Rowan is two seconds from hauling Jacob, aka Tweener, out of his chair and shoving his head through the felt table. The newbie is working his last frazzled nerve.
I pass him a joint. “Relax. Tweener is new.” Precisely why the fresh-faced kid shouldn’t be here. Guys like Tweener look like they should be out playing croquet while downing light beers. They don’t look like they should be sitting around the poker table, testing my friend and game enforcer’s patience.
Wednesday night poker is not amateur night. I created it that way. The cutthroat game of Texas Hold’em at my table is not some drunken card game that every half-decent solitaire player at Havemeyer University can play. With a two-thousand-dollar buy-in, you either have the cash or you don’t play. There is no in-between. Poker, at my table, is invite-only, and if Sebastian, the grinning idiot across from me, weren’t my closest friend, I wouldn’t have let him bring this newbie.
“You may want to wipe that fucking smile off your face,” I say, aiming a stern look at Sebastian, “because if he goes belly up, you’re not leaving here until you cover his debt.” I know he covered his buy-in too. No way did this kid have two grand to piss away.
Sebastian plucks the joint from Rowan’s mouth and takes a long drag, his smirk never wavering. “You know what you need, Mav?”
Yeah, I’m not biting. Sebastian is the last person I would take advice from, even if he had any valuable information to offer.
Sebastian is Havemeyer’s celebrity. He’s semi-talented with a guitar, but he’s mostly known for his outlandish reality clips. Basically, he’s all show. Nothing in his life is real. It’s all an act—all for the fake fame and publicity.
I ignore Sebastian’s smirk and follow Rowan’s glare to Tweener, who has yet to make a play. I’m not sure how high Rowan is at this moment, but I don’t think it’s enough to keep him from tossing the kid out of here in the next few seconds. Rather than goading me, Sebastian should focus more on helping his cameraman survive the night. What was he thinking bringing him here anyway?
“What you need, Mav, is a bad fuck or mediocre blow job. Wait, no, I got it!” He shuffles in his chair excitedly. “A sloppy rim job! That would loosen you up.”
I don’t make eye contact. Poker is a game of timing and knowing your opponent. You can have the shittiest hand at the table, but if you know your opponent, you can bluff your way to a win. For example, Sebastian is running his mouth. I know he has a semi-decent hand—probably chasing the straight if my theory is correct.
Every player has a tell.
Talking shit is Sebastian’s. By running his mouth, he can get you so worked up and pissed off that you forget to pay attention to the players around you. He knows I won’t fall for it, but that doesn’t stop him from attempting to distract Rowan.
“See, you don’t need a good dick sucking, just a simple, mediocre, wet the tip and fondle the balls until you’re so frustrated you come just so you can send the pretty little thing home. You need to loosen up, Mav. Accept that people aren’t perfect and need to learn.”
He’s not just talking about my empty bed at night. He’s attempting to tell me that I shouldn’t expect every player who comes to the table to be a pro. I don’t. I know not everyone is perfect. The issue is, I enjoy simplicity and predictability in my life—something Sebastian doesn’t understand. But I guess when you’re always putting on a show for the public, you can’t grasp that some people don’t want their lives on display. Faking a persona is exhausting. I should know. I live a lie.
Most days, I can’t remember who the real Maverick is anymore. Does he even like poker? Or was poker a matter of survival at the time? I’ll never know because, at this point, I can never give it up. It’s who I am now.
Unlike Sebastian, I don’t thrive on drama or overshare one hundred percent of the time. I merely choose to keep my lies to myself and refrain from participating in his cesspool of nightly debauchery. I appreciate boundaries and enjoy time to myself. Respecting my sanity and choosing never to have overnight guests is how I’ve gotten through this past year. I don’t need—or want—a sloppy rim job or a lackluster fuck. More than that, I don’t want to forget to hide my shit, and my secrets get out.
Also, I genuinely don’t trust people. And after all the favors I’ve doled out, I don’t trust anyone. Everything can be bought. Even the most moral soul can be sold for a price. Life is a contract. Friendships. Marriages. Employment. It’s all there in black and white. Once time has been served, or the contract hasn’t been fulfilled to their standards, it’s over.
I will never not have a contract. I learned early on that people will shit on you the minute they feel it is socially acceptable. It doesn’t matter how many years of friendship or love you’ve had together.
All this to say, Sebastian, my closest friend, knows this. He knows my preference—or jaded insanity as he likes to call it—so him saying all of this right now is worthless and is only to buy Tweener more goddamned time to make a play.
Sebastian pauses, waiting for me to acknowledge his joke.
I lift a brow in warning, but it doesn’t deter him. He’s long lost his fear of me. Unlike most people, I knew Sebastian before I became the Maverick Lexington.
“I’m telling you, man. You haven’t lived until you’ve come to the worst fuck ever.”
Tingling starts in my lips as I fight the involuntary twitch. A lip twitch is my tell. One that everyone, apart from Tweener, knows.
I tap out a cigarette I’ll never smoke and shove it between my lips. The feeling of the filter not only calms the twitch, but the scent reminds me of calmer days—days when I used to sit here for hours in a cloud of smoke, winning one hand after another until the sun came up.
I cared about nothing.
But that was before—before everything changed.
“Sebastian,” I finally meet his gaze, “if your friend doesn’t check or bet, I’m going to shove this beer bottle up your goddamned ass and see how you enjoy a sloppy rim job.”
Sebastian spews his beer with his boisterous laugh. “And here I thought you were in a bad mood today,” he gurgles out between chuckles.
“Dammit, Bash. You got the cards wet.”
I sigh, watching Rowan wipe off the cards, a low growl aimed in Tweener’s direction.
“Check or bet. Now!”
Tweener jumps as Rowan’s burly fist slams down on the table.
I sigh. It’s been a long night, and honestly, my head isn’t in the game tonight. Instead, I’d rather they all just get the fuck out.
Tweener locks eyes with Sebastian.
“I swear to God, I will—”
My words cut short as Tweener rushes out, “Check. I check.”
Fucking finally.
I nod, rolling the cigarette between my lips. “Row?”
He looks at me and then at Sebastian. He knows we both have good hands, but he doesn’t. How do I know? His aggression flares, and he worries his ear, the tips turning a light shade of red. Yep, he has shit.
“Fuck you both,” he says, slamming his cards down. “I fold.”
Good. He was never in this game anyway.
Sebastian, acting as the dealer tonight, throws down the river card, the last card in a hand, and tosses a handful of chips into the pot. He raises the bet. I’m right. He’s after the straight. That’s fine because I have the nuts, the best possible hand.