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