“You sure you got five? Maybe you want to take another look before you decide?”
Camden shook his head. “I’m certain. I can win five tricks.”
Elijah took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. It was only the first hand. They usually played five or six in a set. If Camden fucked up now, Elijah still had time to pull them out later.
“All right, Vivienne.” Elijah gave a nod to his sister-in-law, who sat with a pencil hovering over the notepad sitting in front her. “Put us down for nine books.” She scribbled their bid next to their names, and then wrote a four next to hers and his brother’s.
Elijah threw down the ace of hearts. His strategy was to win as many as he could up front and then focus on helping Camden make his bids. When Vivienne threw down the three of hearts, Elijah chewed the inside of his lip as he waited for Camden to throw down a card.
Elijah had the highest card in the suit. The only trump to that was if someone broke the first spade.
Just let me have this hand, Camden. You better not cut me.
Camden put down a four of hearts, followed by Emmanuel’s eight of hearts. The book was Elijah’s.
Elijah breathed a sigh of relief and his skin prickled as he caught the sultry smile Camden leveled at him. That smile said everything Elijah needed to hear from Camden.
I’ve got your back. You can depend on me. You can trust me.
A shiver slid down Elijah’s back. This kind of support from anyone other than his family or his fellow officers was odd. He expected support in those relationships; they were obligatory situations. This felt different, freely offered. And as wrong as Elijah knew it was to accept, the lonely part of him that was always around the group, but never part of it, danced a happy two-step.
Camden continued to follow Elijah’s lead throughout the game, catching the silent signals he threw without alerting his brother and sister-in-law. The fact that they could communicate without actually speaking, that they for once weren’t getting their signals crossed, made his heart leap with excitement, sobering him in ways Elijah couldn’t explain. It was a card game. Something done to pass the time. And yet, sitting across the table from this man, watching him match Elijah play for play, bound him tighter to Camden than he’d ever been with another human being.
It was strange, but Elijah didn’t have time to question it. He was too busy winning books and pissing his brother off to care about why having a partner who could read you when no one else could made happiness flutter in the most secret places of his soul.
“Dammit, Viv.” Emmanuel slammed his hand down against the table, the vibration of his frustration and anger making Elijah smile. “I know you saw that damn queen of diamonds I threw out. How you gonna cut me with an ace of diamonds? What kind of bullshit is that?”
“Don’t come for me, Manny.” The narrowed slits of his sister-in-law’s eyes made Elijah chuckle. Vivienne was the coolest, calmest person he knew. She’d have to be to deal with his hyper-ass brother. But when she was angry, she could cut you with just a look from across the room. “That was all I had.”
The nervous way Emmanuel swallowed made Elijah’s chuckle evolve into a loud roll of laughter. The low growl slipping between the flat line of Emmanuel’s lips told Elijah his laughter was making his brother’s obviously bad mood worse.
Fuck him! It’s no worse than I’ve suffered from his relentless taunting over the years.
Emmanuel clicked his tongue and waited for Vivienne to start the next hand. When it was his turn to play, he snatched his next card out of his hand and slammed it on the table. Before he could pull his hand back, Camden shook his head at Emmanuel.
“Excuse me, younger Mr. Stephenson. I think we have a problem here.”
“The only problem we have is that you and my brother are fucking up my good mood.”
Camden shook his head and smiled playfully. “Now, Emmanuel, I think we both know you’re not being completely honest. I distinctly remember you throwing out a low spade early to beat Elijah’s ace of clubs. A few hands later, and you’re throwing out a ten of clubs to beat everyone else’s low-ranking cards in the suit. If I remember correctly, isn’t the term for that ‘reneging’?”
“You calling me a cheater, newbie?”
Elijah threw a pretzel at his brother, popping Emmanuel in his temple. “No, I am. Turn over your damn books and let’s have a look.”
Emmanuel paused for a minute, probably trying to think of a way to get out of his current predicament. His hesitation in and of itself was a clue that his brother’s history of cheating when he was losing was repeating itself.
Emmanuel finally turned his books face up, and they all saw that Camden’s observation was accurate.
“You’s a cheating-ass bastard, Manny.” Elijah’s statement was met with Emmanuel’s middle finger pointing straight in the air as a reply.
“You just mad because you can’t play. Stop being a hater, Elijah.”
They’d been having this same argument since they were kids sitting at the table playing with their parents. And although Emmanuel was still the same annoying little opportunist he was when they were kids, sitting here having this familiar conversation in front of Camden soothed him. As if a missing piece to his usual routine had miraculously appeared.
This was usually the part where things escalated to one of them flipping tables in the game. But instead of his anger rising, contentment spread through him. He faced Camden, reached over the table, and offered him a hand. When Camden accepted it, Elijah slapped his palm against Camden’s in camaraderie and nodded his head.
“Good eye.”
