Adam walked out of the event without bothering to see whether or not they won—none of it mattered right now. All that mattered was that once again Nick got the girl. Except this time it wasn’t some bet at a local pub or a pretty face at varsity. It was the only girl that ever mattered and Nick got Jax.

He thought about going home but ended up taking an Uber to the closest casino. Gambling always did manage to distract him from his world. It used to be online games, but now he had real money and a ton of if, carelessly throwing $100 bills on the tables was more satisfying, or at least, drew more of a crowd.

He headed straight for the bar when he entered the shiny doors of the casino. Doubles, he had no time for single shots. Unfortunately, his alcohol tolerance also went up with his bank balance. It must have been all the practice.

Nick always got everything he wanted—since they were young kids living in that small town with the wide streets. His family were always better off than Adam’s, he’d always had nicer toys. Adam had made peace with it long ago already, he was happy with his life. He came from a loving family and his parents looked after him as best they could.

He was never good at sports the way Nick was, he wasn’t built like that. He used to console himself with the fact that at least he had the brains… But it soon became apparent that Nick was smart as well as athletic, he just pretended to play the dumb jock at school because that’s what everyone wanted from him.

When they played video games in their big garage in the afternoons after school, Adam would see the real Nick. The nerdy boy with the big dreams of changing the world. Who would’ve thought they’d end up making it?

Technically, the idea for the app was his, but without Nick’s skills, it would never have happened.

Both boys went to varsity after school, both on scholarships even though Nick’s parents could have easily have afforded the luxury of tertiary education. Sport for the charming boy and academic for the dark-haired one with the compassionate eyes.

Neither finished their studies, but Nick lasted longer before they kicked him out. Adam got bored of ‘the institution’ after only a few months, opting to rather go work at his dad’s petrol station, helping out where he could. Or at least that was the story he told everyone. But Nick knew it was because his dad had gotten too sick to carry on taking care of the day-to-day of the business.

This is where Adam first had the idea for an app to make things easier for small businesses such as his dad’s. But he lacked the skill to turn it into something real.

Nick ended up changing his law degree for a more IT-based field after the first year, realizing where the real future lay.

He would never finish his degree as he and Adam finally cracked the app two years in, working on the weekends Nick came home from varsity. The frequency of these visits always depended on Nick’s current relationship status. When he was single, he’d party through the weekends but on those rare occasions a woman managed to hang on to him for longer than a night, he quickly used Adam and his family as an excuse to run away for the quick two-hour drive.

Once or twice he brought a girl home with him but they usually didn’t make it that far. Sometimes he brought friends, but Adam never really got on with them. He felt out of place with his small town existence. Still, they clung to their dream until it happened and even in those years where Nick lived in another world, they remained best friends—nobody understood how or why. They were so different but they somehow got one another on a level where others disappointed them. Maybe it was the freedom to be themselves fully, to be vulnerable around one another. But they never talked about it or really even question why. It worked, that’s all that mattered.

Jacky was still with Paul at the time and they mostly kept to themselves. Paul was too jealous to let her hang out with any men on her own, so while he was away, Adam mostly kept his distance—he knew how difficult his friend could be. They all drifted apart from Paul since he got into the relationship. He also grew up on the same street, but he was always a bit more of a bully and the boys only kept him around because he’d always been there.

There were a few times that Adam did run into Jacky while the guys were studying. At the library or the shops, sometimes she’d come to his dad’s shop to come say hi. He lived for those moments. She always brought a spark to his directionless world at the time.

Just the thought of her pained him and he ordered another double whiskey from the casino VIP bar, heading to the blackjack table with his stash of chips.

It wouldn’t take long before a crowd gathered around him. Money always seemed to attract strangers. Especially women. But he hardly took notice of them as he threw the chips onto the table, making careless bets he knew he shouldn’t make. It was just money after all.

All the money in the world and Jacky was still hooking up with Nick. 23 – bust. You lose. Bets off.

By the time the other two had taken off in the plane to Prague, Adam was $340,000 down and still losing. He didn’t give a single fuck.

By the time they landed, he woke up in a pool of his own vomit in his lounge. He had no recollection of how he got home but he didn’t care. If he bothered to look, he’d notice the smashed Bugatti outside. He vaguely remembered taking the taxi to the office and getting in his car.

He didn’t remember hitting anything but at the same time, he didn’t care. He woke up moaning in pain. Everything hurt. He dragged himself over to the bar, drank half a bottle of tequila neat and crashed on the couch—the only piece of furniture in the entire massive room. It had been months but the mansion still stood empty save for the mattress upstairs and a single couch that he moved out of his parents’ house. The bar was fully stocked, there were a few outfits in the closet, but for the rest, he pretty much lived elsewhere.

The only thing he had spent money on was a giant sound system. But even this could not drown out the sound of his depression.

Jacky would never be his.

Adam drifted into a drunken, concussed sleep.