Chapter 5
Drew pushed her plate away. "I'm stuffed," she said.
Normally, she was a light eater, but whenever she went through a buffet line she felt as though she should grab everything in sight to get her money's worth. She was amazed that she had been able to eat two full plates. But her belly was now so full it hurt.
Brian had just started his third plate. "You know," he said, chewing a chicken leg, "if I do really well here, as I expect I will, we might not need to go home. Fuck the rent. Fuck the utilities. We can stay here. You can get a job, and I can play blackjack full-time."
Drew had to resist rolling her eyes. There he goes, dreaming again! In actuality, she knew that Brian was a good blackjack player. He came home a winner better than sixty percent of the time. Yet his discipline was lousy. If he started losing-always a possibility with even the best card counters, because luck still played a role in the game-he would become desperate. Rather than quit and take a break, which is what his books told him to do, he would throw good money after bad, increasing his bets in hopes of recouping what he lost. It was a downward spiral which inevitably led to him losing his entire bankroll. Drew had watched that nightmare happen three times over the last two years.
"It gets hot out here during the summer."
Brian swallowed his food. "Which is why these buildings have such good air conditioning."
He set down his stripped bone and began attacking his beans with a spoon. Drew watched him quietly for a moment. She guessed now was as good a time as any to bring up what was on her mind.
But how to go about it?
"Brian?"
"Hmmm?"
"Do you like children?"
He looked at her strangely. "Sure, I guess."
"Would you like to have them?"
His eyes grew wide with alarm. "You're not pregnant, are you?"
"No, no. I wouldn't risk getting pregnant by you. But I'd like to know if you've ever thought about starting a family. Not with me, with another woman."
He smiled. "Don't worry, Sis. I'm not gonna leave you."
Drew tried to hide her frustration. "I guess what
I'm trying to tell you is that I would like to have a family. I want kids, Brian. Lots of them."
Still he refused to see what she was driving at. "Well, I suppose you could go to one of those sperm banks. We could pick out a father together. I'm partial to athletes, myself. But let's hold off on starting a family for a few years, okay? Things are kind of unsettled now.
"And besides, it might ruin your figure."
His eyes leered at her. Drew gave up. Perhaps it was the wrong time to suggest to him that they should start to look for other mates.
After leaving the buffet restaurant, she and Brian began hunting for an empty blackjack table. Her brother preferred to play head-to-head against the dealer. Other players at the table tended to complicate his card counting system. It was hard to count a particular card if someone else hid it from you.
Brian looked up and down the rows of blackjack tables. Most of them were closed down. It was a weeknight, after all. Players were clustered around the few that were open. There was only one table that was completely empty. Brian steered for it immediately and sat down. Drew remained standing behind him.
The dealer, a short, dowdy woman of forty with a pleasant face, smiled at Brian.
"How are you this evening, sir?" she asked.
Drew thought she detected a spark of attraction in the woman's eyes, but her brother seemed not to notice.
"Fine," he said. He pushed a hundred dollar bill across the green felt. "Give me all red chips, please."
The dealer, whose name tag said her name was Maybelle, gave him a strange look and then began to make change. Drew then noticed the sign on the table. She tapped her brother's shoulder.
"Brian, it's a twenty-five dollar minimum table," she said.
His eyes widened with surprise. "Shit! You're right. I wasn't paying attention." The dealer paused as he stood up and looked around, searching for another table. But none was devoid of players like this one. He sank back down onto his stool and took out four more Ben Franklin's, which he passed to the dealer. "You better make that all green chips, then."
As the dealer made change, Drew hissed in Brian's ear. "What are you doing? You don't have a big enough bankroll to play at this table. You could lose it all quickly!"
Brian smiled at her. "And I can win bundles of money just as quickly. Have a little confidence in me, Drew."
They always called each other by their first names when out in public, rather than by "sis" and "bro." They wanted everyone to think they were boyfriend and girlfriend and not brother and sister.
Drew sighed and shook her head. Already Brian was deviating from the strategy he had planned to use. Beforehand, he had planned to play at only five dollar tables to protect against long losing streaks.
Brian placed a twenty-five dollar chip on the betting circle. The dealer shuffled and then handed him a plastic card, which he used to cut the deck.
"Good luck," the dealer said, and dealt the first hand.
Brian groaned as he picked up his cards. He had been dealt a ten and a six for a total hand of sixteen. It was the worst hand you could be dealt in blackjack, a game where you tried to get as close as possible to twenty-one without going over. The rules made the dealer stand on seventeen and up, and right now her up card was a ten. Brian didn't know what her down card was, but the chances were excellent that she had a pat hand.
In any case, his strategy books told him that he must hit, and thereby risk going bust. He needed a low card, and there were less of them in the deck than high cards right now.
"Give me a five," he said to the dealer without much hope.
The dealer gave him a four. Brian brightened. Four wasn't bad. It gave him a hand of twenty, and only one other hand beat that. He slid his cards under his bet, indicating that he was standing.
Maybelle turned over her down card. It was an ace, which meant she had a blackjack and she won.
"Sorry," she said to Brian as she collected his green chip.
Brian muttered something to himself and half-rose from the table. Drew could see the fear and indecision in his eyes. Her brother often projected a confident image of himself, but that image was just a mask. She knew that Brian had some deep-rooted fears, perhaps relating to the death of their mother. He did not want to be a loser like her. She almost wished that Brian would stay at the table and battle those fears. It was more important to her that he overcome his anxiety than hold on to their money.
The dealer waited patiently.
Come on, Brian, she thought to him. Don't lose your confidence. Battle that demon inside you. You could be a winner if only you would try.
Brian settled back into his chair. Drew released the breath she did not know she had been holding. He placed another green chip on the betting square and the game resumed.
He lost the next hand, and the hand after that, but he did not retreat. Instead, he increased his bet to fifty dollars. This indicated to Drew that Brian had determined there were more high cards in the deck now than low cards, which favored the player. The dealer dealt him two aces. She had a ten showing. Brain sucked in his breath nervously and then split the aces, laying down another fifty dollars. He now had one-hundred dollars riding, more than he had ever bet before in his life. The dealer dealt one card to each ace, face-down. Brian left them there, afraid to peek. Their she turned over her card and he moaned. She had a jack under there to go with her queen-twenty. He feared that he was doomed. But then she turned over his cards and he saw that he had two twenty-ones.
"All right!" Drew whispered to him, shaking his shoulders excitedly.
His sigh of relief was audible as he collected his winnings. He was now ahead by a green chip.
Throughout the next half-hour, Drew watched her brother battle it out against the dealer. It was back and forth all the way. Sometimes Brian was ahead, sometimes the dealer. Whether he was ahead or not, he was more relaxed now, settling into the rhythm of the game. He was confident that the slight percentage he enjoyed over the house would make him a winner in the long haul. He refused the drinks that the cocktail waitresses offered him, preferring to keep his mind clear for dealing with numbers. His concentration on the cards that danced before his eyes was intense. Drew sensed that he was more in control of himself then he had ever been in their past visits to either Laughlin or Las Vegas.
As the deck was being shuffled for the next round of blackjack, a well-dressed man settled into the chair beside Drew. Brian threw him an irritated glance for disrupting his solitude but did not leave the table. One extra player would not hurt his game too much.
The dealer, on the other hand, acknowledged the new arrival by standing straighter and smiling with nervous pleasantry. "How are you doing, Mr. Pook?"
He shrugged. "Fine, I guess."
"I thought craps was your game."
"Not today. That broad I'm going with lost me a hundred grand."
A hundred grand! Drew's mind reeled. "Sorry to hear that, sir."
"Don't be. I got rid of her. Thought I'd try my luck at blackjack now."
As he said that, his eyes looked at Drew and freely roamed up and down her shapely figure. She could almost feel those eyes undressing her and caressing her skin. She shivered under their bold assessment and quickly looked away.
The man laid down a bet of two-thousand dollars, all in Ben Franklins.
"Money plays!" the dealer said out loud, and dealt to him despite the fact that the table's maximum bet was posted at fifteen hundred. He looked at his two cards briefly and then threw them face up upon the table.
Blackjack! Drew's mind shouted.
"Good for you, Mr. Pook," the dealer said.
Brian cursed softly to himself as the man raked in thirty gorgeous black chips. He was extremely envious. That was the kind of money he one day hoped to play with.
As he was stacking his chips, Mr. Pook turned to Drew and winked. "You must be giving me luck," he said. "Here, take this."
He held out a hundred-dollar chip to her and she accepted it without thinking.
"Thanks," Drew said.
He smiled at her in more than just a friendly way. She felt Brian stiffen behind her.
"Hit me," her brother said to the dealer. Maybelle gave him a bust card and he cursed.
Play continued. The well-dressed man won every hand that the dealer dealt him. Brian also did well, yet his winnings looked paltry compared to the thousands that were amassing next lo him. Mr. Pook allowed his next three bets following the first to ride. In no time at all he had sixteen thousand dollars sitting in the betting circle. It was an incredible fortune, yet he did not seem nervous in the least.
Brian chose to skip the next deal and watch what ensued. Though envious of the well-dressed man, he was caught up in the excitement of the moment. The dealer dealt Mr. Pook two cards, face down, but he did not touch them. Instead, he turned to Drew.
"I'm a bit fearful," he said. "Can you turn over my cards for me?"
To Drew he did not seem fearful at all. "Uh, sure."
She turned over the cards and then gasped. So did Brian and the dealer. Blackjack!
"I don't believe it," Maybelle said, shaking her head. "I just don't believe it. Twenty-four thousand dollars on one hand." She called to her boss for more chips.
As his winnings were being counted out and piled up in front of him, Mr. Pook looked at Drew. "It's positively orgasmic to win when you have so much money riding," he said.
"Yes," Drew whispered. This time she could not help but return his gaze. She was captivated by his eyes. Though black instead of brown, they were much like Brian's.
Her brother caught the silent exchange between them and was not amused. He stood up and grabbed her arm. "Come on, Drew, we're leaving."
She was startled by his abrupt decision. "What? But why? You're doing so good."
"It's time to take a break."
He led her towards the exit, gripping her tightly. She looked back and saw the man watching her leave.
His eyes were hungry for her. Involuntarily, she felt her loins quiver in sexual excitement.
Once outside, on the river walk near the boat dock, Brian turned her around to face him.
"Why were you flirting with that man."
"I wasn't flirting with him."
"You were too!"
"We hardly exchanged more than a word."
"You weren't flirting with your lips, you were flirting with your eyes."
Drew decided that he was probably right and abruptly switched tactics. "So what if I was?"
That threw him off. "Well, knock it off. I'm your lover, not him."
"You're my brother, and what we're doing is wrong."
"Huh! You seem to enjoy it."
"I can't help the way my body responds. But I have a biological clock that's begun ticking, Brian. I told you earlier about how I want children. It's a woman's priority in life. I guess you didn't understand what I was driving at. What I'm trying to tell you is that I want to start looking for my lifelong partner, the one I'll raise children with. You can't be that partner."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. I'm serious."
Brian turned away and digested that in silence. Drew could tell that he was hurt and wanted to soften the blow she had given him. She had never meant to spring all this on him so suddenly.
"I do love you, Brian."
"Thanks," he said. It was a strange answer but it was sincere.
Drew decided on a last minute compromise. "It doesn't mean we have to stop having sex. It just means I want a looser relationship. I think we could both benefit by having other partners."
He shrugged. "If you say so."
Drew was frustrated by his withdrawal. It wasn't supposed to have gone like this. Brian was supposed to have been far more understanding. She knew she must have cut him deeply for him to respond so. She almost gave up and said to hell with him, let him deal with the consequences of his reticence, but just then a ray of hope cut through the darkness. Looking past his shoulder, she spotted a pretty, raven-haired cocktail waitress on her cigarette break. She leaned against the guard rail in a provocative pose as she smoked, looking back their way. She was shorter than Drew, with a flatter chest and girlishly thin legs, but her sensuous face and dark, flashing eyes were full of frank interest. She might just be the consolation prize that Brian needed.
"Hey, look," Drew said, "I think that cocktail waitress down there is checking you out."
Her brother could not help but turn and look. "Really? You think she might be interested in me?"
Drew smiled, detecting a subtle improvement in his spirits. "Of course. She's looking at you, isn't she?"
"Well.. .that doesn't mean anything."
"Brian, don't be a dork. You just don't know how attractive women find you."
"So what should I do?"
Drew blew a jet of air up through her bangs in a gesture of vexation. "That's obvious. Go down there and pick her up."
He hesitated. She gave him a little shove. "Go on! Go on! Don't be shy. You have to start searching for your lifelong partner sometime, because once I find mine, you'll be on your own as far as sex is concerned.
That motivated him. With some nervous reluctance, he shuffled down to the cocktail waitress and began talking to her. Drew watched from a distance as they bantered back and forth. As the minutes passed, their smiles grew wider and their laughter grew louder. Then, abruptly, Brian made his move. He reached out to take her by the waist, but she pushed him back and wagged a finger in his face. He frowned, put off by this, but then she said something which made him laugh and slap his thigh. He looked back at Drew and winked. Then he took out his notebook and began writing something down as the cocktail waitress talked.
A minute later, he returned to Drew, alone. He had a huge smile on his face.
"Well?" Drew asked.
"Well what?"
"Are you having sex with her?"
"No."
"No?"
"She wasn't interested in me."
"But I saw you write something down in your notebook. I thought it was her phone number and address."
"It was."
Now Drew was really becoming confused. "Why would she give you her phone number and address if she wasn't interested in you?"
"Because she was interested in someone else."
"Who?"
"You."
"Me!"
"Yes, you. She was eyeing you from over there, not me."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. She's butch, Drew."
"Oh." She was silent for a long moment, thinking over the import of that. Then something occurred to her which made her suddenly apprehensive. "So why did you take down her phone number and address?"
He smirked. "Because after she gets off work in an hour, me and you are gonna go down to her apartment. I'm gonna watch you have sex with her."