Page 1 of More With You

PROLOGUE

SUMMER

The sky is burning, and it’s beautiful. Sunset, blazing across the gauzy blue of a humid summer day, where the air is so thick you could drink it. Clouds drift slowly, tinged with pinks and oranges that make this corner of the world look like a painting—too perfect to be real. But there’s no promise of rain to cut the heat. Instead, shafts of celestial light slice down from the heavens, and I like to think they’re spotlighting the good souls of the Mississippi Gulf.

Me? I don’t need to be showered in celestial light. I’ve got paradise right here, my arms wrapped tightly around him as his motorcycle roars beneath us. I hold him closer, just because I can, letting the warm wind whip away the stickiness of the day, refreshing and revitalizing me, body and soul.

He smells of leather and soap and salt. A cologne like no other. Intoxicating. I breathe him in, exhaling a kiss onto his neck. His skin leaves the taste of the sea on my lips.

Racing along an empty road, flanked by haunting oaks, the Mississippi Sound flashes between the trunks, the sunset transforming the water into a serpent of molten bronze. I came to this place as a stranger, but now it feels like home. With him, I’m creating something I’ve never had before; I feel them, sprouting from my pounding heart, weaving through my veins, stretching down toward the earth and wrapping around him, like my arms.

Roots.

Somewhere I belong.

Maybe it’s the summer, flushing everything with a rosy tint. Summer is the season of love, after all. But what if it’s forever—a season of love to last a lifetime? Wouldn’t that be the thing? I rest my chin on his shoulder, turn my head to kiss his neck again, and watch his lips curve into a smile. Whatever this is, my heart turns toward those heavenly spotlights and offers a silent prayer: Let this be summer and forever. A summer that never ends.

1

SUMMER

“Twenty-one. The house wins. Sorry, gentlemen.” I don’t make eye contact as I smoothly swipe the cards up off the green felt and put them into the discard pile to my right, giving them a flourish to show I know what I’m doing. Five years as a blackjack dealer in countless towns and cities, and I’ve perfected my poker face. The clients like their wins celebrated, and their losses glossed over - better tips, that way.

The man opposite—middle-aged, with salt-and-pepper hair, slicked to hide some thinning, his pricey suit jacket slung over the back of his stool and his tie pulled loose under the stress of the game—is one of my monthly regulars, Clive. He flies in from Atlanta the first weekend of every month with his wife, without fail, though I think he comes for the pleasure of giving me a hard time as much as he comes to play blackjack. It’s a ritual I look forward to, because I know what to expect. That doesn’t happen so often in the art of gambling.

“Christ, Summer. You just love taking my money, don’t you?” He shakes his head dramatically and pushes his designer glasses up onto his head as he checks his chips. He undoes the button of his collar for good measure. Losing money is guaranteed to make even the wealthiest man sweat a bit.

I laugh as he racks up another clutch of yellow chips, which are one-thousand bucks apiece, and places his bet in the circle. “Blame whatever ladder you walked under or the black cats that’ve been crossing your path. I’ll do my best to give it back, but if you won every hand, you’d have security coming in to ask some serious questions.” I wink and pick up the hundred-dollar chip that Clive just tipped, tapping it loudly on the lid of “the box.” My floor supervisor clocks it and nods, but I still make sure to give the cameras a flash of my hands and wiggle of my fingers, to show I’m not palming anything. My mind is always whirring in this place of flashing lights and jangling music, but my face doesn’t show it.

“Yeah, Summer, you keep taking my chips—how you going to make it up to me?” Levi Montrose leans an elbow on the table, laughing off his comment like he’s joking. I know he’s not.

Dark-blond hair, gelled to within an inch of its crunchy life, with smug blue eyes, manicured stubble, and a curled lip that makes his smiles look like grimaces, Levi is a waste of space, of epic proportions. A blackjack fly, buzzing around, no matter how many times he gets swatted. He’s local, born and raised on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, so he thinks he owns every joint he swaggers into. And although he hangs around the casino, he’s got short arms and deep pockets, never tipping even when he wins.

I smile sweetly. “You’ll have to flatter the deck, not me. I can’t help it if you brought your bad luck with you tonight.”

“I’d say it’s about to change.” He smirks at me, undeterred.

Clive quickly comes to my defense. “All this talk when we should be playing. If we don’t start soon, I might be tempted to call it a night.”

Taking a calming breath, I deal, though I’ve always got one eye on the rest of the casino. It’s not too busy tonight, but the mechanical pulls of the one-arm bandits are as steady as ever, followed by the familiar jingles that spell success or failure.

My hands move smoothly, drawing cards from the shoe, even if my head is distracted. It wasn’t exactly part of my grand plan to be a blackjack dealer, or to be here on the coast. I’m used to seasons you can set your calendar by, instead of a year-round summer that turns the air liquid at its peak, with a tiny blip that could vaguely be called winter that likes to hit Mississippi with all four seasons at once.

“Hit,” says Clive, tapping his index finger on the felt while staring anxiously at his sixteen.

Levi matches with a “hit” of his own, though he’s on eighteen. Idiot.

I draw fresh cards and resist a smirk as Levi goes bust with a six and Clive gets twenty-one with a five, revealing the bottom card of my own pair. The house only has an eighteen. “Someone’s luck is definitely changing.” I’m pleased for Clive. He spends his winnings on his lovely wife, Gena. I’d like to say they give me hope for happy, long-lasting relationships, but the jading on my twenty-six years on this Earth needs a little more buffing than expensive gifts and weekends in the Diamond Palm Casino.

“You’re killing me, here,” Levi laments, pouting like the spoiled little boy he is, even though he’s about a decade older than me.

Clive slides me another hundred-dollar chip and I go through my usual, “hey, I’m not stealing anything,” routine with the tapping and the waving and the wiggling. I’ve worked the high-limit tables for the six months I’ve been here, and there’s never a dull day. I wouldn’t say it’s home, but it’s work I do well, pays well, and keeps my mind ticking. I have my familiar faces—some I love, some I tolerate, some I barely acknowledge—plus the whistle-stop tourists who fly in from Vegas or Atlantic City, to take in a little fishing or Southern-style wining and dining with their adrenaline-fueled games at my table. They keep me afloat. My grandma, too, though I never give much of my own story away to the clientele. Mystique is easier. Safer.

“Summer?” A voice draws my attention from passing Clive his winnings.

Sandra, one of the VIP casino hosts, approaches my table with two obvious “whales” behind her. They’re the super high-stake gamblers, who don’t even sniff at the loss of six figures in one hand.

My insides clench and I brace for what’s to come. “I see we’ve got new guests. Welcome.” I adopt my work voice, letting the warm politeness roll off my tongue.

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