This is starting to feel a bit familiar.
“Are we going into a private room again?” I ask, shivering slightly with anticipation. I didn’t even mean to – it just came over me. I was going to protest at doing the same thing twice in two days, but… nope. I don’t think I’ll ever complain about doing that.
“A little different this time,” he says, gripping my hand to pull me after him as a dealer walks us to a very specific door – and then allows us inside.
The room isn’t empty like the last one was. It’s also quite a bit bigger. The seating is arranged in a semi-circular shape around a large table, and a dealer is already standing there and dealing a game of something I haven’t seen before.
“Ah, Jonas is here!” an older man sitting in the center of the seats exclaims. “You’re just in time for Baccarat, my friend.”
“Tom,” Jonas says with a wide grin. “Allow me to introduce Savannah.”
“You know my wife, Donna,” Tom responds, gesturing to a woman who must be twenty years younger than him. She’s blonde and looks bored, studying manicured pink fingernails. “This is Bob and his girlfriend, Gina.”
The other two, who are both younger than Tom and Jonas yet older than me, nod a greeting.
Jonas leads me over to a seat, him next to Tom and me beside him. The seating is evenly balanced, now. “You guys are going to have to watch out today. Savannah is my good luck charm.”
“Is that so?” Tom asks, leaning over to look at me with a grin.
“To prove it, I’m only going to play with the money I won yesterday,” Jonas says, flashing me another wink. I get the feeling that that kind of attitude might be the only way not to end up bankrupt if you live in Las Vegas and don’t stay out of the casinos altogether.
We start to play, and we make a fair go of it. Although Jonas doesn't bet all of the money we won yesterday, he does put half of it in over the course of time, and eventually, we run out. But that's nothing compared to Tom, who bets big on every single hand.
I'm really starting to see the appeal now. The thrill of winning or losing, the thrill of the risk. It seems to be even more enjoyable when I'm doing it vicariously, watching a rich man place huge bets time after time. Some of them make my eyes widen so far they almost hurt, and every time Jonas looks at me and laughs.
It's not just the betting that makes today enjoyable. Tom, Bob, Gina, and Donna are good fun, and they know how to keep a conversation flowing. We all entertain one another, and I like to think that I give as good as I get in terms of the light-hearted banter that flows amongst us. The conversation strays over such subjects as the betting itself, people from Las Vegas that all of the others seem to know of, which nightlife acts are the most interesting to see, and anything and everything in the general scope of life. Even though I'm the odd one out in some ways, I gather that Gina and Donna haven't necessarily met all of the others before, either, so I don't feel completely left out.
By the time the few hours are up, I realize that I've been laughing so hard my jaw aches, and we've also been plied with lots of free drinks by the casino staff. Although I've stuck to soft drinks, this has included a series of increasingly more elaborate mock-tails, which I feel slightly guilty about ordering but always incredibly pleased to taste.
“Alright,” Jonas says, calming down from another chuckle and looking at me. “We should head out. Ready, Savannah?”
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” Tom says, with a roguish charm. “Miss Savannah, you must come here more often. I’ve never seen Jonas so relaxed and happy. You must be working some kind of magic on him.”
“I told you,” Jonas says, flashing a grin not at Tom but at me. “She’s my good luck charm.”
With that, we get up, and to a chorus of farewells from the group which we also return, we head out of the VIP room and back into the brighter lights of the main floor. I had quite forgotten it was daytime, locked away in there. I guess that’s part of the appeal.
“Lunchtime,” Jonas announces. He nods to an attendant at a black velvet rope and then tugs me towards an elevator which is situated on this side of it – not something that just any visitor to the casino can use.
We head up in silence. We’re so close together in the confines of the elevator that at first, I want to move closer and kiss him – but the elevator stops, and the doors slide open again so quickly I wonder if we’ve even had the time to move.