“Obviously,” Bella said. She took her plate and walked off.
I spent the rest of my shift feeling steamed at myself. Look, I never had a one-night stand before. That’s all I needed to confess. I feel like an ass, and I’m sorry. Can we be friends? Because I like you a lot.
Simple words, right? I could manage that. Except maybe I should go even further. I wanted to do something nice for Bella. But what? Flowers? That was a cliché. No, I would invite her to lunch. A new Thai restaurant had opened off campus, and since I ate every meal in the dining hall, I was kind of craving Asian food. Hopefully she was too.
The more I thought about it, the better the idea sounded. Lunch was a casual meal. Friends did lunch together. It sent the right message. I want to spend time with you, but I don’t expect anything.
Perfecto. I’d knock on her door and ask her tonight. And if she wasn’t home, I’d just have to keep trying. In fact, I made a little promise to myself. The next time I saw Bella, no matter where it was, I would ask her to lunch.
Seven
Bella
The next weekend I found myself at a fraternity party.
At Harkness frats weren’t a very big deal. The student body was already divided into twelve “houses,” so most people didn’t see the point of dividing into further factions. I loved that about Harkness, actually. That frats didn’t rule the place.
But there were a few frat parties every year I’d always considered to be worth the effort. Casino Night at Beta Rho was one of them. The brothers rented a bunch of gambling equipment. They set up poker tables in the basement, and craps tables in the living room. There was roulette on the porch and blackjack in the dining room. All the pledges were made to wear tuxedos and funny little 1920s gangster hats.
Every year I went for the spectacle, played a few rounds of cards and watched some high-stakes poker. A fraternity party wasn’t half bad when dice and cards were involved.
Blackjack was my Casino Night game because it was simpler than poker but not as brainless as roulette. I was playing at a small table with Big-D, who was not exactly my favorite hockey teammate. (Though I was currently beating him, which made it more fun.)
My attention wavered a bit when Rafe walked through the front door with a couple of soccer players. And wouldn’t you know? He looked devastating tonight in a tight pair of jeans and another button-down shirt rolled up on his taut forearms.
Crap. I was not going to stare at him.
“Hit me,” I said to Whittaker, the football player who was acting as our dealer.
“You want a hit on seventeen?” he asked incredulously.
One of the rules I lived by was to never bet what you can’t afford to lose. But in this case, that was no problem. “We’re playing with Monopoly money, sport,” I reminded him. “Also, I feel lucky.” Furthermore, the Rangers game was on in the next room, and I’d promised my friend Pepe that I’d watch it with him. Going bust right now would not be the end of the world.
Whittaker turned over a three, and everyone gasped. “You are lucky,” Whittaker said with a smile. “The dealer takes a hit on thirteen and…” He flipped over a queen. “Bella is the luckiest girl alive.” He swept all my winnings, including a substantial portion of Big-D’s remaining bills, into a pile and handed them to me.
“She gets lucky often enough,” Big-D muttered from across the table. A tiny girl with shiny hair hung on his every word. At Big-D’s not-so-subtle attempt to impugn my character, she gave a loud giggle.
Only a dumbass like Big-D would have to put me down just because I won some fake money off him. Sigh. “That bugged the shit out of you, didn’t it?” I asked. “Losing to a girl. Is that why your date isn’t playing?” I studied the sweet young thing on his arm. Her Casino Night getup included a shimmering, spangled top, an up-do that must have taken an hour and a half and gleaming red lipstick. I decided she was a freshman, because she was trying way too hard for Saturday night in a skeevy frat house.
I looked her right in the eye. “There’s room at the table if you want to play.”
Pursing those shiny lips, she shook her head and smirked.
“Suit yourself.”
Whittaker shuffled the deck. I placed a new bet and waited for Whittaker to deal. This time he dealt me an ace. And when I asked for a hit, I got ten and won. “Gotcha again, Big-D,” I said a little too cheerfully.
There was a roar from the TV room. Truthfully, I was starting to care more about the hockey game than blackjack.
I lifted my eyes over Big-D’s shoulder and found Rafe staring at me. In fact, he looked as if he was about to head in my direction. Not going to happen. If he had something to say to me, I did not want it said in front of Big-D, his simpering date and Whittaker.