17. DoubleNothing
Double or Nothing
B y Friday night, my nerves felt like stripped copper—exposed, hot, sparking under my skin.
It wasn’t just the tournament. It was Quentin. The way he’d folded me into his world so fast—even his bed like it already knew my shape. I liked him. More than liked him. And that scared the hell out of me.
Love had never been safe growing up in my house.
Daddy was the anchor, the one who taught me to strip wire and hold a cue, to aim clean and check twice before I cut once.
Mama was the soft one, the dreamer, but she’d stopped dreaming when the marriage cracked.
I never forgave her for letting it break and somewhere inside me, I chose Daddy’s side—his trade, his game, his way of building something you could measure.
Electricity and pool made sense. People didn’t.
But then Quentin had to go and make sense too.
Every evening with him felt like a new blueprint—his voice teaching me physics like it was foreplay.
Just last night, he’d leaned close, glasses sliding down his nose, explaining momentum again.
“Mass and velocity,” he said, brushing my hip.
“Like a break shot—if you hit the cue ball with the right speed and angle, everything changes.” He’d kissed me after that, mouth slow, like I was the only equation worth solving.
And I liked it. God help me, I liked it enough to want more.
That’s where Mama’s call caught me—just as I was pacing my bathroom, cue case leaning against the wall like a dare.
“I’m proud of you, baby,” she said, her voice soft but sure. Daddy, by way of blabbermouth Uncle Leon, told her about the tournament. “I know the divorce… it changed you. Made you hold back. Made you think love can’t be trusted.”
I pressed my lips together. She wasn’t wrong. Pool had been my sanctuary, the one space no one else could mess with. No partners. No risks. Just me and the table.
“But maybe,” Mama went on, “maybe you’re letting that go. Maybe you’re ready for more than the walls you built.”
I looked at myself in the mirror—hair loose and waved from the braid I wore all week, gloss on my lips, a flicker in my eyes that was both fear and thrill. My chest ached with something I didn’t have words for.
“I don’t know, Ma.”
“Yes, you do,” she said gently. “And I’m proud of you, either way.”
Her words followed me all the way to The Green Room.
The place was packed—heat rising off bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, smoke curling under lights, whiskey and chalk dust thick in the air. Tino’s voice boomed over the low bass, calling names, lining up brackets.
Quentin’s palm grazed my lower back as we walked in. A touch nobody else noticed, but I felt it everywhere. He looked like trouble—button-down stretched across his chest, glasses framing those deep eyes, silver chain catching the glow. Trouble I wanted on repeat.
We signed in as a pair, and the whispers started. Doubles meant trust. If you missed, your partner carried you. If they folded, you carried them both. Doubles exposed you. It was intimacy disguised as a game.
I’d always said no. Tonight I said yes.
“Ready?” Quentin asked, voice low.
I arched a brow. “You planning to babysit me, Hale?”
His grin was sinful. “I know better than to get in your way.” A pause, heat flickering between us. “But you know I’ll be watching.”
The first match was a warm-up. I broke hard, dropping two.
Quentin followed, sliding into rhythm, angles unfolding under his cue like equations written in real time.
When he tugged off his glasses and slipped them into his pocket, the room rippled—like Clark Kent had just unbuttoned his shirt.
Women leaned in. I smirked. That man was mine.
By the second round, sweat dampened the back of my neck. Quentin leaned close, voice brushing my ear, “Angle’s off. Bank two rails.”
The heat of his breath nearly cost me the shot. But I sank it clean, smirk sharp as I straightened.
“You like showing off,” he murmured, amused.
“Only when I got an audience worth it.”
His jaw flexed. The crowd roared.
By the semifinals, the air buzzed. Money swapped hands. Uncle Leon leaned on the rail, arms crossed, studying me like he’d taught me every rule just to see if I’d break them. Shawna hollered my name from the back. Tino hyped the crowd with every ball we sank.
But none of them mattered more than Quentin. We moved in tandem—my risks, his precision. His calculation, my instinct. My fire, his steadiness. The table turned into a mirror of us: harmony in angles, rhythm in trust.
The final rack came down to me. One ball, one pocket, one chance. The felt looked longer than it was. My chest tightened.
Quentin stepped in, close enough to share breath. His hand brushed my back, grounding, claiming. “You already got it,” he said, voice rough.
Mama’s words echoed: maybe you’re ready for more than the walls you built. Grandma’s too: you don’t pick the timing; it picks you. But what anchored me was Quentin—his hand, his voice, the faith in his eyes.
I bent, exhaled, stroked. The ball kissed the rail and dropped.
The Green Room erupted. Tino banged the mic. Shawna screamed. Uncle Leon’s grin split wide.
But all I heard was Quentin, hot against my ear: “That’s my girl.”
Then his mouth was on mine—filthy, deep, shameless. I moaned into him, gripping his shirt while the crowd howled. When he pulled back, forehead to mine, his eyes burned.
“Next tournament,” he rasped, “we run it back. You and me.”
“Keep talking like that, Hale,” I whispered, still tasting him, “and you might just keep me on your team forever.”
His grin was wicked, certain. “That’s the plan.”
We hugged Leon and Shawna. But once the parking lot swallowed us, the world thinned. My cheeks ached from smiling, my pulse thumped hard, and Quentin’s hand gripped mine like he’d never let it go.
“You know,” I teased, “we carried that last rack because of me.”
He stopped dead, turned slow. Eyes dark, dangerous. “Rayna,” he said, voice low enough to quake me, “say that again and I’ll fuck you against this car.”
Heat licked me everywhere. I smirked. “You wouldn’t. ”
His mouth curved like a promise. Then he proved it.
One long step and his hands were on me—hips gripped, body pressed hard to mine, mouth claiming like we were still under lights, still earning cheers. But here it was ours. Urgent, wet, filthy. His palm slid under my sweater, rough over my breast, fingers teasing until I gasped.
I answered with nails in his back, legs wrapping without thought, surrendering to the gravity we’d built all night. He bent me against the trunk, kissed my throat, growled in my ear, “You like being mine, don’t you?”
“I do,” I breathed, ruined and sure.
He laughed low, hungry, kissed me again until the world shrank to heat and breath and the slick press of his hand between my thighs.
By the time we broke apart, lips swollen, I knew two things for certain: the pot was mine, and so was he.