Heartless (31 page)

Their camera flashes blend with the flickering lights around us as they take turns posing with a man who very much resembles the real deal. His black, oil-slicked hair combed up high into a masculine bouffant works in tandem with a white sequined jumpsuit with flared legs.

For a hot minute, I’m rendered speechless.

“Thank you. Thank-you-very-much,” he says to the ladies as they scurry off, his lip lifted on one side.

Crew drags me closer until Mr. Presley spots us and flashes a smile which feels personalized for little old me.

“And how’re you doing tonight, Little Mama?” he drawls. His arms reach for me, though they may as well be pulling me in. “Would you like a picture?”

“Sure she would.” Crew lets me go.

Elvis yanks the red, sequin-encrusted scarf from his neck and drapes it around mine before wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me in. Crew readies his camera, and we smile.

“And how about your hunka-hunka-burning love here?” Elvis drawls.

“Oh, he’s not my . . . hunka . . . hunk of . . . burning . . . love.” I titter like a nervous idiot, my gaze darting between the two of them. Everything around me slows down as I bask in this sandwich of awkwardness. Elvis glitters under the neon night sky and Crew does everything in his power not to laugh too hard.

A lady in a neon tracksuit waits rather impatiently behind Crew for her turn with the dashing impersonator.

“Why don’t I snap a picture of the three of you so we can get on with this, eh?” Her words are brisk, but her delivery makes up for it.

“Yeah, Crew.” I toss him a wink. “Get in a picture with us. You’re holding up the line.”

Elvis extends his other arm and ushers Crew to get in. Crew hands his phone to the tracksuit woman and we all smile pretty. When we’re finished, I return his scarf and Crew slips him a five-dollar bill.

“There,” Crew says as we continue down the busy sidewalk. “You’re officially a local.”

Perfect.

Just as I’m on my way out . . .

“You’ll have to send me that picture,” I say. “My parents won’t believe me without proof.”

I’m lying.

I won’t show them. They haven’t checked on me since the day I left Shiloh Springs. I just want that picture to remember tonight by.

“Of course.” Crew points toward a casino in the distance and reaches for my hand. Without thinking, I interlace my fingers in his.

Shit.

I freak out for a second, but he doesn’t seem to notice, and I feel silly for reading too much into it. Mathias used to hold mine that way, saying if our fingers were locked, our hearts were too. And that gullible, teenaged me believed every word to be true.

We step under a neon canopy a minute later and into a fancy casino with ornate, inlaid floors, Oriental rug carpeting, and giant potted palms at every corner. It smells romantic in here, like cologne, but I pick up a hint of spilled drinks and desperation.

“Good evening, Mr. Forrester.” A security guard in a black suit nods his head our way. “Welcome back to the Hill Valley Casino and Resort. Will you be needing the black key tonight?”

“No thank you, Trent. Just showing my friend the ropes tonight.” Crew places his hand on the small of my back, his fingertips grazing my bare flesh.

“Very well. Carry on, sir.”

We walk toward a throng of slot machines and zombie-eyed patrons staring blankly ahead, pulling levels and pressing buttons. The wheels spin and the gamblers don’t move. Random
dings
and
cha-chings
and
beeps
grow louder as we get deeper into the slot machine abyss.

“Crew, hey, baby.” A leggy, raven-haired beauty with doe eyes and plump lips slinks up from behind us. Her hand travels from his shoulder to his back and lingers before letting go. “Always good seeing you. Haven’t seen you upstairs in a while. You missed a good tourney the other week.”

She looks at me, her smile fading.

“Guess you’ve been busy,” she says.

“More than you could possibly know.” He looks at me when he talks to her.

“Give me a call next time you want into the next one. I’ll always make sure there’s a seat for you.” She blows him a kiss and winks before strutting off in heels that make her tower over every woman in a hundred-foot radius.

“That was Myla. She’s an executive with a poker chip company. They sponsor me at tournaments sometimes,” he says into my ear.

He doesn’t need to explain. It’s not like we’re dating.

“It feels late in here.” I change the subject. It’s so loud I can barely hear my own thoughts. “I know it’s night, but it feels way later.”

“That’s the point,” he says, eyes scanning. “Notice the lack of clocks in here? Time of day is the last thing they want you thinking about.”

We keep plowing ahead, toward a set of double doors with golden handles and a set of guards on either side. The more we move away from slot machine paradise, the more the rambunctious pinging and ponging subsides.

I could see how gambling could be therapeutic. Addictive even. Those people are zoned out, in another world completely. Every pull of the lever is another chance to make your problems disappear, another chance to forget the troubles of the real world and escape into an alternate reality.

“What do you think so far?” Crew asks as he leads me through the double doors.

We step into an open space that might feel romantic if it weren’t for the sprawl of table games covering every square meter.

“This,” he says. “This is where the magic happens.”

“You’re not a penny slot kinda guy?” I tease.

“Do I look like a penny slot kinda guy?”

He releases my hand and for a second, I miss it.

Crew points. “So what’ll it be? Your fun’s on me tonight. Blackjack? Roulette? Baccarat?”

“I don’t know how to play any of those. I don’t want to waste your money. I can just watch.”

His head tilts and his eyes roll. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” I know exactly
what
.

“Don’t be a wet blanket,” he says.

My jaw falls, but my lips want to twist into a smirk. “I’m not a wet blanket.”

A cocktail waitress in a tiny skirt and glam makeup passes by, balancing a wide tray on her palm.

“Ma’am, can we get a couple of drinks, please?” Crew orders. “A beer for me and something strong for my lady friend. Maybe an Amaretto and Coke. Double.”

The waitress nods and sashays toward the bar. Her heels must be at least four inches. If her feet are killing her, you can’t tell.

“Is that your plan for tonight?” I ask. “Get me all liquored up?”

“Liquored up. Loosened up. Whatever it takes. We’re having a good time. We’re doing this.” He digs deep into his pocket and pulls out a hundred-dollar bill. Who the hell walks around with a loose Benjamin crammed in their pocket? Apparently Crew Forrester. “Let’s get some chips.”

My brow lifts.

“Poker chips,” he says. “We’re playing Blackjack.”

Miraculously, our lovely cocktail waitress manages to find us in a sea of gamblers a few minutes later, where we’re perched at some standing table covered in green felt. A quick-drawing dealer shuffles his cards and a man with a hunched back points to the empty space in front of him.

“Hit me,” the man says.

Crew leans into my ear, his scent filling my lungs.

“This is a game against the dealer,” he says. “You get two cards; each card is assigned a value. Face cards are worth ten points, except the ace. He’s worth one or eleven depending on your hand.”

The man beside us folds his cards and shoves them away, a disgusted groan coming from his lips as the dealer drags a few chips his way.

“That man,” Crew says, “went bust. The dealer gave him a third card and he exceeded twenty-one. Any time you go over twenty-one, you lose.”

“What happens if I get twenty?”

“If you get twenty and the dealer has nineteen, you win.”

“What if the dealer gets twenty-one his first time?”

“He wins.”

Easy enough.

I square my shoulders and clear my throat before taking a sip of my Amaretto.

“You ready?” Crew asks. The warm grip of his hand on my shoulder sends a wave of tingles down my arm.

I nod.

Crew gives a two-fingered wave to the dealer, who grabs a fresh deck of shuffled cards and lays two before me. Face down.

“All right, Calypso.” Crew squeezes my shoulder, his voice vibrating against my ear. If I turned my head about thirty degrees, my lips would be on his.

I know damn well now is not the time to think such frivolous thoughts.

I need to get my head in the game.

Crew grabs some chips with a twenty-five on them and throws them down in a white square on the green felt. Two, to be precise. It takes a moment for me to realize those aren’t worth twenty-five cents, but rather twenty-five dollars.

“Take a look,” he guides.

Dragging the cards closer, I lift only the corners, keeping my face as poker-straight as possible.

Crew laughs. “This isn’t poker.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to act.”

“Just be cool.” He shrugs. “What do you have?”

“An . . . ace . . . and a queen.”

He takes my cards, checking them like he doesn’t believe me.

“You got a fucking blackjack.” His fingers rake through his hair and his mouth widens. There’s some kind of liveliness dancing in his blue eyes. I’d venture to say he’s impressed.

Not that I did anything.

“Really? So what happens now?”

The dealer clears his throat, and Crew lays the two cards flat. A second later, six twenty-five dollar chips are pushed our way.

“You get a true Blackjack, and you win three dollars for every dollar you bet. Otherwise, all other wins are one to one.”

Whatever that means.

“We sat down here with fifty bucks on the table, and now we have two hundred,” he clarifies.

“Nice.”

“Wanna play again?”

“Shouldn’t we quit while we’re ahead?”

Crew laughs, sweeping a strand of hair away from my eyes. I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it.

“Not tonight,” he says, placing a hundred dollars in chips in the betting square.

The dealer places two more cards face down, and I lunge for them. I take a peek before showing Crew.

A three of hearts and a king of spades.

His lips purse and shift from side to side.

“Does my hand displease you, my lord?” My body is ultra-warm, my face numb. I giggle like a drunken teenager who broke into her parents’ liquor stash, not that I’d know what that was like. Shiloh Springs had its own legal drinking age, which happened to be sixteen. When you’re allowed a glass of wine at dinner, the appeal of breaking into someone’s liquor cabinet and getting sloshed isn’t as exhilarating as it should be at that age.

“It does not, milady. Not entirely,” he teases, studying my hand. “Okay, so you can stay, which I don’t recommend. Or you can tell the dealer to hit you. He’ll give you another card. If you go over twenty-one, we lose everything.”

I blow a breath through my lips. “No pressure.”

“No pressure.”

“What should I do?”

“You decide.”

“I’m at thirteen now, right?”

“The girl can add.” He flashes an obnoxiously adorable smirk and finishes his beer. “You want an eight or below.”

“What are my odds?”

The dealer glances at the two of us, his face stone cold, but I detect irritation in his bloodshot eyes.

Crew’s finger covers my lips, silencing me as he leans in. “Don’t talk about card counting and statistics and probabilities. Not out loud. Not in front of the dealer.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know.” I lean back but he pulls me in, his hand hooking the back of my neck. I look toward the dealer for a second, but when I turn back our lips graze. It’s a poor substitution for the real thing, and it’s all I can do to ignore the swarm of butterflies igniting in my belly.

We laugh and he lets go, and I try not to let disappointment sink into my bones. It doesn’t belong there. He didn’t bring me here as his date. Kissing is not a part of this equation.

I need to pull myself together. Ignore the tingles that consume me every time he touches me. Completely disregard those tiny moments when our eyes meet and it feels like we’re the only two in this carnival ride of a casino.

“Hit me,” I say.

The dealer slides me a card. My heart thumps hard, and my eyes squeeze tight until everything is black.

Please be an eight.

Please be an eight.

Please be an eight.

Or a seven. I’ll take a seven.

Just not a nine.

Or a face card.

“Flip it,” Crew says.

I pull in a quick breath, open my eyes, and flip my card.

Queen. Of. Fucking. Hearts.

“Damn it.” I sulk, my arms crossed.

Crew massages his temples as the dealer rakes away our bet. I just lost us one hundred dollars.

I think of that money in terms of wholesale books. In terms of Bryson and Presley’s wages. In terms of heating bills and rent payments and groceries. A hundred dollars. Gone.

“I’m so sorry.” My chest tightens and my stomach knots. I can’t look at him.

“Calypso, it’s fine.” His hand circles the small of my back, quick, small loops. “Really.”

“That’s a lot of money to lose in a short amount of time.”

The left half of his face pulls into a smile and he huffs. “Sweetheart, you ain’t seen nothin’. I’ve lost more money in one bet than the average American makes in a year. A hundred dollars is
nothing
to me. I promise you. I don’t even miss it.”

Must be nice to live in a world where
a hundred dollars is nothing
.

“Why don’t I just watch from now on?” I don’t think I can stomach losing another dollar of his tonight, whether or not he misses it when it’s gone. I’m the kind to order a meal at a restaurant and ration the leftovers to last me at least three more meals.

Waste not, want not was practically our motto growing up.

“What’s wrong?” Crew turns to the dealer, telling him to give us a moment.

“It felt really good to win that money,” I say. “But losing it . . .”