By Your Side(13)

“Yes.” He put his cards faceup. He had two sevens, two jacks, and a five.

“You punk. You already have me beat.”

“So this is a good hand?”

“Well, sort of. I mean, it’s really the third lowest. Seven hands can beat it, but that’s assuming I get one of those seven hands. A full house would be better. So definitely trade in your five and hope for a jack or a seven. But at this point, either way you’ll probably beat my hand.”

He handed me his five and I flicked him a card, faceup on top of the ones in front of him. It was a seven.

I huffed. “You lucky SOB.”

“Did you just call me an SOB?”

“Sorry. That’s what my dad always says to his buddies when they’re playing. I forgot what it stood for until after I said it.”

He looked at the card. “I take it I just upgraded my hand.”

“Four slots, yes.” I placed my threes and two facedown next to the stack and drew three more. I got a friend for my king but the other two were an eight and a jack. “So a pair of kings. Basically the lowest hand. You won.”

“What do I win?”

“Well, if we had bet anything, you would’ve won the bet. But since we didn’t, you win the honor of knowing you won your first hand of poker.”

He didn’t respond.

“So, do you want to play for something?” I asked, meeting his dark eyes.

“We already established that you have nothing,” he said.

“We could play for secrets. Questions.” I had a feeling this was the only way I was ever going to get to know Dax, because he certainly wasn’t volunteering any history about himself. And despite my better judgment, I was curious about why he was the way he was—the dark, withdrawn loner.





CHAPTER 9


“Were you hustling me?” I asked after an hour of playing. We’d long ago stopped showing our hands. He’d picked up the game easily. He didn’t quite know which hands beat which, or so he claimed, but that didn’t matter; he was still beating me nearly every time. I was glad he’d turned down my offer of playing for secrets. “You already knew how to play, didn’t you?”

“Nope.”

“You hiding cards up your sleeves or something?” Without thinking, I grabbed his hand, flipped it palm up, and ran my fingers along his wrist. I could now see his tattoo clearly. Three numbers. 7, 14, 14. My finger traced the numbers without my permission . . . or his.

He met my eyes. “I don’t cheat.”

I pulled back my hand. “It was a joke.”

He gathered his cards together and handed them back to me. “Maybe you need to shuffle better.”

I started to protest but realized he was kidding when a smile played on his lips. A tingling sensation went up my arms. I rubbed at them. It was colder than I thought. “I’m a great shuffler. You’re just lucky. Very, very lucky.”

“You got me. I’m the luckiest guy on earth.” His voice didn’t sound sarcastic, but I knew he was being sarcastic. And he was right. He wasn’t lucky outside of the card game. On top of that, even though he was beating me handily, this card game had been doing little for his mood. If anything, it had made him more withdrawn. I nodded toward the tattoo. “What does it stand for?”

“I have another sweatshirt.”

It took me a moment to understand he was not answering my question with that statement. But when I realized I was still rubbing at my arms instead of pushing him to talk, I nodded several times quickly. “Yes. I’m cold. It’s cold in here, right? Do you think there’s a way to break past the locked thermostat?”

“I don’t know.” He stood and walked over to his bag, where he retrieved a gray sweatshirt for me.

If I’d thought that his sleeping bag was clinging to his musky scent, his sweatshirt might as well have been on his body. It smelled amazing. I slid it on and then brought the collar to my nose before I thought better of it.

“It’s been in my bag a while,” he said as though I was disgusted by the smell and not trying to hold back a sigh.

“No, it’s good. It’s fine. Thanks.”

He sat back down while I dealt another hand. Now that he was avoiding my question, the only thing I could look at was his tattoo. I wondered what it stood for, why he wouldn’t tell me. There were so many things I wondered about him.

I picked up my hand. It was decent for once.

“You ready to play for questions yet?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

I folded my cards to look at him. “If I win, I get to ask you a question that you have to answer honestly. If you win, you get to ask me one.”

“You do realize that I’ve won the last nine hands.”

“Nine? Really? Have you been counting?”

“Yes.”

I laughed. “Then you have nothing to lose.”

He picked up his cards and looked at each one.

“So? Is that a yes?”

“Why not?”

I fanned out my cards and tried to keep my face even, blank. “Do you want to trade any cards?”

“One.”

I slid him a card then traded one as well. I couldn’t help but smile when it gave me a full house. He laid down a royal flush and my smile was gone.