Rough and Tumble

by Crystal Green

  Before Sofia could shove the phone in front of Molly’s face, Arden skidded into a chair with a doofy smile, interrupting.

  “Hey. What was up with the stubble king at the end of the bar? You going out with him? Should we book another room?”

  “I’m too inhibited, remember?” Molly so wasn’t up for this.

  “Yeah, sorry about popping off like that.” But Arden’s remorse didn’t last for long. “You guys were all talky and drinky. . . .” She was animatedly using her hands to illustrate talking. Drinking. Then smoking.

  “You know I don’t date smokers,” Molly said. And she didn’t. So why had she wanted to pole dance all over him?

  Arden was waggling her eyebrows suggestively, then barged onto the next subject.

  “So this is where the vacation really starts,” she said. “Forget mojitos by the pool. I’m in on a private poker game.”

  Sofia stopped texting. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Hooper over there.” Arden thumbed toward the handlebar-mustache man who was still gabbing with the tourists at the bar. “He invited us to a back room here for some cards. The staff and locals use it for games out of the public eye, and he said he’d deal for us.”

  “Are you insane?” Sofia asked, finally putting aside her phone.

  “Hooper’s not a biker,” Molly said, just to clarify. “He owns a motorcycle and rides with his buddies. He’s not dangerous or anything.”

  Molly didn’t want to think of dangerous. And she sure wouldn’t glance at the end of the bar again, even if she was dying to see broad shoulders, a tilted smile, a sexier-than-hell . . .

  No—she wouldn’t start that up again.

  Sofia motioned to the teddy bear section of the bar and lowered her voice. “And who’s in the game besides our new buddies? People like that?”

  Her gesture had fallen on a man Molly hadn’t seen walk into the Rough & Tumble. Dirty-bearded, grime-shirted, he wore a blue bandana on his head with sunglasses while he chatted with the older guys. He also had on a leather cut with tongue-flicking snakes on the back.

  Now, this had to be a biker.

  Arden crossed her buffed arms over her chest, and Molly got a strange feeling about her attitude for some reason. It wasn’t so much about this poker game, just . . . She wasn’t sure yet.

  Arden said, “It’s only going to be me and our new friends, Sof. Nothing to worry about.”

  Sofia tried a different angle. “You’re too drunk to gamble.”

  “Hon, I can hold my stuff better than either of you. I could go for days. My head’s as clear as it’s ever gonna get.” Dismissing any more arguments, she clapped her hands together, rubbing them. “So, how about you girls do Sof’s blogging thing while I ante up for a couple of hours?”

  Sofia started to protest. “Ard—”

  “Ard nothing.” She bent over and braced her hands on Sofia’s shoulders. “You knew I was going to play when we got to the Strip anyway. I’m just starting early. It’s not any different from getting together with the other teachers on a weeknight in San Diego. Besides . . .” She lowered her voice. “I think I can take these suckers.”

  Molly wasn’t so sure about this, either. “Those are friendly games back home, and you bet freakin’ nickels and dimes against each other.”

  “This is as friendly, with a little higher stakes. And if it gets uncomfortable, I leave.”

  Sofia gave in, but not before she went ultimate mother hen. “Molly and I are going to stick with you during this game, then.”

  “Cool!” Arden gave a sly thumbs-up to the others at the bar, and they cheered her and began to pay their tabs.

  She was only out to have a good time, Molly thought. Hell, she’d already almost had one herself, so how could she blame Arden for flirting with the unknown?

  Molly glanced at the far end of the bar, but his chair was empty.

  Oddly, she couldn’t help feeling the same way.

  4

  Inside the general store next to the saloon, Cash turned off his phone, tucking it into his back pocket.

  Around him, the air conditioner blasted over a scatter of chipped wooden tables where a couple tourists were quietly eating egg salad sandwiches from the glass-encased fridge. Ceiling fan blades tossed shadows over the shelves holding touristy items like Nevada Hot Sauce, tequila lollipops with scorpions caught inside, and T-shirts saying You’ve Been Rough & Tumbled.

  He ambled out of the corner where he’d been listening to his voice mail, then nodded at Clancy DeForge, who owned the store.

  The bearded man smiled at him, a gold-capped tooth shining out of his mouth as he grabbed a pack of Marlboros from the rack behind him and set it on the counter. “Still crashing at Boomer’s place?”

  “Yeah.” Cash laid his money down, then slid the smokes toward him as DeForge rang up the sale. “Just got a message from Boomer. That case he’s on is going longer than he thought.”

  “Must be nice being buddies with a PI who travels a lot.”

  Before DeForge could start talking about his neighbor and how Cash was so lucky to be able to crash at Boomer’s place whenever his friend was out of town and how that kept Cash unfettered and fancy-free, he lifted a hand in good-bye and moved out of the store. He liked Rough & Tumble, but small towns had their price. Everyone knew everyone’s business, and that’s why Cash liked being on the road.

  Who needed anyone to be talking about him more than they already did?

  Thing was, he thought as he strolled down the creaky planked boardwalk, he couldn’t keep the talk from happening. When you brought three girls you’d spent the night with into a cozy little saloon, you got gossip. But at least gossip was superficial.

  At least it kept everyone busy enough to keep from talking about the real him.

  He headed for the saloon’s doors. The sun glared off the chrome of the bikes parked in front, intensifying the desert heat. Pausing to run a hand over his hair before going in, he grinned, wondering what the hell he was doing. Prettying himself up for that blonde he’d talked to earlier?

  As his gut clenched with sharp lust, he listened to the rock from the jukebox behind the doors. She was probably still in there. That hybrid he’d been teasing her about was parked out front, so she and her friends wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

  What was it about her that’d gotten to him? Her long, lean body in that simple green summer dress? Nah. He’d seen nice legs before. He’d felt three pairs of them tangled with his own last night and this morning. He’d fucked pussy just as pretty as hers would probably be, too.

  Maybe it was in the way she carried herself, like she was so certain she was above him. Cash was always up for a challenge, and he’d tried to grab at it today, when he’d seen her trying not to look at him from down the bar, then called her on it when she’d come out of the restroom.

  Long legs, tiny waist, nice breasts, and light blond hair. A fresh breeze blowing through the Rough & Tumble.

  But there’d be more tourists like her later, he thought as he pushed open the doors, moving inside, where coolness fought off the heat and the saloon was . . .

  Nearly empty?

  Kat was behind the bar, restocking the shelves. A hank of jagged sandy hair covered one eye as she grinned at him, her big blue eyes bright. “Most everyone took off to one place or another.”

  Cash went to the corner and claimed his usual seat. But, this time, there was no beautiful blonde down the way, sneaking glances at him.

  His cock tightened, and he gestured for a drink. Whisky on the rocks. Kat knew him well enough from his in-and-out visits to predict his tastes.

  “She just went in the back room with her friends,” she said, pouring some of the cheaper stuff he could actually afford into his glass. The whisky he’d bought Molly P. Preston earlier had been one of his many splurges that he indulged in w
henever his money clip happened to be full, like from the six-thousand-dollar win he’d had a couple weeks ago.

  “Who’re you talkin’ about?” he asked, feigning innocence.

  “Stop the bullshit.” Kat’s gruff voice was light. “The lady.”

  “Ah. That one.”

  “Her redheaded friend wanted in on a poker game, so we obliged her. Hooper’s dealing.”

  Hooper had worked for decades at the Flamingo until last year. But it wasn’t curiosity about the game that had Cash itching to go into the private back room.

  Kat laughed. “You’d better get a move on if you’re interested in joining. You’re never one to turn down a good get.”

  Why did he have the feeling she was talking about more than poker? “There’re some games I have no business playing.”

  “Well, based on all the what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas talk I heard from Blondie and her friends, I guess you might try your hand at this one.”

  Cash grinned and drank.

  “You know,” Kat said, “I almost feel sorry for all your girls. They walk away from you sadder but wiser. Maybe this one’s lucky to escape your clutches.”

  She had that look in her wide, surprisingly sweet eyes that always took aback Cash and the guys who frequented the R&T whenever she let down her civil customer act and showed her true colors. Kat had her secrets, and none of them ever talked about those. Secrets were safe with them.

  “Are you throwing a dare at me?” he asked, setting down his drink.

  “I might be. Because I’ve never known you to throw one back at me. I get the idea that she’s way out of your reach, though. Obviously, you even seem to think so.”

  He tossed back the rest of the whisky, knowing that Kat would notch it on his ever-growing tab. Then he signaled for another.

  Kat gave him a confused look, and he didn’t comment. But as she got him that drink, her smile disappeared, like she was remembering what it felt like to regret something, a time in her own life that . . .

  Cash didn’t dwell on it, because everyone who frequented this bar had needled memories. That’s why they drank. That’s why they gravitated toward this place where misery and good times could mingle and enjoy each other’s company.

  She left him alone to trace the ice sweat off his glass and watch the entrance to the back hall, where the game would be starting soon, with him . . .

  . . . or without him.

  ***

  Sofia had claimed a bar stool, surrounded by red velveteen–papered walls and brass light fixtures—a real throwback to the Old West, as Arden had noted when they’d first walked in.

  Speaking of whom . . .

  Sofia raised an attitudy eyebrow at her friend, who was yucking it up across the room with Hooper and his fancy long mustache near the poker table.

  What had she been thinking with this private poker game? Sofia was pretty sure that Molly, who was sitting right next to her, felt the same way about their significant gambling other.

  Molly knocked her knee against Sofia’s. Either she was trying to get her attention or she was in the process of falling drunkenly to the ground.

  Turned out, it was the first option. “This’ll be over soon,” she said, before sipping from a plastic cup of water she’d gotten from the bar, then yawning.

  “I know,” Sofia said. “Then we can get on to the Strip when Arden’s had her fill. But why couldn’t she have found a good video poker machine there instead of this? We don’t know these people from Adam, and I have no idea why she’d put her money on a table with strangers in this kind of uncontrolled environment.”

  “Listen to you, Mother Sofia.” Molly tweaked her arm. “I was thinking of getting into the game, too, you know.”

  “You don’t know how to play poker.”

  “True. I also don’t have the money to burn.” Molly shrugged good-naturedly.

  This sure wasn’t Depressed Molly in the house. Hallelujah for that. But she also seemed very much unlike Regular Molly, and Sofia almost did another double take at the hair pooling around her bare shoulders. Usually, when she got drunk, she didn’t loosen up this much. First off, there’d been the flirting match with that biker in the bar . . .

  “Actually,” Molly said, swinging one long leg over the other and clasping her knee, “this Hooper guy seems harmless. This isn’t going to be the tourist trap you’re expecting.” Molly nodded toward Arden as she kept mingling with the others, her teacher stance confident, her voice a little drunk-loud. “It’s exciting for her. You know how she is during summer vacations.” Molly’s gaze went a little dreamy. “We all get a little crazy sometimes.”

  “No kidding.” Sofia noticed the smile lingering on Molly’s lips. She’d always liked the way they tipped up, whether Molly was smiling or not; it made her look like she had a secret. But wasn’t that the truth anyway? Sometimes Sofia wondered if she’d ever really known Molly as much as she’d known Arden, who didn’t give a flying fig about divulging every detail of her personal life to anyone and everyone except her students.

  At the table, a few significant others were kissing their mates farewell and wishing them good luck, and the players themselves finally took their seats, six in all: Arden, then a Midwestern capris-sporting woman named Rhonda who was married to the freckle-armed man named Matthew who sat on her left. Next to him was a guy named Lucas then Jerry, whose wives were just now leaving the room while they chatted about what kind of greasy food they might find at the diner farther down the street. Then there was Hooper, who was unwrapping a new deck of cards he’d fetched from Kat at the bar earlier.

  “Just sit back and relax, folks,” the older man said, beginning to shuffle.

  Everyone jokingly applauded as he spread the cards over the table, easily smoothing them back into his hand as if he were defying gravity.

  When a delighted Arden caught Sofia’s eye, Sofia fixed her gaze in warning. Just once. Arden offered an olive-branch smile that thanked Sofia and Molly for letting her have this flight of fancy and, dammit, how could Sofia be mad at her after that? Arden had always been irrepressible, unlike Sofia, who was much more of a Molly-type bookworm.

  But with another glance at Molly, who was smiling like a fool, as if she were remembering her slumming time at the bar with the biker, Sofia thought that she might be the last standing member of the Braintrust Club on this trip.

  Hooper paused in his shuffling. “I don’t think I have to verse you all in the finer details of ten-card draw.”

  All the players chuckled with assurance, and Hooper started up with his tricks again. Rhonda had a subtly arrogant smile on her face, and Sofia decided she was going to keep an eye on her instead of Hooper. She didn’t like that smile. Was it one of those “tells” that revealed she was . . . What did they call them? Card sharks?

  Ah, what did she know about poker. The game didn’t interest her. But Arden was still eagerly watching Hooper like a child gazing at a magician during a birthday party, and Sofia couldn’t help an indulgent grin.

  The sound of a phone vibrating caught Sofia’s attention, and Molly leaned her head back with a frustrated sound.

  “Please don’t be Margaret,” she murmured.

  Molly’s sister was always texting, asking for money so she could survive as an artist. And now that Molly didn’t have a job, she’d obviously been dreading every message.

  Molly fished her cell out of her purse, looking at the screen and sliding off her stool.

  “Huh,” she said. “It’s a text from one of my ex-coworkers. She says to give her a call about a lead she might have on another job with a firm run by her old college roommate.” Molly’s green-blue eyes shone. “Sof, I can’t talk to her when I’m drunk!”

  Please, God, please have this happen for Molly. “Yes, you can! Just act sober, Mol. You can absolutely do that.” She grasped her friend’s wrist.
“A new job! Genhaven can eat it!”

  She could see Molly putting her mind to getting sober, breathing in, closing her eyes, then breathing out. When she opened her eyes again, she was the ice princess who could shoot a guy down across a bar with only a glance, the brain who could probably balance the country’s budget if they just gave her the books.

  “Win one for the Gipper,” Sofia said, slapping Molly’s back on her way out. “Go.”

  As Molly headed for a back door opposite the bar area, Arden’s gaze followed her, pulled away from Hooper as he distributed the poker chips.

  When Arden frowned at Sofia—what’s going on?—Sofia gave her a thumbs-up. Arden gave her one back. She was happy, and that made Sofia happy, although she could already tell she was going to be bored out of her skull until Arden either blew her stack of chips or decided to call it quits.

  Just before Hooper began to deal, one more person walked into the room from the bar door in back of Sofia, and the first thing she saw as he loosely approached the table was a nice, tight butt in blue jeans.

  The biker dude who’d been flirting with Molly earlier?

  Thank God Molly wasn’t in here. It wasn’t that Sofia thought Molly would ever go there, but, then again, even Molly had the capacity for surprises in her, especially after a few cocktails. She could be distant, that was true, but sometimes that wasn’t the case at all. There were times she did things that made Sofia look twice, like when they’d all traveled to Baja in their midtwenties and Arden had dared Molly to skinny-dip at the beach at sunset. No one had thought she’d really do it, but there’d been a few margaritas involved and—whoop!—off came Molly’s bikini top. As they’d all laughed in shock, she’d pressed her arms over her chest and run toward the water. For a second, Sofia had believed the bathing suit would come all the way off.

  Then Molly had paused at the shoreline, as if her mind had caught up with her impulses, and she’d hightailed it back to them.

  “Fooled the fools!” she’d said, putting her top back on in the most regal way possible. “You didn’t think I’d really go through with it.”