But I nod anyway because cards are better than this suffocating tension. “Sure. What game?”
“Poker?” His grin is almost back to normal. Almost. “Unless you don’t know how?—”
“I know how to play poker.” I smile.
“Texas Hold’em?” Malik asks, joining us in the living room.
“My preferred variant, actually.”
Cole’s grin widens. “This should be interesting.”
Thirty minutes later, I’m up by a frankly embarrassing amount.
“How?” Dax demands, staring at the pile of pretzels I’m using as chips. “How are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” I ask innocently, arranging my latest winnings into neat stacks.
“Winning. Constantly. You’ve taken every hand for the last fifteen minutes.”
“Noteveryhand,” I correct. “Malik won that one three rounds ago.”
“Once,” Malik says flatly. “I’ve won once.”
“Which is one more than me,” Cole mutters, glaring at his remaining three pretzels.
I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. This is better. This feels almost normal.
Jalen deals the next hand. “Are you sure you haven’t been counting cards?”
“Can’t count cards in poker,” I point out. “Wrong game.”
“Then how?—”
“Skill,” I say simply, picking up my cards. “And paying attention.”
I have a decent hand. Not amazing, but workable. I glance around the table, noting tells. Cole’s left eye twitches slightly when he has something good. Malik’s jaw tightens when he’s bluffing. Jalen gets very still when he’s confident. Dax is harder to read, but he has this thing where his fingers drum once against the table when he’s uncertain.
Right now, his fingers are perfectly still.
He’s got something good.
I fold.
“Really?” Cole looks at me skeptically. “You’re folding?”
“Yep.”
“But you never fold.”
“I fold when I know I’m beat.” I nod toward Dax. “He’s got at least a straight.”
Dax’s eyebrows rise. “How did you?—”
“Your fingers,” I explain. “You drum them when you’re uncertain about your hand. You haven’t moved them once this round.”
Cole throws his cards down. “That’s cheating.”
“That’s poker,” I correct. “Reading your opponents is half the game.”
