Three months later

“Hit me,” the guy to the left of me requested.

I heaved a deep sigh and barely refrained from rolling my eyes at his stupidity. He was the last seat at the table, in what was called “third base.” He was the final player before the dealer, who had a six showing. That queen the player just busted on should’ve gone to the dealer, except the guy took a card when he should have held at fifteen. He was too much of a novice to know how the game was supposed to be played, and it only took him three hands before he fucked things up for the rest of us.

If I wasn’t in the middle of a hot streak when he sat down, I would have gotten up from the table right after we finished the first hand he’d played because it’d been quickly obvious he had no clue what he was doing. The dealer had rearranged his bet for him after he’d put two ten-dollar chips on top of a five when the etiquette was to stack them in with the biggest denominations on the bottom. Less than a minute later, she’d had to rebuke him for touching his chips since you weren’t supposed to do that after the bet had been placed and was in the betting box. He’d told her he was going to stay on that hand, instead of sliding his cards under his bet. And he’d done it when he’d been sitting at fifteen while the dealer had a seven showing. It’d been a stupid move, resulting in his loss when the dealer flipped over a king and beat him with seventeen. It’d been irritating, but at least it hadn’t impacted my hand.

I was hoping he’d quickly grow tired of the game, but I should’ve known it wouldn’t be long before his bad game play cost me money. After he busted, the dealer drew a five. “Twenty-one.”

She swept up all the chips left in the betting boxes. If he’d held, she would have been the one to bust and all of us would’ve won. Eyeing the stack that was about a quarter of what I’d started with tonight, I gulped down the rest of my beer before standing. I picked up my chips and shuffled through them for the twenty-five dollar one I tossed in front of the dealer for a tip. She gave me an appreciative smile, but it dimmed when I turned my attention to the guy who’d just cost me a hundred bucks.

“Do everyone a favor, yourself included, and switch to one of the five-dollar tables instead.”

“Whaddya mean? I got just as much right to play at this table as anybody else,” the guy blustered as he got to his feet to face off with me. His gaze swept down my clothes, taking in my designer jeans and a button-down shirt. When he looked up again, his upper lip curled into a sneer. “You got no right to tell me what to do. My money spends just as well as yours.”

“You want to lose all your money placing stupid ass bets? Go right ahead. I couldn’t care less.” The guy edged closer to me, and I held my ground as I jerked my thumb over my shoulder towards the players to my right. “But I do give a fuck when you make mistakes that cost the rest of us money.”

“Mistakes?” he scoffed. “Blackjack is a game of chance. Luck decides who wins or loses. Not skill.”

“You’re wrong. Played well, blackjack is a game of skill in a casino full of games of chance. If you want to win or lose completely based on luck, then you should pick one of those instead.” I waved towards the rows of slot machines lining the wall across from us.

His eyes narrowed and he puffed out his chest. “I didn’t come here to play slots. I came for the cards.”

“Then you should do like I said and switch to the five-dollar table until you figure out how the game’s supposed to be played. Learn when to hit, when to stand, when to double, and when to split,” I suggested. “Good players don’t just blindly try to get as close to twenty-one as possible. They consider the card the dealer’s showing, and they make an educated guess of the eventual outcome so they can play their hand accordingly. If you’re going to play at a table where the minimum bet is twenty-five dollars, then at the very least you should know to fucking stand on fifteen when the dealer has a six showing because she’s going to take another card.”

The guy’s face turned ruddy and he was winding up to respond when one of the security guards tapped me on the shoulder. “Mr. Montgomery.”

It probably should’ve bothered me that I’d only been playing at the casino since I turned twenty-one a couple of months ago and I’d been there often enough in that short time for them to know me by name. But it didn’t—not when it meant I was a valued customer and the casino’s security was quick to step between me and the asshole who I was starting to think was looking for a fight. I should’ve anticipated being on the casino’s radar. Some days I won a whack, others I lost. But I always bet big and only at blackjack because I preferred to play poker at the underground games I’d discovered when I was eighteen. After putting some thought into it, I would’ve been surprised if I hadn’t been on their radar.

“Do you need any assistance?”

The security guy directed his question to me, but it only served to piss the asshole off more than he already was and he was the one who answered. “Yeah, I could use some help getting this privileged dick”—he took a step towards me and stabbed a finger into my chest—“to understand that he can’t tell me where I can and cannot play. Last I checked, this was a public place, and I’ve got the right to do what I want where I want to do it.”

“Actually, sir.” The guard next to me moved between us as he spoke, while another one came up from behind the guy and grabbed his arm to yank it away from my chest and shoved it behind his back. “The casino is privately owned and we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.”

“I’m not the one you should be explaining that to!” the asshole yelled, trying to break free of the security guy’s hold. He swung his free arm up and pointed at me. “It’s him! He’s the one who started shit. Not me!”

“Sir, Mr. Montgomery has been playing here regularly for two months”—knowing I was on their radar was one thing, getting confirmation that they knew exactly how long I’d been playing at the casino was another—“and he’s never been involved in an altercation until tonight. With you.”

The implication was impossible to miss, and the asshole caught it quickly. “Oh, so just because this is my first time here and he’s some high roller, it’s gotta be my fault?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to lower your voice and get control of yourself, sir. Or else we’ll have to escort you out of the building.”

“The hell you will,” the guy roared back at the security guard, ripping his arm out of the hold the other one had on him and closing the gap between us to haul off and slam his fist into my cheekbone. He’d moved fast enough to catch me unaware, but the second he connected with me, my instincts took over and I defended myself by throwing a punch of my own. I connected with his jaw and felt the force of the hit radiate through my hand.

It felt good.

Damn good.

Even better than the high of a hot streak at the tables.

But I didn’t get to enjoy the euphoric moment for long because the two security guys stepped in a split-second after my fist made contact, and several others surrounded us. The asshole got dragged towards the entrance of the casino by three guys, and I was taken through a set of doors marked “Employees Only” at the back by three more.

I didn’t struggle, letting them pull me along without putting up a fight. As soon as we were in the privacy of the narrow hallway with the doors closed behind us, the security guard who’d done all the talking out there released my arm. I lifted my hands up, palms out, to let him know they weren’t going to get any trouble from me.

“I was just defending myself, man.”

“You should’ve let us do our jobs, Mr. Montgomery.”

“It was pure instinct without any thought behind it.” I dropped my hands and shrugged my shoulders. “Hell, I didn’t even know I was going to throw that punch until it was already done.”

“Next time, step back and let us handle the situation. It’s why they keep us around, and we’re damn good at our jobs.”

My attention locked on his first two words. “Can I take that to mean I’m not banned?”

“Keep your head down, stay outta trouble, leave the fighting to us, and you should be fine.” His gaze moved to my cheek, and he shook his head with a low chuckle. “At the very least, we’re more likely to be the one giving someone else a black eye than ending up with one of our own at the end of a shift.”

I lightly pressed my fingertips against the upper part of my cheek and winced. He was right; a bruise was already forming underneath my eye. “Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna leave a mark.”

The guard smirked at me, but I didn’t see the humor in the situation. I wasn’t going to be able to hide the bruise from my parents since I was supposed to have dinner with them in less than two hours. They were bound to assume my black eye was connected to gambling since we’d fought about it over the past couple of years. I could try coming up with a convincing cover story, but I was a shit liar when it came to my parents and they were bound to see through it anyway. I was so fucked.

“I’ll be sure to leave it to you guys if anything happens again,” I promised before walking out the door they’d led me through after the altercation. I kept going, moving quickly through the casino and out to the parking lot since I didn’t want to give them a reason to reconsider their decision to let me come back again. Although the rush of punching that asshole had felt damn good, it wasn’t worth losing my gambling fix. And that’s just what it was for me.

A fix.

A high.

And if you asked my parents, one I needed to avoid like the plague because I was perilously close to becoming addicted. But I wasn’t. I had it under control. Completely. I just enjoyed the escape gambling gave me, and it was a hell of a lot better than turning to alcohol or drugs instead.

To anyone on the outside looking in, I had everything a twenty-one-year-old guy could possibly want. Great parents. Good grades. A brand-new car. Money. A killer internship and more job prospects than I knew what to do with. But it was only because they didn’t look too deep. Either that or I did too good of a job at hiding the pain I struggled with each and every day.