My face scrunches up at that, but I don’t say anything. I’m not surprised.
“If you still want to play,” Creed says, ignoring Zayd and the incident completely. His eyes are locked on me, and my heart races wildly in my chest. “I’m in. There’s another five grand in it for you, too.”
“We should go,” Zack growls at me, but when I pick up the cards to deal, he just sighs and stays right where he is.
Unfortunately, I’m too full of myself, too desperate to show these guys who’s boss. Creed’s been watching me all night, picking up my tells. He takes the next round, and even though I know I should stop, that I’m pushing too hard, and too far, I raise my chin up.
“Again.”
The looks on Zayd’s and Creed’s faces should’ve been my first warning. Zack puts his hand on my knee and squeezes, but I ignore him, determined to win this, desperate for it.
Zayd deals, we play … and I lose. Again.Lunch with Andrew the next day is pleasant, easy, no hidden threads of intent in his voice. We talk about his family’s beach home in Hawaii, about the winter formal next month, and I briefly tell him about my home in the old train car. There’s no judgement in his face, and when he asks me if we can go out sometime, it’s a yes. That spark of interest I thought I saw the first day of school is still there; I can see it when he looks at me.
Andrew invites me to spend Thanksgiving with a family friend of his who has a country home near the academy, but I’ve already made plans with Zack. Dinner at his family’s lake house ends up involving just the two of us, and a huge catered meal with all the usual fixings. It’s delicious, but kind of lonely, especially since I can sense that Zack’s frustrated about something. I figure it’s about his parents and their friends cancelling over a last-minute business meeting, but he’s impossible to read and I don’t ask.
I still don’t quite get why he invited me over in the first place, or why he’s suddenly so interested in me and my dad again.
“Who cares why he showed up?” Miranda groans, putting her hands over her face and then dropping them into her lap. She’s definitely shipping me and Zack. When I told her what happened while she was gone, she was strangely close-lipped about everything. She didn’t even weigh in on my date with Andrew. But right now, I can’t seem to shut her up. “He clearly likes you. Besides that, he has an amazing body, he could go pro in football if he wanted, and he’s got that overprotective quality that I like.”
“Are you dating him or am I?” I ask, smiling as we walk down the halls to the sound of sweet, sweet anonymity. It’s been two weeks since the party at the casino, and nobody’s bothered me. No rude notes shoved into my locker, or condoms pushed under my door. They’ve briefly stopped calling me the Working Girl, and I’ve been left alone to practice the harp in peace, eat in The Mess, or even go for a swim in the academy pool.
“I’m just saying, Zack’s a good guy. I like him.” Miranda swings her leather bookbag as we walk, heading for the gym. Harper, Becky, Abigail, and Valentina have made this class a living hell for me, snickering about my body behind raised hands, shouting at me when I’m on the diving board, stealing my towel when I’m in the showers. But not since casino night. I’m actually starting to enjoy learning how to swim properly. Before coming to Burberry Prep, all I could manage was a shaky dog paddle.
Of course, in the back of my mind, I know this peace is on a time-limit, and I’m counting down the days until the first of the new year with dread. That, and … there’s all the rest of it. I didn’t just play the guys once and lose. I played three times, and lost three times. How that happened, I have no idea. I should’ve just let it go after the first loss.
At least I now have fifty-five thousand dollars in my account—forty for the first game we played, and an additional five for each of the three rounds I lost. I feel like I let my greed get the best of me, and my cheeks flush just remembering it.
I’ve decided that for now, I’m going to save it for college.
On the plus side, Lizzie and I have been texting since the casino, and I feel like we’re actually starting to become friends. Miranda seems guarded whenever I mention her, but I’m guessing that has more to do with Tristan than Lizzie herself.
