to Buffalo to attend hockey games—Dennis explained.
“I thought I owed them,” he said.
Maybe it was the deadpan delivery, or perhaps it was the fact that he’d just discovered that one of his closest childhood friends was a millionaire, but CJ found the moment extraordinarily funny.
He let go of a loud laugh that made him feel a whole lot better than he’d felt all day. When the laughing faded, he set the money he’d been holding on the table and took a peek at his cards.
“Dennis said you and Artie took an eleven-point,” Harry said, cigar jumping as his lips moved.
CJ nodded, still feeling a chuckle rumbling around in his stomach. “We did. Big boy too.”
“How far was the shot?” Jake asked.
“Maybe eighty yards.”
Harry rearranged the cards in his hand. “Your shot or his?”
“Mine,” CJ said.
“Artie would have taken him at a quarter mile,” Rick said. He held his cards in one hand while his other riffled through the bills in front of him.
“Without a doubt,” Weidman agreed.
CJ didn’t say anything. He’d known Artie was an experienced hunter, but not that he was considered a great shot. For some reason, that bit of knowledge made him even more grateful that the hardware store owner had let him take the deer.
He looked at his hand again and found a pair. The ante was a dollar, and CJ tossed his in. Once the action came back to him, CJ slid three cards across the table, then picked up the three that Harry dealt him. CJ raised on his three of a kind. Dennis and Harry both folded in frustration. CJ reminded himself that he was late coming to the game, and it appeared it hadn’t been Harry’s night, as evidenced by a pile of cash that had dwindled to practically nothing.
Poker had always fascinated CJ, principally because of what the game coaxed from the people who played it. And one thing he’d learned early on was that it didn’t matter how much money one could afford to lose. What mattered was seeing someone else sweep your money into their pile. CJ guessed that Dalton hadn’t lost more than a few hundred dollars tonight, and that likely meant little to him. Poker was a game of principle. And right now principle was rankling Harry Dalton.
Rick stayed in the game, while Jake spent time eyeing his cards, as if he expected them to change under his perusal. Finally, he met CJ’s five-spot and followed it with one of his own.
“I meet and raise you five,” he said.
CJ looked at the money in the center of the table and then at his hand, and the three sevens that hadn’t gone anywhere. A decent hand; it gave him a good shot. His free hand moved toward his money, even though an annoying and responsible voice inside was reminding him that he was locked out of his checking account. He suspected he could call the bank and get them to release the block, mainly because he was the one who’d opened the account in the first place, but it was just one of those things that he hadn’t done yet. And another one of those things that was coming back to bite him.
“Can’t be shy my first time at the table,” CJ said, tossing his money in.
Rick looked at the growing pot, then back at his cards, and tossed them facedown on the table. “Well, this isn’t my first rodeo, and I’ve got no one to impress.” He left the table, disappearing into the kitchen.
When CJ looked at Jake, he found the man watching him, a sly smile on his face. Without taking his eyes off CJ, he reached for a ten-spot and tossed it in.
“Belle of the ball or wallflower?” Jake asked.
The corner of CJ’s lip curled upward as he met Jake Weidman’s gaze. He winked at Jake and threw in to match.
“Call,” he said.
When the cards came down, CJ’s sevens beat Jake’s pair of tens.
As CJ scooped the pot toward him, Jake chuckled and said, “You play cards like your father.”
The comment stopped CJ cold for a fraction of a second, but he recovered and finished gathering his newfound wealth.
With the others sliding their cards toward CJ so he could deal, CJ glanced over at Dennis.
“So you’ve got twenty million dollars,” he said. “Tell me again why we’re spending our evenings and weekends working on a house?”
His question seemed to hit Dennis in the sweet spot, because he looked down at the table, his brow furrowed.