“I’ll tell you soon. Just not today,” she says. “I still need some time to recover from my humiliation. He played me, Gray. He card-sharked me.”
I think back to how Celena had been winning by a lot against Kingston when the dealer asked us to leave. Something had obviously changed after that.
“He started playing better when we left,” I guess as I push my cart up to the peanut butter and grab a jar of the store’s generic brand.
“The next hand, he took me for three hundred dollars,” she says. “He was watching me the whole time, losing on purpose, learning my tells.”
“Oh, Celena. And you didn’t stop when you figured that out?”
“What part of ‘gambling problem’ is unclear to you?” she snaps.
She makes a noise of disgust that I know is self-directed.
“He tried to give me his room key again after the game,” she goes on. “Told me I could come up and collect back what I lost.”
“I hope you shoved it up his ass,” I say. I haven’t moved on down the aisle yet, and now I’m contemplating marshmallow fluff to go with my peanut butter.
No, no fluff. I start walking again. Seeing Ash’s incredible body all the time has made me more health conscious as I consider the things he has to do to keep fit. He may like my body the way it is, but sleeping with him has inspired me to get more in shape. Not necessarily thinner, but stronger. I need to ask him to help me with some strength training, since I feel so weak next to him. Maybe I’ll also get back into cardio kickboxing. I did that a couple years ago, and it was both fun and therapeutic.
Celena’s voice brings me back from mentally planning my new health and exercise routine.
“No, I took the card,” she says, “and I gave it to some puck bunnies on my way out.”
I stop dead again. It’s going to take me forever to finish my shopping this way.
“You what?” I ask.
“There were some women hanging around outside the ballroom,” she says. “I assumed they were those puck bunnies, right? So I asked them if they were interested in spending a night with the Hydra’s goalie. They were, so I gave them the card and told them to go wait up in his room.”
My mouth hangs open. “You didn’t.”
“I most certainly fucking did,” she says. “Not all of them went, but two of them were more than eager to go. I hope he had fun with them.”
She spits the last part out with more than a little venom.
I’m about to say something else when I catch sight of a familiar face. There’s a man at the end of the aisle I just turned down, and I can’t place him at first. He glances my way, and our eyes meet. He puts the can he’s examining down and leaves the aisle, and that’s when it hits me.
“What the fuck?” I say unconsciously.
“Gray? You okay? What’s up?” Celena asks in my ear.
“I just saw a guy who was at my conference in Florida,” I tell her.
Specifically, I remember seeing him in the hall after my presentation when I was texting Ash about the new dick pic he sent me. The man was texting on his phone as well.
“I saw him a few times at the convention center. I figured he was just interested in the same panels and presentations I was, but now he’s here.”
“Could he be from Connecticut, and it’s just a coincidence he shops where you shop?” she asks unconvincingly.
I consider this until something else hits me. “He didn’t have a shopping basket or a cart,” I say. “He either only came in to get one item, or he’s not actually shopping.”
“What the fuck?” Celena says.
I wheel my cart around and head in the direction I saw the man go. I hurry across the back of the store, looking down each aisle as I pass it.
“Gray, what are you doing?” Celena asks.
“Looking for the man. I’m going to introduce myself.”
