“Fuck it.” Ryke slides off a gold ring from his middle finger and throws it in the pile. “That’s worth two grand.”
Daisy pales a little. She has to match that or fold and then he’ll take what’s in the pot.
“Let me see…hold on a sec.” She searches in her nearby bag.
And Ryke looks a little worried. He thought she was going to fold.
But her face falls. “I don’t have anything worth two thousand,but…” She snatches her journal and scribbles something on a piece of paper. She tosses that into the pile.
“Lo,” Connor calls from the back of the plane, still staring at his laptop. “Can you come here?”
“In a second,” Lo says, entertained, like me, on the poker game.
“Now would be best.” Connor’s voice pitches from its usual steady tone.
Lo sighs and slides out beneath me. “Catch me up when I come back?”
I nod, and he kisses me tenderly on the lips. As he retracts, he has that twinkle in his eye likemore later.
Yes.
When he leaves, I prop myself on my knees to try and see the paper in the poker pile. “Read it out loud,” I tell Ryke.
“She’s tossing in her two Ducati Superbikes.” His eyebrow quirks. “I already have a motorcycle, Dais.”
“These are faster than your Honda.” Clearly they have talked “motorcycle” before if she knows what sits outside his apartment.
“Wait,” I interject. Ryke saidhertwo superbikes. That means she already has them. “When did you get a motorcycle? And why would you buy two?”
“A client at a shoot bought them for set decoration, and he gave them to me.”
“He just gave them to you?”
Ryke fingers the piece of paper. “That’s what I said.”
“It was athank you for doing a good jobis all. It doesn’t happen often, but it did then. And now I have two motorcycles begging to be ridden. I’ve only taken the red one out on the road, so I put some miles on it.”
“You don’t have a motorcycle license yet,” he tells her flatly.
“Yeah, I know. But in order to get a license, I have to practice.”
He lets the paper go, and I see a sort of longing for those bikes in his gaze. They must be really nice. “You do realize that these are a lot more than my ring?”
“You don’t have to match me. I’m not trying to up the bid, but it’s really all I have that you could want.”
I glance at the rear of the plane. Lo’s back faces me, but he’s hunched over, his hand to his eyes. Something… something’s really wrong. What happened? Is it his father? I goto stand, but Connor meets my gaze and shakes his head, as though I should sit back down.
I do. He has some sort of power in his assuredness. It’s like Jedi mind control.
But I want to go comfort Lo. My chest hurts just watching the back of him. I bite my nails, catch myself and drop my hand.
“What the hell, let’s do it,” Ryke says.
I turn back to the poker game. Maybe it’ll keep my mind off something horrible. But I’m so antsy that I start scratching my arm. I catch myself doing that too.
“So the motorcycles are fair then?”
“Sure. Just don’t cry when I take them from you.”
