Fold
The one in red recovered fast. The guilt left her face, and a big smile slid into its place.
"June! Oh my God, hi! We all missed you so much."
"Then finish what you were saying," June said. "Go ahead."
The woman in red looked at her friend. "I was only repeating what somebody else—"
June slapped her.
It was loud. The people nearest the cake table turned around. The woman in red stumbled into the bar with both hands on her cheek.
"Okay! Okay, I'm sorry, I won't, I swear—"
June looked at the one in blue. The one in blue had gone white. "I didn't say anything. That was all her."
"You were nodding pretty hard," June said.
She reached past them, picked up the three-tier cake with the fondant motorcycle on top, and set it on the bar in front of them. The little motorcycle tipped over on its side.
"It's my brother's birthday. That's the only reason this is over." She didn't raise her voice. "You've got so much to say, keep your mouths busy. When that's gone, you can leave."
She walked away between them.
She felt him. It was a weight on the back of her neck, like standing too close to a running engine.
June looked up.
Rook Mercer was leaning on the iron railing of the staircase that ran up the back wall. He was halfway up, one shoulder against the post.
His gray shirt was open at the collar, the sleeves shoved to his elbows, and his cut hung loose over it.
He looked like somebody had dragged him out of bed to come to this party. His eyes were wide awake.
He'd seen everything.
He came down slowly. His boots rang on every iron step. The closer he got, the less room there seemed to be at the bottom of the stairs.
He stopped one step above her, and June had to tip her head back to look at him. He smelled like cigarette smoke and lemon candy.
"Remind me never to say anything near you," Rook said.
"I offered them cake."
"Slap first, then dessert." He stepped down to the floor, close enough that his sleeve brushed her shoulder. "That a Reyes thing or a Sterling thing?"
“Rook.”
He was already walking past her when she said his name.
He stopped. He didn't turn all the way around. He just looked back at her over his shoulder and waited.
"Snowline needs a fair shot," June said. "That's all I'm asking for."
"And if I say no?"
"I—"
"What, you gonna slap me? Make me eat a cake?"
His eyes had gone sharp. He was looking at her like he was pinning her to a wall.
June had one card left. She'd promised herself she wouldn't play it.
"You and Dom are friends," she said. "Would you do it for him?"
Something in Rook's face went flat and hard.
"You'd say anything if his name's in it." He said it quietly, so only she could hear. "Wouldn't you, Princess?"
June's throat closed up.
He knew. She didn't know how, or how long he'd known, or who else he'd told. But it was right there in his face.
He knew exactly what Dom was to her, and he'd just held it up to the light, one step away from a room full of people.
Her hands had gone cold. She pressed them flat against her sides so he wouldn't see them shake.
"Dom wants something from me," Rook said, "Dom can ask me himself."
He walked off.
June stood there. She could still feel where his sleeve had brushed her shoulder.
Across the room, Rook stopped at the dessert table. He looked past every fancy cake on it, pulled her lemon icebox pie over by the glass dish, and sat down with a plastic fork. He took a bite right out of the middle.
He looked straight at her while he chewed.
Dom was at the card table in the back corner, under a lamp with a green shade. He saw her coming.
He hooked his boot around the leg of the empty chair beside him and dragged it right up against his own.
"Sit."
Boone groaned from across the table. "Oh, come on. Every time she sits next to you, you catch every card in the deck. Let her sit by me for once."
"She can't fix what's wrong with your game," Dom said, without looking up.
June sat. The chair was so close that her knee pressed against his thigh under the table. She didn't move it. He didn't either.
Dom tipped his cards toward her so she could see them. A pair of jacks. He leaned in to show her the board, and his chin came down almost to her hair.
She could feel his breath on the side of her neck.
"What do you think?" he asked, low, right by her ear.
June's chips were in her hand. Dom's hand came down over hers. His thumb rested on the inside of her wrist.
"Raise," he said.
She pushed the chips in. She didn't look at him. If she looked at him, everybody at the table would see it on her face.
Dom won the hand. He didn't move his knee away. Neither did she.
For three more hands they sat like that, his leg warm against hers under the table, his arm across the back of her chair, and nobody at the table said a word about it.
Nobody ever had. That was the thing about Dom. He could do anything he wanted with her, right out in the open, and the whole room would call it being a good brother.
June was the only one who knew it wasn't the same for her.
Dom's phone buzzed on the felt. He let it ring twice. Then he picked it up and stood, and as he stood he put his hand on top of her head, the way he used to when she was little. His fingers stayed in her hair one second longer than they used to.
"Play mine," he said, and walked toward the back hall.
June moved over into his seat. It was still warm.
"Rook," somebody said. "You in?"
June looked up.
Rook dropped into the chair straight across from her. He didn't look at his cards. He looked at her. Then he looked at the empty chair next to her, the one Dom had pulled so close, and one corner of his mouth went up.
The dealer slid out the cards.
"Who shuffled this garbage."
The man on June's left laughed. "Better watch out. June's sitting in for Dom. The rest of us might as well go home."
June had a pair of queens. A third queen hit the table on the flop. She reached for Dom's chips.
Rook pushed in a big stack before she could.
She looked at the pot. She looked at Rook. He was still looking at her, calm, like he had all night. She folded.
He flipped over a seven and a two. He'd had nothing.
The next hand, the same thing happened. Every time June had something good, Rook raised her right out of it.
Every time he sat back, the card she needed somehow landed in front of Boone. Dom's neat stacks went down and down in front of her.
On the last hand, June looked at her cards and her heart jumped. Two hearts in her hand. Three more on the table. The best hand anybody could have.
She reached for the chips.
"Fold it," Rook said.
He said it quietly. It landed on the table like a glass of ice water. Under the table, the toe of his boot touched the side of her ankle and stayed there.
June didn't move her foot. She didn't know why she didn't move it.
She set her cards face down.
Boone squinted at the board, then at her. "Wait. She had it. Didn't she? She had it."
Rook was the only real hope Snowline had. Nadia needed him. June told herself that twice.
"No," she said, and pushed her cards into the middle. "I didn't have anything."
Rook tipped his chair back on two legs and braced his boots against the table rail. He rocked it, slowly. Forward. Back. He never took his eyes off her.
June looked away, toward the back hall.
Dom was standing in the doorway with his phone still at his ear. He wasn't talking into it. He wasn't looking at June, either.
He was looking at Rook.
June had always liked poker.
She'd learned it at this same table, under this same green lamp. Dom taught her.
Boone taught her wrong. And every man who ever sat down across from her had gone a little soft about it.
She was the kid. Somebody would fold a hand they should have played.
She'd never minded. It was nice, being looked after.
Rook didn't look after anybody.
He took every pot she wanted and somehow handed Boone every pot she needed.
Dom's neat little stacks went down and down in front of her, one chip at a time, until she noticed she'd been frowning so long her forehead hurt.
Boone watched it happen like a man watching somebody kick a puppy.
"Come on, man. Do it to me instead. Dom's gonna come back and break your fingers if you make her cry."
Rook turned and looked at June. He looked honestly curious.
"You crying?" he said. "If you're crying, I'll stop."
"You're a sick person," Boone said.
