Page 8 of Stealing for Keeps
“Absolutely not,” Rowan says. “I don’t have any money, and if I did, I wouldn’t gamble it with your cheating shenanigans.”
“I don’t cheat,” Barrett says, grinning wide. He gives me a polite head nod. “What about you, New Guy? Do you like poker?”
“Yeah, it’s okay.”
He kicks out an empty chair for me. “Since it’s your first night, we’ll even take it easy on you.”
Rowan snorts in a way that tells me he thinks Barrett is lying.
“Another time.”
“Good choice,” Rowan says. “Come on. Everyone else will be out back.” He goes straight past the table and through a small kitchen to a back door. He steps out onto the porch and holds it open for me. “Word of advice: never gamble with Barrett. He’s a shark. His parents are loaded too, so he doesn’t think anything of dropping a few hundred dollars on a bet.”
“Noted,” I say, scanning the backyard. The porch is small, but it steps down into a yard that stretches toward the forest behind it. In the center, a fire is going, and people sit around it. A lot of the guys I recognize from the team, but there are others that I don’t know. And girls. I should have expected it, but there are more girls here than guys.
I look for the girl from today but can’t find her as Rowan leads me out to the party. A couple of people are on four-wheelers, and they head out into the tree line.
Rowan stops next to a group of guys that includes Hunter and Blake. “You already met these two, and these are the Whitlock twins, Eli and Eddie.”
They nod their heads in unison. They are identical but their hair is different. One has longer, curly black hair, and the other’s head is shaved.
“This is Disco,” Rowan says. “Junior forward all the way from Arizona.”
“Hey.” I nod. “My name is actually Austin.”
Rowan keeps walking, pausing at each group and introducing me. Always as Disco. At some point, I stop correcting him.
When we’ve gone around the entire party, we take a seat next to the twins.
“Is Vaughn here?” I ask. I was hoping to see him so I could follow up on our conversation from earlier. I have so many questions.
“Nah. He probably stayed late to practice more or get in an extra workout,” the twin with the short hair—Eddie, I think—says.
Rowan grabs a beer and a soda from a cooler and offers them to me. I take the soda, and he grins like he knew I would, then pops the top on the beer. I don’t mind drinking, but I’m not about to do anything that might make tomorrow’s practice go poorly. I will be on time and well rested and definitely not hungover.
“He usually shows up later,” Rowan says. “Parties aren’t really his thing, but he comes to keep an eye on us and make sure things don’t get too rowdy.”
My disappointment must show on my face, because the next question out of Rowan’s mouth is, “Did you seriously move all the way from Arizona to Michigan just to play soccer for Coach Collins?”
“Yeah.” I feel like maybe I should be embarrassed about that, but I’m not. This opportunity is everything.
“Well, shit, we got another diehard on our hands, boys.” He claps me on the shoulder. “I respect it, but tell me, Disco, how do you feel about putting all thoughts of soccer on hold for a few hours and just enjoying the night?” He leans back and tips his head up toward the sky. “The stars are shining, the music is pumping, and there has to be at least one pretty girl here who wants to dance with the new guy.”
“I don’t dance.”
“Well, we won’t tell them that.”
“I think I’ll hang here,” I say as Rowan stands and looks at me expectantly.
“All right. You’re sure? Girls at Frost Lake are in a league all their own.”
“We do have some hot chicks,” the twins say at the same time.
Chuckling, I nod. A vision of the blond girl I ran into earlier comes to mind. “I’m sure.”
“Okay. Have fun.” With a wink, Rowan leaves.
Eddie and Eli get pulled into conversations with other people, so I walk over to the side of the yard where Hunter and Blake have started playing cornhole. Barrett has abandoned his card game and sits on the bottom step, watching them.
