“Does he shake hands?” I ask Sloan.
She shakes her head. “He doesn’t really let anyone but me touch him.” She slips her hand through mine.
“It was nice meeting you, Stephen,” I say to him. Sloan grabs her purse and we begin to walk out of the room so the nurse can do what she needs to do to prepare him for therapy. When we’re almost to the door, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around to find Stephen standing in front of me, eyes on the floor, feet rocking back and forth. He hands me the pen and a blank sheet of paper. I take it from him, not really knowing how to tell him we’re leaving and we can’t keep playing.
I glance at Sloan to see what she wants me to do, and I’m confused by her expression. Stephen walks back into the living room, away from us. I look down at the blank sheet of paper and pen.
“He wants you to come back,” she whispers. When I glance up at her again, she’s smiling, shaking her head back and forth. “I’ve never seen that happen before, Carter.” She covers her mouth with her hand and lets out a mixture of what might could be both a laugh and a cry. “He likes you.”
I look back at Stephen and his back is to us now. When I look back at Sloan, she stands on her tiptoes and kisses me, then leads me out of the room. I fold up the paper and slip it and the pen in my back pocket.
I don’t know what I was expecting today, but it certainly wasn’t that.
I’m glad I came, but now it’s not only because of Sloan.
Asa-31
Asa
I remember this being a hell of a lot more fun last month.
I double down on the bet and run my hand through my hair, squeezing the back of my neck. I’m hungry. I look over at Kevin and Dalton who are engrossed in conversation with some bartender who looks more like a girl Jon would take behind the building than either of them would entertain.
The only reason why Jon probably isn’t fucking her behind the building right now is because he left with two lot lizards from the truck stop next door. Probably took them to the men’s room. Which surprises me that he was even able to do that with the way his face is puffed up like a fucking blueberry.
He should be back by now, though, because I’m pretty sure he can’t last more than two minutes with a chick. There were two of them. That’s only four minutes, but I haven’t seen him in over an hour.
Where the hell is he?
I look around and when I don’t see him in the vicinity, I cash out my chips. I yell across the table-over the obnoxious fucking slot machine bells-and tell Dalton and Kevin I’m going to look for Jon. Dalton nods.
I make it to the other side of the casino without finding him. I turn back and walk past a blackjack table when my eyes fall on a guy slurring something to the dealer. “Every time I come to this goddamn casino, I see the same miserable motherfuckers hunched over these tables, handing over their hard-earned wages to you goddamn motherfuckers and you just keep taking. Taking, taking, taking.”
The dealer scoops the chips out from in front of the guy. A man across the table says, “And nine times out of the ten that miserable motherfucker is you.”
I laugh and make eye contact with the man who just spoke.
I stop laughing.
He glances away from me without even a flash of recognition.
The guy doing the complaining pushes his stool away from the table and stands. He points at the guy I’m staring at and says, “You got lucky, Paul. That’s all. Won’t last.”
I’m clenching my fists so hard, I’m drawing blood. I can feel it seeping out of my palm.
I didn’t even have to hear his name confirmed to know it was him. A son doesn’t forget his father.
No matter how easy it was for that father to forget his son.
I turn my back to him and wipe the blood from my hand onto the leg of my jeans. I pull my phone out and do a quick Google search. After a few minutes of scrolling through the results and glancing back and forth from him to my phone, I finally find what I’m looking for.
The motherfucker was paroled last year.
I slide my phone into my pocket and walk over to the empty seat across from him. I’ve never been this tense, but it isn’t because I’m scared of what he’ll do to me anymore. I’m tense, because I’m scared of what I want to do to him. I lay down my bet and try not to make it obvious that I’m staring, but he isn’t paying me any attention. He’s focused on the dealer.
His hair is so thin, he might even be considered bald if it wasn’t for the last few strands he’s pathetically holding on to. I run my hand through my hair. It feels as thick as it always has.
Maybe he lost his hair because of stress and it isn’t hereditary. God I hope nothing about this man is hereditary, he looks like a fucking waste of space.