Betting Blind (23 page)

“No, I’m saying how come them and not me?”

“How hard is it to understand?” she roared, getting off the bed. “It was a mistake! I decided to stop! Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”

“When was the last time?” I yelled back. If it was in the past year, I was going to hunt the guy down and kill him.

“That’s also none of your business.” She walked to the window, opened the slats with her fingers, and looked out. The crack let in a bar of light that showed the pills on the blanket and the dust on everything. I didn’t trust myself to say anything else. I watched her thin back and long blond hair and thought,
I always get the raw end of everything
.

Irina said in a low voice, “I lost my virginity when I was fifteen with . . . a guy I was in love with. We broke up last year. That’s when I decided to wait until I was married.”

“That’s kind of extreme!”

Irina shrugged, still looking out the window. “I prayed a lot about it, and I felt like that’s what God was telling me.” She said in a softer voice, “And I believe that thing about sex joining two souls. It’s more than just physical. Everybody acts like it’s no big deal. But it is.”

“How do you know you won’t get drunk again and just screw some random guy who’s not going to push you off like I did?” I demanded.

“I don’t drink very often,” she said. “I just did it last night because it seemed like part of the adventure. But I guess I can’t drink around guys at all.”

I gave a short laugh. “Yeah, ’cause you’re too horny.”

She turned and looked at me, her lip curled. “You think waiting is easy? Of course I want to have sex!”

“I don’t understand you. How come you like everything to be so hard? If it sucks, you’ll pick it,” I said bitterly.

“Because doing hard things pays off.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m sure you’re right.” I pressed my hand against my eyes. “I hope you have a perfect marriage and a perfect life.”

There was a long, heavy silence.

“Don’t be mad,” she said gently.

My anger was slowing down a little. I said, “Maybe this whole trip was you, I don’t know, getting back at your parents or something, but it was more than that to me. And I was even okay with not sleeping with you, but it sucks to hear you gave it up to another guy.”

“That was before we met, and you don’t even know how many girls you’ve slept with. That’s a double standard.”

I smashed the pillow, not looking at her. “I know you didn’t do anything wrong. I just don’t like to think of you with anyone else. You’re mine.”

Irina walked to the bed and sat down. She picked up my hand. “I like you a lot. But I can’t really be yours unless we get married someday, and that’s way too far away to talk about.”

I looked at her serious brown eyes, her mind ticking away behind them, obviously overthinking everything to the point where she would drive herself crazy, if she hadn’t already. I decided this heavy stuff had gone on long enough. We were out here to have fun, and there wasn’t much time left.

“I knew you wanted to marry me,” I said.

She looked at me in shock. “Shut up.”

“You want me to be your love slave.”

She giggled. “You’d probably be good at it.”

The last of my madness slipped away. I pulled her toward me and kissed the top of her head, her cheeks, and her mouth. “I forgive you for sleeping with that bastard. You just hadn’t met me yet. And you
are
mine for right now.”

She gave a shriek of laughter. “Well, I forgive
you
for being such a slut! You just hadn’t met
me
yet!” We kissed again, fierce makeup kissing. After a while, she pulled back, smoothed her messy hair, and whispered, “See? It’s been two months.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re finally getting to know each other.”

We hit the road soon after that. It was a little past one, and the bartender was sitting on a plastic lawn chair on his deck, staring at the highway and sipping a Coke from a glass bottle. We had to walk by him to get down the steps to the car. He lifted his hat and squinted at us. He looked washed-out in the sunlight, and very old.

“I left the keys to the room on the bar,” I told him. I’d left another hundred, too.

“You want this?” He picked up a paper bag that had been resting in the shade of his chair. The violin handle was sticking out the top.

Irina gave an awkward laugh and said, “Oh no. That’s okay. You can throw it out.”

He frowned at her. Then he tucked the bag carefully under his chair, leaned back, and pulled his hat down over his eyes.

As I followed Irina down the steps, I said, “What was with the rock-star act, anyway? I can’t believe you smashed your violin.” I smiled. “It’s supposed to be a guitar, you know.”

“Well . . .” Irina reached the bottom step and turned around to face me. She shaded her eyes, squinting in the sun. “I think I needed to do it. It was cathartic.”

“Yeah, because you practice too much, and you’re starting to hate the thing.”

She shrugged. “That’s true. Sometimes I do hate it.”

“But you won’t quit?”

She looked horrified. “Just because you hate something doesn’t mean you quit.”

“Okay, I don’t get that.” I grabbed her around the waist and carried her, kicking a little, to the car. “But I’m glad you smashed the thing, you badass.” I set her down and pretended to swing the violin. “Take that, Philharmonic! Take that, art farts!”

She cracked up. “I think it was more like, take that, Mom and Dad!”

“Yeah, I guess we all do that sometimes.” I opened her door for her, and then I slid into the sweet bucket seat on the driver’s side—I hoped I never got used to it—and gunned onto the long, empty highway.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

V
egas. Vegas. Vegas.

Even the name is beautiful. To hell with the snobs who think they’re above it; Vegas
is
beautiful. It’s like a lady dressed up in sequins with tons of makeup on; she doesn’t have to be pretty underneath. I loved it the second we drove down the freeway ramp onto Flamingo Road, with giant palm trees lined up on both sides. It was late afternoon, and the sun was lighting up the glass walls of the casinos, and the neon lights were screaming. I loved these crazy muthas who had the balls to build a fake Eiffel Tower and a fake Statue of Liberty and a fake pyramid and a fake Venice and a fake King Arthur’s castle. It was like the whole city said,
We’re going over the edge.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” I said to Irina, turning right onto Las Vegas Boulevard.

Her forehead was against the glass. “Wow,” she said softly.

I couldn’t stop smiling. We drove past Caesars Palace, Harrah’s, the Mirage, the Venetian, these big flexing buildings decked out like rock stars. Tourists were everywhere, clutching neon drinks and buckets, like kids going to the playground to dig up treasure. There were skeezy people, and fine women, and way more old people than I would have expected, and packs of guys on the prowl. It was Friday night, and the city was just putting on its shoes, getting ready to make trouble.

I couldn’t wait to get in the mix.

I made a right into the Venetian and drove around a long windy road to the valet entrance. The Venetian was a big white Italian castle shooting out of a bright blue lake, with people rowing around in boats that looked like giant elf shoes. A guy about my age in a vest and bow tie came walking over. He opened the door for Irina, handed me a ticket—and we were free.

I grabbed Irina’s hand and led her to the sidewalk. The rubber band of excitement in my chest was getting tighter. “Where do you want to go first?”

She looked around, eyes sparkling. “Caesars Palace. I like those commercials.”

“Yeah, Caesars seems like classic Vegas.”

Walking down the Strip was like being plugged into a giant outlet. Even outside you could hear the machines clinking. A carpet of party flyers was tacked to the ground by too many feet, and billboards flashed pictures of boxing champs and plush suites and snow-white plates of steak and shrimp. Even the Mickey D’s was lit up with sprays of lights that kept changing colors.

We crossed the street and hit Caesars through the Forum Shops entrance. It was brighter inside than outside, and for a second I thought it had suddenly turned into a perfect blue-sky, puffy-cloud day just for all the rich shoppers.

Then Irina said in amazement, “It’s a fake sky!” I started laughing. Of course it was fake. Everything was awesomely, hilariously fake in this place.

The Forum was packed with shoppers loaded with bags, but off to the right I could see a stretch of dark red carpet and the twinkling gold of handrails. Under the roar of voices was the clang of slots and the click of chips, and under that, I knew there was the whisper of cards.

Somewhere in that room was a spot in front of a Texas Hold’em table.

“You ready to try out your poker skills?” I asked.

Irina gave me a sideways look. “We can’t play here. This is for real players.”

“I’m a real player,” I said, kind of offended. “We could start with the five-dollar tables if you want.”

She shook her head.

“Then be my good luck charm.” I started pulling her toward the floor—and then I realized how selfish I was being. I stopped. “You want to look around the shops or get a drink or something?”

“I thought you wanted to gamble.”

“Nah, this is your vacation. We’ll do whatever you want.”

Irina slipped an arm around my waist and smiled up at me. “That’s sweet, Gabe. No, let’s go in there and play for a while.”

We hit the floor, and I went to the cage and got some chips, and then followed the signs past the Sports Book to the poker room. Irina was holding my arm, and her grip got pincer-sharp when a Samoan security guard rolled up. He had a mic clipped to his collar and a bored expression. “Gotta be twenty-one to be in here.”

I pulled my card out of my pocket, hoping Irina wouldn’t blow it by looking nervous. But she was completely cool as she handed hers over. The bouncer glanced at them, handed them back, and said, “Have a nice time.”

I signed in at the desk for no-limit Texas Hold’em, and the hostess took us straight to a table. There were five other players: a young guy in a greasy suit who looked to have been awake for at least a couple days; two women my mom’s age checking out every dude who walked past; a tough-looking Mafia type stacking his chips in perfect piles; and a long-bearded old man in a button-down “Jack Daniel’s” shirt who looked like he might fall backward any second. His eyes were half-shut, he had his hand wrapped around a beer, and some kind of poker guide was cracked open across his leg.

Irina and I looked at each other and almost started laughing. We were getting to that point where we could read each other’s expressions and set each other off. I pulled out a chair for her, but she shook her head and said, “I’ll just watch from behind you.”

The dealer looked bored enough to shoot himself. He was a frat-boy sort with short blond hair. His uniform had a red bow tie, which I bet he hated. He dealt the hole cards, not even looking at me, although his eyes did run over Irina.

I kept an eye on the other players, already looking for tells. The Mafia guy had at least two thousand in chips, maybe more. But I had a feeling he wouldn’t even blink, let alone twitch or do anything helpful. The old man had barely any chips left, and he was so trashed, I didn’t think he’d last much longer. He kept cracking ice cubes in his mouth and grinning when people gave him grossed-out looks. The women were staring at the table next to us, probably because a George Clooney look-alike was kicking back behind a monster pile of chips. They were down to one small stack, anyway, so they weren’t serious contenders.

Then there was the awake-for-two-days guy. Dude was a picture of the Bad Side of Gambling. He was strung out, scruffy faced, and red-eyed. He needed his mom to give him a bath and put him to bed before he burned up the family fortune, but I had a feeling he’d be up for another three days if he had his way. And his stack of chips said he just might make it.

So it was me versus Mafia Guy and Awake Guy.

Awake Guy posted the small blind, the women (they were gambling together) posted the big blind, and the dealer went to work. I got two jacks, spades and diamonds, and my blood caught fire. Irina smiled, and I shot her a warning glance.

At the flop, Mafia Guy raised us a bill, and the two women folded. Awake Guy glared at Mafia Guy with scary red eyes and shoved a stack of chips in the pot. I could have laughed out loud, because with a jack of hearts, I had a four-of-a-kind on the way, and a good chance of winning that pot.

I raised at the turn, and the old man folded, so it was just Mafia Guy, Awake Guy, and me. Irina was barely breathing. There’s something so tight about the last few rounds of a good poker game; it’s like chugging a Red Bull. Mafia Guy raised us two hundred; then the last jack showed up on Fifth Street, and Irina’s fingers clenched my arm. I almost said,
Ow!
but something like that can be a tell, so I just looked at her. She seriously could have been Awake Guy’s sister, stress shooting out of her in wires.