The Gambler

by Denise Grover Swank

  “Did you at least tell your mother?”

  A soft smile eased the hard lines on his face. “My mother figured it out before I even said a word. But when she gently brought it to my attention in high school, I told her she was wrong. I was willing to discuss it with her later, of course, but I still wasn’t ready to give up my new relationship with my dad. And then my dad died.”

  His tone told her there was a lot more to that story, and she questioned whether she should push him to tell her. But she could tell he’d been carrying this burden around for a long time and he needed to share it. If he was like her—and she knew they were much too much alike for their own good—he wasn’t used to sharing this personal, intimate information with the women in his life. It was a good rule of thumb never to share personal information with someone who won’t be around long. But she sensed that this wasn’t something he’d told anyone.

  “It had to be hard when your dad died, but at least you were getting along with him, right? No regrets.”

  He swallowed and looked uncertain. “But we weren’t getting along . . .”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Did you tell him that you didn’t want to take over?”

  “No.” He shook his head, pressing his lips together. Now he looked like he was about to be sick.

  “We don’t have to talk about it, Noah.”

  “No.” He turned to glance at her, and the fear in his eyes caught her off guard. “I want you to know. Even if . . .”

  “Even if what? I run off screaming?” She turned in her seat to face him. “Don’t you think there’s a reason we haven’t told each other much about our pasts? I’ve done a lot of things life I’m not proud of too. And you and I”—she waved her hand back and forth between them—“we get each other. It would take a lot to make me run off screaming. It’s not like you killed anyone, did you?”

  His face paled and he gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  Oh, God. What had he done? Her head raced through the possibilities. He couldn’t have killed someone in cold blood. She knew him. He wasn’t capable of it. But until fairly recently, he’d lived an irresponsible life. A DUI wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

  She squeezed his hand. “There is nothing you can tell me that will make me run from you. We’re friends, right? Friends stick together. You can tell me if you want. Or you can wait and tell me later. But I’m here. I promise. I’ll listen without judgment.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that.” His words were bitter and full of self-loathing.

  She stiffened her back and said forcefully, “Try me.”

  He took in several deep breaths. He was waging some inner war, so she held on to his hand and squeezed, letting him know he didn’t have to deal with it alone.

  “He came to visit me at school,” Noah said quietly.

  “Your dad?”

  He nodded. “I had no idea he was coming. I was only about an hour and a half away, so it wasn’t a long trip.” He swallowed nervously, but she could tell he was settling into the idea of telling her. “His partner had given him a retirement date and I was preparing for my senior finals. So Dad had brought some papers.” He stopped talking for a moment and took another breath. “He had added me to the firm. As a partner. It was dated to take effect after I graduated, but I’d been doing so well in school . . . and he thought I’d stopped taking my Adderall. For some reason, that made my accomplishments more real to him then.”

  “Had you really stopped taking your Adderall?”

  His mouth twisted to the side. “Let’s just say I wasn’t getting it through legal means.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Part of it was me. I hate how it makes me feel. Sure, I can focus, but part of me feels dead inside—like everything is too stable, like I lose part of me, as stupid as that sounds.”

  “No, I’m an artist, I get that. I need the emotional highs and lows to do my work.”

  “Yeah, well, an engineer needs slow and steady, not a fuck-up like me. After I stopped taking it my freshman year, I could tell I was screwed. But I knew I’d disappoint my dad if I went back on it, and he’d know if a doctor prescribed it to me since I was on his insurance.” He glanced at her. “Like I said, my dad hated me relying on medication to do well in school. And honestly, I don’t know that he would have offered me a partnership if he thought I had to live with it for the rest of my life.”

  Her anger started to rise. “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I was. I think he considered it along the same lines of being an alcoholic or a drug addict. My need for medication to remain on task was a weakness to him.”

  “And your mother stood for that?”

  “There was a lot of hidden context, Lib. We compartmentalized things. My mother and I had our relationship. My father and I were mending ours. We all kept things purposely separate, probably in case my progress crashed and burned. And it was a good thing too. It’s the only thing that kept my mother from turning her back on me after he died.”

  Oh God. The person he’d killed was his father. But Josh had told them all last June that his dad had died from a heart attack. “What happened, Noah?” she asked softly.

  “Like I said, he came to see me. Just dropped by.” Noah pulled his hand from hers and ran it through his hair. “But I’d set up a meeting that afternoon. In my dorm room.”

  He stopped and she realized he needed encouragement. “You were buying drugs.”

  “Yeah, Adderall. But they weren’t cheap. At that point I no longer took it every day. But I had finals, so I needed more. My source told me he’d sell me twenty pills on credit, and he’d give me a discount if I sold some myself. It wasn’t hard. I knew guys without ADD who’d buy it, so it was a no-brainer. But Dad was there when Vic showed up. And although none of what I just told you was even mentioned that afternoon, my father figured it out pretty fast, even if he didn’t have all the facts.”

  “He thought you were a drug dealer.”

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.

  Libby thought she was going to be sick. Poor Noah had only wanted his father’s love and attention. But part of her was pissed at his dad, pissed that he’d allowed Noah to go to such desperate lengths to please him.

  “I’d never seen him so angry,” Noah said so quietly that Libby had to strain to hear him. “His face turned red and his veins bulged and it didn’t take a genius to see he was about to stroke out.”

  “What happened next?”

  “He ripped the document to pieces, telling me what a bitter disappointment I was and how stupid he’d been to believe I could change. He told me no drug dealer would ever be part of his business and he was still considering whether he’d disown me as a son. Then he stomped out and I never spoke to him again.”

  The muscles in Libby’s back knotted. The rest was obvious. “When did he die?”

  “Three days later.”

  Oh God. Only three days? No wonder he felt responsible. “And your mother? What did she say?”

  “I don’t think she even knew. Like I said, we compartmentalized our relationships. But some nights I wonder if I should tell her I’m responsible for killing her husband. Would she forgive me? I know Josh never would.”

  “You didn’t kill your father, Noah.”

  He didn’t answer, but then what did she expect him to say? He’d lived with this guilt for well over a decade. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that her absolution would make it go away. “Is that all you’ve got, McMillan?” she asked. “Hell, my past is more riddled with shit than that.”

  He spun to look at her then, the desperation in his eyes breaking her heart. Maybe he thought she could give him absolution for his wrongs, but she’d learned years ago that she couldn’t give anyone what they needed. She was incapable of it. But for the first time, she wanted to change. She wanted to have more with him. She wanted to share everything—past, present, and future.

  But it was a huge risk. They were both fuck-ups. The
re was no disputing that. The chances were far greater that they would break up and when they did, it would all burn in an epic crash.

  Libby was a survivor, but she knew she’d never survive a breakup with Noah.

  Chapter Thirteen

  For the first time since his father died, Noah felt like some of the crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The guilt was still there—he wasn’t sure that would ever go away—but it had eased a bit. Before today, he’d never considered telling anyone his deep dark secret. In fact, he’d planned to take it to his own grave, but somehow, he had found himself wanting to tell her. He suspected she was the only person who might truly understand.

  Someone else might have wanted a different reaction from her—hugs and murmurs of semi-sincere sympathy—but Libby had given him exactly what he needed: she’d insisted his father’s death wasn’t his fault and she’d put his experience into perspective.

  Her admission that she’d suffered hardships of her own wasn’t a surprise. Based on the stories she’d told him about her past, he knew she had a tendency to push men away, or more accurately, she would hold them at arm’s length and dump them when things bordered on serious. In retrospect, it wasn’t surprising she’d stayed with Mitch for so long. He was totally different from her usual type—good-looking, emotionally distant, somewhat narcissistic bad boys.

  In a nutshell, guys like Noah.

  But there had to be some reason she would consistently pick men who were destined to never last more than a few weeks, and he suspected it had something to do with her cougar mother and her absent father.

  Noah only wished his admission had triggered Libby to open up. But it had the opposite effect: she clammed up for over an hour after that, only talking again when they stopped for her to pee while he got gas, about an hour outside of Hoover Dam. The glances she gave him let him know that she was wrestling her own demons. His confession had stirred them up.

  She started to warm up as the dam got closer. “I want to park in that area where Salma Hayek is sitting when Matthew Perry finds her.”

  “You’re not planning to sit on that ledge, are you?” he asked in alarm. “That’s a several-hundred-foot drop.”

  She shrugged, wearing a faint grin. “Maybe.”

  He wasn’t sure he could stand back and watch her do that, and he was once again surprised by his protective instincts. Noah McMillan was a self-centered man. He was fully aware of it. It had ruled his life for nearly fifteen years. If he let his instincts toward Libby take full rein, what would happen to him? Would he lose himself entirely? But given the life he’d lived, was that really a bad thing?

  “They would have never worked out in real life,” she said.

  He blinked, realizing he’d missed part of what she’d said. “Salma and Matt? Why? What Hollywood gossip do you know?”

  “Not the actors, the couple in the movie. Isabel and Alex. They were just too different.”

  His heart lightened. “So if too different is bad, then similar is good?”

  “Yeah.” She looked confused. “Maybe.”

  He let it drop because a sign for the dam appeared and Libby perked up and begged him for a coin.

  “I want to throw it over the side when we reach the middle of the dam. Just like in the movie.”

  Grinning, Noah dug out a quarter and handed it to her. He would have given her a twenty-dollar bill to toss out the window if he’d thought it would bring her out of her sullen mood.

  But when they pulled into the entrance of the dam, Libby’s enthusiasm waned when she realized they couldn’t drive over the dam.

  “National security,” a security officer who guarded the entrance told her when she asked. “You can thank 9/11 for that.”

  She was quiet when they walked out of the parking garage and toward the blocked-off road.

  “It’s okay, Lib. It’s only slightly different. You can stand in the middle of the dam and toss it over.”

  She nodded, still lost in herself.

  He wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her to his side as they walked. When they reached the middle, she stopped and looked over the edge.

  “The water’s a lot lower than in the movie.”

  “Drought,” Noah said. “I’ve heard the lake is at a record low.”

  “So nothing’s as I expected.”

  To anyone else, Libby would appear to be sulking over something trivial, but he knew how her mind worked. This was connected to something bigger and he suspected it had to do with her aborted wedding. “Sometimes that’s not a bad thing.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with sadness.

  He wasn’t used to seeing her so down. That was one thing he loved about her, her ability to find the good in the bad. He just needed to remind her of it now. “You know that whole saying about God closing a door and opening a window. Or is it closing a window and opening a door?” He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows playfully. “Or maybe it’s like Alice jumping down the hole to Wonderland.”

  She grinned. “I get what you’re saying. But I’m turning thirty tomorrow and look at my life.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “Yeah, look at it. You have two great childhood friends who love you enough to hunt me down and skin me alive.”

  “Who were completely oblivious to the fact I didn’t love Mitch.” He’d give her that. It had ticked him off too.

  “Okay, so they’ve been a bit self-centered and clueless lately. But you have a career you love.”

  “Which doesn’t pay shit and interferes with the whole responsible adult gig.”

  “Hey, I saved the best for last. You have me.”

  A strange look filled her eyes, and for a second he thought she was going to reach up and kiss him. Instead she wrapped her arms around his back and pressed her cheek to his chest. “Yeah, I have you.”

  “Libby, you know you can talk to me. I know something’s bothering you.”

  “It’s my birthday. I had . . . a wish I was sure would come true, but it didn’t. Now I’m questioning everything.”

  “Sometimes questioning everything is good. It puts you on the right track.” Didn’t he know that firsthand? Meeting her was what had made him question everything, and he didn’t want to go back.

  “Look at you.” She lifted her head and grinned up at him. “Noah McMillan: life coach.”

  “Maybe I’ll make it my new career.”

  Worry flickered in her eyes. “Is something wrong with your old one?”

  The wind blew her hair into her face. Without thinking, he reached up and tucked the strands behind her ear. “It’s always good to keep your options open.”

  She nestled her cheek against his chest and they stood like that for nearly a minute. He marveled that he could be this close to her without planning on how to get her into bed. Not that he didn’t want to get her into bed, but that wasn’t what she needed.

  Was this real love? Being with someone and somehow getting something from it even if sex or talking wasn’t part of it. For the first time he got what people meant about growing old with the one they loved.

  In the scheme of his life, this was such a small moment, yet every preconceived notion about love was being chucked over the edge of the dam. He’d always thought true love—a love worthy of a lifetime commitment—was full of fireworks and passion. He had never suspected there could be more. His love for Libby was like a river of peace threading through his troubled soul. She quieted his demons and made him believe he could be a better person. That he had a purpose in the world. And while he wanted fireworks and passion, he now realized he needed both.

  He kissed the top of her head, letting his lips linger longer than he should have. He expected her to back away and break the moment, but she hung on tight.

  “I want to throw the coin together,” she said. “I want to share our wish.”

  He wanted to share more than that, but it was a start. “What if we wish for different things?”

 
She shrugged, a grin lighting up her face as she looked up at him. “Then I guess the one who wishes the hardest will win.”

  “Challenge accepted.”

  She laughed. “It wasn’t a challenge.”

  “It most certainly was. If you tell a guy something’s a test of strength or will, you better believe he’ll try his damnedest to win.”

  “Fine.” She grinned as she dug the coin out of her pocket and held it up. “How do we do this?”

  “How about you hold it and I’ll cover your hand with mine?”

  “I think both of us should touch it,” she said. “Then we can just drop it.”

  He shook his head. He knew how superstitious she could be. He wasn’t superstitious at all, but he’d agree to anything she wanted. “How about you hold out your hand.” He grabbed her hand and turned it palm up, spreading out her fingers, then placed the quarter on her palm.

  Her body stiffened slightly and she sucked in a tiny breath.

  Noah had been around enough women to know when one had a physical reaction to him.

  Could she really want him?

  With his index finger, he lightly traced around the coin in her palm. “Do you know what you’re going to wish?” he asked, his voice huskier than he’d intended. But now that he knew she might want him physically, his body was ready to go from zero to sixty in less than two seconds.

  “Yes.” Her voice was low and she kept her eyes on her hand. “Now what?”

  Was she talking about them or the coin? But even if she was talking about them, he knew he had to take it slow.

  “Now I put my hand over yours.” He did just that, lacing their fingers together and pressing the coin between their palms. “Then we hold our hands over the edge and on the count of three, we let it drop.”

  “Okay.”

  They maneuvered their arms over the edge and she looked up at him, the sadness in her eyes replaced with hope.

  “One,” she whispered.

  Her chest was still pressed to his, their hands linked, and Noah realized he’d never felt more connected to anyone in his life.

  “Two.”