“Feel free to ignore his sarcasm. And you already know the limits of our friendship.” Bella said as she flashed me a look that I guessed meant, please play nice.
“Me, not playing nice? Bella you wound me.” I said with perfect sincerity. While still addressing her I turned my head just enough to look at them both easily enough. “I’m always eager to make new friends. With that said I prefer to make friends with those who are polite.”
Bella grimaced at my words, though to be honest I felt no desire to hide my attempts to poke the bear. She wasn’t stupid so she backed up ever so slightly.
He was here for me. So when his eyes turned my way they were still a pair of green lifeless orbs, betraying nothing. “Marcus you’re not deaf are you, because I was fairly certain that I did ask.”
I had been hoping for some kind of reaction. A wavering in his face, a twitch of an eye, a tremor in his voice. I mean I would take an oddly flickering strand of hair, anything. I had known that it was too much to hope for but hope is still hope. It didn’t take much to realize that he was a master at controlling his emotions. It also looked like he was a master of compartmentalizing those emotions so he would only feel what he wanted to feel at any given time. So he was better than I was, and that was not the worst of it. The worst thing was that Patrick knew he was better.
There are certain times when you just know something about someone, you have absolutely no reason to know it but you do anyway. Patrick was quite simply going to be one of the better players, if not the best who was going to enter the room. Every year I try to watch the World Series of Poker, in order to keep up on the top players in the business, but I have never seen Patrick’s face before. And his confidence told me that this wasn’t his first time playing at this level. He had the air of someone who was capable of winning this tournament. Going up against him wasn’t going to be easy, and I found myself hoping that he would get knocked out of the tournament before I had that pleasure.
If I did meet him once we started I certainly wasn’t going to waive a white flag just because I knew he was better than me, not a chance. Now I just needed to make sure he knew that, so I attempted to match his tone as I retorted. “But you didn’t wait for a reply did you? No you just sat down. You may as well have not even asked, Pat.” I wasn’t all that sure I managed to keep my face quite as impassive as I had hoped for. But then again I was pretty sure I didn’t do as poorly as I had feared.
With a slight smile Patrick responded, “True that would have been polite, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.”
The smile on his face was infuriating, if this were a football field there would have been a flag thrown for taunting. I tried to respond with as little emotion as possible. “Fun?”
“Well it certainly was fun for me.”
Breaking into the conversation with a laugh Bella managed to ease the mounting tension between us with a few soft spoken words. “He has you there Marcus.” With a shrug she also admitted that she was quite entertained by the scene.
“I’m glad I could help entertain you Bella.” I said as I attempted to waive down a passing waitress.
As the one continuing to walk right past our table another one appeared right beside me straight out of thin air and asked, “What can I do for you sir?”
Looking up I instantly recognized the waitress. She was the one who had fetched my current and now mostly empty martini. I offered her a glowing smile before responding. “My dear, I would love for you to get me another martini from Simon.” Looking over to Bella I asked, “Would you care for anything?”
“Did you just ask for a specific bartender?” I simply nodded and noticed genuine curiosity in her eyes. “Well if you’re going to make request like that I’ll just have to sample the work.” Looking over at the waitress she added, “Could I have one of those as well?”
“Yes ma’am.”
I glanced over to Patrick and asked the polite question. “I know you have something to drink already but could the lovely waitress get you another beer or something else for when you finish that one?”
As if it were on cue he deflected the question by taking a healthy sip from the bottle. When he was able, he looked up at the waitress and spoke to her instead of answering me. “I’m still working through my first drink. And I wouldn’t think of ordering anything else while I still have more than half of my drink left.
“Very good, sir.” She said to Patrick before returning her attention to me. “Is there anything else you require, sir?”
I shook my head as I replied, “No I think that should be all we need for now.” I leveled my gaze to Patrick and said in an all too casual manor, “Though I’m sure you act this way so you can get your read on people.”
As he went perfectly still I knew my hunch had been right. Before he could formulate a reply I continued. “That bombastic attitude you’re throwing around is what tipped me off. Yeah you’ll learn about people and their play,” I granted. “Well it’s certainly one way to learn about people. With all of your outrageous behavior I’m pretty sure you provoke quite the accurate reactions.” On a whim I made sure to pay particular attention to his eyes as I finished my thought, I wasn’t expecting a miracle but they have been known to happen upon occasion. “But there is no guarantee that the accurate reaction isn’t just in character.”