Play It Safe(8)

I glanced and I knew she wouldn’t see. I could watch for hours and people wouldn’t know I was watching them. I’d perfected the art. I didn’t, I wouldn’t get paid.

Her face had changed. Slightly disappointed, slightly miffed. I wasn’t as friendly as I’d seemed. It was a slow night and slow could be boring. But mostly, she liked friendly in her bar. She thought she’d like me. She was wrong. So she didn’t like me in her bar.

But she’d take my money.

I shook it off. It hurt, always did but I was used to it. Then I played pool alternately eating.

One could not say I’d had the finer things in life, any of them. Not once. But I’d been on the road long enough to eat in enough diners and bars to have some really good food.

That pulled pork sandwich, at bite one, hit my top five, maybe top three.

It wasn’t excellent.

It was superb.

I finished it, finished my beer and went down to Janie to buy another one. She didn’t make another attempt at friendly. This was when I knew she’d worked that bar awhile. She got me.

I bought it, no tab, and wandered back to the table.

I was executing a difficult shot with no problem when they showed, moving up the platform with their beers toward the other table.

My eyes slid through them and I read them in an instant.

They were Gray’s age, maybe a bit older. They were the bullies in school. Athletes, undoubtedly. Not out of school long enough for their bodies to go to pot but at least for one of them, it was starting. He was likely married or had a steady girl he knew would never leave. The other two were still looking for “the one” or just the one who would get them off for a night. Therefore, they felt the need to keep in top form, wanted attention, wanted to get laid and often. Made an effort. Clothes, haircuts, bodies. It said it all.

But their eyes were eyes I never liked to see in anyone. Entitled. I couldn’t say they weren’t good-looking. They did not have the looks or manner of Gray, nowhere near. But they weren’t hard to look at and knew it. They either came from money or made it. They went to college. They’d had the finer things in life. They were looking forward to having a life filled with finer things. Maybe not daily but they’d have their toys. They’d have their hot pieces. They’d marry one. She might go to pot after the second or third kid but she’d do her damnedest to keep herself together so she’d keep hold. She’d fail mostly because they’d cheat. They were used to having what they wanted and they’d take it. She’d know it then she’d lose it one way or another then lose them.

Divorce in their thirties or forties. Replacement hot piece who would also go to pot eventually either when they finally let go of the glory days or she did.

Kids bounced around.

Ending life in Arizona or Florida close to a golf course.

I didn’t want them playing pool by me.

I’d been playing pool for ten years, lots of it. Boris Becker could play tennis and won Wimbledon at seventeen. I could play pool and wipe the floor with absolutely anyone by fifteen. It was a gift. I couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t even practice. I just saw the table, saw the shots, felt them, knew how to take them and did. I’d pocketed balls in shots world-class players couldn’t execute.

And it was lucky I could. It kept my brother and me fed, clothed and in gas and hotels.

I was a pool hustler and that was likely all I’d ever be.

But not that night. That night, I had a good sandwich in my belly and a cue in my hand.

I was playing just for me.

I cleared the table, set it up again then cleared it again, in my zone, ignoring them. Ignoring everybody.

But it wasn’t a surprise when a male presence hit the end of the table as I was bending over it to break yet again and I heard, “Honey, you got a way with a stick.”

My eyes went up but not my head. It was a pickup line and a rude one. A different kind of girl, he’d lead in another way. But he saw the scuffs on my boots. He saw the quality of my henley. He knew my jeans were faded because I’d had them for years not because I bought them that way.

And he watched me play pool.

He thought I was the woman at the bar, younger, less rough around the edges, able to hide that I was used to being rode hard and put up wet.

I hated him on sight.

I looked back at the table, muttered, “Yup,” and let fly.

Balls scattered, two went in pockets.

I searched for my shot, lined it up, took it and the ball went down.

I shifted, moving the opposite direction as him as he stated, “Hundred dollars says I can take you.”

He was rude, entitled and cocky. He’d seen me play.

Stupid schmuck.

I opened my senses. It was getting later. There were more people in the bar. I felt them. There was a slight hum, not much. Not busy. But more populated. I’d garnered some attention; I felt eyes on me and not just the eyes of the four men at the table next to mine.

“Thanks, but no,” I murmured, bent, lined up my shot, took the tap and it went in.

“Seems easy money for you,” he noted.

He was right. And I needed it. Badly. A hundred dollars I could stretch a long way.

The answer was still no.

He had trouble written all over him, trouble I didn’t need.

“Just want a little private time, me and a table,” I told the table, shifting around it, eyes to it, not giving him anything.