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“So who won?” she asked as her feet hit the bottom step.
On the surface, Jill seemed to be everything Marsie wasn’t. Where Marsie was sharp, Jill was round. Where Marsie was brilliant and educated at universities that Jason had only the barest understanding of, Jill had gone to community college to become a phlebotomist, which she’d promptly quit when she’d had a baby. It had been a great job, she said, and she believed in the work she was doing, but she knew she was just biding her time until she started having kids.
But at their core, Jill and Marsie were two sides of the same coin. They were opinionated and sure of the decisions they had made in their lives. They knew what they wanted and worked to make it happen. Both women were kind, generous, tough and no-nonsense.
“I did,” Marsie said. Jason couldn’t tell if she was purposely sounding prim or if she was proud and they were all being fooled by the cardigan, but Dell gave her a sideways glance, irritation still present in his face.
“Excellent,” Jill said with a clap of her hands, delight clear on her face. “Did you clean them out?”
Marsie didn’t have to answer. Burton did it for her when he shoved away from the table with a huff.
Jill laughed. “I don’t know how often I heard that poker was a man’s game. I even won, occasionally, but I never pissed Burton off to that extent.”
She crossed the old, stained shag carpet of the basement to where Marsie was sitting and stuck out her hand. Marsie stood before she took it. Instead of shaking hands, Jill pulled her into a hug. Marsie was stiff at first, but quickly relaxed.
When they pulled apart, Jill patted the other woman on her arms, still clearly thrilled by the circle of grumpy men around the table. “I’m so happy to meet you. If you’re coming to play regularly, I might even rejoin the game. It would be an honor to be beaten by you.”
Marsie glanced around the table. Dell and Burton both alternated between pissed and trying to understand where they’d misjudged her. Ian also looked irritated, but Jason knew it was with himself. Kenny looked amused. Jason hoped he looked proud. He sure as hell felt proud, both of himself for his idea of bringing Marsie along and for how well she’d lived up to his expectations of her play. The way she’d lured Dell and Burton into betting more than they should and then kept them off their feet so that they weren’t about to get a bead on her was better than anything he could have hoped for.
When she looked back at Jill, she said, “I’m not sure I’ll be welcome back at this game by everyone.”
Jill waved away her concerns. “It’s my house, so they don’t have final say over who gets invited and who doesn’t. They just think they do.”
“It’s Kenny’s house, too,” Burton said.
“Burton, you’re whining,” Ian said, disgusted. “We were all beat by a woman. Jason told us he was bringing a woman who would beat us, and we didn’t believe him. She said she was good, and we didn’t believe her. She played each bet textbook perfect, like she had the odds of poker hands memorized and was recalculating everything with each card laid on the table.”
“I do,” Marsie said, her glee now clear in her voice. “And I was. I also add up the prices of things in the grocery store in my head as I put them in my cart. I have a running game with myself to see how close I am when the cashier is ringing me up. Tax, discounts and everything. I’m usually accurate to the penny.”
“Okay, now that’s cool,” Jason said. “It’s the best parlor trick I’ve ever heard.” He had never imagined that he might want to go grocery shopping with a woman, but doing anything and everything with Marsie sounded like fun. She seemed like she would be a predictable person, putting healthy food in her cart and reading labels to choose the best yogurt, but all the while, under the surface of her smooth skin, there was a whole new world.
Jason wanted a chance to be a part of that world. Not just with coffee a couple times a week and the occasional lunch. Not at a poker game that she came to as a guest. And not like her smarts were a circus trick. Just that she was amazing, and he didn’t think he could fully understand just how amazing unless he had a chance to spend as much time with her as humanly possible.
