by JA Huss
Three. He’s like a world-class champion poker player. Like… seven-card stud is his jam. And good old Miles here, he can count cards. He told me he’s like a Rain Man when it comes to numbers. A savant with social skills, if you will. This is why I offered him an all-expenses-paid trip to Vegas as his Christmas present.
Usually Emma likes to work on the jet ride down to Key West. It makes her feel like she’s not ruining the planet with her air travel if she doesn’t enjoy it too much—which, OK, I don’t buy into myself. But I support her privilege guilt.
So while she works, I chat with Miles. And I learned that fuckin’ Miles has been in the World Series Cup of Poker six times. And he was the grand champion twice.
Just for clarification here, this is not the World Series of Poker. Nor is it the World Cup of Poker. Both of those are legit games. No, my man Miles here? He’s into the underground black-ops version of said games. I’m talking secret Illuminati versions of said games.
Which I’m totally intrigued by since the Boston family is all involved in some secret shit ourselves.
At first, I was a little afraid of Miles after he spilled these beans. I mean, what are the chances that some underground, shadow-poker guy like Miles would end up being my girl’s jet butler when said girl is also involved with me? An underground, shadow something-or-other youngest brother in a sorta Mob family?
But… I was paranoid back then. This was right when Joey found out his kid called him and just before Johnny disappeared in the Caribbean to look for Charlotte Kane. I was a little high-strung at the time.
Since then things have calmed down. I’m still not one hundred percent sure what Johnny did to wrangle us all out of the whole money-making ceremony our family has been running for at least two generations, possibly more. But... it’s all working out, I guess. Everyone seems pretty chill about it.
And the money still flows. So… I should probably think harder about all this, but now is not the time. All I want to hear about right now is what my man Miles will be up to in Vegas over Christmas.
“It’s a five-million-dollar pot,” Miles is telling me. We’re chillaxing at the table and scarfing down some Barbie and Ken mini rolls while Emma takes her mom-call in the bedroom.
“Five large, huh? Damn, dude. And you won this twice? Why do you even work?”
Miles does have that trademark butler smugness to him, but he wears it better than most butlers. It doesn’t come off as pretentious. More like… wise. Yeah. Wise. I really dig Miles and his confident body of knowledge.
“I know it sounds counterintuitive, but”—I also like all the big words Miles uses. I always feel smart when we talk because even though I’m not into using big words, I have a fairly nice vocab myself—“I don’t like risk, sir.”
“No? So… how the hell did you get into poker anyway? Because yeah.” I point at him. “That is counterintuitive.”
“I was a homeless kid living on the streets of Pittsburgh—”
“No shit!”
“—and I got hired by a man called Shoes to help him cheat during the local Mob pinochle game at Freddy’s Pizza in Bethel Park.”
“Whoa. Dude.”
“Yes,” Miles says. “It was one of my weaker moments in life. But Shoes was an astute player. And quite reasonable. He didn’t need to cheat, pinochle was his”—and Miles points to me for this part—“jam, sir.” I just chuckle. “But everyone loses eventually. He hired me when he heard about my math skills and he taught me how to count cards.”
“But didn’t they know?”
“Of course they knew, sir. But Shoes was, as they say, big time. And his uncle ran the pizza place. So as long as he didn’t cheat too often, they let it go. But everyone’s goodwill runs out eventually. He cheated the wrong guy, they killed him, took me to Chicago, and put me to work as the little footman for the head Mob boss there.”
“Interesting,” I say, nodding my head. “So that’s how you became a butler and a poker player.”
“Exactly, sir.”
“So… how did you get out of the Mob? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“The boss I was working for was killed by his son and I was thrown out of the house. I was in my twenties by then and playing lots of cards on the side. I had been to every underground tournament the old boss played in for years. So I simply started going to the secret games myself. Everything worked out from there. But then I saw Miss Dumas’ ad on the Modern Butler website and applied, thinking this would be a good way to work full-time and pay taxes.”
“Yeah.” I’m nodding and pointing at him. “They always get the bad guys with tax evasion, don’t they?”
“They always do, sir. You can still be part of the secret shady underground these days. But you must have an up-and-up side to you as well. It’s all trackable now.”
“Good thinking, Miles.”
“Thank you, sir.”
And that’s when Emma throws open the jet bedroom pocket door and says, “Turn the plane around!”
Miles and I both get to our feet. “Whoa, there, bossy babe. What’s going on? Is everything OK?”
“No,” she squeals. “Everything is not OK! Do you know what my mother just did?”
Miles and I both make those all-teeth smiles, preparing ourselves for Emma’s explanation. Because let’s face it, we all know how bossy her mother is. She even bosses Miles. And if I’m being completely honest here, when Miles is in the room, dude’s the boss. He just has this all-knowing, all-powerful boss vibe, ya know?
But bossy Silvia can even overpower my brother Johnny, so Miles doesn’t have a chance when Silvia gets her bossy on.
“She invited Kraken Karen to our street party tonight!”
“No,” Miles says.
So I say, “She did not,” even though I have no clue what the hell that sentence means. Kraken Karen? Did I hear that right? I’m not sure.
“See!” Emma is pointing at Miles. “Even you get it.” Then she pauses. “Wait. How do you know Kraken Karen?”
Miles presses his lips together and bows his head a little. And I’m like one hundred percent sure this is the moment that Miles has no clue. I’m about to write the date down for posterity because it’s got to be a one-time thing.
But surprise, surprise, Miles does know Kraken Karen. Because he says, “I’m very familiar with the Krakken family, ma’am. They are, quite literally, the kraken incarnate.”
“See!” Emma says again, turning to me. “Everyone knows the Krakkens are krakens!”
“OK, hold on, babe. Slow down a sec. Because I’m not in the know here. Who the hell is Kraken Karen?”
“Some pretentious bully bitch from my past, that’s who! Her little sister used to pee in our backyard and her brother used to spit on me when I was jumping rope. Aaaaand…” She nods her head and drags that word out like this is the real point she’s trying to make. “If she thinks she’s gonna wrap her filthy tentacles around your scrumptious muscly arms, she’s got another think coming!”
I look down at my muscly arms, taking a moment to appreciate the fact that Emma finds them to be scrumptious.
“Ma’am.” Miles is taking over now. “Is this request to turn the plane around a legitimate one? Or just a manic response to the news?”
See? God. This dude is so… on it.
But I can tell that Emma is about to say, “Legitimate,” so I have to intervene. “Emma. Let’s think about this.” Because there’s no way we’re not landing in Key West. Her mother would hunt us down and boss our asses back to Florida so fast, our heads would be on backwards from all the spinning when we arrived. “It’s Christmas Eve eve, babe. Your whole family expects us to show up for festivities. Are you really gonna let some sea monster called Karen ruin our holiday?”
She considers this. “Yes.”
I laugh and cross the distance between us to pull her into a tight hug. “Come on. You can handle Kraken Karen, right? It’s just one party. A few hours and it’s over. You’ll never ha
ve to see her again.”
“No. You don’t understand, Jesse. Kraken Karen moved back in.” She grabs her hair with both hands. “Oh, my God. She now lives behind us! Like directly behind us! We will literally be able to look out our bedroom window and see her stupid face across our backyards. Before it was just kitty-wonkus diagonal and now it’s just… behind us!”
Even Miles is confused at this string of words.
“What?” I say.
“Her old house is the house right behind the Emma and Jesse cottage on Dumas Street! Jesus Christ. I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”
“Emma, come on. How bad can she be?”
“You have no idea. I have stories.”
I glance at Miles, who just shrugs. “The Krakkens are terrible.”
“Terrible… I’m-gonna-kill-you Mob-boss style? Or just your everyday, ordinary terrible?” Emma shoots me a look. “Well, I just need to make sure. If Miles knows the Krakkens they could be—” But Miles is making a motion of zip-your-lip-Jesse, so I stop. “What?”
“She’s just horrible, Jesse,” Emma continues. “Just… horrible. And the minute she sees you, she’s gonna latch onto you with those hooked-tentacle claws of hers and—”
“OK, stop.” I hold up a hand. “Really? Come on, Emma. You’re my girl. You’re my jam, baby! There isn’t a kraken alive that could change my mind about you.”
She pouts. And oh, my God. That pout. I mean, Emma pouts all the time. It’s a perpetual pout. That’s just her sexy lips in their natural glory. And can I just say, she’s got the sexiest fucking lips I’ve ever seen. Mad, sad, angry, happy—that pout does me in.
I hug her tighter and then kiss her softly. “Relax, babe. Seriously. It’s gonna be fine. One party. That’s it. One party and we’re done with Kraken Karen. We’ll close the drapes in the bedroom and never look out the window again. Hell, we can stay in another cottage if you want. Some of them are empty, right?”
“I don’t know for sure.” She sniffs. It’s a fake, pouty sniff, but that’s OK. She’s allowed to fake-cry if she wants. “We’re usually all booked up for the holidays. But I guess we could stay in Zach’s cabin.”
“See!” I nod at Miles. “It’s all settled. That’s perfect. I’m sure Zach would love for us to stay with him. Little fucker owes me, anyway. I let him stay with me for thirteen years.”
And it does seem settled. Emma calms down, eats a couple dozen Barbie and Ken rolls, drinks three or seventeen glasses of champagne orange fizzy, and half-listens in tipsy fascination as Miles whips out a map of Vegas that details the route and check-in process for his secret underground black-ops poker game tomorrow night.
And just a little while after that’s all done, we’re getting ready to land. Miles is cleaning up, and Emma is calm again, resting in her super-luxurious leather seat with her eyes closed, Kraken Karen forgotten.
And then we’re on the ground. And the winter sun is beaming down on me like a big ol’ welcome-home bath of UV light.
I love it.
I love this place.
I could live here.
If I could talk Emma into moving the Bright Berry Beach corporate offices down here, I would. But there’s no way she’d come back to Key West for good. She’s a city girl now.
And even though I spent almost my whole life without Joey and Johnny, it’s really been great having them around again. Makes me feel like we’re kids again.
Then we’re in the car heading towards Dumas Street, which, to my surprise, has been blocked off with orange cones. “What’s this?” I ask Emma when the town car pulls over to the side of the road.
“The party.”
“You block off the cul-de-sac? And… is that a shaved ice stand I see in the middle of the street?”
“Every year, Mr. Boston. And yes, that’s shaved ice. I’m gonna buy you a cherry vanilla in a Dumas souvenir cup the minute it opens. The Dumas street party is a very big deal on the island. Even the tourists come to celebrate the palm-tree lighting.”
I grin. Positively smirk as I picture our shared shaved-ice past. “God, I love this place.”
The driver grabs our luggage and we start rolling our wheelie suitcases down the uneven sidewalk towards Zach’s cottage. I thought for sure Emma would forget about Kraken Karen and that staying with Zach was just a heat-of-the-moment overreaction, but nope. My bossy girl is on it. We lug all the suitcases up the front porch steps of Zach’s cottage and bang on the screen door.
He opens it shirtless and a little out of breath. “Uh… Jesse!” His confusion turns to a smile and he rallies, opening the door to bring it in for a hug. “Dude! Merry Christmas!” Then he looks around, spots our luggage, and once again becomes confused. “What’s up?”
“We’re staying with you,” Emma says.
“You… are?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Fucking Kraken Karen is back and our house overlooks her backyard or some shit. So… you don’t mind, right?” But that’s when I notice a naked girl walking into the kitchen behind him. “Oh.” I glance over my shoulder at Emma.
She’s wincing. “You have… a guest.”
Zach looks over his shoulder too, then slips outside and closes the main door behind him. “Yeah. You guys, I didn’t know. I invited this girl to hang with us.”
“Us?” Emma and I both say at the same time.
“Luke, me, her…” Zach grins.
“Ohhhhhhh,” I say.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Emma echoes. “Gotcha.” She looks at me. “OK. Well, that was TMI for me. Let’s go. I’m sure one of the cottages is empty.”
“No, they’re full,” Zach says, then shrugs. “Holidays.”
“Well… obviously Luke’s cottage isn’t occupied, right? We can just stay there.”
“Actually…”
“Actually what?” Emma is about to lose it.
“He lives here now. We… we all live here now. So his cottage is rented too.”
Emma sucks in a big breath.
I take over and clap Zach on the shoulder. “It’s cool. I got this.” Then I open the door, push him back inside, and take Emma’s hand. “It’s gonna be fine. I promise. Karen who, right? We don’t even have to see her. We’ll never look out that window again. I’m sure it will be super easy to avoid Kraken—”
“Yooooo-hoooooo! Neighbor girl!”
Emma’s whole body goes stiff and she grips both my scrumptious muscly arms so hard, I think her fingernails are leaving marks. “No,” she whispers.
“Yooooo-hooooo! Emma! It’s me, Karen! Oh, my God! You’re heeeeereeee! Yay! Your mom told me—”
“No,” Emma insists again.
But… Oh, yeah. Kraken Karen is walking up Zach, Luke, and naked girl’s front-porch steps beaming her sea-monster smile at me. “You must be Jesse Boston. I’ve heard a lot about you, mister, but”—she’s purring out her words—“none of the descriptions did you justice.”
And then I swear to God, she grips my scrumptious, muscly arm right above where Emma is already making her claim and leans in to kiss me on the cheek.
CHAPTER SIX - EMMA
“What the fuck, Karen? What the hell do you think you’re doing? Who comes up to a complete stranger and… and… and acts like a goddamned sex siren right in front of his fucking fiancée?”
Kraken Karen has the nerve to look shocked at my outburst. I’m talking mouth in the shape of an o, and hand over heart, and the whole chin-jutting-backward thing. But my mom was right. She looks exactly the same. Short, blonde, bobby haircut. Pursed lips. And low-cut shirt to show off her goods. And for a moment I’m distracted by that instead of the fact that she just kissed my man and I freaked out about it.
“Oh. Emma. I’m so sorry. I was just excited to see you again. And with this”—she ogles Jesse—“American treasure. The one and only Jesse Boston. Well done, Emma. Well done.”
I glance at Jesse and find him beaming back at her. What the fuck?
“Excuse me. Eyes over here, buddy.” I do the
little finger point thing. Him, me, him.
Which only makes Jesse chuckle as he wraps his arms around mine and pulls me into his chest. And for a moment I soften. I go a little squishy at his possessive embrace.
But then… is this just his preemptive move to make sure I don’t haul off and hit Kraken Karen in the eye?
“Um… sooo?” We all turn to look at Zach Boston on the other side of the screen door. “Are we good here?” He does one of those backward nods of his head to indicate something behind him. “I’ve gotta… you know. Finish up in here and then get out there to help Luke with the party tonight.”
Jesse waves him off. “Yeah, go. See ya in a few, Zach.”
And with that Zach Boston excuses himself from this now very awkward situation on his porch, so now it’s just the three of us.
Me. My gorgeous man. And my worst enemy.
I decide the best offense right now is a retreat. “Well, Karen. It was… whatever. We have to go.”
I squirm out of Jesse’s embrace and grab the handle of my wheelie suitcase and start dragging it down the porch steps as the driver scrambles with the rest. I point to the house kitty-wonkus diagonally across the street and say, “That’s where we’re heading, I guess,” then look over my shoulder to make sure Kraken Karen isn’t trying to hump Jesse’s leg while I’m not looking.
She’s not. But she’s still smiling at him like she wants to.
Jesse dutifully follows me, dragging his own wheelie suitcase down the porch steps, and we don’t look back until we’re across the street and on the porch of the Emma and Jesse cottage.
Karen is gone.
But instead of being relieved I feel like she’s stalking me from the bushes.
Jesse opens the cottage door and waves me in. “Just… forget about her. We’re not gonna see her again. We’re just gonna close up the curtains and pretend we’re the only people in the world.”
