Authors: Mia Grandy
Whatever the reason, she knew that after this tournament was over, there was very little chance that he would want to be with her. When he didn’t make a move, she chanced a look up and saw that he was still studying her. His grip on her arm had relaxed, but he still had not made a move toward the registration line.
Finally, when she thought the silence between them and the whistling bells and dings from the other machines would drive her insane, he spoke. “Okay. You’ll have to fill me in on the rest of this later, but tell me what we need to look out for.”
As he talked he started walking over to the desk to check in. He took out his registration paperwork and looked it over while Randa filled him in on all of the ways that people could try to cheat at billiards.
“It’s going to be a lot tougher here than it would be at some dive pool hall. There are people here watching the tables and checking all of the shots. I would bet that if they were planning something they would have a man on the inside that they would use to set up the bad equipment beforehand. So, look for shots that go horribly wrong and balls that have far too much spin for the area where you hit them. If you run into this ask for the balls to be weighed and checked.”
“Why not just do that before the game even starts?” he asked.
“I thought of that too, but if they have someone on the inside then they would just pull everything when it was checked beforehand and then put it back out again later. No, we will need to catch them while they are cheating. That way the balls can be taken and measured from the table immediately. It lessens the risk of them being able to hide it.”
He looked at her, his eyebrow raised. “I start doing that too much and it’s going to slow the whole tournament down to such an extent they won’t listen to me after awhile.”
“No. Trust me. If they find one table that has been tampered with, then they will go through and check all of them. It will cause a giant reset button on the entire tournament.”
“So they would cancel it?” he asked, worry creeping into his voice.
Randa looked around the room and paid attention to all of the people who were obviously checking in for this tournament. “I don’t think so. There are at least fifty teams. More than one hundred people who have come to this casino. A lot of people who are just casual players might bring their friends and family to help root them on. It is highly unlikely that the higher ups at the casino would allow them to lose that much income and publicity because of a rigged game. Instead, they would probably just restart the games for the remainder of the tournament.”
Drake nodded as he signed the papers and passed it over to her. She took the clipboard and signed it as well, her hand shaking a little as she did so.
They were about to begin playing in a tournament for a sentimental piece of Drake’s family property and there was a good chance that the games were fixed. Randa felt an incredible sense of guilt for every associating with those guys in the first place. Rationally she knew that there was no reason why she should feel responsible for another person’s actions, but that did not stop her from having a base level response.
Even when she handed him back the clipboard and her hand touched his, she flinched. Where before there had been passion, now there was just cold flesh. Her body still strummed, still
longed to be with him, but it was as if she had turned off the switch in her head that allowed her to feel more. Right now she was operating in pure survival mode.
Drake seemed to be doing the same, “We’ll have to play it by ear for now. You can fill me in on more while we wait for the first games to get set up.”
She nodded and turned her head to survey the crowd. There was no sign of Mike, and she didn’t readily see anyone else she recognized from the old crew, but she didn’t stop searching. If she did she would have to see the disappointment in his face again, and she was sincerely worried that it would break her heart if she did. Blinking back tears, she took a deep breath and not for the first time cursed her life and her luck.
Happiness was obviously not something she was meant to find in this lifetime.
After they checked in, Drake led her over to a side table at the end of the bar and ordered two beers. They sat down across from each other and for the first time since she’d told him about the possibility of a rigged game, he looked her dead in the face. She had been avoiding looking at him, and he could see the worry spread across her features as plain as day.
He didn’t speak at first, but rather let her drink down a couple of swallows. If nothing else, he had learned from all those years of being stuck in situations where he felt out of place that you could tell almost everything from body language. Even as he watched, he saw that her hands were shaking just a little as she raised and lowered her glass, her eyes were darting around the room, and it was clear that her skin was practically itching its way across her bones.
This run in with her old hustling buddies had clearly shaken her up. He couldn’t believe that she would be this upset just because she realized there was going to be cheating going on. After all, she had alerted him to this fact and they were going to do their best to compensate for it. In his book that was like a major bonus, but apparently to her it was something to be ashamed of.
He wasn’t really following her logic, but he knew that he would not be able to understand her side of it. After all, he’d lived a life of luxury while she’d struggled just to stay alive.
Once he had let her finish about half her beer she appeared a lot calmer and more relaxed, and then he decided to go ahead and start the conversation.
“It’s going to be okay. Now that we know the games could be rigged, we know what to watch out for. I say it’s a good thing. A win, even.”
Randa smiled a little nervous smile and laughed under her breath. “Yeah, a real win.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t…it’s just…” she allowed her voice to trail off as she once again looked around the room. Drake didn’t say anything to interrupt her train of thought. Instead he watched as she cupped both her hands around the mug and stared at them.
“You have to understand I am not at all thrilled with the idea of dredging up my past. I’m not proud of any of it, not living on the streets, not hustling people to survive or stealing food to eat. My life was not filled with the angst of a would-be normal teenager. I have spent most of my life on pure gut instinct.” She paused and a tear slid down her cheek.
As much as he wanted to reach across the table and comfort her, wipe the tear away, he held his ground. He knew that she would seize any excuse now to stop talking. If they were going to walk into this game here in a little bit he wanted to completely understand her. He’d assumed her past was safely behind her, but obviously it was just lying in wait. If she didn’t deal with it, it would end up haunting her.
“Every single time I think I am about to get a solid head’s up it ends up falling apart. This, this was supposed to be my chance to do something real with my life. I was going to use the money to get an apartment, a car, get a head start on life. I even thought this might be my chance to go to college.”
Drake said nothing, but he tilted his head in acknowledgment.
“Don’t get me wrong. I know I can’t do all of those things with ten thousand dollars, but I know I can get my foot in the door. Trust me, if there’s anything I can do it is work my way up from the bottom. I was sure that if I just had a couple of months of breathing room I could do something to get myself ahead.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? Because this, is all I have to cling to right now. If we lose then I don’t have anything to fall back on, nowhere to live.” Randa’s eyes got wide when she realized what she was saying and she put her hand up to her mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
She started to apologize, but just then the voice over the loudspeaker announced their names and instructed them to go to table ten.
Drake didn’t say anything, but drained his beer and then stood up and walked over to the table, not waiting to see if she followed. He was angry, but not at her. Rather he was frustrated with life in general in much the same fashion as she was.
But right now he didn’t have the time to focus on that. Instead, when he got to the table he put his head one hundred percent in the game. If nothing else, he was going to make sure that he wasn’t the reason they lost. He needed to have his cabin back, and Randa needed that money.
For the first time in his life he actually felt driven to accomplish something. Someone he cared about actually had a stake in whether or not he succeeded.
*
By the end of the night they had managed to win three games and had moved up significantly in the brackets. There were only eight teams left, and so far they had not seen any sign of cheating. Randa began to wonder if maybe she had been wrong about Mike. Maybe he was on the up and up now.
The doubt that had been lingering with her all day started to fade a little by the time she climbed into bed. While Drake had maintained his distance and hadn’t made a move when she’d gone into her room instead of his, it was probably for the best.
A few minutes later when there was a knock on her door, Randa smiled and ran over. Maybe Drake had second thoughts about being together tonight. As much as she hated to admit it, she already missed having him around. In the few short days they had been together she had started to grow used to his comforting presence and the smell of his aftershave.
However, when she flung open the door she found herself instead face to face with Mike. She started to swing the door shut again, but he pressed his boot into the door frame and muscled his way into her room.
She opened her mouth to scream for Drake, but Mike managed to clamp his hand firmly over her face before she was ever able to utter a peep.
“Don’t think it’s going to do any good, sweetheart.” He told her through gritted teeth, his face only a few inches from her own. “I saw your man go downstairs a few minutes ago. We’re alone here. Besides, if you scream too loud I’ll have to hurt you…and we both know how much I hate to hurt you.”
Randa looked down just as Mike moved his hand enough so that the blade flashed in the light of the room.
“I’m going to move my hand. You know the drill. Scream and I’ll start slicing away your little bits.” He smiled, and Randa immediately found herself remembering the times when Mike had to fight or use force to get out of a scrape. She remembered how much he had enjoyed the conflict, how he said he it gave him a high. Back then she’d been able to write it off as the actions of a person who had been cornered.
Now, she could see differently. He enjoyed inflicting pain. She knew that he would make good on his promise. Tears clouded her vision as she nodded her head.
“What do you want?” she managed to ask when he had pulled down his hand and she was able to gulp down air into her burning lungs.
“Imagine my surprise when I saw little old Randa hooked up with a big shot rich guy. I mean, you can smell the money on him from across the room. And we all know where you hail from.” He sneered as he spoke and Randa wiped the burning tears with the back of her hand, gritting her teeth together as she did so. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her in pain again.
He backed up a step as he spoke, the knife still clenched at the ready. “Then, it struck me. She must be here to give him an edge in this tournament. So, I follow the two of you up here and see you practically fucking in the hall.”
“That’s not…”
“Shut up, darling. I know fucking when I see it, and that’s clearly what you were doing. Not only are you helping him win the tournament, you’re giving him some on the side as well. Looks like you finally became a prostitute after all.” He said,
the hate filling up his eyes as he reached out and grabbed her breast.
Randa jumped back and swatted at his hand, but he reacted just as quickly, the knife sliding across her forearm. It was so sharp that Randa didn’t feel much resistance when it moved across her skin. Instead a thin line of blood appeared an instant later.
“Don’t act like it’s above your pay grade. It’s not like we haven’t been together before.”
“That was a long time ago, in another life. I’m not a prostitute. No one is paying me to be here or to be with Drake. I’m sorry you have the wrong impression.”
Mike eyed her, his gaze cutting into her so sharply that she actually shivered under its weight as she pulled her arm close to her, cradling it so that the blood seeped out and stained her pale blue nightshirt.
“You may not think you’re a prostitute, but I guarantee you that guy sees you as nothing more than a temporary good time girl. If he’s not paying you for it…well, that’s just your loss.” This time when he grinned he lifted up the corner of his mouth just enough that he was clearly leering at her.
“Whatever. Just tell me what you want and get this over with.” She said, sticking out her chin defiantly. It was clear what mike thought of her. She was never going to convince him that there was more to her than sex and pool.
“Well lookie here. It appears there’s an assertive side to mousy little Randa after all. Too bad you didn’t have this kind of spunk when we were together. Maybe then I wouldn’t have felt the need to supplement our relationship.”
Randa visibly cringed when he said that, and he laughed at her discomfort. She’d known he hadn’t been faithful, but to hear the actual words spoken out loud made it so much worse. The self-doubt he had always been so good at triggering immediately began to set in.
“What I want…well, what we want actually…is for you to agree to throw the match. We already have plans in place to secure our win, but I figure that you owe me for that little disappearing act you pulled with my supplies and my money. Unless you want me to hunt you down and take it out of your flesh, you need to make sure you guys do not close the deal tomorrow.”
Mike backed toward the room door, and as he spoke his last words, his hand closed around the knob and opened it. Since he was still facing Randa he didn’t turn around in time to see Drake standing right behind him.
*
Drake had gone down to the lobby earlier with the intent of trying to stretch his legs and get his mind off Randa’s predicament. He didn’t know of a good way to show her that she was more to him than just a partner or a playmate. In fact, in the short time they’d been together she had become more important to her than he would have believed possible.
When he thought that after this tournament she might go on her way and he might not see her again he got very anxious. So, a few calls to his accountant later he had set up a scholarship for her at the local community college. Nothing too fancy, just enough to cover the tuition for four years.
He picked up some flowers and was headed toward her door to tell her all of this when he noticed that there was a guy standing next to it with his ear pressed against the door. Drake slowed his stride and set the flowers down on the floor as he walked up behind him and slipped his arm around the guy’s neck, pulling it up at such a steep angle that the guy only flailed about twice and then went limp.
Drake had studied a number of self-defense techniques over the years. He’d ran into his fair share of people who were out to take advantage of him. So, when the man went limp Drake laid him out in the hallway.
He immediately noticed that this was not the same man that was staring Randa down in the casino earlier that she had identified as Mike. This man was taller with a skinnier frame and long, blonde hair.
Just as Drake was turning around to open the door it came open on its own. In just the blink of an eye he noticed three things almost
simultaneously. First, this was the guy that had been stalking Randa earlier and the second was that he was holding a knife, and the final one was that Randa’s arm and shirt front were smeared in blood.
The white hot rage that started pumping through him at the thought of someone hurting her was more than he had ever experienced. Just as Mike started to turn around, Drake grabbed the arm with the knife and slammed it into the door frame hard enough that he heard it snap as the hand was wrenched open and the knife clattered to the floor.
Mike screamed and started to run, but Drake turned him around and punched him twice in the face and then dropped him to the ground just as the casino security ran down the hall, their weapons drawn.
Drake put up his hands and backed away. He didn’t say anything as they cuffed him and led him down the hall. He just looked back over his shoulder to see Randa’s face stricken with horror and confusion. The flowers on the ground were now knocked out of their cheap plastic binding and spread across the hall as security personnel and Mike ended up dragging their feet through them in the ensuing scuffle.
*
After more than two hours of talking to the security team and the police Drake found himself once again walking back along the hall corridor to the room. Luckily Mike had an outstanding arrest record and several run ins with police. It made it a lot easier for them to believe Drake’s story.
He took a deep breath as he stood outside of Randa’s door and looked down at the scattered flower petals and leaves that still lingered in the hall. Someone at least had picked up the majority of the flowers.