Bet in the Dark (19 page)

             
I just rolled my eyes. “Whatever you say.”

             
“Exactly,” he smiled at me and my breath stuttered. His face was staggering when he looked at me like that, complete perfection. I smiled back, entranced by his curved lips and perfectly formed teeth. I needed to piss him off pronto, just so I could think straight again. But I couldn’t get my thoughts in order quick enough to make any kind of noise, so I just sat there staring back dumbly. Eventually he spoke again, “So, because you don’t know the first thing about poker, or so you say,” he gave me one of those challenging looks like he expected me just to open up and spill the untrue truth to him. I didn’t respond. The spell of his smile was gone and he was back to being the scary guy that thought I owed him all this money. “I am going to monitor the game tonight, and I want you to write up a list of rules that I can keep permanently, send out to future players and all that. I have a list that I use, but I want something professional and readable.”

             
“Did you want me to put some business cards together too? Maybe some fliers that I could pass around campus advertising a Tuesday Night Special?” I kept my eyes on my computer screen, but I couldn’t help but notice the twitch of his lips as he tried not to smile.

             
“Smartass,” he murmured.

             
“Such language,” I breathed with a feigned huff.

             
He snorted at that and then we both got to work. I pulled up his multiple documents with concise, but simple language and attempted to put all the rules and regulations together in a professional way. Fin sat staring at his computer screen with this intense gaze, arms crossed, feet stretched out in front of him under the desk.

             
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable between us, but we weren’t exactly working in companionable ease. At least on my part. Fin seemed perfectly fine to watch the game happen on the computer screen. It was just like I imagined online poker to be. An octagonal table was displayed on the screen with each section designated to a screen name. The backs of cards were pictured to display how many cards each player had or needed, while the pot in the middle continued to grow with each new bet; also in the middle was a display of the cards the dealer showed. Even Fin, although he sat behind the master controls, couldn’t see the exact cards each player had. The only advantage Fin had over the other players was knowing exactly who each player was, while the anonymity of their screen name kept the other players from finding out.

             
I didn’t understand what was happening on screen at all. The hands played didn’t make sense to me and from one round to the next, I couldn’t figure out who was going to take the pot. But it was kind of fascinating to watch over Fin’s shoulder. Sometimes he would grunt out a response, either in approval or disapproval. And sometimes his fingers would tap rhythms on his desk in what I imagined was him restraining himself from getting further involved in the game.

             
“Do you ever play?” I asked casually. I was googling other documents to help me with the wording of Fin’s rules.

             
“Hardly ever anymore.” He shot me an unreadable look but turned his eyes quickly back to the computer screen.

             
“How did you get into this whole thing?” I asked casually, but I was dying to know. Did he come to college with aspirations to put this together? Or did he inherit this from a graduating senior when he was but a young freshman?

             
He hesitated for a few moments and then heaved a short sigh. “Ty.”

             
“Ty?” I asked in complete disbelief. Ty was so rigid and strict and…. anal about the rules! I could not believe Ty would actually put together something like this and then pass it on to the next generation.

             
“He’s kind of a computer genius. He helped me set this up freshman year,” he admitted in a low voice.

             
“I don’t believe you,” I said mulishly.

             
He shot another look over his shoulder, this time a mischievous grin that told me I didn’t know Ty at all. I shook out my hair, letting it fall around my shoulders in a defiant gesture that I was right and he was wrong. “Besides he told me he thinks of you like a son.”

             
“Exactly.”

             
“Well, that’s kind of messed up, don’t you think?”

             
“Nope. I needed the money, and he found me a way for me to make it without killing myself.”

             
“Why? Why do you need the money? Aren’t you on full-ride for track?” I asked, a bit desperate to get to the bottom of him, to figure out exactly what made him tick, even though I knew I was being rude.

             
“Yes, I’m on full-ride, but school doesn’t pay for everything. I still have to live. And I still have to provide…. for myself.” He sounded cocky despite his awkward hesitation as he explained that, like it was his right as a man to make money and he was just fulfilling his destiny.

             
“You seem to do pretty good though,” I gestured to his trendy apartment with expensive furniture, exposed brick walls and real wood flooring.

             
“As long as I get paid, I do alright,” he admitted.

             
I hmphed at that which earned me another killer smile. “So why do you need the money you think I owe then? In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal if a measly seven thousand goes missing.” I kept my tone and words casual, trying to use my powers of persuasion. If I believed seven thousand dollars was an insignificant amount so would Fin.

             
He fell silent instead of answering my question and I got the impression I went too far. Fin seemed to have this elevated opinion of me, despite the fact that I owed him money. If I didn’t know better, it was almost like he was chasing me, pursuing me. Good thing I knew better.

             
Still, I felt really bad when he went quiet, almost like I disappointed him.

             
After a while he said, “Why don’t you go order us dinner? There’s a good Thai place in the menu drawer. The dish I like is circled.”

             
“Um, Ok,” I saved the document I was working on and then started to get up.

Fin reached for my hand yanking me back to face him. He was swiveled around on his desk chair to face me, his hand firmly gripping mine. I stepped off balance and then came to land with my legs awkwardly parted over his bent knee. The
rough material of his jean-clad knee brushed against the inside of my right thigh and I froze with anticipation. Fin seemed to be hyper-aware of our closeness too because his throat was doing that thing again where I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he worked to swallow.

With his dark eyes boring into mine he reached into his back pocket and pulled out an ultra-thin wallet. He extended it out to me and I grabbed for it with my free hand but he didn’t immediately let go.

“One day,” he said gruffly, his words harsh and raspy in his throat as if it were painful for him to give up. “I’ll tell you why the money’s important one day.”

His eyes were so vulnerable, so trusting…. so open. Even though I
didn’t have any idea what he was trying to tell me, I knew there was something he was saying. So afraid to ruin the moment, I just nodded. I could wait till one day. He could tell me one day.

“Use the green card,” he instructed and then let me go.

It took all of my grace and coordination not to stumble back after he released me from his intensity. I cleared my throat, ignoring the riot of butterflies in my stomach. Fin could do serious damage to my heart if I let him keep this up. And the worst part was he didn’t even know what he was doing.

I ordered the Thai food quickly, just getting two of whatever it was he liked. And I wasn’t even sure if I got that right. My Thai was not the most accurately pronounced.

After I finished the order there was a knock at the door. Without being asked I walked over and put my hand on the knob.

“Wait,” Fin called out, jumping up from his chair. “Let me check who it is first. I’ve been getting these weird-
“ He stopped talking suddenly and cleared his throat.

Knowing he was referring to the three girls I sent his way over the last week I leaned up on my tip toes to look through the peephole. I couldn’t suppress my smile and I was seriously hoping it was another girl. I would die to watch Fin interact with one of them.

But alas, it was only Jameson.

“It’s alright, I think it’s for me,” I called over my shoulder.

Fin was halfway across the room and I felt more than heard his confusion at that. I opened the door and let Jameson in.

“Hey,” I said causally.

He smiled down at me, familiar and sweet. “Hey, Els.” We shared the smile and then he reluctantly greeted Fin. “Hey, man.”

Fin could not have sounded more suspicious when he said, “Hey,” back. “What are you doing here James?”

“Just stopped by to see, Ellie.” Jameson shot me a wink over his shoulder so I knew he was teasing Fin. Not that Fin didn’t totally deserve this; although I wasn’t sure why he would care to begin with.

“She’s working right now,” Fin bit out. He made his stance wide,
intimidating and crossed his arms. His hair was across his forehead again and his dark eyes were more the color of cold black obsidian than warm chocolate.

“I can see that,” Jameson mumbled smugly.

That muscle started ticking in Fin’s jaw again and I had the strongest urge to smooth my hand over it so he would relax. I shook my head of that kind of thought and instead tugged on the crook of Jameson’s arm. “I just ordered some Thai. Are you going to stick around and eat with us?”

“He can’t, we’re working,” Fin growled, emphasizing his words loudly.

“I can’t anyway, I’ve got three miles left to work in this evening. Did you finish your work out track star?” Jameson asked tauntingly.

Fin didn’t reply, just bore holes with his eyes into Jameson’
s head. “What do you need, J?”

Not wanting to cause any problems between Fin and his friend, especially since I was the removable piece here, I hurried over to my backpack
lying on the floor. I grabbed the notes I borrowed and quickly shuffled them into a neat pile before handing them over to Jameson.

“Thanks again,” I smiled sweetly. “Those are probably going to save my grade.”

“Of course,” Jameson smiled back. “Anytime, Ellie, really. And if you need help studying for the midterm, just let me know. I’d love to help out.”

“That would be great, thank you!” I gus
hed. That really would be great; I wasn’t just being polite or nice. My grade was in so much trouble and I could not make sense of anything related to probability or trending inflations.

“Alright, well, I’ll call you later,” Fin interrupted as a way
to kick his friend out.

He was being rude, and I was kind of embarrassed, but Jameson only laughed and gave us a wave on his way out the door.

Once the door was closed behind him, Fin locked it and then returned to his desk. “Since when are you and McKay such good friends?”

“Oh, I thought you knew we had
Econ together. You know, since you made him
spy
on me and all,” I retorted with as much snark as I could muster.

But he just grunted.

Not feeling like sitting back down next to him, I wandered over to his huge windows that looked out over the street below and a section of grassy campus. There were three of these long windows that reached from my waist almost all the way to the vaulted ceiling were evenly spaced along his living room wall. The rough, red brick filled in the space between and the dark wood baseboard ran along the length of the floor.

The sun was shining today and the cold winter wind seemed to have receded for good. People were out and about this evening, enjoying the nice weather, taking their dogs for walks and holding hands in the park area. Couples dotted the grassy knoll all over, holding hands
under budding trees, speaking closely and in one case making foreplay an outdoor sport.

“Oh
my gosh,” I gasped at the publically petting couple. I stifled a laugh, feeling embarrassed for them. It looked like they were trying to eat each other.

“What?” Fin asked from his game surveillance.

I laughed out loud at the guys’ brazenness as his hand traveled up the outside of his girlfriend’s thigh before slipping under her short skirt. “Oh my gosh,” I whispered again.

With some of his earlier impatience gone Fin asked in a gentler tone, “What
is it?”

Reluctantly I answered, “There is this couple on the green across the street. They’re…. they’re basically having sex.” My cheeks heated bright red, but I could not stop watching them. “Ok, maybe not sex but seriously making out.”