As I’m about to fold on a round, Samantha waggles her brow, making me rethink my strategy.
“You gonna pass, big boy?” she teases.
Growling, I look at my cards again, wondering what the right move is. I’ve never met a person so hard to read. It’s not that she doesn’t have tells; they just change every round. She’s too damn good at this.
I go all in.
And she continued to dominate.
“Damn,” Jacek says, laying down his cards and shaking his head from side to side.
As the show draws closer, Carl barks out, “Time to get ready!” and the men hurry to get their things in order.
Samantha piles the money in the center of the table and fans herself with it.
Dumbfounded, I ask, “What the fuck was that?”
“Growing up in a family full of lawyers, I got good at reading people. My father says it’s ingrained in our DNA. I can spot a bluff a mile away, and I can make one without detection.”
Lifting my brow, I deadpan, “Should I be worried?”
Her smile breaks ever so slightly. “Of course not.”
I want to believe her, but I’m haunted by Vanessa’s revelation.
She sets down the money. “Tox, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, just wondering if you were out to steal my DNA from the very beginning because of how handsome I am,” I say in jest so that I might watch her reaction.
Giggling, she comes over and gives me a soulful kiss. “You caught me.”
She’s not one for public displays of affection, and the fact that she just kissed me out in the open has me wondering if she’s acting.
“Are you okay?” she asks, sensing my anxiety.
“Of course…I just…I have a lot on my plate.”
It’s not a lie, because Samantha isn’t the only thing I’m worried about. Growing up without a father, and the feelings of abandonment it caused, has me in a state of panic, because what if I can’t be there for my child?
Feeling a needle of panic, I pull Samantha into a hug and plant a kiss on her forehead.
I can’t bear the thought of my son growing up without me, not because I’m special in any way, but because I know what it’s like to not feel a father’s love.
“Promise me something,” I tell her, cupping her cheeks in my hands.
“Yes?”
“Promise that the baby will always come first. That they’ll be happy and loved and will never get used to get back at one another.”
Her arms wrap around my waist, hugging me fiercely. “You’ll never have to worry about that, Tox. I swear that you won’t.”
TWENTY-SIX
Samantha
For a long time,I used to think of myself as a fortune teller. I was so good at predicting the future that even my father came to me for advice.
But whatever power I may have once possessed abandoned me months ago, in a club bathroom. Nothing could have prepared me for the twists and turns my life would take, and how I’d respond to them.
