“Shark,” he said as she racked the balls again. “You just don’t want to play me.”
“You want to play?” she asked with a grin before she set up the board for a series of impossible shots for him. “Alright then, play.”
“You’re good,” he said walking around the table contemplating his chances of each shot before shaking his head. “Way too good, you just set up an impossible board.”
“Improbable not impossible,” she countered. “Want to see?”
“You think you can make these shots?” he said gesturing to the table.
“How about this, if I miss one of them you win and I write the entire paper.”
“So our new bet is if you miss one you write the paper and if you make all of them I wear a dress and hammer in some nails?” he asked surveying the board again. “Okay you’re on.”
“I’ll remind you that you said that when you’re wearing a pretty pink dress,” she said before she leaned over the table and sank the first two shots simultaneously.
“You still have seven to go,” he stated watching as she lined up the next shot.
“Six…five…four…” he said counting them down as each shot got a little harder than the next, but she managed to sink them with ease.
“Three…two…” she told him sensing his agitation as she let the stick slide again and the last of the colored balls sank into the pocket.
“One,” he said checking the layout of the eight ball compared to the cue ball. “All it takes is one.”
“One perfectly aligned shot with control and focus,” she told him letting the ball zip around the board until the eight ball fell into the side pocket. She glanced up at his incredulous face and she grinned.
“Anything but pink,” he pleaded.
“Hmm, I think I have an old purple rag that will work,” she offered setting her stick onto the table before heading over to the wall to open the cabinet.
“Where the hell did you learn to play like that?” he asked following her over.
“From him,” she said letting him see the pictures of her and Arthur as she grew up and at the tournament.
“Isn’t that…”
“Arthur Tatum, yeah and that’s my Tate—his son. I’ve been the winner of the Atlantic City Champions Tournament since I was seventeen.”
“Well hell, a hustler gets hustled by a champ.”
“I’ve been hustling since I was fifteen; it’s how I kept a roof over my head. Don’t worry you’re not the first one I’ve taken down,” she stated heading to the kitchen for some water.
A glance out the window confirmed the storm was still raging. She opened the door to the fridge, and everything went dark. She glanced back out the window and saw the entire block was dark and in the distance the lights blinked off street by street.
“Looks like it’s going to be a long night,” Devon said and she nodded. “Feel like getting that paper out of the way?”
“Why not,” she agreed heading into the living room, grabbing her things and setting up the lanterns they used last year when she and Jordan went camping to put some light back into the room.
It was almost seven in the morning when they finished their first draft of it, and she was laughing at a joke he’d made when the front door opened.
“Mel!” Jordan yelled before spotting her on the floor next to Devon. She saw a quick flash of something cross his face before he bolted across the room and picked her up crushing her against his frame as he wrapped his arms around her.
“Jordan, what on earth?”
“Tate called me in the middle of the night saying that you hadn’t answered the phone at the office or here. He finally got a location on your cell once the system came back on. I was at the airport, but they wouldn’t let us leave because of the storm. God baby, I found the Jeep and your phone, but you weren’t there,” he said cupping the back of her head to assure himself she was really there in one piece.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I’d left my phone.”
“I found it on the floorboard halfway under the seat, my name was on the dial page.”
