Page 19 of Bet on It

Chapter 7

Walker tried hard to make himself look as un-creepy as possible. But as a grown man of considerable height standing in a sparse parking lot under a half-darkened sky wearing a baseball cap, he knew that it was unlikely he had succeeded. He and Aja had confirmed their plans via a couple of very straightforward text messages, and he’d been so anxious to see her ever since, he’d shown up to the bingo hall almost twenty minutes early.

It was a gorgeous night, dusk settling over the horizon, and surprisingly cool and not humid. Instead of sitting in the cabin of his truck, he got out and hopped up on the bed, his legs dangling over the edge. It was pretty quiet; the main street that led to the bingo hall was sparsely traveled. Every once in a while a car would drive up and pull into a parking spot, but other than that, the only other sounds were chirping crickets and Walker’s fingers drumming against his jeans.

He saw her bright green car coming from what seemed like a mile away, and the sight immediately widened his smile. He noted, not for the first time, how interesting it was that such a reserved person drove such a loud vehicle. Like when she made a snappy joke or lost herself in a flirty turn of phrase, it showed him that her timidity was backed by something else. Something vibrant.

He stayed seated as she pulled into the spot next to him, greeting her with a grin when she finally approached.

“Good evenin’, Miss Aja.” He was almost embarrassed by how much he sounded like the worst kind of Southern-boy cliché. But she smiled, and her pretty eyes blinked up at him so slow and tantalizing that the shame refused to show its face.

“You sure look like you’re having a good time.” She gathered her long, dark braids and let them fall over her right shoulder.

“It’s a nice night.”

She tilted her head back, giving Walker an unobstructed view of her neck. Long and elegant, in contrast with her soft, round face. His hands and mouth ached with want. In an instant, he became aware of how close she was. How easy it would be to widen his legs and pull her between his thighs until they were brushed up against one another so intimately that he could feel nothing but her, smell nothing but her.

Feeling himself harden beneath his jeans, he dug his thumbnails into his palms. Not enough to hurt, but enough to send him plummeting back to reality. These were not the thoughts he was supposed to be having about a woman he was trying to cultivate a friendship with. He shouldn’t have been wondering what kind of panties she had on underneath those little cutoff shorts she wore. And he sure as fuck didn’t need to be thinking about laying her out across one of those long bingo-hall tables and working those panties off with his teeth. Aja was doing him a favor by hanging out. She was keeping him from being lonelier than he already was in Greenbelt. That was all. He just… had to make sure his dick understood that.

“You ready?” she asked, jutting a thumb towards the hall’s entrance. “Monday nights are never as packed as Wednesdays, but I still want to get a good seat.”

He was hopping off the truck bed before she could finish talking. His heart stilled as his body accidentally brushed hers, and he moved away quickly, playing it off with false nonchalance. The hair on his arms stood to attention as he pushed the tailgate back up into place. He took a second to catch his breath, trying to forget what the brief second of being so close to her felt like before he turned towards her with another grin. This time his jaw ached from the force of it.

“I’m right behind you.”

When they entered the hall, it became clear to him that Monday night bingo was an entirely different scene from Wednesday nights. Aja was right. On Wednesdays, the largest bingo room in the building was packed full, with barely any free seats left for the taking. Now Walker counted only a couple of handfuls of people, and they were spread out pretty far, leaving most of the highly desired spots open. It was also quiet—not somber, just calm. The people there didn’t seem nearly as intimidating either. His shoulders loosened, tension leaving his body as the chill atmosphere soaked into his skin.

The room was warm—even hotter than it was outside. It was almost like they didn’t want to bother wasting money blasting the air conditioner for so few people. He was sure that by the time they left his clothes would be sticking to his body.

Even though plenty of seats were open, Aja insisted they sit towards the back. “We’ll probably be talking some,” she said.

Walker followed behind her, obedient as a puppy and without a single objection. Sure, his eyes had been so glued to her wide hips and full ass that he hadn’t even considered arguing, but still…

The area they chose was completely empty, but he still sat in the chair directly to her left. He rationalized that choosing that particular seat would allow them to keep their voices down. But he knew full well he mostly wanted to be close, to live in the possibility of the brush of their arms or thighs. It was pathetic, sure enough, but Walker’s sense of shame was wearing thinner the more time he spent in the presence of Aja Owens.

Once she’d set her purse and water bottle on the table in front of her, she cleared her throat.

“I feel like Ms. May threw you to the wolves with this, so I’m going to give you a rundown of my own.”

“Sounds good.”

“We always start with the blue sheets first.” She isolated the blue sheets from the stack of six they’d each gotten. “I don’t know why, but they always do.”

Instead of keeping the sheets in a stack like he’d seen most other people do, she laid them all out on the table in front of her.

“You’re not a pro at this,” she said. “You can’t just stack your sheets and expect to flip through them fast enough to find the numbers.”

“That’s how everybody else does it though,” he argued. “It’s how Gram told me to do it.”

“Everybody else has been playing this game since 1976, Walker. They all have some kind of superpower that allows them to memorize the sheets at a glance or something.” She paused to lick her lips and his eyes glued themselves to the shine her tongue left behind. “You and I don’t have that power, so I suggest you do what I do and make it easier on yourself.”

“People will look at me funny though,” he said, pouting.

Aja’s answering eye roll was more adorable than it had a right to be. “You’re a tall, handsome young man who spends multiple weeknights in a bingo hall surrounded by senior citizens. People are going to look at you funny either way.”

If his ears had been able to perk up like a dog’s, they would have. “Handsome?”

“No.” She snapped, then pointed a stern finger at him. “Focus.”

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