn’t lie to me about how you felt.”
Except he had. For too long, he’d kept how he felt from her, how the sound of her voice made him smile, the shine in her eyes made him want to laugh, and her humor, the way she looked at the world dead in its eye and dared it to disagree, made him adore her more every day.
He’d felt unbeatable with her by his side. Without her, he might as well be a two-bit street corner hustler.
“Not ever, not once, Cal. You made it clear why we couldn’t be together until it became unbearable not to be. When we came together, you wanted to give me everything you were. It was the most honest relationship I’ve ever had—the most honorable.”
His back hit the glass wall behind him. “What are we doing?”
“You must be rattled. You’re asking W questions. I’m not sorry for what I did. I took a lot of money, and I gave it to people who need it more than you do. But that’s what you do with it anyway, and you can make money again. You can make it in the rain with three cups and two marbles.”
“I think I’ve lost the appetite for it.”
“Oh really. Then what are you doing here running a scam?”
“I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“Lucky, I just happen to know the perfect job for you. It’s a family concern. You’d eat it up.”
“Fin, it’s—” his throat jammed. Did she love him, or the game and the money? They were seductive all on their own.
She shoved her wrist in front of his face. “See this bracelet? An eight-year-old Namibian kid made it for me right before he conned me out of my watch.” She put her hand to his cheek, and it knocked the breath out of him.
