When I arrive home, I pop a ready meal for one in the oven, since Dad’s working late in the office with Will and then he’s going to the book club. When I go upstairs, I pass by Jay’s room and see the door’s wide open. He’s sitting on the floor, messy stacks of books all around him and dozens of sheets of paper with indecipherable handwriting spread out on the wood floor. The bin is full to the brim with crumpled papers and his laptop is open, playing a video of a surgeon carrying out some kind of operation. Quite bizarre.

I’ve always been squeamish about blood, so I look away.

“I didn’t realise you were home,” I say, standing in the doorway. His head comes up, his eyes meeting mine as he scratches his jaw. His hair is all dishevelled, which for some reason makes me want to touch it.

“Matilda. How was your day?” he asks, shoving some of the papers aside and pressing “pause” on the video. I take one step inside the room.

“Good. Can I ask what you’re doing?”

“Ah, just working out some new tricks.”

So he’s not studying to become a surgeon, then. “So you’re definitely not quitting?” I ask, curious.

He shoots me a wry look and laughs harshly. “What, because some bitch who doesn’t even know me decided to sit at her computer and rip me a new one? Hell to the f**k no. It’ll take a lot more than a few articles to put a stop to me.”

I don’t know what to say to that. In fact, his passionate anger puts me a little on edge, even though it isn’t directed at me, so I change the subject. “Do you want dinner? I’m just making something quick.”

“No, I’m good. I already ate.” The flat tone and faraway look in his eyes give me the impression he’s somewhere else right now, so I quickly take my leave.

“Okay, well, I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Be ready for eight,” he calls after me, his eyes returning to the laptop screen.

“Will do.”

I close the door and go to my own room. Jay’s demeanour seemed different just now, mercurial somehow. Granted, I’ve only known him a day, so I’m sure there are many more sides to him than the witty charmer I’ve known him to be.

I eat dinner in front of the TV. Jay doesn’t come down at all, still up in his room doing his research, or whatever it is he’s doing. A while later I’m in the bathroom, putting the finishing touches to my makeup, when there’s a tap on the door.

“Knock, knock, can I come in?” Jay asks from outside as I clip a strand of hair at my temple.

I get a momentary jolt but then realise I’m decent, so I say, “Sure.” Still, I find it a little odd that he wants to come in here.

He steps into the small room, casual as you please, wearing a dark shirt and slacks. The first button of the shirt is undone, showing a hint of the tattoos at his collarbone. He lets out a low whistle, and I can’t help but blush. “You scrub up well, Watson.”

I focus on putting in my contact lenses as his eyes trail down my legs to my feet. “Nice shoes. Real nice. They make up for the conservative neckline.”

“Uh, thanks. I think.”

I have my contacts in now, and his eyes are still on my shoes, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he swallows. What the hell is he thinking about? I brush on some lip gloss and I’m done. Jay’s still standing behind me, but now his eyes are on my face. I can’t really decipher his look, since I’ve never had a man stare at me like he is. The only way I can describe it is somewhere in between hot and smouldering. Yikes.

I find it difficult to believe it’s directed at me, but it must be. I mean, there’s nobody else in the room.

I cough. “Are you driving?”

He shakes his head, and his expression clears. “Nah, I think we’ll taxi it. After we get you your eight hundred, we’re going to want to celebrate.” He flashes me a wide, toothy smile.

“Right. I hope not too much. It’s a work night,” I say, unable to help myself. And I had almost pulled off cool. Almost.

Jay’s hand moves to rest on my shoulder, his voice unexpectedly soft. “Don’t worry, Watson. I’ll have you home and tucked in bed by one.”

If I were a provocative person I might say something sassy, like, “Oh, yeah, and are you going to be the one doing the tucking?” But I’m not, so I don’t. Jay says he’ll wait downstairs for me and leaves me to it.

Dad’s coming in the door just as we’re leaving, the taxi idling by the side of the road. He tells us to have a great night, and then Jay’s ushering me in the back of the taxi. I’m nervous on the ride, while Jay makes boisterous small talk with the driver.

I check to make sure I brought my hundred and fifty with me several times. Then I check to make sure I brought my I.D., since you’ve got to be twenty-one to get into some of the casinos.

Jay pays the fare when we arrive in the city a couple of minutes later. I look up at the sleek black front of the building with the flashing sign above the entrance. There’s a bouncer on the door who’s about as wide as he is tall, and I can’t tell if it’s muscle or fat. He’s wearing a suit and has an earpiece.

Unexpectedly, Jay slides his arm around my waist as we approach, pressing the side of my body flush to his. Okay, this is new. I haven’t been this close to a man in quite some time. He looks down at me for a second, and I think I see his gaze zone in on my lips, tracing the lines of my mouth.

And now I think I just came. I really need to get a handle on this crush of mine.

The bouncer lets us in right away, no asking for I.D. It must be Jay’s confidence that got us through without incident. Right now Jay’s hand is resting on my hip, and I can hardly concentrate on anything else. It feels so warm and tingly and good. He shows me how to exchange my cash for chips, his arm dropping and my expectations dropping with it.

I put my chips in my bag, and then Jay’s gripping my chin with his fingers, bringing my eyes up to his. “Okay, Matilda, you’re making me anxious just looking at you. Let’s go get you a drink first to loosen up.”

“I’m not nervous,” I mutter as he guides me to the bar and I slide my bum onto a stool.

He shakes his head and nods for the bartender to come over. “What’s it going to take to get you to stop lying to me?”

“I’m sorry. It’s kind of my default setting,” I reply quietly. “I don’t lie because I’m being duplicitous. I just lie because I don’t want people to know when I’m, like, scared and stuff.”

Whoa, that was quite honest.

His smile when he looks at me is warm. “I know. But you don’t have to lie to me. Plus, I can tell when you’re scared and stuff anyway.”

Well, there is that.

The bartender arrives, and Jay asks for a J.D. and Coke. I’m in the mood for a cocktail, so I scan the menu above the bar. Damn, why do the cocktails that sound the best always have the most embarrassing names?

Fuck it, I might as well order what I want. Jay will probably be able to tell anyway, what with his psychic body-language-reading skills, or whatever it is you’d call them.

“I’ll have the Porn Star Martini, please,” I say decisively.

The bartender doesn’t even bat an eyelid as he goes off to fetch our orders.

“Brave choice,” says Jay with a smirk. “You fixing to get drunk, Watson?”

“Hmm, not until after I win my eight-hundred…or lose my one-fifty. Either scenario will call for alcohol, I’m guessing.”

He touches my elbow for a second. “You won’t lose your one-fifty, I promise.”

“And you have no idea how bad I could be at this.”

Our drinks arrive, and I delight in how there’s an actual passion fruit floating in the yellow liquid. Whenever I see there’s champagne in a cocktail, I just have to have it. My brain tells me it’ll be classy.

I suck it up through a straw (not so classy) and find that Jay was right — it is loosening me up. The place isn’t too packed, since it’s only a Wednesday night, but there are a reasonable number of people around. My attention is drawn to a balding guy who’s swearing like a madman at a slot machine.

“He does realise the machine can’t swear back, right?” I whisper to Jay jokingly.

“Gambling crazies. There’s always one.”

Jay orders another drink and brings it with him as he leads me through the casino. I look around, taking it all in. When I spy the roulette table, I hurry on ahead, eager to see what it’s like. A middle-aged man in a suit makes a bet, and the wheel spins. When he wins, he gets a satisfied look on his face as his businessmen friends congratulate him. I can certainly see how this stuff could become addictive.

When we get to the blackjack table, there’s a guy in his twenties and a woman in maybe her early forties playing. The woman has platinum-blonde hair and is wearing a lot of gold jewellery, a look of faded grandeur about her. The guy is decent-looking, with dark hair and nice eyes. Jay takes a seat, setting his glass down on the edge of the table. The dealer is a tall, bored-looking woman with short black hair and almost as many tattoos as Jay. You can’t see them all, though, since she’s wearing the casino uniform. She also has two silver hoops through her nose and one in the centre of her bottom lip.

She reminds me of one of my lady heroes, Lisbeth Salander, from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. If only I were half as cool as Lisbeth, I’d be twice as cool as I actually am.

When the dealer sees Jay, her eyes light up and she gives him a measured smile. Hmm, do they know each other?

“Never said you were coming tonight,” she says in a deep, husky voice.

“I’m showing my new friend Matilda here the ropes,” he replies, and I take the seat beside him.

She turns to me, her eyes scanning me up and down before giving me a friendly nod. “Ah, so this is Matilda. She’s exactly like you described her.”

I shoot Jay a questioning glance. He’s been telling people about me already? And more to the vain point, how, pray tell, did he describe me?

“This is my friend Jessie,” he says by way of introduction.

“Hello.” I dip my head and joke, “So, together you’re ‘Jessie J.’”

There’s a moment of silence as Jessie raises an eyebrow and suppresses a smirk while Jay gives my shoulder a pat.

“You know, like the singer?” I go on.

“I told you she has a great offbeat sense of humour,” says Jay to Jessie.

“Yeah, I get that.” Jessie smiles at me before turning back to him. “So are you going to place a bet, or did you just come to stare at my gorgeous mug all night?”

“A bit of both,” Jay responds before placing some chips down in a little circle on the table in front of him. Jessie raises an eyebrow at his chips and then picks up a deck of cards, shuffling them. She takes a plain blue card and hands it to the blonde woman, giving her what I’m thinking is a flirtatious smile. Oh. Oh. For a second there I’d wondered if she and Jay were an item. Now I’m seeing that’s probably not the case.

Jessie starts dealing the cards out. I watch with interest as Jay studies his: a seven of diamonds and a four of clubs.

I crane my neck and ask, “Is that good?”

“She really is a novice,” Jessie murmurs from her spot at the head of the table.

“A blackjack virgin,” says Jay with a mischievous grin. “I’m breaking her in slowly.”

The young guy chuckles quietly while the blonde woman flattens her lips in distaste.

“Nice visual,” I put in sarcastically.

Jay’s smile only grows bigger as his eyes lock on mine. “I like to think so.”

The blonde indicates that she’d like another card (which I learned in my reading last night is called a “hit”), but the guy simply waves to show he’s sticking with what he’s got. Jay gets another card, too.

I don’t know much about this game, but I did read that the person with the closest to twenty-one is the winner, and each card has its own numerical value.

Once everybody’s cards are revealed, it turns out that the blonde has fifteen, the guy has eighteen, and Jessie has seventeen. But Jay has a perfect twenty-one, winning the game. He’d put down one hundred euros’ worth of chips, so he wins a hundred.

“This is all so exciting,” I exclaim, really getting into it. It’s fun to watch people win money.

“That was too easy,” says Jay. “Let’s make things a little more interesting.” He places all the chips he won, the ones he put down originally, plus a few more in the circle this time.

They all start to play another game, and the blonde wins. It gets more complicated, and there are lots of fancy terms thrown around, like “double down” and “five card Charlie.” Jay does his best to explain each one as we go. Along the way I have another two Porn Star Martinis, so I’m well on the road to Tipsyville.

There’s a group of businessmen sitting at a table close by, having drinks and talking loudly. As I stare at Jay, I notice he’s discreetly watching them. He doesn’t seem annoyed that they’re being loud, but he does seem to be keeping track of them for some reason. It gets me curious, so now I watch them as well.

They’re mostly middle-aged men, but there’s one man at the head of the table who looks to be in his sixties. He’s drinking a glass of wine and laughing at something the man beside him is saying. He’s the one Jay has his eye on the most.

“Jay,” says Jessie quietly as she deals out more cards. There seems to be a warning in her tone.