Kissed Blind (Hot Pursuit #2)(15)

“Hmm, I think I might be onto something here. Seriously, what was her name?”

“Fiiiiiiine,” he sighed. “Her name wasn’t Stacie, it was Stephanie. And so what about her?”

“So what happened? That was the only time you’ve ever had a girlfriend.”

“It was no big deal.” He squirmed in his seat and gathered the cards into a pile. “Do you have anything to eat besides ramen?”

I glared at him, got up, and went into the pantry. I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and dumped some into a bowl. I got two beers from the fridge and set them down in the middle of the table. “Now, why was your last relationship in high school?”

He twisted the tops off both beers. “I just didn’t like it. We went out for a couple of months, and I didn’t like being tied down to one chick. It’s not my thing.”

“And that’s all?” I squinted as Vance looked down, shuffling the cards, but he flipped a few onto the floor. “No, there’s more to the story.”

He growled low, and it grew in intensity. He gathered the dropped cards. “You won’t let this go until I tell you, will you?”

“Nope. I will be a festering boil on your ass until you tell me.”

“Fine. I really liked her and she cheated on me.”

I almost fell out of my chair. “What?”

He cocked his head to the side. “One weekend we went to a party, she disappeared, and I found her in a bedroom with another guy. That pretty much sums it up.”

“Like, found her how?”

“Shoving her tongue down some other guy’s throat.”

I gasped. “Vance! That makes so much sense.”

He acted as if I’d slapped him. “Thanks a lot.”

“No, I mean it makes sense now why you avoid relationships. She scarred you.”

“You’re putting way more thought into it than it deserves. I’ve just never found anyone I wanted to be around for more than an hour or two since her… well, other than you obviously.”

A toothy smile spread across my lips. “Ever? In all these years?”

“Yeah, never.” He leaned back in his seat and rolled his eyes. “Look, I get plenty of this crap from Ma and my sisters, all right? All I’m doing is making sure Gabe is treating you the way he should. He doesn’t have the best track record. I didn’t mean to walk into the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Well then, I guess you’ll think a little harder before insinuating he’s cheating on me next time.”

“You’re too much.” He split the deck in his hand. “What’s the game?”

“Bitch Rummy… since you’re being a little bitch.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

A glow radiated from his eyes, and he laughed. “You want to play Nonna’s cards?”

Nonna was Vance’s grandmother. She had been blind as a bat, hard of hearing, and was tough as nails, but she could whoop anyone’s butt in a game of Bitch Rummy, her game, which is a cross between Spades and Gin Rummy.

Nonna had been the central matriarch in the DeLuca family for as long as I’d known Vance, but she’d passed away a few days into January. Vance had had a hard time coping with the loss. In light of everything happening with his dad, I thought playing Nonna’s game would make him happy.

“I have a fond memory of playing cards with you, your dad, and her that one Thanksgiving. Even though she did kick everyone’s butt.”

“She always won. I have no idea how she did it either. She was an amazing woman.”

The air in the room had gotten heavy, and I needed to lighten it up. “She was.” I narrowed my eyes and smirked. “So let’s see if you have the balls to beat me.”

His lips curved into a salty smile. “Honey, if the queen had balls, she would have been the king. Game on.”

We laughed as he dealt the first round of cards. The object of the game, contrary to a standard game of rummy, was to wind up with the least amount of points in your hand. Thirteen rounds of cards are played, and the person with the fewest points at the end wins. There are also a lot of other little rules, which Nonna would have never let you forget.

Vance and I took turns dealing, and at the end of twelve rounds, the score was neck and neck. I’d won more rounds, but when he’d won, he’d caught me with more points in my hand, which he rubbed in my face every opportunity he got.

I dealt the final round and kings were wild. This was the round Nonna always loved the best for some reason, probably because the odds were usually stacked so high in her favor no one stood a chance of beating her. After I dealt the final card, I looked at my hand. I organized them from lowest to highest. I had three wild cards, nothing short of phenomenal for the last hand. I was so going to win and smash it in his face forever and ever. But since I dealt, he played first.

“All right, do your worst.”

He wore an overconfident grin. “Oh, I will.”

He drew a card from the deck, and after some consideration, laid a run of six cards down out of the eight in his hand, discarding one, and leaving him with a single card. I almost died on the spot. Wild cards have extremely high point values, and he almost caught me with over one hundred and fifty points. It would have been a landslide of a victory. I suspected Nonna was in the room and stacking the deck for him.