Hooked 3 (Hooked #3)(14)

But I had to right my brain about it. I was pretty smart about money; I was doing the best I could. I didn’t normally gamble. Sure, I had lost my dance studio. But it had been through no real fault of my own. I wasn’t going out and spending, spending, and gambling. I was simply treading water in a wayward sea.

Drew, in this moment, was my rock. My pillar. I turned toward him as I walked away from the blackjack table.

“How are you seriously so good at that?” I hissed at him. I gripped his arm tight as I kept winding my head around, looking at everyone else in the casino. Everyone else appeared to be losing. Drew had mastered this game, this path.

But Drew looked at me with a harsh smile. “You’re going to want to keep your voice down,” he murmured. “You want to know how I win so much?”

I nodded, my eyes large. “Please. Tell me.”

Drew whispered in my ear. I could feel his breath hot on my neck. “I count cards.”

My face grew bright with admiration. Drew was not only cheating at this gambling situation; he was also a blissful genius. He wasn’t really gambling at all—not like my father who blindly gave away our things, our life. Rather, he had his money and he made it bigger.

“How do you do it?” I whispered back. I sipped on my martini, loving the way the liquid rolled over my tongue.

“I’ll teach you, if you like,” he murmured back.

He rushed through the basics in the corner by the bar. Girls continued delivering us drinks, as if on cue. “I just have them keep them coming when I’m here,” Drew explained as he sipped from his whiskey. I was already quite drunk; he was looking blurrier and more handsome every time I sipped from my drink. Casinos were marvelous; high living was marvelous.

“Okay. So you know, you need to beat the dealer. Yeah?” he began. I nodded. “Okay. When you count cards, you have to remember; cards between 2 and 6 have a value of a plus one. Cards between seven and nine have a value of zero. Cards between ten and ace have a value of negative one.”

“Negative one,” I repeated, trying to keep it all straight in my head. I had never been great at math, and my palms had begun to sweat. Could I really do this? I couldn’t even keep funds to my name. “Wait—Can I put up your tokens? I don’t have—I mean. I don’t want to bet any of my own money.” My face burned as I asked this.

But Drew wasn’t embarrassed. He simply waved his hand in front of his face, tossing it away. “Of course. Of course.” He cleared his throat and took another sip of whiskey. “So. As you play, you add up the numbers. You have to bet when the card count is higher than plus three. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“They’re playing with two decks over there, though. So. You have to divide the number you have by two to get your true number count. Does that make sense?”

I nodded once more. “Two decks. Divide by two. Got it.”

“Do you think you want to try this?”

I spoke through the alcohol. “I’m willing to try anything once,” I said saucily. His eyes met with mine, and suddenly we knew—we knew we wanted to f*ck. We were on the same page. I walked back toward the blackjack table, feeling my ass move this way, then that as I walked. I knew he was watching. I sat at the same seat that had been Drew’s and gave the dealer a single nod in greeting. I flashed him a bit of cleavage. I wasn’t sure who I was, who I had become. But I loved the daring of it all. I nodded to the other people at the blackjack table—the people who were trying to earn back what they’d lost. The woman on the end from Missouri. The man in the middle without hair. The Asian man who punched the table every time he lost—which was every time. Frustration churned on.

The dealer greeted me with familiarity. “Madame.” I nodded toward him. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t believe I was in the middle of Iowa, that I was in the midst of cornfields, of simple folk. All around me were beautiful millionaires and piles of money.


“Hit me,” I said. I counted the cards. First a four. Then a ten. I thought in my head; Plus one. Minus one. I continued counting until—about ten minutes later—I found myself hit with a plus six. My eyes wide, I found myself winning that round. And then the next. And then the next.

Drew stood by me stoically as I used his chips. “That’s my girl,” were his only words as I sat there, focused and counting, counting, counting.

It was like I was addicted suddenly. I couldn’t get enough. The drinks kept coming; my blood pressure kept rising. After an hour, I had won over ten thousand dollars. My head was spinning. I could buy the goddamned studio! The dance studio could be mine; I wouldn’t be in danger of losing my apartment. My eyes were large as the dealer kept dealing, and the chips were sent my way.

After another twenty minutes things started to die down. The count died on the table, and I turned toward Drew, ready to give it a rest. “I don’t know how my father got addicted, really,” I murmured, looking down at the plethora of coins, feeling like I was waking up from a dream. My blood pressure started to release. I could breathe again. “It really does get old after a while.”

“I can only come here every few months, get it out of my system. You earned quite a lot of coins, there, natural.” He winked at me. “Let’s go cash in your winnings.”