Gia smiles. “It’s not a date.”
“See, I thought that, too.” I set my knife and fork down after cutting my sausage links into bite-sized pieces. “But then I got to the Bellagio last night, or…earlier today, I guess. A few hours ago. And when I saw you all made up, wearing that sexy top, I thought fuck me…she really does want me.”
“First of all, my clothes and makeup have nothing to do with anything but me, you card-carrying spokesman for the patriarchy,” she says lightly. “And second, there’s a story behind this makeup and this shirt.”
I nod, enjoying our banter. “The story goes, ‘Maverick is the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on, and how can I get into his pants?’”
She rolls her eyes and laughs. “You really do have ego to spare, don’t you? Too bad there aren’t ego banks, like blood banks. You could donate on the regular to give a much-needed boost to those with low self-esteem.”
“If they gave me a cookie like the blood bank does, I’d be all over it.”
“I think the ego bank would hand out little pocket-sized mirrors to donors.”
I nod emphatically. “I never seem to have enough of those. It’s good to have one in each hand, plus another two for the hands of the guy I hire to carry and hold mirrors up for me.”
“That poor man. You’d better pay him well.”
She holds my gaze across the table and a current of electricity charges the air between us. Even after nine hours playing poker, she looks fresh and pretty. Her black top has a V-neck, and I can’t stop staring at her neck and wishing I could climb across the table and kiss it.
Hockey is something I have to be so serious about, all the time, and I like not taking myself too seriously off the ice. I’ve never been around a woman who chirped back at me. It’s damn sexy.
“How’s your food?” I ask her.
We’re at a little hole-in-the-wall diner off the Strip, a brightly lit place with just one server helping the only customers—us, and a table of drunks. It’s a dive, in the best way, from the worn linoleum flooring to the all-you-can-eat pancake special.
“Delicious.” Gia bites off the end of a piece of bacon. “If I don’t stop to eat while I’m playing, I come here before I go home to sleep. It reminds me of the places my dad used to take me when I was a kid.”
“It’s funny you say that, because it reminds me of the place my parents used to take me in my hometown.”
“Where’s that?”
“A little town called Junction. It’s in Iowa.”
Gia liberally peppers the fried eggs that came on a separate plate from her pancakes, the corners of her lips curving up in a smile. “Corn-fed boy, huh? I can see that.”
“It’s a neat little town. My dad had to drive me forty-five minutes each way to the nearest ice rink, but I still wouldn’t have wanted to grow up anywhere else.” I nod my thanks to the waitress as she refills my coffee cup. “What about you? I can’t figure out if you’re a city girl or a small-town one.”
“Both. After my parents divorced, I spent a lot of time on the road with my dad while he played poker. We spent time in big cities, small towns and everything in between.”
“What about school?”
There’s a fond look in Gia’s eyes as she says, “We had Mrs. Slone. She was the wife of one of the guys my dad played poker with, and she was a retired teacher. She taught me and the two kids of another player. It was like being homeschooled, but on the road.”
“Sounds like you enjoyed it.”
She shrugs. “I loved not having to be confined to a classroom. I got to see the Statue of Liberty, the Black Hills, Valley Forge, the Greensboro lunch counter at the Smithsonian, the Hoover Dam and all kinds of other places, and learn about them right then and there. Sometimes we’d be reading books in the corner of a bar while our fathers played. I know it sounds dysfunctional, but it was so much fun. And I’m so grateful I got that time with my dad, because now he’s gone.”
“What was he like?”
Her face lights up. “He was serious at the poker table, but when he wasn’t playing, he loved to laugh. He hugged me all the time and told me I was the most beautiful girl in the world. He never got to be as close with my brothers because they lived with our mom, but he loved them just as much as he loved me. My dad was the most important person in my life.”
“That’s how I felt about my mom.” I look down at the table, flooded by memories of how sick she was by the end.