All In

by Nell Stark

  *

  In its initial configuration, the final table of the Championship had eerily resembled the cash game that had sent Nova into the tailspin that in turn had ended in her becoming Vesper’s charity case. Mac, Kris, and Damon had all advanced, and during the first few rounds earlier that afternoon, the men had exchanged a slew of banter as they systematically dismantled the stacks of their three weakest opponents. Nova had played as tightly as she dared, ignoring Damon’s trash talking and letting the other players knock each other out.

  At the end of the previous round, Mac had gone heads-up with Kris and triumphed, so now there were only three players remaining. She still couldn’t believe she was one. Unfortunately, she was also the one with the shortest stack, which meant they were ganging up on her. That was nothing personal, of course—it made perfect strategic sense. It also meant that she couldn’t afford to play conservatively anymore. As soon as she was dealt even a reasonably strong hand, she would have to make a move.

  From here on out, there would be no more switching from game to game. The tournament organizers had ruled that no limit hold ’em was the best way to decide the victor once the table had been reduced to three players. As the dealer shuffled, Nova counted out the 400K big blind and pushed her chips into the center. Four hundred thousand dollars. She tried to remind herself that they weren’t her dollars. She was playing with everyone’s money and would get a percentage when the tournament was over. Still, she had never been forced to lay down that large a blind before, and it was disconcerting.

  No, it was worse. When she pulled her hand back, her chest suddenly constricted in a wash of anxiety. She looked out at the crowd, but it was too densely packed for her to pick out Vesper’s face, if she was even there. As she tried to take deep, even breaths, the walls seemed to shudder and close in around her. Naturally, her claustrophobia would choose to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune moment.

  Over the years, Nova had found that getting up and walking around often helped the panic to recede. But they had just returned from a break, and leaving the table again would signal her weakness to her opponents. She would have to work through this while sitting still, and quickly. The round was about to begin.

  Leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes and pictured the beach. Beneath the table, she wiggled her toes, imagining the warm sand sliding against her skin and the hot sun beating down on her shoulders. A card brushed her hand, rousing her from the reverie. Her heart was still pounding wildly as she glanced down at what she’d been dealt. Queen of diamonds, seven of spades. Not good enough, especially when Damon led out with a 500K raise. Whether he had the cards to back it up was unclear, but she couldn’t pull off a bluff when her skin was crawling and her pulse was a drum roll. Mucking her hand, she tried not to think about how much money she’d just surrendered. Not that. Anything but that. She had to calm down.

  Her next two cards were the three of clubs and the seven of hearts. Drawing to an inside straight was a vexed proposition at best, and suicide right now. She folded, as did Damon a moment later. Her small blind and his big blind joined Mac’s growing pile of chips. Her next hand with a four and nine unsuited wasn’t much better. She mucked her cards. Mac laughed at something Damon said. Mercifully, the words were drowned out by the murmur of the crowd, but no white noise could distract her from the fact that her chip count had just fallen below two million.

  Nova closed her eyes again, but the beach fantasy just wasn’t cutting it anymore. The truth was, as much as she wanted to return to Año Nuevo when all of this was over, she didn’t want to do it alone. She didn’t want to do it with her roommates, either. It was Vesper who belonged beside her, hair loose and skin glowing under the sun, a surfboard propped awkwardly under her arm. Nova wanted to teach her how to read the undertow and time her paddle and ride a breaking wave. Later, they would sit together at a table in the shade of a palm tree and drink fruity frozen concoctions, flirting and teasing as the sun made its bed in the ocean.

  A fresh blast of the air conditioner reminded Nova that she was just shy of three hundred miles from the Pacific. Shivering, she opened her eyes and pushed her 400K big blind into the pot. Two cards slid to a halt on her patch of felt, and she reached for them, too desperate even to pray.

  Pocket rockets stared back at her: ace of diamonds and of hearts. Twin scarlet letters. Suddenly, her heart was racing for an altogether different reason. Struggling not to betray her elation, Nova latched onto the rhythm of her own breaths. In and out. In and out. Slow and even, like her pulse should be. Her eyes might be protected by the shades, but the rest of her face had to remain impassive. If she didn’t play this hand perfectly, she would squander her chance for a comeback.

  It was Damon’s turn to start the betting. If he led out aggressively, she could call. If he didn’t, her choice would be much more complicated. She’d been playing so tightly that if she bet too much, she would betray her strong hand and both he and Mac would fold. But she also wanted this pot to be as large as possible so that she could recoup some of her losses.

  Damon was looking at her now, eyes narrowed. Hopefully, she seemed vulnerable. Standoffish at best, Damon had barely acknowledged her presence since her abysmal performance in that cash game. All he felt for her, she felt certain, was disdain. Hopefully, she could use that against him.

  When he raised 400K, she almost smiled before remembering that they hadn’t even seen the flop. Damon’s pre-flop re-raises were the stuff of legends, and now she was on the other side of one. The fact that she was holding two aces made it more palatable than it otherwise might have been.

  Then Mac called the bet, and an icy finger of dread trailed down her spine. After a moment of utterly authentic hesitation, she slid 400K into the middle, fingers trembling from the adrenaline. Quickly, she returned her hands to her knees. Gaze riveted on the empty swatch of felt before the dealer, she waited for the cards to appear. Nine of spades, nine of diamonds, three of clubs. Nova blinked down at them, unable to swallow. If either Damon or Mac had a nine, his chance of winning had just skyrocketed to eighty-nine percent.

  Mac looked from her to the pot and back again. Then, with a shrug, he pushed 900K worth of chips into the middle. It was exactly the number that would force her to go all in if she chose to remain in the hand, and he knew it. Either he had that nine, or he was trying to bluff her into busting.

  Finally, her throat loosened enough to swallow. If she backed off, she would have to surrender her 900K in the next two rounds as the blinds bled her down. Lady Luck only knew what cards she would be dealt. That was no way to go out. No, she needed to put up a fight now, with aces in her pockets. The turn or the river might be kind.

  She scanned the crowd again but still couldn’t pick out Vesper. She saw TJ, though, clapping with his hands above his head as though she were playing soccer and not poker. The room was awash with sound, but his voice rose above the roar. “Get it, Nova!”

  She pushed her shades to the top of her head, then stroked her thumb across the cool surface of the conch. For a moment, she imagined she could feel the cards beneath it, stirring like sea beasts in the depths, ready to wake. This wasn’t over. She had two outs, and the aces wanted to win.

  “All in.” As she spoke the words, a foreign sense of calm settled over her. Was she in shock? Had her adrenal glands run dry? What was happening to her?

  When Damon mucked his cards, she knew he’d been bluffing. Mac met her unshielded eyes, smiled slightly, and said, “Ladies first.”

  She palmed the conch and flipped her cards. The crowd’s collective gasp would have been comical under any other set of circumstances. Mac’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing as he flipped over the nine of clubs and the jack of hearts. There was a smattering of applause, but also some groaning. A distant part of Nova’s brain wondered whether her supporters were cheering for her or for her gender?

  The dealer burned a card and turned over the queen of clubs. Nova knew she was supposed to f
eel disappointed or sad or upset, but she felt nothing. Her mind had somehow broken through the cloud cover of emotion. She only wondered how long it would last.

  The dealer’s hands were well manicured, for a man. Idly, she wondered whether that was a casino requirement. They moved efficiently, but time seemed to slow as he grasped the edge of the card that would decide her fate. With a flick of his wrist, he revealed it to the world.

  Time stopped. Nova stared blankly down at the table. The ace of spades stared back at her, regal, impassive, victorious.

  Victorious.

  The room exploded into shouts and cheers, an avalanche of sound that pulled her under and turned her upside down, releasing her from the grip of her paralysis. Exultation flooded through her as the dealer pushed the pot into her orbit, leaving behind 200K as her small blind. The reminder sobered her. As much as she wanted to join in the audience’s celebration, she had won a single battle, not the war. Mac had left himself with only 500K, but he wasn’t finished yet. And beside her there was Damon, who had more chips than the both of them combined.

  The dealer dealt. Mac, who mercifully had the button, folded his hand immediately. Damon was the big blind and Nova decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. She raised 800K and waited. A low chorus of ooohhhhs around her suggested that the crowd was enjoying her sassiness. After a solid minute of deliberation, he mucked his cards.

  Nova hid her smile by taking a sip from her seltzer water. For the first time since this round had begun, she felt a measure of confidence. Still, when her next two cards were the ten of clubs and the five of diamonds—affectionately known as the “five and dime”—she folded. It wasn’t good enough to run with, especially since Damon would be looking to recoup his losses. And sure enough, he pushed Mac all in right away.

  Nova watched their showdown closely, trying to pay particular attention to Damon’s facial expressions and body language, but it was like trying to guess the mind of a statue. He really was the Ice Man, and within a matter of seconds, his straight had frozen out Mac’s two pair. The crowd rewarded Mac’s performance with warm applause, and he rose to acknowledge it.

  She stood when he did, and once he had shaken Damon’s hand, Mac turned to give her a quick embrace. “Take him down a few pegs,” he whispered.

  As she returned to her seat, the fact that she was playing a heads-up game with Damon Magnusson with a WSOP bracelet—and a sponsorship deal—on the line finally began to sink in. A renewed surge of anxiety knotted up her stomach, and she quickly turned her head away from Damon so he wouldn’t catch any hint of fear in her expression.

  “Players, are you ready?” Their new dealer was a woman. Tall and blond and thin, she was the paragon of the American ideal of female beauty, but Nova didn’t even feel a twinge of desire. Vesper was the one she wanted. Only Vesper.

  “Yes,” Damon said curtly. He laced his hands together, rested them on the table, and stared at her impassively.

  “Ready.” The buzz of the crowd would be her ocean, the heat of the lamps her sun. She wanted to be right here, right now, fully present—channeling her emotion, not insulating herself from it. This was the moment she’d been waiting for, the chance to carve out a space for herself in this world. To prove she belonged—not just to the Damons of the world, but to her family and friends. And to herself.

  The cards thrummed between the dealer’s hands, a drum roll announcing the final showdown. As the first two hit the table, Nova’s vision telescoped. She was up against the most aggressive player in the world. Fight or fold, those were her options. There could be no middle ground.

  The rhythm of the game caught her up, and for a while, she let it carry her. The blinds had gone up to 250K and 500K. Her first three hands were junk, and she folded them all, giving up a million in blinds to Damon within two minutes. He never cracked a smile, but she could feel the smugness radiating from him like bad cologne. Praying to be dealt some kind of weapon, Nova reached out to pull her fourth hand toward the hole camera.

  Ace of diamonds, king of clubs. Big Slick. Her prayer had been granted, and this time, she wouldn’t mess around by limping in. Damon, on the small blind, was first to act and he called. After a moment of consideration, Nova raised to one million, hoping he would be intrigued instead of frightened off. He called instantly. Did that mean he had a strong hand? Or would he have called no matter what?

  The flop revealed the five of clubs, seven of spades, and king of spades. Mindful of Vesper’s warning about her tells, Nova kept one hand on her chips and the other on the conch shell. She led out with a continuation bet of one million, once again hoping to keep Damon interested if he’d only been bluffing. But instead of calling, he tossed two million into the pot. A re-raise. Of course.

  Unless he’d been dealt pocket rockets, she had top pair and top kicker. But there were two spades in the flop, so he might be chasing a flush, and that five and seven might also point to a straight. Too many options. Suddenly, her plan seemed naïve. Over half of her money was already in the pot. Calling Damon’s bet would leave her with 600K. Then again, whatever he might have at some later point, she had something now, and that was worth defending. Nova carefully counted out a million in chips and threw them into the pot.

  The turn was the four of hearts—not exactly comforting, if Damon was going after the straight. Nova checked and surprisingly, Damon checked behind her. Maybe he was still waiting for his draw? Not a spade, she prayed silently as the dealer shuffled. Please, not a spade.

  When the jack of clubs appeared on the river, Nova’s confidence returned. She pushed her remaining 600K into the middle of the table, hoping Damon had struck out and would fold. “All in.”

  When he didn’t respond immediately, she managed to meet his steely gaze without flinching. What did he see when he looked at her? A worthy opponent, or a bug in need of squashing?

  Finally, he called. Nova swallowed hard, gently moved the conch aside, and turned over her cards. Damon’s lips twisted in disgust—the first emotional reaction she’d seen from him all day. There was only one reason for him to look that way, and her heart fluttered wildly as she dropped her gaze to his cards. The king and queen of hearts. She had won, all right. Just barely.

  Hands trembling, she stacked up her chips: 7.2 million from a single pot. She had won that much before in a handful of online games, but it was a completely different experience to be able to rub the chips between her fingertips and tangibly feel her success. She realized that for the first time since the tournament began, she had a significant lead over Damon.

  For the next several hands, Damon would claw and scratch that lead away, going all-in three hands in a row. The cards went cold for Nova, and as much as she wanted to face up to his aggression, she just didn’t have the hands for it. Half an hour after Big Slick had staked her a seemingly insurmountable lead, Nova found herself only 600K ahead with the momentum decidedly in Damon’s court. And he knew it, too. With every win, he turned to the audience and pumped his hands in the air.

  As the dealer broke out a new pack of cards, Nova looked out into the crowd. A glimpse of Vesper would make her feel much better. Where was she? Had she decided not to come? Was something wrong?

  “Nova!” TJ’s voice rang out again. This time, when she turned to wave to him, he was pointing across the room. “She’s over there!”

  She followed the line of his arm with her eyes and sure enough, there was Vesper in the midst of the television crew, talking intently with a man who was probably one of the producers. Had she gotten roped into working? Nova watched as she raised her hands to gesticulate, every movement precise. Those hands had been all over her body, inside her body, tormenting and inflaming and soothing her. No one had ever touched her the way Vesper had—tenderly and possessively, all at once.

  As though she’d heard the thought, Vesper looked up. Their eyes met and held, but the distance between them was too great for her to read Vesper’s expression. Even so, in that instant the tournamen
t faded away, poker faded away. There was only Vesper. Nova fought the urge to get up from the table and run to her. And then the tournament director announced that the blinds were being raised to 300K and 600K, severing their connection.

  Two cards slid to a halt in front of her. She exhaled slowly and picked them up. Staring back at her were the king and ten of hearts. Finally, a decent hand. When Damon led out with a 600K raise, she didn’t even think twice. She called.

  The flop came seven of spades, two of hearts, eight of clubs. Disappointment hit Nova like a punch in the gut. She had missed the flop entirely. She was also playing out of position, which meant that the prudent thing to do would be to check to Damon and then fold on his bet. How she would have loved for the royals to be her magical six and nine of hearts instead. Then she would have an outside straight draw, at least. Nova looked up at Damon, who stared at her stonily from across the table. She had been trying all day to get a read on him, but it was useless. The man was impenetrable. And she was as easy to read as a teleprompter, in comparison. Nova tapped the felt, checking to him.

  As expected, Damon lifted 1.2 million in chips and flicked them into the pot. The colored discs landed and rolled haphazardly around the table, causing the dealer to stop play in order to gather them up. At a cash table, Damon would have been chastised for splashing the chips. But under the bright lights of the final table, he was the king and the king could do as he pleased.

  Nova felt a wave of anger roll over her. She hadn’t played for over twelve hours and wagered $50K of her money and Priscilla’s just to limp to the finish line behind the likes of Damon Magnusson. Chances were, the junk flop had hurt him as much as it had hurt her. Unless he was sitting on a pocket pair, he was probably still waiting for his hand to materialize as well. She was going to go down shooting this time. Nova counted out 1.2 million chips and pushed the stack into the center of the table.

  The turn card was the five of diamonds, and suddenly, a plan began to form in the back of her mind. The five on the turn would have given her a straight had she been playing the six nine of hearts. Just because she wasn’t dealt them didn’t mean she couldn’t play them, right? For the entirety of the final table, she had been fighting to school her reactions, control her tells. All of her energy had gone into creating a mask of bulletproof indifference and yet her best opponents seemed to be able to see right through her façade. She was a tight, aggressive player and Damon knew it. The last several hands had shown that without good cards, he was going to dismantle her stack in short order. Because she hadn’t shown that she was willing to gamble on a losing hand.