Chapter 9 – ryan
RYAN
Beau
Want to tell the group why you were walking around the building with your stepsister thrown over your shoulder last night?
Igroan. Normally, James is the least gossip-y out of all the guys. I figured if anyone spotted me carrying Pippa around, at least it was him—the one person who wouldn’t out me to the whole group.
Apparently, I give James too much credit. He blabbed to Beau, the one person he knew would ask about it. James is just as much of a nosy jerk as the rest of them—he’s just more strategic about it.
Luke
Yeah, Ryan, why ARE you throwing Pippa over your shoulder?
Nate
Is she okay? Cat’s asking.
James
She seemed fine.
Traitor.
Sighing, I glance around the room. I’m in L.A.
for my favorite kind of poker tournament—informal, mostly pros, high stakes.
Twenty players set up in a luxury hotel suite, with a bartender and two hot servers, one male, one female, so there’s an equal opportunity for our gay and female players to be distracted.
We start playing in fifteen minutes, and I want this conversation shut down by then. The buy-in for the tournament was a hundred thousand, and I stand to bring home two million if I play well. I don’t need to be in and out of a guy chat.
Ryan
Dudes, Pippa is driving me fucking mental. She’s dating these creepy-ass guys for this stupid article about modern dating. Last night I had to literally carry her away from a stalker.
Seriously, he tried to get her to move into his apartment.
I swear, she’s going to get herself ax-murdered. Which I wouldn’t care about, but I’d never hear the end of it from our parents.
Beau
I don’t think you have room to talk shit here, Ryan. Not with your parade of women.
James
You’ve definitely brought stalkers home before.
Nate
I had to help you get three restraining orders.
Ryan
Yeah, but at least I spaced out the crazies. Pippa had two in a row. She’s out on another date tonight, probably with Ted Bundy Jr.
Beau
I mean…what did you expect when she moved in?
Luke
She’s a fucking smokeshow. Of course she’s got dates lined up every night.
Beau
I mean, we’ve all seen her legs, right?
James
Yes.
…I mean, no comment.
My molars grind together. Nope, I don’t need my best friends talking about Pippa like she’s some piece of meat.
Ryan
Dude, that’s my kid sister. Don’t be gross.
Luke
STEPsister. Just saying.
I’m going to punch that motherfucker in the stomach when I get home.
A small hand lands on my shoulder. I spin to see Ria, one of my poker friends.
She’s already in the black sunglasses she wears when she plays, her long hair pulled back into a tight French braid.
Obviously, I tried to bang her when we first met.
She responded by putting me in a choke-hold, and we’ve been pals ever since.
“You good?” she asks. “You’re usually working the room by now.”
“Just texting my friends.” I slip my phone in my back pocket.
“Uh-huh.” Obviously, I haven’t convinced her. When I’m not at the poker table, I’m a shitty bluffer. I quickly change the subject. “Do they have us at the same table?”
Ria nods and points to a table in the corner.
A few of the other players are already seated, all of whom I’ve played before.
There’s Joe, a thick-set older guy famed for his insanely tacky shirts.
Next to him, there’s Miguel, a prodigy in his late teens who’s usually backed by his real estate tycoon mother.
Arthur, a guy in his 40s who often battles me for the top spot in tournaments, is walking over.
He’s wearing designer athleisure that costs thousands of dollars, even though I could find identical shit down at Costco.
“Chomp, chomp,” Ria says. Her way of saying that we’re all sharks.
I grin. “Let’s put a little blood in the water, then.”
We take a seat, shooting the shit until our dealer comes to the table. As soon as he starts laying out cards, we go silent. Game faces on.
Normally, I love this part of a tournament—the hushed moment of possibility, where I can savor the thrill of competition. It’s where I get laser-focused, watching the other players’ faces, feeling like I can practically hear each card snap together as the dealer shuffles.
Tonight, all I want to do is check my phone.
Pippa’s going on another date, and I want to check her location again. She’s still at the apartment for now, but she should be leaving soon. Frankly, it pisses me off. Couldn’t she have waited until I was home? What if it’s another creep, like McMurder-Eyes from last night?
I check my hand, finding two spades, an eight, and a ten. Worth playing. I buy into the hand, trying to keep my focus.
One problem: I can’t stop thinking about Pippa's black stockings. When she knelt to zip up her thigh-high boots, I caught a glimpse of the lacey tops connected to a fucking garter belt. Which made me think about how it’d look attached to her panties.
And fuck me, when I threw her over my shoulder, I could have taken a good look if the elevator had a mirror. With that short goddamn skirt, I probably could have seen everything. God, stockings with a garter belt is so—
No. I draw the line at calling anything my stepsister wears sexy.
Ria kicks me under the table, and I realize it’s my turn to bid. I haven’t even looked at the flop. A quick glance shows me black, so I quickly knock the table.
Except now that I’m more focused, I see all the cards there are clubs, not spades. Shit, now I have to hope for a pair on the table with the next two cards. I haven’t been looking at anyone’s faces, checking their reactions. I’m playing like a fucking amateur.
The fourth card is a queen of hearts. The fucking irony. Nobody raises for the next two rounds, so I’m technically playing in the final hand, even though I’m drawing dead. Miguel tosses down a pair of queens, and I toss my cards face-down in the center.
While the dealer shuffles, I pull out my phone and check Pippa’s location. Her location is moving now, slow so I know she’s walking. Where is she going? I try to remember the restaurants on that street, but come up blank.
“Anything you wanna share with the class?” Arthur asks.
I glance up to see everyone staring at me.
“You’re not normally on your phone during breaks,” Joe says. “Get your head in the game.”
“But hey, if you don’t, that’s good for everyone else at the table,” Arthur says.
Fuck. I shove my phone back in my pocket. I won’t be able to face any of my opponents down at the next tournament if I don’t at least try to play like the total champion I am.
Pippa is fine. She’s just going to have dinner, and she’ll probably scare the guy off before dessert.
Nothing’s going to happen with him.
And that’s all it takes for me to turn the game around.
At least, that was the hope. I end up playing like shit for another five rounds, ending up the low stack on the table while I fixate on infiltrating my phone with my mind and looking at that fucking map.
I mean, what am I really afraid will happen? Pippa’s a fighter. Even if her date did try to hurt her, she’d probably take him out via a stiletto heel to the eye.
She still might take the guy home, though, and I really hate the idea of her hooking up with him in my own goddamn apartment.
I’m only able to focus once I order a shot of Twisted Devil. The burn of the whiskey down my throat makes me home in on the cards. Call it conditioning from all the shots I take during poker night with the guys.
I focus on Joe and Miguel, who are good, but I can see their tells. Once I’ve got their stacks running low, I aim at Ria and Arthur. Soon enough, I’ve gone from low stack to top stack, bullying everyone else into submission. Miguel even has to call his mom to get her approval to buy back in.
It feels good getting these guys to do what I want, playing right into my hand. If only I could play Pippa the same way.
By the time we’ve made it to the next round, only Ria has enough chips to join me at the top table. I leave my phone in my fucking pocket and beat down my opponents fast, no mercy. In under a dozen hands, I’ve won the tournament, and have my winnings wired back to my account.
It’s a cool two million, but it doesn’t give me the same victory high it usually does. When I finally check my phone, Pippa’s smiling profile pic is at some bar I don’t recognize.
Even worse, when I check my IG messages, I’ve got not one, but TWO invitations to meet up while I’m in LA, both from models I’ve had my eye on for a while now. We’ve been flirting through the DMs, but we haven’t been in the same city at the same time yet.
It blows that I have to turn them down. I’m just not in the mood, and I don’t think my ego could take another incident like the one in the pub after the party. I’m just not really in the mood. Hell, I don’t even feel like going back to the hotel room I booked for tonight.
I just want to go home.
I navigate to the Air Canada app to see if I can catch a late flight back to Toronto. When I see a flight that’ll get me home by midnight, I book it immediately.
Even though I doubt my stepsister will give me the welcome I deserve.