Trapped

Chapter 42: AFTER

Chapter Forty Two:

A little something dangerous.

ㅡ

I shifted in my seat, aware that everyone was watching me.

… even my tiniest moves—-the twitch of an eyelid, clenching of a jaw, suppose I tilted my head or scratched my cheek. Almost every person seated here was waiting for me to make a mistake, say or do something that would reveal exactly what I was thinking.

Unfortunately for everyone else, I did the same to them, and I was better at it. Better at hiding my thoughts and better at reading their tells.

For example, Mr. Sleepy over there made a big production of yawning every time he tried to bluff. He yawned for a second time, and even though I knew he was faking it, I had to swallow my empathetic response. I mentally dismissed his hand and moved to the man on his right.

I’d named him Mr. Grumpy because he hadn’t cracked a smile the entire four-and-a-half hours we’d been playing. His tell was more subtle but just as accurate. He screwed up his nose to push his glasses higher when he bluffed, which was rare. For an illegal poker player, he played exceptionally conservatively.

Then there was Ms. Cleavage. A lot of it. I’d seen the glare she’d given me when I’d come in, and the moment my gaze had dropped to her t**s, she’d grinned. Not actually distracted by her body or her words, I’d caught on fairly quickly that when bluffing, she licked her bottom lip, and when she was excited about her hand, she leaned forward slightly, inviting everyone to look right down her dress.

The last person at the table was the whale, Captain Asshat. He’d made a big production of being a regular here and how everybody loved him. It only took half a dozen hands to figure out that they liked him because he was terrible at poker and had plenty of money to lose. He didn’t have a specific tell. He just lied like he played cards. Badly.