Page 33 of Underground Prince

“It’s a beer,” I said stupidly, then added, “I thought you—”

“Are you trying to give me the shits? Throw me out of the game?” He stood, his chest nearly touching mine and I stumbled back. “Who paid you?”

“N—no one—”

“Jake,” Kai said, standing as well. “Settle down. We agreed to start without Sax because we’re all well-behaved regulars here.”

“This bitch,” he said, spit flying as he pointed at me, “knows I’m gluten-free. Why else would she put beer in a fucking black glass so I couldn’t tell what it was—”

“Jake, be practical,” Kai said. “As if one sip would throw a game for you.”

“It’s not the fact that I drank it,” Jake said. “It’s the motive.”

Kai raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Here we go.”

“I’m so sorry,” I jumped in. “It was my mistake. Gluten-free, right?” At his additional bluster at my mention of the very thing that started this, I said, “Vodka, then? Straight, no rocks? Ice cold? Short glass?”

I was naming all the best parts of vodka that I could think of. He’d be so tempted for a beautiful, sweating glass of cold liquor in this stifling room that he’d forget all about my unintended sabotage.

Thank goodness it worked.

“Yeah,” he said, sitting back down.

“Coming right up.” I smiled, showing teeth, but I hoped it was genuine and not as psychotically pissed off as I was right now and spun back to the kitchen.

“Your vodka in a short glass,” Georgie said once I reached her, her grin matching her outfit. “The vodka’s been in the freezer for about an hour. Please make sure to tell him that.”

“You asshole,” I spat, but made sure it was a whisper.

“Language.” She tsked-tsked. “Ah, looks like I have my first customer. Ta-ta now.” She fluttered her fingers at me and I truly had to talk myself out of grabbing those well-manicured extremities and turning them into stubs with my teeth.

“Oh, it’s on,” I said to her retreating back. I took a few deep breaths, remembering that succumbing to a spiral of hell-bent rage was never the answer. Slow and steady, I reminded myself.

I handed the drink to Jake, who’d gone into an anger of a different sort as he folded his poker hand, my faux pas long forgotten. I pretended not to see Georgie angelically rubbing out the tension in his shoulders.

For the next two hours, I ignored her. If anything, she’d taught me to think on my feet. I learned to anticipate the players’ preferred alcohol, readying it as I noticed their drinks getting low and handing it to them well before they signaled me. It was a tactic Georgie wasn’t prepared for, and I often swooped in before she was able to outmaneuver me. The massages were increasing in popularity and she had no choice but to watch me over the men’s shoulders. I simpered with the best of them, smoothing down the men’s feathers with an off-color joke when they lost a hand, offering to order takeout when Dave cleared his throat and shifted in his chair.

I noticed a perfectly crafted cheese plate in the fridge and set it out under the TV. During breaks, the players would come over and nibble, thanking me for being so thoughtful as to bring a gourmet plate.

I didn’t correct them as I tidied up after their attack, picking up soiled napkins and wiping crumbs off the table. I felt rather than saw Georgie boiling over as I busied myself being the perfect cocktail waitress, and by the time I sat on a stool for a break, I’d amassed three hundred dollars in tips.

“Half of that is mine, you know,” she said as she stomped into the kitchen.

“I know,” I said, before biting into a cracker. I chewed while threading a poker chip through my fingers. “I’m really getting the hang of this.”

“I give you another week,” she said. Because the players were also on break, she could slam the fridge door extra hard this time. “Don’t think because you can juggle these men you can handle high stakes.”

I licked salt off my fingers. “I don’t see you there right now. I see you here. In low stakes. With me. A cherry.”

Her lips disappeared under her anger; she was so upset she shook with it.

“Sax, my man. How’s it up high?”

Kai’s greeting had Georgie’s lips popping out from under her teeth, red and extra plump. Her face smoothed into one of such open and staged innocence that I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

“Stay in your corner, you little gremlin,” she shot at me as she went to see to Theo.

I saluted her on her way by.

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