It’s a joke, but sometimes it really does feel like it’s been that long.
My attempt to make him laugh works. His low rumble is deeper underneath all that silicone molded with loose jowls, forehead wrinkles, and ingrained laugh lines. It’s a sound at odds with his older exterior. A shock of pleasure cuts through the center of my core.
I can’t fix Logan’s sets or make his work go faster. And it’s not like we can really flip anything back, obviously. But just like Logan slipped the lottery ticket into my bag, I need to do the same for him. Theoretically speaking. He wanted me to have some of his luck. He insisted on it.
That’s it.
“You wanted your luck to rub off on me, but now I need to rub your luck back off on you,” I say. My words come out faster than my thoughts. I shake my head, and my mask jiggles side to side. “Wait, no. No one’s rubbing anything.”
Logan’s eyes sparkle with amusement.
I can practically feel the red filling in my face. “I’ve said rub too many times,” I mutter. “The point is: I owe you. I got millions, even though you picked most of the numbers. I’m the same way as you about debts, but I can’t pay you back one-to-one.”
“You owe me nothing. If I hadn’t met you, we wouldn’t be here right now. And besides, you’re all over this ticket,” Logan says.
“What do you mean?”
“10. 13. 30. 31. 23. 6.” He says it like a mantra. “Ten and thirteen are for your birthday, which you told the fortune teller. And if you were born in 1996, that makes you about to turn thirty in a couple of weeks. Thirty-one is how old I am. We met on the twenty-third.”
So there was something special about these numbers. Thankfully, he didn’t share his rationale on camera. The last thing we need is my birthday out there confirming that Older Hazel Yen is actually Young Hazel Yen.
“Why did you pick six?” he asks as he rubs his artificially sun-spotted forehead.
I turn away. “I don’t want to say.”
Logan laughs. “What? Why not? I just told you my reasoning.”
“Because.”
“Okay, well, now you have to tell me,” he says.
More heat. More red. I’m going to overbake in this mask. “You… You have three crinkles next to each eye when you smile.” I don’t have to look at him to confirm this. I do anyways. He’s wearing a goofy grin under his mask.
Logan doesn’t say anything. He just moves his hand closer to mine under the check until our pinkies are grazing.
From the very beginning, he had been paying attention. Seeing me.
And I had been seeing him.
I’ve witnessed enough with Dad to know how to help Logan. Or at least to know where we can start. Whenever he goes to the casino, Dad does his rituals. Brings his lucky charms. Wears his lucky colors. Has his lucky numbers. He does what he thinks he has to in order to beat the odds and improve his chances.
More times than not, his efforts don’t work.
But… sometimes they do.
I don’t know where the luck will come from. We’ll just have to hope there’s enough of it to go around to get Logan to opening night.
This is going to be just like the fortunes, probably. Futile attempts in the name of control.
But we have to at least try.
We need to attract luck. Increase it, somehow. That’s what I’m going to help Logan with.
And I’m not going to let his hesitation deter me. Because of his choice to buy the ticket, I can help my brother. I might even be able to clear my own debts. It’s life-changing, this gift he’s given me.
“My dear, darling husband,” I say, linking my temporarily aged pinky with his. “You need to get lucky.”
Chapter 8
