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Hunter pouted. That was adorable.
“Apparently I can’t do everything.” Ramsey was almost surprised. “Oh, I have a better idea.” He looked at Hunter. “You know that thing you said you wanted to see?”
Hunter shrugged. “The life sized Gundam in Japan?”
My laughter was back.
“With Violet,” Ramsey said, pointing us back toward the main floor.
Wait. What?
Hunter shook his head. “She’d never.”
“I’d never what?”
“She might if we put a few drinks in her first.” Ramsey kept talking as if I hadn’t said a word.
Which I didn’t appreciate. “Given what the two of you just did to me—with me, in me, on me—I don’t think I need to be drunk for much.”
Hunter sucked in a sharp breath. “You say that.”
“You’re killing me. You know that, right? I’m dead with curiosity...” I trailed off when we stopped at the edge of a pit, next to a Texas Hold ‘em table.
“We’ll start small, have a couple drinks, and work our way up.” Ramsey finally looked at me. “Hunter thinks you could compete. I tend to think he’s right.”
I thought that too, when I was winning one hand after another against friends. But Hunter was right about something else. “I’d definitely need to be drunk to believe that. This isn’t just for laughs around the kitchen table.”
“Nope. It’s better.” Ramsey pointed me toward a chair. “Five hundred in chips,” he said to the dealer.
What? “I can—”
Ramsey crushed his mouth to mine, cutting me off and stilling my thoughts.
I sighed when he pulled away.
“You can.” He nudged me until I sat.
I bid the minimum allowed with the first hand. Just me against the dealer. When I won, I left the money on the table for the next round, and Ramsey handed me a whiskey sour to celebrate.
The wins kept adding up until they didn’t. I frowned when I lost hand number nine.
Ramsey rested his hand on the back of my chair. “You’ve still got chips. Might as well play until they’re gone or you’re tired of the game.”
“But the two of you—
“Are fascinated,” Hunter said. “Keep playing.”
So I did. I lost track of how many hands I won or lost. Sometimes the chip pile was almost nothing, and others it was intoxicatedly large.
The drinks kept coming, too. Until I was making more mistakes than I should be. Until I was giggling more than I should be. Until more people were joining the table, because we’d flown past late night and into early morning.
My head was light and I was giggling maybe more than I should be, but the guy who had joined about five hands ago? Totally bluffing, and I was going to win big.
I put all my chips on the line. Not that I had a bunch left, but if I won, I’d be close to the five-hundred dollar mark I started at.
He flipped his cards, and I frowned.
Nope. He hadn’t been bluffing.
