Chapter 2.2 - Matteo
1544 Words
By the time another hour goes by there’s only four of us left: Valentina, the man she came with, pear-face, and me. Pear-face is obviously stressing because he’s almost out of chips, while the rest of us have piles upon piles of them. I haven’t bothered counting the cards yet because it seemed like too much work, but right now I’ve tripled my buy-in and the rest of the people left are pretty f*****g good at playing poker, including Valentina.
“Yuri, you’re the small blind.”
Pear-face apparently has a name.
“I raise to $500.” he says after the fourth card has been laid out. One all five cards are on the table, he goes all in.
I know I have nothing this round, so I fold along with the other man at the table.
Valentina looks at the pile in the middle of the table and asks something in Russian. I don’t understand the words, but I figure she must be asking how much money is on the table.
“Eleven hundred.” I answer.
“Alright. I’ll match it.”
The way Yuri/Pear-face is ignoring her makes me think he’s bluffing.
He turns to talk to the two guys who pulled out of the game early and I try to understand what they’re saying. Everything he says seems to be accompanied by an aggressive tone, or maybe that’s just how the Russian language sounds.
Valentina asks him something, and he nearly spits his response without even looking at her. The way he speaks to her is disgusting, and it makes my blood boil. I still can’t understand what they’re saying, but I can tell out of context that pear-face is being unnecessarily rude.
Why isn’t the man she came with saying anything?
“Calm down and just take the chips man.” I tell him.
“Who do you think you are kid?” he raises his voice.
“Someone who wants to continue playing.”
“Do you think you’re smarter than me?”
“Do you think that?”
“Watch your mouth.”
The man next to Valentina finally speaks. Whatever he says must have an effect, because Yuri mumbles something before placing two $1000 chips on the table.
“Alright. You can reveal your cards now.”
Yuri reveals a Jack and a five. “Three of a kind.” He smirks at Valentina.
I watch her place her cards on the table. “Flush. Actually, it’s a Full House even.”
My happiness is short-lived when I see Yuri standing up and reaching for something in his jacket pocket, so I stand up out of reflex and reach for my gun.
“I was just taking out my cigar.” He nervously laughs. I look at Valentina’s face expecting to see her scared of the sudden energy shift, but she doesn’t react in any way.
He’s lying because there’s a cigarette in his mouth.
I sit back down, my eyes still trained on him. “Alright.”
“Alright.” Matteo says and sits back down without taking his eyes off Yuri. “Where’s your cigar?”
“Watch your mouth.” Yuri warns as he takes out a cigar from his left chest pocket.
“Three are left, so the small blind will be a thousand, big blind two.”
Valentina’s pile looks the biggest as we continue playing. It’s clear, at least to me, that I will be the next one to pull out of the game. They’re both competitive, but she’s definitely better at making a poker face than he is.
I can tell whether he has a good hand or not based on the way his forehead creases every time a card is laid out. But her…I can’t read her face at all. After twenty years of trying to understand what my dad is thinking without it showing on his face, I should be better at reading her.
Every time I look at her, her eyes are on the table and her face is motionless, except for a small smirk playing at the corner of her lips. It’s always there, unmistakably.
There are two aces, an eight, and a three on the table. I have an ace and a three, which already makes this a Full House.
Valentina’s dad (the person I’m 98% sure is her dad at this point, based on how they interact with each other) folded before even seeing the fourth card.
Her face is expressionless as she looks at the fifth card being laid out. It’s an eight of hearts. I look at her again, to see if anything changed.
She’s looking at her cards, her cupid’s bow turned upwards as usual. There’s a playful glint in her eyes that wasn’t there before.
Maybe that’s her tell when she knows she has the upper hand.
The only way to test it is by going all in and seeing if she folds.
She doesn’t miss a beat to match my bid.
“Four of a kind.” she says as she lay out her cards. She has two 3’s.
Her grin is obvious now and I can’t help but smile.
That’s your tell
I watch her take the chips from the middle of the table. The careful way she arranges her chips into towers based on value makes her look like a little girl playing with her friends.
“Two are left, small is five thousand, big is ten.”
I can’t help but watch her for the rest of the game. She has a great poker face, beautiful even. I feel like I can already tell when she has the hand or not, without having to count the cards.
“Raise you eight thousand.”
My eyes go back to the table. She matches his bid, which leaves her less than enough money for the next round.
I’m surprised and not surprised at all at the same time. The way she took out every man at the table and always pulled out at the right moments lets me know that her mind works incredibly well, which makes her even more attractive right now.
Our eyes meet when the fourth card is laid out. Her face doesn’t turn away from me when her eyes look over at the card. I can see the exact moment she realizes that she won.
“All in.” her dad says.
She takes a few moments before uncertainty crossed her face.
“I fold.” She says, throwing her cards upside-down on the table.
“Good match.” Her dad says to her as he collects his chips and hands them over to the dealer.
She looks genuinely happy that her father praised her.
“I’m happy I got two thousand out of it.”
“Should we takes this to the conference room and continue our discussion?” one of the men asks.
“Sure, you go ahead, I need to talk to Valentina about something.”
I stand up along with everyone else and go over to Luca at the bar. My eyes are fixated on Valentina and the man I now know for certain is her father. I can’t place him, and yet he looks incredibly familiar.
“Bring some ashtrays to the conference room.”
Pear-face is looking at me and Luca.
Is he serious?
“We’re not part of the service personnel.”
His eyes nearly pop out of his head and his face reddens as he points at me.
“One day that smart mouth of yours will get you killed.”
I feel the urge to roll my eyes but I refrain myself. My anger issues are acting up because of this drunk rich guy.
“And today can be the day where too much alcohol will get you kicked out and banned from the hotel.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Fortunately, no.”
“I’m going to talk to whoever made the bad decision to hire you.”
“Do you need the number of my supervisor or can you figure it out?”
I see Valentina smile with the corner of my eye.
“Do you know where the conference room is?” Luca asks him, trying to ease the tension.
Valentina and her dad are talking in Russian now, and I don’t know where to look so they can’t tell I’m listening in.
I decide to pull out my phone, my brain still trying to understand what they’re saying.
She says something about Yuri as a response to something he asked her, which means he values her opinion.
Who is this guy?
Valentina told me once that he was a businessman, but I can’t remember anything else. Everyone’s a ‘businessman’ these days.
They pause for a second and he asks her something in a lower tone than before. It makes me think they’re talking of me. I understand the word ‘university’, and I’m 90% sure they’re talking about me now.
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I am almost done with the chapter, so I'll see you on Sunday!
Let me know if you enjoy by liking or commenting :) I always love to hear your thoughts!
xoxo,
Ronnie
- Writer
