Holding Her Hand (Reed Brothers Book 15)(30)

“Really?” My heart feels like it has grown wings inside my chest.

We walk closer to the table and someone finally sees us.

“Where have you been?” the blond one asks. He points to the empty chair at the table.

“I’m not playing tonight,” Ryan says. He points to me. “This is L-A-R-K.” Every last one of them lays their cards down on the table and I suddenly feel like I’m on display. I step closer to Ryan.

I wave at them and say, “Hi.”

Ryan points to them each in turn, telling me their names, but his fingers move so fast and I’m so damn nervous that I miss most of it. “Nice to meet you,” one of them says.

I make a Y shape with my hand and move it back and forth between them and me. “You too.”

“You want to play poker?” one of them asks. He points to the empty chair.

“Oh, no.” I wave my hand in the air.

“Dude,” the dark-haired one says, “she has a vagina. She can’t play poker.” He shoves the other one’s shoulder.

My face must be flaming red by now, but I work through it. “I do play poker,” I say. “Despite having a vagina. I know, I know,” I rush to say, trying to act flippant, but I’m so nervous my hands are shaking as I sign. “Having a vagina affects your brain, I’ve heard, which makes you unable to add and subtract. Or hold cards. Or place responsible bets.” I look down toward my waist. “Damn vaginas. Who knew they held that kind of power?”

The room is completely silent and I fear that I have messed up entirely.

But then Ryan grabs me and hugs me tightly, his chest shaking with laughter. His friends bark out laughter too, and one of them gets up and pulls out a chair for me. He rolls his arm like he’s inviting me to sit on a throne.

“No, I can’t. I don’t want to interrupt your game.”

“Are you any good?” the one who referred to my vagina asks.

“Maybe. Since I have a vagina, you’ll never find out.” I rock back and forth on my heels.

Ryan motions for me to sit and he stands behind me.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

Ryan nods and winks at me. I shrug and wait for them to deal the cards.

Two hours later, I’m sitting with a stack of chips in front of me and I have four new friends. They were a quiet bunch while we played, since their hands were full of cards, so all I had to do was try to be a good opponent. Apparently I was too good, because they’re all sulky.

I win the last hand and pull the chips over to my side of the table.

“You kicked ass,” Ryan says. He’s been standing behind me on and off the whole time, except for when he left to go make a grilled cheese sandwich for me. He even took a sandwich and chips out to my driver, who has been waiting in the hallway all this time.

“Are they mad?” I ask him.

“No. I think they want to study your vagina to find out how you beat them.” He laughs.

The four men nod in unison, their heads bobbling like exaggerated dashboard dolls. “We like vaginas,” one of them says. He points to the sandy-haired one. “Well, except for him.”

“I wouldn’t mind looking at a vagina,” that one rushes to say. “I just don’t want to put my dick in one.”

I laugh. Because gay men telling jokes about vaginas is funny.

They get up and start to put their coats on. I push the money from cashing in the chips back toward them. “Here. I can’t keep it.”

They look at me like I just tried to murder their grandmothers. Or kill their cats. Or chop off their balls. “You won. You keep it. But you have to come back next week to give us a chance to win it back.”

I look at Ryan and he nods his head slowly, smiling at me. He looks happy. “Maybe,” I tell them. I feel kind of bad for sitting myself down in the middle of the group and then taking all their money.

One by one, they tell me goodbye, and then Ryan and I are completely alone. “Did I do that wrong?” I ask Ryan.

“Do what wrong?” he asks.

“Should I have let them win?” I stare at him, looking for clues.

He tosses his head back and laughs.

There’s one thing I have learned tonight. Deaf people are loud. These guys made a ton of noise with laughing squeaks and wonderful guffaws. But it was a good thing to experience, just like Ryan’s laughter is.

“I love it when you laugh like that,” I tell him.

He stalks slowly toward me. “You do?”

I grin and step back, but he comes quicker for me. I turn and run, because he looks like he wants to play, and he hooks an arm around my waist and lifts me from the floor. I kick and bat at his hand until he sits down on the couch and pulls me into his lap. He turns me sideways so I can face him.

“Where did you learn to play poker?” he asks.

“Emilio.” I wiggle in his lap and he adjusts me so that more leg than bottom is on him, and he leans me back against the armrest so that he’s partially over me.

“Emilio’s a good dad.”

“Really good. So different from my real dad, but so good at the same time.” I can’t even explain it to him. They’re like night and day, but they do have a lot in common, mainly that they both loved me to distraction. With Emilio, I have never felt like a sad adopted girl. I feel like a daughter. His daughter.