“Why’d you leave that night he and I met? You were gone the minute he approached me.”
He sifts his fingers through my hair and studies my face for a moment, not letting go of me with the other arm.
“I wish I’d had the chance to talk to you. Maybe I would’ve exchanged numbers with you instead,” I say.
He touches my face, and his eyes… they’re almost haunted.
He hasn’t said anything so I say, “I noticed you guys standing there and I was hoping you were the one who would buy me a drink or ask me to dance.”
“I had no choice,” Killian says, gravely. “Couldn’t watch him come onto you.”
“Why?” I ask, tilting my head curiously.
He continues to look at me without speaking.
Finally I prompt him with a jiggling of both of his shoulders. “What happened? Did something happen that night?”
“I broke my rule,” he says, his expression dire.
“What rule?”
“I took a bet.”
I frown.
He lets go of me and backs up. Then he heaves out a heavy breath and looks at me with an expression. A remorseful one. He swallows hard.
“I had my eye on you. He and I are havin’ drinks with a couple guys from the old neighborhood. It was a bit of a reunion, one of our buddies called everyone to go out and celebrate, found out his girl was pregnant with twins. Most of the guys were headin’ out to a strip joint after that club. A couple of us took a pass. Raymond and I wound up in conversation and he saw me watchin’ you dance. He made some remarks, I laughed it off, and then he wanted to flip a coin and see who got to make the approach.”
My eyes bulge.
“I never take bets, Violet. It’s not my style. I make my living knowing people have a fifty percent chance of losing, often not even that good. But I fucked up.”
“You… took a bet?”
“I gave him the right body language that made him flip the coin. I don’t know how the fuck it happened, it was just the night I guess, everyone laughin’. Drinkin’. Hadn’t seen Iadanza in a couple years and got caught up with everything but then it was over. He won the toss and then he was headin’ in your direction with a smug fuckin’ look on his face and I couldn’t watch. Couldn’t watch because I felt something when I saw you that night, like I told you before, hit me right in the fuckin’ chest. And then I realized how much I’d fucked up, but he’d already flipped it and he was headin’ for you.”
Killian swallows and pulls his lips tight.
My jaw has dropped.
After a beat, he continues. “Saw him a month later and couldn’t believe the shit comin’ out of his mouth about how you were it, how he struck gold with you and was gonna put a ring on your finger. Fucker tried to bet me right there on that, lookin’ to get a payout if he got you down the aisle, and I wasn’t about to get bit twice.”
I shake my head. “A coin toss. Wow.”
“You pissed at me?”
Killian’s eyes look haunted. He looks afraid that I’m going to be upset.
“Because I’m pissed at me,” he adds.
I put my hand to his cheek and rub. “Of course not. You didn’t know me. I’m just sort of sad that you took that bet.”
“Me too, baby. Fuckin’ believe me. More than sort of. That’s why when I ran into him last month and he said you were still together, I had to see for myself, had to see if I was wrong about that feeling I had with you because I really couldn’t wrap my head around you still being with him because I knew, growin’ up in the same shitty complex as that guy what he was all about. Honestly, I was hoping I’d see you and realize you were a loser too.”
I smile sadly. “I was.”
“No. You aren’t. He’s always gotten ladies based on his looks, but he lied and fooled you into feeling something for him before he showed who he really is, and you hung in there because you’re loyal. Like Susanna says. She told me you’re the most loyal person she knows. That’s not on you, it’s on him. I just wish I could go back.”
“He fooled us both.”
“You, yeah, he did. But he didn’t fool me, I just fucked up. I got caught off guard.”
I shake my head with dismay. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but… he fooled you with that trick, Kill.”
He straightens up. “Explain.”
I roll my eyes. “I found them the first time I did his laundry. And it wouldn’t be the last time. He kept one in each pocket. One coin with two heads and one with two tails. I had thrown them into a change jar, actually, but he got me to empty it and we dug until we found them. He said he used them for pranks. He’d ask someone to call it, or he’d call it and grab the one he needed. Two-headed coin in his left pocket, two-tailed coin in his right. Or the other way around. Can’t remember. Sorry, but I gave him shit for the trick and he said he barely used them, that they were just for gags. Guess Ray treated us both like chumps.” I reach into the fridge for two waters.