Hustler (15 page)

“It was priceless,” Graham laughs some more, garnering another punch from me, this time to the arm.

“Come on,” Graham rubs his offended appendages. “You know I bruise like a peach.”

“No one will be able to see it over that fake ass tan you have,” Scott points out. “You look like a douchebag who rolled around in Oompa Loompa shit.”

“Oh yeah? Well can you even move your neck with those shoulder muscles,” Graham shoots back pathetically.

Scott and I exchange a glance. “Feeble attempt at an insult, dude.”

“Pretty piss poor,” I add. “You kind of deserve another punch for that.”

“Agreed.” Before Graham can move, Scott plows one in his shoulder, sending Graham backwards.

Yes, Scott has muscles. Working for the fighting league as made him more prone to spend time in the gym. He’s the bulkiest out of all of us.

While Graham nurses his wounds, I draw my attention back to the screen. During a break Penelope looks at her phone and texts someone. It can’t be Nick, he’s standing right next to her, reading her message with her. Davies is busy keeping track of the chips, so who is Penelope texting? And why does it matter to me?

It matters because I don’t want it to be another man. Fuck, it better not be another man.

Hell, it could be Page.

I think back to the picnic and Page’s funny little drunk self. I liked her, she could easily be an ally. If I can get Page on my side, then maybe I could get closer to Penelope.

Then it hits me.

“I’m going to host a dinner party,” I announce to Scott and Graham.

Straightening up, Graham asks, “When the hell did you become a woman?”

With a quick jab, I punch his side, sending him as far away from me as possible.

“I’m not hosting one for the hell of it. I’m hosting one for other reasons, reasons that will hopefully work out in my favor. So you two in?”

“Are you cooking?” Scott asks, knowing full well my specialty lies in quesadillas only.

“No, I know just the right chef…” I trail off, smiling at Graham.

“Oh, fuck no.”

I nod my head. “Yup, prepare yourselves boys, we are going to have one hell of a fun night. It’s time we give Penelope a run for her money.”

The girl thinks she has my number? Little does she know, I haven’t even begun to show my hand. Up until now, we’ve only been playing openhanded, it’s time to take the next step in this game.

**NELL**

“Wow,” Nick breathes, amazement in his voice. “I can’t believe it.”

“What?” I ask, setting my tray on the bar between us.

“Wait… let me try again.” Before I can so much as blink, he’s reaching back over the bar and grabbing my boob for the millionth time that night. At this point, I’m resigned to simply sighing and rolling my eyes. He’s taking this whole
make Gavin’s head explode
thing a lot further than I expected. “Yep!” he declares. “It’s like, sorcery or something.”

“What?” I ask again, this time feeling more exasperated than before.

“Well,” he furrows his brow and gives my boob a squeeze. “I’m feeling you up and I’m not even hard! It’s crazy! I mean, a stiff breeze gives me a chubby at least, but this?” Another squeeze. “Nothing!”

“Thanks!” I bite, smacking his hand away. “Just what every woman wants to hear. That she’s
literally
less attractive than air.”

“Aw, pumpkin,” he teases with a smile. “You know I think you’re gorgeous. It’s just that something in my brain flipped after we kissed. Nothing against you, there’s just zero chemistry.”

I give him a dead-eyed stare. “You’re amazing for a woman’s ego,” I deadpanned, even though I understood exactly what he was saying. My boobs weren’t all that big, what with the years of gymnastics growing up, but I’d always had sensitive nipples. To take a page out of Nick’s book, a stiff breeze did it for me, but I’d just had a handsome guy’s hand on me, basically giving me a mammogram and there wasn’t as much as a tingle down below. He might as well have been my gynecologist, Dr. Wong, only without the ice cold hands. But still, did he need to go on and on about it? Geez, I get the damned point already. “Just fill my damn drink order,” I glare, earning myself a wink from across the bar top. Damn it, it was impossible to hold on to a good mad when he was so damned adorable. Like a cuddly yet stupid puppy… with a long, slobbery tongue.

Note to self: remember to tell Nick he reminds you of a dumb puppy. Serves him right.

I make my way back over to the poker table, carefully distributing drinks to each man’s left side when a high-pitched, squeaky voice speaks up behind me.

“Uh, ex
cuse
me…”

I turn to look over my shoulder and notice a woman teased, plucked, bleached, tanned, nipped, and tucked within an inch of her life scowling at me. In her defense, it might have been the Botox giving her face that weird, pinched effect, or maybe she was just immensely uncomfortable from being stuffed into a dress two sizes too small. Seriously, it was like she’d been stuffed into a sausage casing. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t happy, and I sighed internally, knowing I was about to get the brunt of it.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I’ve been waiting for a refill for-like-ever.” Wow. She somehow managed to turn one word into three. I have to bite my lip from making a snide comment for someone to call Mensa, they’d lost a member. And she hasn’t been waiting forever. The woman’s been sucking them back faster than I can get them in front of her all night long. It’s part of the reason she’s swaying unsteadily on her stripper shoes.

I paste on my professional mask and nod, “I’m so sorry ma’am, what would you like to drink?” I thought that came out nice enough, but she’s clearly not done being a nasty bitch.

“Ugh! Maybe if you weren’t busy slutting it up for your bartender boyfriend over there, you’d remember what I ordered in the first place!”

She said the words
slut
and
bartender
like they tasted offensive in her mouth. I can actually feel my blood beginning to heat in my veins. I can’t believe
she
has the audacity to call
me
a slut! Or to insinuate that Nick being a bartender is distasteful in any way. I saw the man whose arm she sauntered in on, and he’s most definitely nothing to write home about, not unless she wants her parents to know she’s fucking a man old enough to be her grandpa in exchange for a pair of fake tits and butt injections. Odds are, if it wasn’t for
his
money, she’d be hooking along Freemont, sucking dudes off for twenty bucks a pop.

Before I can comment, while I’m working on my deep breathing to stay in control, I feel a familiar, comforting heat at my back. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down so as not to disturb the players.”

I glance back over my shoulder and mouth
thank you
to Nick. He gives me a wink that lets me know he has my back.

She scoffs at Nick and props her hands on her boney hips. “Yeah? And what are you gonna do about it?”

“If you can’t lower your voice, I’ll have to ask you to leave,” he replies. “I’m sorry, but those are the rules at every high roller game.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” she shouts.

“Okay,” Nick steps closer, “I’m not going to ask again—”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she shouts. “You can’t tell me what to do!” Her long, Pepto-Bismol pink nail pops out to jab Nick in the chest, but I grab her wrist before she can make contact. No way am I letting her touch him. I’m very particular about who I let in my tight-knit circle of friends. So far it’s only been Page and Davies, now Nick. And I don’t do well with people screwing with my friends.

“You don’t want to do that,” I say in a low warning, one she does not heed.
Surprise, surprise
.

“Don’t you touch me!” she spits, giving her hand a sharp jerk that causes her to teeter on those ridiculous heels. “I’ll have you fired for that!”

Before I can so much as speak, the doors to the suite open and one of the Men In Black walks in. He moves for the screeching tramp, but another voice speaks up from behind them.

“We’ve got it, Brian.”

I clench my teeth to keep my mouth shut as Gavin, followed closely by
my boss
, makes his way to our little trio of chaos. It’s in that moment that I notice the entire room has fallen silent.

“Is there a problem here?” Gavin asks in a smooth, cultured voice that has the tingle between my thighs growing to full force… from just his voice!
Son of a bitch
!

“Yes,” the tramp curls her lip in my and Nick’s direction before looking back at Gavin and Graham with a seductive smile —or at least I think that’s what she’s going for, and she missed the mark... big time. “This…
waitress
has spent the entire night ignoring those of us in need of drinks so she could get felt up
in public
by her boyfriend. Then she actually had the nerve to put her hands on me!”

“Is that right?” Graham asks calmly, his shrewd eyes hitting me like a sledgehammer. And suddenly, to my horror, a knot of emotion clogs my throat and my vision blurs with tears I battle to keep in check as my nose stings. I can’t lose this job. I
can’t
. The only reason I’m still able to talk to my parents was because I’d saved enough of my tips up to be able to send the money to catch their phone bill up. For the first time in Three. Fucking. Years I’m not supplementing my diet with Ramen once a week in order to stay fed on a budget. It’s the
only
well-paying job I’ve had that gives me the hours off I need to audition. It has quickly come to mean everything to me and I can’t go back to what my life was like before.

“Mr. Larson—” I croak embarrassingly, but he lifts his hand to silence me. I feel Nick’s hand reach for mine, giving it a squeeze, but I’m too numb to return it.

“You got this?” Graham asks Gavin.

He gives a barely there nod before doing something that is so surprising, so out of character, it rocks me to my core. Taking my chin between his fingers, he gently tilts my head up until I meet his eyes. “You okay?” he asks in a low, velvety voice.

My mouth drops open as my eyes grow wide. The usually cocky self-assurance I see in his eyes every time we’re together is gone. I can’t exactly read what I’m seeing now, but I know it’s something different. The arrogance is gone. He’s genuinely concerned about my well-being.

“Uh…” I trail off, my brain short-circuiting at Gavin’s abrupt change of demeanor so I nod. He releases my chin and I take a wobbly step back, bumping into Nick, whose hands come to rest on my shoulders to keep me steady. I briefly catch a flash of something in those nearly black eyes as he takes in the sight of Nick touching me. Something not at all happy, but he turns to the tramp before I can figure out what it is.

“Henry,” he calls out in a loud voice, as his eyes stay pinned to the woman, drawing the attention of the old-as-dirt guy she’d shown up with.

“Yeah, Gavin?” the man asks curiously, seemingly oblivious to what’s going on around him. Maybe it’s dementia?

“What’d I tell you about keeping your women in line when they’re in this room?” My breath freezes in my lungs at the icy tone of his voice. He’s not screwing around, that’s for sure.

“Shit man,” Henry grumbles. “I’m sorry.”

Finally, Gavin looks away from the woman, who now appears a lot less sure of herself, having stood under Gavin’s scrutinizing gaze. “She’s out,” he addresses Henry, looking at him directly for the first time.

“You got it.”

I gasp at Henry’s easy dismissal of the tramp at the same time her annoying voice yelps, “
What
?”

“I don’t want to see her back in this room,” Gavin continues. “You got me?”

“I got you,” Henry nods solemnly. “Won’t happen again. She’s as good as gone.”

“Henry,” she turns around and coos, sugary sweet. “You don’t mean that, baby.”

“Sorry, sugar,” he shrugs and looks back down at his cards and he finishes with, “You knew the rules. Shoulda stopped yappin’ when you had the chance.”

Actual fear washes over her face as she stares at the old man beseechingly. Guess I wasn’t too far off about her life without her sugar daddy. “But—”

She doesn’t get another word out before Gavin waves his hand and Brian—formerly known as one of the Men in Black—takes hold of the girl’s arms and pulls her from the room, sputtering and screaming the entire way.

Then, just like that, the men at the table go back to their game as if nothing had happened. Even Henry doesn’t seem fazed by the loss of his most current fuck-toy. Guess they’re relatively easy to find in Vegas.

“You good?” Nick asks in my ear. I give another nod and feel his heat at my back disappear. Graham offers me a chin tip then heads out of the suite, leaving me standing there with no one but Gavin.

“Gentlemen,” he calls loudly again. “Your waitress needs to step away for a few minutes. Please be patient, it won’t take long.”

“What?” I gasp as he pulls me by the arm amidst grunts and mumbled agreements. The next thing I know, I’m in the hallway outside the suite, my back against the cool wall as Gavin pins me in place with his warm, hard body.

“Gavin,” I suck in a startled breath. “What are you doing? I need to go back to work, I can’t just—”

“Quiet,” he demands, his gaze shifting over my entire face, as if he’s trying to decipher some sort of riddle. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

I swallow audibly as my emotions clog my throat. Usually I’m okay in situations with Gavin. I can give as good as I get, or when I can’t, I go for the balls. But
this
Gavin, a concerned Gavin, well… I’m not prepared for it or equipped to handle it.

“Y-yeah,” I stutter. “I’m good, but I really need to get back to work.”

From the corner of my eye I see his hand come up. His thumb brushes along my cheek softly, coming away with moisture I hadn’t realized escaped my eyes until just now. “Then why did you start crying?”

“I… uh,” I can’t think up a suitable lie, not that it matters, because the next words from his plump lips are, “and don’t lie to me.”

Son of a mind-reading bitch!