by Nell Stark
“Damn.” She sat back in the chair, disbelieving. Twelve thousand dollars. She had just lost twelve thousand dollars in a matter of hours. You’ve lost more, and in less time, her rational brain reminded her. That was true enough, but only at online tables, when her bankroll had been in the hundreds of thousands. Before she walked into this room, her bankroll had been a whopping thirty-five thousand. And she had just lost almost a third of it.
“Good hand.” Damon nodded as if her interjection had been one of admiration instead of dismay. “Rough luck.”
Rough luck? For one blinding moment, she wanted to hit him, the spike of rage so strong that it burned away her anxiety. Not trusting herself, she clutched the sides of her chair to keep still. It passed quickly, but she could feel a different kind of anger building like thunderheads in the back of her brain. How had she allowed this to happen? How?
Dazedly, she looked around the table. Delilah was shuffling. Mac was watching her with a speculative expression. The rest of them were very deliberately not looking in her direction, and she wondered just how much of her volatility had been apparent for all to see. Was that why she had played so poorly? Was she even worse at maintaining a poker face than she’d thought?
“Gentlemen,” she began slowly, knowing she had to break the awkward silence. “I think that’s a sign from the universe that it’s my bedtime.”
A few of them laughed. Davenport rose when she did. “You’re welcome any time,” he said.
Of course she was. People who laid down their money and lost it were always welcome at a poker game. “Thank you,” she said, shaking his head. “Great to meet you all. Good night.”
Nova turned her back on the table and let herself out into the atrium. Its gleaming floors and opulent artwork mocked her bag, empty except for the mints rattling softly in their tin. She hurried across the expanse, head throbbing in time with her heart.
How strange, she thought as she passed under the dome, that mere hours ago, she had thought herself a legitimate member of that little club. Her nascent plans seemed so hollow and silly now—the product of ignorance and naïveté. A fish in the desert—that’s what she was. Flopping around uselessly, dying a slow and painful death, baking and suffocating by turns.
She didn’t belong here; that much was clear. Not in this room, nor any other in this city. She didn’t belong here at all.
Chapter Six
Vesper stood with her palms resting on the back of Isabella’s chair, squinting down at her checkered computer screen. Beyond the glass walls of her office, the lobby hummed with activity—like a beehive, she might have said, though calling gamblers industrious was a vexed proposition at best. Doubtless, Nova and the other professionals would disagree. They always had an inflated sense of their own work ethics.
Vesper’s fingers tightened when she realized where her mind had wandered. Ever since their brief meeting over drinks, Nova had been sporadically ambushing Vesper’s thoughts. Despite having avoided the poker room for days, Vesper found herself repeatedly engaging in mental debates featuring Nova as her opponent. It had been oddly enjoyable to spar with her at the bar—that much she was willing to admit. But that should have been the end of it. She had discharged her duty to Evan and never needed to see Nova again.
“Bad news.” Isabella’s voice snapped her back to the present. “All the guest rooms are full next weekend.”
“No vacancies?” Vesper regarded her dubiously. “As in no vacancies?”
“None. Zip. Zilch. Zero.”
“Not even a few rooms that James has squirreled away somewhere?”
Isabella swiveled in her chair and shot Vesper a pointed look. “Are you accusing me of lying?”
“No, of course not.” Chagrined, Vesper held up her hands in a placating gesture. Their friendship notwithstanding, it would be sheer folly to get on Isabella’s bad side. As a hospitality manager, Isabella was responsible for doling out the living accommodations—not to ordinary visitors, who could be served perfectly well by a computer, but to the hosts and their high rollers.
“I do have a few open Midgard suites, though. Why not just upgrade your client?”
Vesper shook her head. “This is his first time with us, and his credit line isn’t anything out of the ordinary. If I give him a suite, he’ll expect one forever. If I don’t…”
“You can dazzle him later. I get it.” Isabella scrolled back up through the listings on her screen. “But what else can you do—oh! Someone just checked out early from a guest room. Room 2074.”
The number sounded familiar, but whatever association it had triggered was just beyond her grasp. “That’s lucky,” she said.
“What’s the guy’s name?”
Vesper couldn’t remember the exact spelling, so she looked it up on her phone. This particular client was a friend of one of the Hamiltons’ friends—far enough removed for her to be dialing it in. “The Third,” she finished belatedly.
Isabella snorted. “Don’t you love Thirds? They’re all megalomaniacs.”
Vesper glanced toward the door that connected Isabella’s office to the area behind the front desk. It was closed, but she still felt uneasy. Complaining about clients was par for the course for most of Valhalla’s employees, but Vesper had learned a long time ago just how costly an overheard conversation could be.
“I mean,” Isabella was saying as her fingers flew over the keyboard, “it takes a special kind of inflated self-importance to give your kid the same name your father gave you. Don’t you think?”
She had a point. Samuel was a Third, and not only selfish, but cruel besides. At least, he had been when he was seventeen. Fortunately, she was spared the necessity of answering when Isabella hit the Enter key and sat back in her chair. “There. Done. Thursday to Sunday, room 2074.”
The memory surfaced: Nova looking down at her, smug and arrogant despite the growing margarita stain on her pants, brazenly inviting her upstairs. Why had she checked out? The WSOP was still weeks away.
And then, as though Vesper’s thoughts had summoned her, Nova appeared at the far side of the World Tree Pool. As Vesper watched through the glass, she plodded slowly across the lobby, head bent as though fighting an invisible headwind. Her hair hung loose, partially covering her face, but that profile was unmistakable. A large duffel bag hung from one shoulder, bouncing against her thigh at every step as she slowly made her way toward the front door.
“Hello? Earth to Vesper?”
Avoiding Isabella’s inquisitive gaze, Vesper squeezed her shoulder and turned toward the door. “Excuse me for a minute.”
Before she could second-guess her own motives, she slipped out past the front desk and walked briskly along an intercept course. When they were a few feet apart, Nova finally glanced her way, only to lurch to a stop. Her eyes were shadowed and bloodshot, her cheeks pale beneath their tan.
“Vesper.” The gritty quality to her voice made Vesper’s stomach flutter. “Hi.”
“Leaving us so soon?” It didn’t feel like the right thing to say, but then again, nothing did. This had been a bad idea. Instinctual acts always were. She should have stayed with Isabella.
Nova hesitated, her gaze shifting first to the left and then to the right like an animal trapped in a cage. “I…” The muscles along her jaws contracted as she met Vesper’s eyes again. “I lost a lot of money last night. Too much…too much to stay. Here.”
Vesper’s surprise must have been plain to see, because Nova flinched and looked down at her feet. “Go ahead and say it. ‘I told you so.’”
“All I told you about was the game.” Vesper felt suddenly guilty for throwing Nova into the deep end. But that was silly. She was a professional, and the deep end was where she belonged. “What happened?”
“If you really want a postmortem, can we at least sit down?” Nova nodded toward an open bench near the water.
“Of course.” As she crossed one leg over the other, Vesper automatically scanned the lobby. None of her cli
ents were visible, leaving her free to give Nova her full attention. For the moment. Dressed in a pair of gray cargo shorts and yet another tank top—did she own any other kind of shirt?—shoulders slumped in a gesture of defeat, Nova didn’t look anything like a champion.
“I was playing well,” she began, restlessly rubbing both palms across her knees, “or at least, I thought I was. But then I made a few bad calls and had a few unlucky breaks, and before I knew it, I was on tilt.”
“So poker is a game of luck?” After rehashing their debate for days, Vesper couldn’t resist the dig.
Nova glared at her. “No. I stand by what I said that night. It’s mostly a game of skill. I just…I guess…I’m not, apparently. Skilled.” The ball of her foot scuffed at the floor. “Not at sitting around for hours, trying to get in everyone else’s heads while keeping them out of mine. Playing online is so different.”
Against her better judgment, Vesper actually felt sympathetic. “But isn’t reading body language just a different kind of pattern recognition?”
Nova looked thoughtful. “I suppose. But that won’t matter if I’m giving away tells left and right. Besides, playing one game at a time is killing me.”
“How else are you supposed to play?”
“Online, I played three at a time. Sometimes five.”
“Five at a time?” Vesper could barely imagine it. “How did you keep track of that many hands at once?”
Nova shrugged. “It’s just numbers.”
“And numbers are easy for you.” Vesper had met several poker players who were math geniuses, but all had been male. She couldn’t help but wonder how Nova measured up to them.
“You sound skeptical.” A hint of the bravado that had so aggravated her at their first meeting returned to Nova’s manner as she arched one eyebrow. “Try me.”
Try me. For one blinding second, Vesper imagined leaning through the space between them and pressing their lips together. What would Nova’s mouth taste like? What would Nova’s hair feel like, sliding through her fingers as she cupped the back of her head? Would Nova willingly surrender, or try to steal the upper hand?
The cascade of unwanted images made her lungs constrict almost painfully. Fortunately, she had much more practice maintaining a poker face than Nova apparently did. “Try you?”
“Mental math. Whatever you like.” Nova squared her shoulders, clearly excited by the prospect of showing off.
“All right…how about 3789 times 8357?”
She stared at the water for several seconds with narrowed eyes before suddenly announcing, “Three one six six four six seven three.”
Vesper blinked in surprise and reached into her suit pocket. “Hold on,” she said as she typed the numbers into her phone. When its response was the same as Nova’s, she admitted to being impressed. “I suppose you’re an ace at long division, too?”
“Why don’t you find out?”
Ignoring her visceral reaction to the smug little smile curving Nova’s lips, Vesper quickly multiplied Nova’s former room number by the last four digits of her Social Security number. “All right: 2878712 by 2074.”
This time, Nova closed her eyes as though she were listening to a particularly evocative piece of music. Vesper silently counted the passing seconds, mostly in an effort to distract herself from the sensuality of Nova’s expression. She had no sooner reached nine when Nova triumphantly announced: “One three eight eight.”
“Right again.” Vesper refrained from telling her the significance of that particular number, of course. “Division must be especially important for calculating odds.”
“Yes.” Nova cocked her head. “You know a fair amount about poker theory. Occupational hazard?”
“Once upon a time, I was a dealer.” She watched Nova digest that information and saw the curiosity surface on her face. It was true—she was an open book. “What else can you do?” Vesper asked before Nova launched an inquisition into her past.
“Well…nth roots are fun.”
“Nth roots.” Vesper thought furiously, not wanting to have to ask for clarification. “That’s the same principle as a square root, but with any number? Not just two?”
“That’s right.”
Nova seemed impressed, and Vesper tried in vain not to let that please her. The first number to pop into Vesper’s head was her mother’s birthday, September fourth. Shielding her phone with one hand, she multiplied ninety-four by itself five times.
“Take the fifth root of 7339040224,” she challenged.
Nova scrunched up her nose as she concentrated. “Ninety-four.”
Vesper felt herself smile. “That’s amazing.”
“Fifth roots aren’t that hard, actually. There’s a trick.” Nova briefly rested two fingertips on her knee. “I could teach you, if you wanted.”
Her touch was gone as soon as it had come, leaving Vesper’s skin feeling hot and tight. The way her body was reacting was absolutely ludicrous. Nova certainly wasn’t the first attractive lesbian she had ever met in her line of work, nor the first to show interest. Admit it, a small voice whispered deep inside her head. She’s the first one you’ve truly been attracted to. Since Sabrina, at least. Which might explain why she kept flashing back to her adolescence in Nova’s presence.
“You’ve certainly convinced me about being a numbers person,” she said, deliberately sidestepping the invitation.
“Numbers are easy. People are hard.” Nova looked away toward the pool, the enthusiasm visibly draining from her. Was she mentally reliving one of the games she had lost last night? “I should go.”
“Where will you stay?”
“The Motel Six a few blocks over is looking pretty good,” she said, standing.
Rationally, Vesper knew she should let her leave. She wasn’t the first gambler who had been forced into an early checkout, and she wouldn’t be the last. But when Nova reached for her duffel, she held up one hand. “Wait. I might be able to comp you a room.”
“Comp me a…but why?” Nova released a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m not one of your high rollers. Not by a long shot.”
That was true enough, and Vesper fumbled to articulate her reasons when even she didn’t fully understand them. For one thing, there was Evan. Nova’s move to a cheap motel wouldn’t reflect well on her, despite her lack of blame. But if she were being honest with herself, that wasn’t her only motivation. The version of Nova she had first met, full of braggadocio and disdain, had pushed all her buttons. This humbler, self-deprecating version aroused her sympathy. Not that she intended to confess as much.
“We have a few suites that aren’t being used right now. You may as well stay in one.” Hoping her nonchalance was convincing, she shrugged. “But if I or one of my colleagues books a client who needs the room, you’ll have to leave.”
“Of course.” Nova blinked tiredly. “That’s really generous. I owe you. Big time.”
“You do.” The power trip settled Vesper’s nerves. Better she be owed than vice versa. “And someday, I’ll collect. For now, let’s get you a new key.”
She led Nova past the barricade of the front desk and into Isabella’s office. “Where on earth did you—oh.” Isabella cut herself off and frowned when she caught sight of Nova.
“Isabella, this is Nova, a professional poker player. Nova, meet Isabella Martin, one of our hospitality managers.”
As they shook hands, Isabella looked Nova up and down. When her expression turned shrewd, Vesper knew she was in for an interrogation later. Aside from Jeremy, Isabella was the only coworker to whom she had confided her sexual preference.
“I’m setting Nova up with one of those Midgard suites you mentioned,” she said, once they had dispensed with the pleasantries.
To her credit, Isabella didn’t bat an eye. “Great. Have you stayed with us before?”
“Yes.”
“Last name?”
“Novarro.”
As Isabella’s fingers flew over the keyboard, Vesper became a
cutely aware of Nova standing just behind her—close enough to touch, although she wasn’t. Novarro. So that’s where her online handle came from. Vesper hadn’t paid close attention to her full name when Evan had first been in touch.
“Annie Jump Novarro?”
Vesper turned her head just in time to catch Nova’s flinch. “That’s me,” she said, a note of resignation flattening her voice.
Vesper swallowed her laugh, but some hint of surprise or amusement must have shown on her face, because Nova sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. She recognized the protective gesture and felt guilty.
“Annie Jump Cannon was one of those pioneering female scientists back around the turn of the century,” Nova said glumly. “The twentieth one, that is. My parents are math and science nerds.”
So her ability was hereditary, and her parents were high achievers. Vesper wondered what they thought of their daughter’s career choice.
“You’re all set.” Isabella reached into the top drawer of her desk and quickly programmed a key. “Room 5069. That’s in Dragon Tower.”
“Sixty-nine?” Nova stepped forward to take the key, a mischievous grin curling her lips. “Lucky for me.”
“The room doesn’t come with that particular amenity,” Isabella said dryly.
“I’ll live.” Nova winked at her. “It’s a good omen. The six and nine of hearts is the only hand I’ll always play.”
Vesper couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Efficient, businesslike Isabella, who habitually went toe-to-toe with the most macho of the male casino hosts as she managed Valhalla’s prime real estate, was flirting with the female incarnation of Casanova. Which, now that she thought about it, might be another rationale for Nova’s online handle.
“I’m sure that ends well for you,” she was saying.
