“If you don’t mind, gentlemen, it looks like I’ll be trying my hand at blackjack this evening.”

I made my way out of the bar and to the table where the girls were organizing their chips and being dealt in. Finding a seat next to Chloe, I met Sara’s eyes just a couple of seats down, giving her a little wink.

“Max,” she said, simply, smiling.

“Petal,” I acknowledged with a nod.

Pulling a few chips from my pocket, I had the croupier break them into smaller denominations and add me to the hand.

“I’m gonna win some money,” Chloe informed the table.

“I’d love to see that,” I murmured, frowning as the dealer laid down my faceup card. A five of hearts.

“As would I.” Bennett slid easily into the last empty chair at the table, on the opposite side of the half circle from Chloe and beside Sara. Between me and Sara was a skinny man wearing a ten-gallon hat and one of the most fantastic bits of facial hair I’d ever seen.

When I busted with a score of twenty-five, I turned to look at the man more closely. “Mate, that is a bloody brilliant mustache.”

He tipped his hat, thanking me before busting with a twenty-two.

Chloe held, and the dealer revealed that Chloe had both the ace and jack of spades. The house had a jack on the up card, but flipped the hole card: a king. The dealer paid out Chloe’s winnings before collecting the cards on the table with a sweep of her hands.

“Told you!” Chloe sang, dancing in her seat and blowing Bennett a kiss. “It’s my lucky night.”

He responded with a tiny lift of his brow.

Looking across the room to the bar, I found Will, who was sipping his drink and f**king around on his phone. He looked up and caught my eye after a moment, giving me a silent f**k-you face, and I waved, indicating that I’d be back soon.

The problem was, blackjack was f**king fun. Chloe was cleaning up, winning hand after hand. And although Bennett and I were systematically losing all of our money, it didn’t bloody matter. The dealer was easygoing, Sara’s laugh was infectious, and Mustache had started cracking the best awful jokes between each hand.

“Doctor walks into a room,” he said, running his fingers over his mustache and winking at Chloe. “Says hi to the patient on the exam table, goes to make note of something on his chart.”

The dealer dealt our facedown cards and we all looked at the table in time to see the next cards arriving faceup.

“He realizes he’s holding a thermometer and frowns. ‘Well, f**k,’ he says, ‘some ass**le’s got my pen.’?”

And because her sense of humor was always easy and gutter-loving, Sara completely lost it, falling onto the soft padded edge of the table in laughter and looking lovelier than I think she had all night. She was flushed from whatever she’d had to drink, but even more than that, she looked positively blissful. When she looked up and caught me staring, her smile straightened as if liquid heat had trickled into her veins, and she blinked down to look at my mouth. Going back to find her at the theater had been the best decision of my night.

Come to think of it, the only good one. I gave her a wink, licked my lips.

“You two going to fornicate or play some goddamn cards?” Chloe asked, having decided to stay with a nine showing; the table showed a six, and busted, hitting seven on top of a hole card of nine.

“Shut your gob, woman,” I hissed playfully.

“A young guy walks into a bar,” our new acquaintance started as the dealer cleared the hand, and f**k I’d decided this was the best man ever to have at a blackjack table. The dealer began the process of shuffling the decks. “He orders ten shots of whiskey. The bartender says, ‘Damn, kid,’ but lines them up anyway.”

I liked Mustache because of said mustache of course, but also the fact that he looked like he spent a lot of birthdays alone. He had a way about him that mixed ease and desperation, and yet here he was, cracking dirty jokes with perfect finesse with a bunch of half-sloshed strangers. I didn’t even mind his gaze turning dopey and loaded when he turned and smiled at Sara. Couldn’t blame the bloke; I had no choice but to fall for her; Sara was as irresistible as gravity.

“So here they are: ten shots in front of this skinny beanpole kid. The kid knocks them all back one after the other, barely blinking. ‘Wow,’ says the barman, ‘what’re you celebrating?’”

Sara was already laughing, and I turned to watch her in wonder. She would never stop being a tangle of mystery, this one, anticipating dirty jokes told by an eccentric stranger in Vegas.