Rocco was still picking at the crumbs on the counter when the first hand was being dealt
out. After much debate between Carly and Cameron, we were playing poker—Texas Hold’em. The
stakes were extremely high: a week’s worth of laundry duty.
Bill had taught me how to play poker when I was eight, and I’d always thought I was a pretty
good bluffer, but after just a few hands, I was already out of chips. I didn’t feel too bad
though—Carly and Rocco were in the same boat.
It was getting late. Cameron was sitting behind a fortress of chips and Spider was barely
hanging on. Rocco had his head on the table, and I had mine leaning on my fist.
“Is it always like this?” I whispered to Carly.
“You mean, does Cameron always win?”
I thought about it and nodded.
She squinted in Cameron’s direction. “He wins, but he cheats.”
I heard a grumble from Cameron’s chair.
“How?” I gasped, my attention fully on Carly.
“He counts cards and he reads people.” She paused and watched my puzzled expression with
enjoyment. “He knows what people are thinking just by looking at them. Cameron didn’t brag
about that to you?”
I shook my head.
Carly shrugged. “That’s surprising.”
I turned my eyes to Cameron. “Is that true? Can you really tell what people are thinking?”
“Not exactly,” he answered with a sharp glance in Carly’s direction. “Carly likes to
embellish.”
Spider pushed the rest of his chips into the pot and mumbled, “All in.” Cameron immediately
called. They overturned their cards on the table and waited for the dealer’s cards to unfold.
The first three cards gave Cameron a flush. Spider waited for the next two, hoping something
would save him.
But the game was no longer of any interest to me. “What part of it is embellished?”
“I don’t know what people are thinking,” he clarified. “All I can tell is, if someone is
nervous, or mad, or happy, or bluffing their brains out …” He winked at me.
The fourth card was a nine of diamonds. Spider jumped a little. Another nine or a king would
give him a full house to beat Cameron.
This made me wonder. “Are some people easier to read than others?”
“Everyone has their own quirks that give them away,” he said. “Though, yes, some people are
definitely easier to read than others.”
“Well, do you count cards too? Because that is cheating,” I scolded.
“Poker is more about knowing your opponent than counting cards,” he said, contracting his eyes
toward an unaffected Carly again. “I do count the odds in my head. It’s not a sure thing but
…” He smirked at Spider. “… for example, I know that Spider has almost no chance of winning
this hand.”
“We’ll see,” Spider griped quietly.
Carly turned over a queen. Spider bent his head in defeat.
Chapter Twelve:
A Dark Place
It rained, for days on end. The front hall was mostly flooded—I had only observed this because
I had to trudge through some of the gathering water while I skipped to meet Cameron in the
kitchen in the morning. Otherwise, the rain went mostly unnoticed by me.
Early mornings were my favorite. It was the only time that I had alone with Cameron, before the
rest of the house awoke, before Rocco would start following us around from room to room, from
couch to kitchen.
I noticed things. Spending every waking moment with Cameron had opened my eyes. First, Cameron
was timid, almost as painfully as I was. When it was just the two of us, there would be moments
when we’d be sitting at the table, quietly eating our cereal, and he would all of a sudden look
down, or break a small smile and his cheeks would blot red, for no reason. I was resigned to
having my cheeks and neck permanently tattooed of scarlet hues.
When it wasn’t just the two of us—and these moments were too numerous—he was mostly quiet and
watched from the sidelines, like he was trying to fade into the wallpaper.
Then there were the other darker times, fleeting moments when he became distant. A glaze would
awash his face and the premature wrinkles around his eyes resurfaced. I hated these moments.
Eventually, his eyes would find me, and he would come back. I’d wonder where he’d been—what
dark corner he had come out of.
The second thing I noticed was Rocco’s immeasurable attachment to his older brother. Wherever
Cameron went, so did Rocco, faithfully, eagerly. Cameron would secretly smile at me while his
brother tried to impress with his newfound fighting skills, or tried to match whatever weights
Cameron was lifting in the workout room. And we watched a lot of TV, spent our days moving food
from the kitchen to the kitchen table to the couch.
Carly and Spider would join us once in a while. One was never without the other. They mostly
kept to themselves. I really liked Carly. Spider was tolerable.
With the torrential weather, I had expected the house to be bustling with people trying to get
out of the rain. Yet the house was quieter than usual. Guards only came in for mealtimes and
sleep.