I studied the layout of the casino floor before meeting up with Raquel so I steer her to the right, away from the banks of slot machines and the electronic versions of various other casino games. We weave our way through the other patrons, sticking to the edges of the room until we reach our destination: the roulette area.
We stand off to the side, pretending to whisper sweet nothings or whatever to each other as we observe the ebb and flow of activity around the tables. I spend a few seconds scrutinizing each dealer, noting how many customers they have and if they’re distracted. Once I’ve narrowed down a few possible targets, Raquel and I move toward the tables for a closer look.
The dealer at the first table seems bored, and her gaze slides to the watch on her wrist between each spin of the wheel, which probably means she’ll be getting off work soon. Her lack of attention would make this table an ideal target, except of the three customers sitting there, two of them don’t have drinks in front of them and their attention never wavers from the spread of chips on the felt layout.
Raquel catches my eye and gives a slight shake of her head. Since I’ve reached the same conclusion—to avoid this table—I dip my chin in silent agreement, and we make our way to the next potential target.
The dealer at this table isn’t staring at his watch, but he spends a little longer than necessary chatting with the two female customers between rounds. Raquel and I share a look, and she moves closer to the dealer, flashing him a wide smile as he spins the wheel and drops the ball. He returns the smile with a flirtatious grin of his own, but just as quickly his attention shifts to the stacks of chips signifying people’s bets.
A dealer who’s flirting with customers to get tips can still be easily distracted, but not our best bet. I’m not willing to completely discount this table as an option, but I want to check out at least one more before making a decision, and Raquel’s head tilt signals she feels the same.
The next potential target is on the opposite side of the room. I place my hand on Raquel’s lower back as the two of us make our way there, and she leans into my side, fluttering her lashes at me as if we’re madly in love.
We’re not.
Besides the fact that she has a boyfriend—even if he is a complete asshole—I have zero interest in women, but pretending to be a couple means people pay less attention to us as individuals.
The third option is an immediate no go. The dealer is laser focused on her area and there are too many bettors already at the table. Raquel and I both nix this table and move on to the next.
“If this last one won’t work, I say we go back to the flirty guy,” I say in a low voice as I pretend to brush a kiss over Raquel’s cheek.
Raquel giggles and covers her mouth with her hand, leaning closer to me. No one’s likely to overhear us, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“Agreed,” she whispers, shooting me a mischievous smile. “He seemed like a boob man, and if there’s one good thing about early pregnancy, it’s that my cups runneth over.”
She shimmies her shoulders a little in demonstration, and I chuckle, shaking my head as we wade through the crowd of patrons toward our final potential target. Drawing closer, my wolf perks up and my nose twitches as the instincts I mostly try to ignore thesedays tell me we have a problem: The dealer at this table is also a shifter.
Running into another shifter isn’t exactly surprising given our location, but a shifter dealer isn’t a variable I’m comfortable with.
Unfortunately, that’s not something I can explain to Raquel. There’s a small chance there will be something else that will make her rule out this table, but to her human senses, this table probably appears to be an ideal target.
The dealer has a blank look on his face, and he barely glances at the layout before spinning the wheel and dropping the ball. The five customers at the table are a little rowdy, a couple of them pretty sloshed if the multiple empty glasses next to them are any indication, and none of them seem the type to pay much attention to me or Raquel.
With any other dealer, the setup would be perfect. But this dealer is a shifter and probably has much more awareness of his surroundings than it appears. Shifters in general have quicker reflexes than humans, so even if this guy is a complete space cadet, the odds are good that he’s more likely to pick up on the sleight of hand tricks I use to game the system.
Raquel watches a couple rounds of play, and her face brightens, her smile turning genuine as she observes what, to her, looks like a great setup for us. She glances at me and raises her brows.
My stomach twists, and I want to protest, tell her we should go back to the table with the flirty dealer, but there’s no way she’d accept my veto of this one. Not without a really good explanation anyway, something I simply can’t give her.
Her brows draw together in confusion at my hesitation and complete lack of enthusiasm. She looks back at the table. “This one looks good,” she says after a few seconds of watching. “Unless there’s something I’m missing?”
“No,” I say, forcing my lips into a semblance of a smile. “It’s fine.”
She stares at me for a beat, lips pressed together, clearly suspicious but knowing this is not the time or place to get into it.
“It’s good,” I say. “Really.”
She opens her mouth, then shakes her head, shrugs, and slides into one of the empty chairs at the table. I take the chair beside her, then flash the dealer a friendly grin as I pull out a few hundreds and toss them on the table to exchange for chips. To my relief, the dealer barely acknowledges me, no twitching nose and not even a hint of wariness on his face as he slides the bills away and pushes a pile of chips toward me and Raquel.
We play a couple rounds, making a few “safe” bets. Raquel squeals and bounces in her chair at our first “big” win—aone-for-one payout on black—drawing the table’s attention to herself as she grabs my hand.
“Baby, we should put it all on black,” she says, wiggling in her seat.
I shake my head and make a big show of explaining to her that going all in is a bad idea. She sticks her lower lip out and crosses her arms over her chest, her boobs stretching the limits of her low-cut dress. Every male eye at the table, except mine, focuses on her chest.
“I’ll tell you what,” I say, flipping a chip her way. “Why don’t you pick the next bet?”
Raquel does another excited wiggle in her seat—she really is good at this—and puts the chip I gave her on black, while I put a different one on red. The dealer spins the wheel and the ball slides into the pocket at red nineteen.
