Operation Prom Date (Tactics in Flirting #1)(35)



Kate already claims I’m that way with rowing. I tried not to be, but maybe she did deserve some airhead dude who would just drool over her while putting his hands—

I stopped that line of thinking before I ended up pissed off enough to jump right into a fight with my dad and tell him exactly what I thought of his internship and being a lawyer.





Chapter Twenty-One


Kate


The first thing I noticed was the tall, raven-haired girl with sharp features who had her arm around Mick.

Shock and disappointment bolted my feet to the floor, which was super inconvenient considering the urge to flee also overwhelmed me.

Mick’s gaze swept the room, and he did a double take when he looked my way. The smirk that tilted his mouth gave me heart palpitations, and seriously, why did my emotions all crash into each other whenever I was near him? “Kate. Hey.”

He left the model-esque female at his side—since I didn’t recognize her, I assumed she didn’t go to our school, but maybe that was only my low standing on the social ladder—and approached me. He ran his eyes up and down me. “Damn you look sexy.”

Heat flared in my cheeks. “Thank you. You, too.”

He put his hand on my back and led me over to the table, where four guys were already seated. A handful of other people milled around the room, including the raven-haired girl who would fry me on the spot if she had laser vision. “Have you played poker before?”

“I know the general rules, but I’ve only watched a few games on TV.”

“Then you can watch me play.” He sat down and pulled me onto his lap. “You can be my good luck charm,” he whispered in my ear and a pleasant chill traveled down my spine.

When the boys started throwing cash on the table, it took everything in me to not gasp at the amount—I could buy a ton of Funko Pop figurines with that kind of dough. After I got over my initial shock, it didn’t take long to get into the flow of the game.

Mick leaned forward to bet, and I put my hand on his chest. Everyone stared at me, most likely wondering why I was holding up the show. I almost abandoned my attempt to warn him, but I couldn’t help it. I moved my lips next to his ear and whispered, “The odds of you beating the guy at the end of the table are super low. Like fifteen percent. So if I were you, I’d either fold or bluff big.” I sat up enough to look into his face. I bit my lip. “Or ignore me, what do I know?”

Mick studied me for a moment, and the scrutiny made me squirm, which almost made me fall off his lap—laps weren’t all that comfortable in terms of long-term seating, FYI. Not that I’d abandon the spot I had wanted to be in forever, but I found it surprising.

I don’t remember feeling that way when I fell onto Cooper’s lap. I quickly swatted away the unbidden thought, but then I heard Cooper’s voice talking about how he was a ninja, and why did my brain hate me?

“I fold,” Mick said, tossing his cards.

Sure enough, the guy at the end of the table won. He glared at Mick and me. “So now you’re a cheater?”

“I’m simply utilizing my good luck charm,” Mick said, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me to his chest. Again, it felt like we’d passed the beginning get-to-know you phase and moved right into full-contact dating. But since I’d dreamed of that very thing, I couldn’t pinpoint why I couldn’t simply relax and go with it better.

Maybe because I added that “what do I know” comment after I gave him sound statistics advice, like I needed to hide just how much I do know.

At the guy’s deepening scowl, Mick patted my leg. “Looks like someone’s going to be a baby about losing. Why don’t you go get a drink? Maybe grab me one, too? If you don’t mind?”

I twisted to face Mick and decided to stop overanalyzing everything and embrace how far I’d come. After all, he’d called me his good luck charm, and I was sure I’d get used to this warp speed intimacy in time. Maybe if I threw myself fully into it, too? I played with the ends of his hair—or tried—there wasn’t much to play with, not like Cooper’s, and that one section that constantly fell in his face. “Sure. I’ll be right back.”

Once I reached the basement bar area, I took the chance to catch my breath. I pulled out my phone, wanting to send Cooper a text and tell him I thought I was doing even better than expected.

But the fact that I’d thought about his lap and his jokes—and his freaking hair—stopped me. Maybe I was spending too much time with him, and that was why everything got all mixed up and muddy in my head.

So I pocketed my phone and grabbed two drinks.

And when I returned to the table to see Mick was now standing, the raven-haired girl’s hand on his arm as she talked to him, I was rather proud that I didn’t drop them.



By the end of the first round of poker, one thing was clear. I wasn’t the only girl in Mick’s rotation. You knew he averaged four girls a semester.

Yeah, but I didn’t know it was closer to two girls a night.

That last interaction looked more like she initiated it, though.

Since my options were either admit defeat, or work harder to show him how right we were for each other, I sat my butt down at the poker table and asked if I could play.

The twenty-dollar buy-in made my gut drop, but I told myself to trust my calculator brain. Within the hour, I made two hundred dollars and received dozens of impressed looks and compliments from Mick.

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