by Emilia Finn
BLUFF
STACKED DECK BOOK SIX
EMILIA FINN
BLUFF
By: Emilia Finn
Copyright © 2020. Emilia Finn
Publisher: Beelieve Publishing, Pty Ltd.
Cover Design: Amy Queue
Editing: Bird’s Eye Books
ISBN: 979 867 638 5286
This Book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This Book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy.
To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of Emilia Finn’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Also by EMILIA FINN
Looking To Connect?
BLUFF
Prologue
1. Chuck
2. Nora
3. Chuck
4. Nora
5. Chuck
6. Nora
7. Chuck
8. Nora
9. Chuck
10. Nora
11. Chuck
12. Nora
13. Chuck
14. Nora
15. Nora
16. Chuck
17. Nora
18. Chuck
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by EMILIA FINN
Looking To Connect?
Sometimes, we must be stripped bare before we can re-grow and build something better.
Don’t be afraid of the dark while you’re there.
Seeds must be planted too, before they break free and grow into beautiful flowers.
Also by EMILIA FINN
(in reading order)
The Rollin On Series
Finding Home
Finding Victory
Finding Forever
Finding Peace
Finding Redemption
Finding Hope
The Survivor Series
Because of You
Surviving You
Without You
Rewriting You
Always You
Take A Chance On Me
The Checkmate Series
Pawns In The Bishop’s Game
Till The Sun Dies
Castling The Rook
Playing For Keeps
Rise Of The King
Sacrifice The Knight
Winner Takes All
Checkmate
Stacked Deck - Rollin On Next Gen
Wildcard
Reshuffle
Game of Hearts
Full House
No Limits
Bluff
Seven Card Stud
Crazy Eights
Rollin On Novellas
(Do not read before finishing the Rollin On Series)
Begin Again – A Short Story
Written in the Stars – A Short Story
Full Circle – A Short Story
Worth Fighting For – A Bobby & Kit Novella
Looking To Connect?
Website: www.emiliafinn.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmiliaBFinn/
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Email: [email protected]
The Crew: https://www.facebook.com/groups/therollincrew/
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BLUFF
STACKED DECK BOOK SIX
EMILIA FINN
Prologue
“So, you’re an electrician?” I lift my glass of water and try to fake a smile. “That’s pretty cool.”
“It’s alright.” Toby – five feet, ten inches tall, with a baby-bottom smooth shave and sandy-ish blond hair – watches me over his single bottle of beer. He’s kind of cute, I suppose. His eyes are nice… I guess. “I wired up a beauty of a home this past week.”
“Yeah. Ben’s house. I know.” I smile. Because that’s what they say I have to do. “Ben is my friend, so I knew he needed the final work done upstairs.” For just a moment, my smile is genuine. Not because I’m on another date, with another set-up that my best friend insists on coordinating. But because I genuinely love my friends. Annoying tendencies and all. “I’m glad it’s finally done.” Stop talking about your other male friend! “Um… So, what do you do when you’re not being an electrician?”
“Oh.” His eyes flick to my right, his smile falters at my two-hundred pound dinner companion, but then he comes back to me. “Uh… I like to play guitar.”
“Oh yeah? Are you in a band?”
“I mean…” His smile takes on a distinctly arrogant slant. “The guys and I like to get together most weekends and make some noise.”
I rest my chin on my hand and pretend that I prefer being here, rather than curled up on my couch at home with my Great Dane, binge-watching Friends reruns. “Are you good? Do you do paid gigs and stuff, or is this an at-home thing?”
“It’s only at home right now.” He sniffs, like his admission hurts him. “And only when my mom isn’t watching her shows.”
“Oh.” His mom! “That’s cool. As long as you have fun, right? That’s all that matters.”
“He still lives at home with his mom!” I snatch the envelopes from my mailbox in the foyer of my five-floor apartment block, close the metal cube again, then I point toward the stairs for Galileo to trot ahead. “Evie! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“He’s nice!” she explodes with a laugh. “He’s sweet, he’s smart, he likes to bring his momma soup when she’s ill.”
“You’re making that up.” I start up my stairs with a shake of my head. “You didn’t even know he lives with his mom, so you have no clue he brings her soup.”
“Well, it’s a logical assumption, now that you told me he lives in her garage.”
“You suck at setups, Evie! You suck at it so bad that I might just spend the rest of my life living with my dog.”
“No, don’t give up hope yet. So what if—”
“Oh, no, you misunderstand.” I hit the second floor landing, and turn to keep ascending. “You assume I mean ‘Oh no, I have to be alone. The tragedy!’” I scoff. “What I actually mean is ‘Thank fuck, I get to live with my dog, and never again have to hear how the guy writes songs in his downtime, but he can’t practice them between the hours of noon and two, because that’s when his mother’s shows are on, and she tends to throw her shoes when he’s too noisy.’”
“You’re not even trying,” Evie grumbles.
Evelyn Kincaid was my every nightmare for most of my life. She’s a fighter, she’s loud, and for me, a girl who wanted only silence, she was terrifying. Her man, Ben, was her opposite in many ways. Or at least, he was able to switch the loud on a
nd off. He was my one and only friend when I needed it, my hero when I needed one of those.
Now, I’m my own hero.
“You sent the last one packing, too,” Evie whines. “You go out and purposely look for their flaws.”
“He blew his nose at the table, Evelyn!”
“He had boogers! Everyone has boogers. It’s natural. Ben.” I imagine her moving across her living room. “Blow.”
I laugh at the image she paints in my mind, her snatching a tissue to prove a point.
“I need you to blow your nose, Sasquatch. Prove to Nora that it’s not a deal-breaker.”
“If he blows his nose while I’m on the phone, I’m hanging up,” I warn.
I turn at the top of the third flight and emerge onto my floor. There are two apartments per floor. A and B, and because I wanted a view of the street, I chose the fourth floor – it was the only A available when I was moving.
“Swear to god, Evie. If you catch that man’s boogers while I’m on the phone, I’m unfriending you.”
“He told me to go away,” she grumbles. “So, Toby is a no. That’s okay. I didn’t much like him anyway. This next one—”
“I don’t want your next one!”
I slow at the open door for 4B, frown at the packing boxes stacked inside and outside of the doorway.
“Galileo, come.” I tap my dog’s ears and continue to my door.
“You took your dog on a date? Nora! You took your dog on a date with a new dude?”
“Of course I took him! He’s my family.”
“You have issues,” she growls. “You need help.”
“I have help. I see my therapist once a month.” I push the key into my front door and step into my apartment while the sounds of crashing crockery scream from across the hall.
I jump, an instinctual reaction that I can’t stop, but then I work on my breathing. On calming myself. The broken plates are not my problem. Not my mess to clean, so I keep moving.
“I like my life, Evie. I like living with my dog, I like taking him to dinner, I like being single.” I pause at a framed photograph of me and my older sister in the hall, drop my keys in the bowl that sits right beside it, and wait as Galileo races through our home in search of a possible intruder. “I don’t need a man to be happy, Evelyn.”
“Toby wasn’t the one,” she says. “That’s okay. I have another one for you to try.”
“Evie,” I sigh. “No.”
“His name is Garret,” she bulldozes over me. “He’s two years older than me.” Which makes him a year older than me. “He’s a fighter,” she continues. “But he’s neither a hotdog, nor a hothead that can’t control his temper. He’s sweet, he smiles a lot, and his roundhouse is amazing.”
I roll my eyes and head to my fridge when Galileo comes back into the living room. I know there’s no one else in my apartment. I know that no one entered while we were gone. And yet, I remained frozen in place until my dog came back to confirm everything was as it should be.
“I’m not shopping for men.” I press my phone between my ear and shoulder so I can take a frozen Mars bar from the freezer and tear it open. I turn away from the door, hip-bump it closed, then shake my head at Galileo when he licks his lips. “Go to bed.” I point, though he doesn’t need the direction. “Go.”
“It’s eight o’clock on a Friday night!” Evie blusters. “You are a twenty-seven-year-old, healthy, beautiful woman, and it’s Friday night! Why the hell are you going to bed?”
“I told Galileo to go to bed. I never said I was going.”
“Oh…” She exhales. “Oh, okay. That’s cool, then.”
“I’m gonna eat my candy bar first, maybe watch an episode of Friends, and then I’m going to bed.”
“Nora,” she moans. “Why are you such a pain in my ass?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” I drop onto my sofa and groan when I push my shoes off. I wore heels for Toby. I got fancy, wore something nice, even a cute bra. All so I could sit alone with a candy bar. “Leave me be, Evie.”
“Come over to the house.” It’s like she’s completely incapable of listening when people say no. “We’re playing cards. You should come over and hang.”
“No thanks. I don’t wanna hang out with you right now.”
“Nora!”
“Eve.” Ben’s deep, threatening voice makes me smile. “Leave her alone.”
“It’s eight o’clock, Sasquatch! It’s a Friday night, and she sent the electrician away without a kiss.”
“I told you she wouldn’t like him.” Ben’s voice comes closer. Closer. Until Evie’s breath comes out on a soft grunt. I imagine him now, standing behind her, wrapping his arms around her stomach, and resting his chin on her shoulder. “I told her you wouldn’t like him,” he repeats for me. “She wouldn’t listen.”
“I heard you,” she grumbles. “I just didn’t think you were right.”
“And was I?” His tone makes me smile. “Was I right, Eve? Or do you still think you know everything.”
“I’m setting her up with Garret. I’m setting you up with Garret!”
“Not interested.” I take a bite of my Mars, and sigh as the caramel and chocolate melt on my tongue. “I have everything I need right here.”
“You’re eating.” I hear Evie’s eyeroll. “You’re sitting at home alone, you’re about to turn the TV on, and you’re giving a candy bar the best BJ of its life.”
“You’re disgusting, and this Mars tastes better than any dick I’ve ever had near me.”
“I’m done.” Ben audibly pushes away from his wife and stomps across his living room. “Evie, leave her alone! Nora, you don’t have to date Garret.”
“I didn’t need your permission,” I call back. “But thanks. Evelyn… No thanks. No to Toby, no to the guy with boogers, no to the guy with the roundhouse. No, no, no. I don’t want a man. I want my dog, my chocolate, and some peace and quiet.”
“You’re annoying,” she huffs.
“Pot, meet kettle. Goodnight, Evelyn. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Come to breakfast.”
“I’d rather n—”
“Awesome! We’ll see you at six. We have to be up and out early for training, so don’t be late.”
“I hate you.”
Finally, I hear her smile. “We love you too. See you at breakfast. Enjoy that Mars bar.”
I bring it up and take a hefty bite. “Will do. Goodnight.”
“Nora!” she shouts before I can hang up. She knows me so well.
I bring the phone back to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Love you.”
I sigh and hate the odd slide of guilt that moves through my stomach. I was once the reason my best friends broke up. I was once the cause of all of Evie’s tears.
“Nora…”
“Love you too. Goodnight.”
As soon as she hangs up, I toss my phone across the couch and try to put as much distance between it and me as I can.
Evelyn Kincaid was once the scariest person I knew. She terrified me in high school, and claimed the boy I considered my best friend. She was obnoxious, and it would be a lie if I said I never wished for her to be hit by a bus on her way to school.
She was always so loud. Always so demanding. And she had my best friend following her with his eyes everywhere she went.
It’s not like I wanted him for myself. Not romantically. But he was still my friend.
My only friend.
And when she was around, he wasn’t mine anymore. He was hers, and she constantly shattered the glass that locked out the shitty world and all its noise. I like seclusion, I like quiet. I like being alone – completely alone, or alone with Ben – but as soon as she entered a room, he was no longer a part of my quiet world.
He was in hers, and hers was scary.
Well… that was before I knew what true terror meant.
Evie is still loud, and Ben is still hers – completely, and forever. But my world has been given a new p
erspective. High school girls no longer scare me, loud women no longer bother me.
When you’ve watched your big sister’s brutal execution, only a foot away from your face, so close that you wear her blood on your clothes, you learn to ignore the little things in life.
Evie Kincaid no longer terrifies me. Boys no longer intimidate me. Sanctioned fighting in an octagon no longer overwhelms me.
It’s all so silly when compared to the nightmares that wake me most nights.
My sister’s murderers are no longer living. My enemies are no longer free. I have nothing to worry about except for the attacks that my own subconscious slams down on me.
And to fight those, I need my monthly visits with my therapist. I need Galileo, my three-year-old Great Dane mutt. I need the security system my friends installed in my apartment and the halls that flow through this building, and on special occasions, I need the frozen candy bars I keep in my freezer.
Tonight I get one because I walked through the dark on my way home. I had Galileo with me every step, and I had Evie in my ear – the woman may be a pain in my ass, but she was my protector while I passed through the shadows.
Only to find that I seem to have a new neighbor, who has dropped so many plates in the ten minutes I’ve been home that I wonder how many meals they make between loads in the dishwasher. And knowing someone will be sleeping in such close proximity to me is almost enough to tempt me to the freezer for a second chocolate bar.
