Break My Fall (No Limits)

by Cameron, J. T.

  “It is morning.”

  Half of his face was visible thanks to the light from outside, the other half in shadow. I saw the corner of his mouth twist into a small smile. “Okay, how about I tell you in the afternoon?”

  “Fine. I probably won’t be able to process it right now, anyway. What are we doing tomorrow? Or later today, I mean. Whatever. Will you teach me how to play blackjack?”

  “Maybe. But there’s all kinds of time for that. While we’re here, we can do anything you want.”

  “Anything, huh?”

  I felt his weight shift off the bed. I closed my eyes. I figured he had stood up and was on his way out to the couch.

  “Anything,” he said. “We’re in Vegas. And what happens in Vegas…”

  “Stays in Vegas.” I managed to finish the line before drifting off to sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  I woke up to the pungent smell of coffee. I opened my eyes to find Drew sitting on the edge of the bed.

  I stretched and groaned. “What time is it?”

  “Almost one. In the afternoon, by the way.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured that out from the sunlight.” Then an odd thought came to me. “What do you do with Cliff when you’re traveling? Leave him with your grandparents?”

  “No. Grandma has enough to worry about without Cliff being there. There’s a retired couple living on the boat next to me. They look after him.”

  I managed to get my eyes to focus. Based on how he looked, I could tell he had already showered. His hair was still damp, he had shaved, and he was wearing gray slacks and a white button-down shirt that was tucked in.

  “Are you going to a business meeting?”

  He laughed. “No. This is what I brought to wear today. Sometimes I class it up a little when I’m here.”

  He was obviously being sarcastic, but he did look nice.

  “Coffee?” He held out a cup toward me.

  I reached for it. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. If you drink real coffee, you’ll be disappointed. All they had was decapitated.”

  While I had managed to get my eyes to focus, the last thing he said made me wonder if my ears weren’t working properly. “Say that again?”

  “Decapitated. And yes, I know it’s decaffeinated, but that’s what I call it.”

  I sat up. “Of course you would.”

  I was still on top of the comforter, and still in the same clothes I’d worn all day yesterday and last night. I felt gross.

  “I need to get a shower.” I sipped the coffee. “And by the way, I didn’t bring anything that matches your so-called classy outfit.”

  “Not a problem,” he said, getting up to leave the room. “We’ll take care of that. I’ll be in the living room when you’re ready.” He walked out, closing the door behind him.

  The living room. This was the first time I had ever stayed in a hotel suite before, and as I thought about it, I realized it was bigger and nicer than my apartment. So was the bathroom, in fact, and I spent quite a while in there savoring the large bathtub with water jets.

  Thirty minutes later, I was feeling completely refreshed and awake. I dressed in the clothes that I told him didn’t live up to his, and when I came out of the bedroom that was the first thing he mentioned.

  “I love those shorts but I’d rather be the only person in Vegas who knows what your ass looks like.”

  “They’re not that short.” I pulled at them a little. “They’re just tight.”

  He stood and walked to me. “If you’re trying to tease me, it’s working. But we have to focus. At least until we get back here.”

  We went downstairs and grabbed a quick bite in the restaurant, then it was on to a shop on the first floor of the hotel and I was trying on dresses. I found what I considered to be a rather typical little black dress, but when Drew saw me in it, he insisted that I get it. I also picked out some matching shoes. We had a minor disagreement over who was paying, and he ended up insisting upon that, too.

  We went back up to the suite. I needed to change, and Drew had promised me he would explain more about how he wins at blackjack.

  We sat in the living room as I cut the tags off the new dress and tried on the new shoes. I was in a chair and Drew sat on the couch. He placed a deck of cards on the coffee table between us.

  “Now let me show you how I play, which is not at all how the casino wants you to play.”

  I had moved to the floor by this point. I was still sitting across from him, but I was eye-level with the table now. I looked up at him. “This is why you told me not to ask you anything at the blackjack table last night, I guess? Your big secret? This is where I find out you’re a math genius or something.”

  “Not exactly,” he said, shuffling the deck. “I count cards.”

  I didn’t say anything. I’d heard the term “card-counter” before but I had never looked into exactly what it meant. I just assumed it had something to do with knowing which cards were going to be dealt. “So you’re cheating.”

  “No, not at all. The casinos like to say it is, but it isn’t. There’s gambling, which is betting on which cards you’re going to get. Then there’s card counting, which involves keeping track of which cards have been dealt and which ones are more likely to be dealt in the next few rounds. It’s a way of taking the house’s edge away.”

  “Sounds like cheating to me. Is this even legal?”

  “It’s not illegal. The casinos frown upon it. Actually, they more than frown upon it. People have been known to get beat up by security goons, some even killed, but that was mostly in the distant past.”

  “Mostly? So it still goes on?”

  “There are rumors…”

  I thought about the guy with the earpiece from last night. “So that guy who was hanging around the table when you were playing…he was security?”

  “Sort of. He was a pit boss.”

  “Why didn’t he bust you?”

  Drew gathered the cards that were strewn all over the table, then shuffled them. “I guess he didn’t see enough that warranted it. Which is good because it’s not just him watching. There are cameras everywhere, watching everything. They’re called ‘The Eyes in the Sky.’”

  “Why isn’t it illegal?”

  Drew got up and went to the refrigerator. He opened the door, looked inside and as he searched for something to drink, he explained: “As long as you’re not using any kind of device to do it, you’re not breaking the law. I’m not using any kind of counting device. I’m just using my brain. And despite how it may seem when you’re among the general public, it’s not illegal to use your brain. Want something out of the fridge?”

  “What are my choices?”

  He looked back over to where I was. “Just about everything you can think of.”

  “Some kind of soda. Anything. It doesn’t matter. I just want to know more about this.”

  Drew opened our drinks and handed me one.

  Some girls got involved with bad-boy musicians. Others found themselves with bad-boy athletes, fighters, or biker types. Here I was with a bad-boy card player—who knew there was such a thing?—and he was taking Vegas for thousands at a pop. All of it legally.

  It was changing how I saw him. It wasn’t the money, it was the confidence, the attitude, the swagger, I guess, that was making him sexier.

  I could have easily gotten lost in those thoughts as he explained his system to me, but I made myself focus, mostly by asking questions. “So you’re not memorizing the deck.”

  “No way, that’d be impossible. I’m not Rain Man, Leah.”

  “You know, I just saw that movie so you’re lucky I got the reference.”

  He shuffled the deck and continued. “So there’s no memorizing. You count as the cards are dealt and you only have to keep track of one number. High cards are minus one, low cards are plus one. Two through six are low cards. Tens, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces are high cards. Sevens, eights and nines are zero. So you’r
e adding or subtracting with each card. You watch every card, but you’re not playing against the other players, only against the dealer, or the house. As the game goes on, you only have one number in your mind. The higher the number, the more advantage you have. That’s called a hot deck. The lower the number, the more advantage the dealer has, and that’s called…” He looked at me to see if I was following.

  “A cold deck.”

  He sipped his drink. “Just making sure you’re paying attention. Okay, so if I put these cards down…”

  He went on for a little while, showing me how to track the number as the cards came out and we got deeper into the deck. The deeper you got, the more you know if you’re likely to get a high or low card, so you know whether to take another card or stay with what you have.

  “And that’s how I do it,” he said, stretching his arms over his head and leaning back on the couch, comfortably reclined, both feet on the floor still but he sunk into the cushions so much he was almost lying down. I wanted to hop over the table and sit on his lap. But I didn’t.

  I debated whether I should ask the question that was screaming to get out, and ended up giving in to the burning curiosity. “Are you rich?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “No. Well, not by how I define it, anyway. If you’re asking whether I have millions, the answer is no. I don’t have anywhere close to that. I don’t like to take too much at any one time. Just enough to live off of, a little extra for things I want, and a little more to put away in savings. I’m always tempted to go to one of the no limit tables, though, and bet a huge amount on a single hand. Maybe someday.”

  “Never been caught?”

  “Nope. Every time I come here, I go to a different casino. But I hear they’re sharing data now about regular winners, and they might already be doing it. Things might get complicated soon. Come here.”

  I stood and walked over to him. I went to sit beside him, but he pulled me onto his lap and I found myself straddling him.

  Drew wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in close. Our faces were millimeters apart and I could feel his warm breath on my lips.

  “You’re the only other person who knows what I do. Aside from my grandparents. My grandfather taught me all about card counting.” He smiled at the memory. “I remember being maybe eight or nine years old, something like that, and we would sit across from each other at the table. He’d deal out cards, and no matter which ones I got he would make a big production out of me having the winning hand. Just having fun, you know? But I wasn’t winning. We weren’t even playing a real game. It was just fun holding the cards. He started teaching me about card counting when I was sixteen, almost seventeen.”

  “What did your parents say?”

  Drew sighed. “They didn’t like it, but it wasn’t a big deal. Then the plane crash happened. Mom and Dad didn’t support my decision to leave school, Grandma and Grandpa did. In some ways, they’re more like parents to me than my parents are.”

  There was no sadness in his voice, despite the obvious family turmoil he’d experienced. True to the philosophy he lived by, Drew accepted it and was going on with his life.

  “Do you talk to your parents much?”

  “Birthdays. Christmas. Not much.” He shifted awkwardly in his seat, the first sign I’d seen him give off that indicated a measure of being uncomfortable talking about something. “Apparently they’re waiting for me to get over this phase I’m in.”

  “They think it’s just a phase?”

  He nodded. “But enough about that. Like I said, I’ve never told anyone else about the counting. I like my privacy and I like being able to do what I want, when I want, without having to check in with anyone. That’s the kind of freedom I wanted after the crash, when my life changed. But I wanted you to know this, to see this, because I think my life is changing again.”

  He stopped there. It wasn’t exactly vague, but it wasn’t all that blunt, either. Was I changing his life or was I just along for the ride? Either way, a rush of emotion swept through me and I couldn’t hold back. I pressed my lips to his. He raised a hand to the side of my head, holding it gently, as our kiss became more uninhibited than our previous ones. I shifted on his lap, feeling him getting turned on.

  Drew’s hand slid down my neck to my chest, his palm resting on my breast. I wanted to feel his hand on my skin, not through this shirt. At least I thought I did.

  He lowered his hand more, dipping his fingers under the hem of the shirt, and then underneath. I felt his strong hand spread wide across my stomach and my muscles contracted in response to his touch.

  I didn’t want this to stop, but I was thrown off by invading thoughts of Kevin and the pictures—my naked body exposed for all to see.

  It had taken me a while to feel comfortable even wearing a one-piece bathing suit on the beach, but I eventually figured, the hell with that, this is where I love to be and where I can be me, so I’m going to be me.

  Straddling Drew’s lap, kissing him, with the situation progressing as it was, I found myself getting nervous. This was the closest I’d come to potentially exposing any part of my body in an intimate way since the pictures came out. Was I really ready for this? Ready for Drew to take off my shirt and bra? Ready to have him see me topless?

  Goddam Kevin and the damage he had done to my psyche.

  Drew’s hand slipped out from under my shirt, away from my skin, then rested on my thigh.

  “I think you should put on your new dress and we should go make some money.”

  He lifted me off his lap and onto the couch next to him.

  I looked at him and squinted my eyes. “Tease.” I immediately regretted saying it because I had wanted this to stop. Had he picked up on my vibe? If so, that meant my comment was a mixed signal, and I felt a little guilty about it.

  Drew stood and walked over to the mini-bar. “I’m not a tease, Leah. I’m just a patient guy. When it comes to cards, and when it comes to you.”

  I stared at him, my eyes examining his, taking in the lines of his face along his jaw and hairline. I didn’t want to respond to what he’d just said, so instead, I asked, “Did your grandfather do this for a living, too?”

  Drew shook his head. “Hell no. My grandmother wouldn’t have stood for that. She didn’t look down on him for his card-playing, but she was a woman from a generation where the man had to have a normal job to even be considered for marriage. He was an engineer. Designed cars for Ford and Chevy throughout his career. He’s brilliant.” Drew paused for a moment. “He just doesn’t know it anymore.”

  Hearing him talk so fondly of his grandfather made me sad for Drew, but based on what I knew about him so far, I was sure he was more focused on the fond memories. “He means a lot to you.”

  Drew looked down at his chest and brushed his shirt with his palm, another nervous or uncomfortable gesture that surprised me. “A lot of what I told you in the restaurant that first day, about looking at life a certain way, was stuff I’d learned from him. I had to find out on my own, of course, but he’s always been sort of like a guardian angel to me.” He frowned.

  “And now you’re around to watch out for him.”

  “Something like that.” His frown morphed into a smile.

  . . . . .

  “You don’t expect me to remember all that stuff you taught me, do you?”

  Drew shook his head. “No. You’re not going to be counting cards. And just for future reference, we don’t discuss any of that outside the room.”

  We were in the elevator heading down to the casino.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re a rookie. You can play some regular hands. Just have fun with it. And by the way, I gave you a lesson and now you owe me one. When we get back, you and I are going surfing.”

  “Fine, you win.”

  We were alone in the elevator, and he turned to face me. My back was to the wall, and I liked the way he felt when he pressed his body into mine. “You look beautiful.”
He planted a small kiss on the corner of my mouth. “There’s something else you owe me. We had a deal, remember?”

  I was afraid of when he would bring it up, but I hadn’t been expected it to happen right there, right then, in the elevator.

  He kissed me again. “I’m not going to beg you or demand you tell me your secret, Leah. You tell me when you’re ready. But you should know that no matter what it is, I’m not going to judge you.”

  I should have blurted it out right then, gotten it over with, and taken him up on his assurance of no judgment.

  But I didn’t. Instead, I simply said, “Later?” leaving it vague, and he nodded his agreement.

  . . . . .

  I didn’t play a single hand while we were in the casino. Instead, I watched as Drew raked in the chips.

  Just as the night before, it started off slowly, but a few hours into it he was rolling, winning hand after hand. I stood behind him, watching over his shoulder. At one point I put my hand on his shoulder, then pulled it away, apologizing, but he reached up and put my hand back. The stacks of chips grew taller, and the more he won, the more I felt him relax.

  I tried to keep up with his total earnings, but lost track the more I got distracted. The distraction wasn’t anything going on in the casino. It wasn’t the Pit Boss who watched Drew as he won more and more. It wasn’t the people or the flashing lights.

  The distraction was Drew.

  He had an enormous amount of confidence, and it showed in everything he did, especially when playing blackjack.

  Drew was risky, daring, even dangerous. All the things I didn’t need to be around.

  And I was loving every second of it.

  . . . . .

  We stopped only for a quick dinner—during which Drew told me he had won a little over three thousand dollars so far—then it was back to the tables.

  My internal clock was still way off, so by the time it was ten p.m. in Vegas, it was one a.m. to my body. Drew didn’t seem affected by it, but he noticed I was yawning a lot, so he wrapped up the blackjack.