By Your Side(12)

I was going to have to suck it up. His foster parents grew drugs in the basement of his house. That was bad enough, but I couldn’t ignore the second part he’d said either. The part about how they let him come and go as he pleased. It did sound like freedom, but didn’t it really mean they didn’t care about him, only the money housing him brought in. I had a feeling, despite his flippant attitude about it, that he suspected that as well.

As I lay there staring at the coffee table in front of me, I noticed a little drawer. I reached forward and slid it open. A single deck of cards sat inside. I picked it up and turned it over and over again in my hands. It took me five minutes to talk myself into doing what I knew I needed to do.

I made my way downstairs. It was still light outside, and would be for another few hours. It really was warmer on this floor. Warm was the wrong word, actually; less cold was the better descriptor. Dax sat exactly like he had earlier. Only this time his left hand propped up his head. I could see the tattoo on his wrist now but wasn’t close enough to make out what it was. He looked at me over the top of his book as though expecting me to say something.

“Hey,” was my lame response.

When I didn’t say anything else, he went back to reading.

Saying hi wasn’t why I’d come down here. I forced the next words out. “I found a deck of cards.”

He looked at the deck I had begun twisting in my hands again.

“Um . . . you want to play?”

“What game?” he asked.

I felt like if I gave the wrong answer he’d say no. “I don’t care. Whatever you want.”

He sighed. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“You know what.”

I did know what. I felt sorry for him, and he could read it all over my face just like he’d read my disgust and fear of him the night before. Just like he knew I was going to go through his bag earlier. Was I really that transparent?

“Treat me like you always have.”

“And how is that?” As far as I knew, before last night I hadn’t treated him like anything.

“Ignore me. Two more days and you’ll jump back on that train anyway. You might as well stay in the habit.”

Ouch. “That’s unfair. I didn’t know you. You didn’t want to be known. And I’d say you have it backward. You’re the one who does the ignoring. You don’t even know my name.”

That last sentence must’ve caught him by surprise, because for the first time his hard expression dropped and he met my eyes. Without his guard up he looked younger—big brown eyes, wavy dark hair, a vulnerable look on his face. “Autumn.”

Now it was my turn to look surprised. I could’ve sworn I was right about that. The sudden change in energy knocked the fight out of me. “Just play a stupid game with me. I’m bored.”

He didn’t move.

“I’m relentless.”

He smiled a little. “More like annoying,” he said, but he stood anyway, and we walked to one of the large oak tables.

I sat opposite him and opened the deck of cards. I shuffled them then passed them out, five each.

“What are we playing?” he asked.

“Poker. Five-card draw.” My dad had guys’ nights at our house, and sometimes he’d let me sit in if a player didn’t show. He’d even sneak me some cards and help me win a few rounds. I was sure everyone knew he did it, but it made us laugh.

“Okay.” Dax picked up his cards, his air of confidence gone.

Maybe he was upset about his hand. I picked mine up as well. I had a pair of threes, an ace of spades, a king of hearts, and a two of clubs. Basically nothing. Should I keep a low pair or hope for another king or ace by trading in three cards?

“Do you want to trade any?” I asked.

“I . . .” He studied his hand again. “Am I trying to get the same suit or make pairs?”

I could feel my mouth drop open before I could stop it. He didn’t know how to play poker? Wasn’t he the one who had spent four months in juvie? Not that I knew what happened in juvie, but I’d imagined poker was one of the things. “You don’t know how to play?”

“Obviously.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not that shocking.”

“It sort of is,” I said with a laugh. “Um . . .” I’d never had to explain it before. “There are several versions of poker but this one is called five-card draw. We each get five cards.”

“Hence the name.”

I smiled. “Right. And then you can trade in up to three of those cards for three more from the stack.”

“Do I have to trade?”

“No. Each hand is valued differently. The best hand is called a royal flush. That’s when you have the same suit of a ten, jack, queen, king, and ace. You can have a straight flush . . .” I paused, realizing this was going to take forever to explain. Plus, he was staring at me with a blank face. I’d lost him.

“Maybe we should just play and I’ll teach you as we go. In fact, let’s just show our hands for the first couple rounds and then I’ll say what I would do if I had that hand.”

I placed my cards faceup on the table. “So see, I have a pair of threes and then not really much else. Ace is high card, though, so if both of us ended with the same hand, I could win with the ace. But if you had any other higher pair, you’d beat my threes. So I was thinking of keeping my face cards and trading in my threes and two. Am I making any sense?”