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“I feel like I’ve been had,” Ian said, though Jason could tell he was more amused than anything.
“You have,” Jason agreed. “And it’s pretty great.” He turned in his chair to face the amazing woman next to him. “I’ll let you pick where we go.”
She raised her brows at him. “Yeah. That’s magnanimous of you.”
He laughed. “I thought so.”
Dell pushed away from the table. “I’m done being made fun of.” He nodded sharply at Marsie. “I’ll see you next time. And I’ll be prepared.”
“Okay. I look forward to it.” Marsie’s eagerness wasn’t faked. She liked a challenge and wasn’t interested in the easy.
Except in dating, a petty part of Jason’s mind said. In dating, she wanted someone just like her and nothing new or interesting.
Suddenly, Jason was disappointed and irritated with their whole dating buddies thing. Mostly, he wanted the rules about who each of them could date and would date to be gone. He wanted them to take each other seriously as…as…as something.
“Ready to go?” he asked Marsie as he backed away from the table, trying to hide his annoyance with their relationship rules, which he’d helped created.
“Sure.” She held out her hand and a stack of cash was placed in her palm. “I’ll think about where I want to spend this for dinner. And what else I might want to buy. This is a lot of money.”
Jill cackled.
Jason just wanted out of the basement. He wanted to be in his truck driving Marsie home like they were on a date, and yet he didn’t want that, at all. Both at the same time. Because she probably wasn’t interested in him. He didn’t meet her standards, whatever the hell those were.
They gathered up their things and followed Jill up the stairs. The rest of the players were still sitting around the table. Dell still pushed away from the edge, but not yet having found the effort to get up.
Marsie didn’t seem to notice the change in Jason’s attitude. Why should she? He didn’t want her to notice. He wanted things to be just as they were before tonight—when he’d realized she was more amazing than he could have ever imagined—or to be completely different.
With cash in her hand, she was perfectly content. With his wallet lighter and his friends moderately pissed at him—and him being pissed at himself—he was feeling better than he had in years.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARSIE HOPPED INTO the passenger seat of Jason’s truck, looking almost plucky—which was not a word he thought he would ever use to describe her. Winning, and her excitement about it, looked good on her. Especially since he guessed that she won often, but crowed about it rarely.
Her lips were pursed, like an I told you so was waiting to come out. Of course, he’d tell her that he’d told her so, that she’d beat them all at poker, and she’d laugh and he’d watch how beautiful she looked when she was relaxed and happy.
Of course, I told you so wasn’t Marsie’s style.
“That was fun,” she said as soon as Jason was in the car next to her. “Thanks for inviting me. I hope I did what you wanted me to.”
He started his truck. “You beat the pants off them, and you’re going to buy me dinner. That is what I wanted. The show was a bonus.”
Then he thought about what she said. I hope I did what you wanted me to. Marsie didn’t do what people wanted her to. Not that she was a rebel or disobedient—whatever that meant for anyone over five—but she had this sense of who she was and what she wanted to get accomplished in life and the rest of the world be damned.
No cars were coming down the road. But instead of turning onto the road, he turned his head to look at her. “Why did you do it?”
“Agree to your scheme or play a part while doing it?”
“Parts,” he corrected. “It would have been great if you’d played one part, but you moved so quickly through all their expectations of what a female poker player could be that they never had a chance to see you.
“But really, I want to know the answer to both.”
“Are you going to drive me back to my house, or do I have to answer first?”
