With pocket queens, Royall figured his full house would be an easy payday. Too bad Hartley had quads—four of a kind. By the time the hand was done, Royall had lost nineteen hundred dollars, Hartley hiding his cards so well, Nola never got a good peek.
For another hour and a half, Royall tried winning back his cash. Nola got him halfway there. Then it got late. The pretzel bowl was empty. That was the night.
At nearly one in the morning, as the guys were wrapping up, Nola ducked out into the backyard to fish beer cans from the trash. Royall had a guy who’d drive them to New York for a piece of the five-cent deposit. He didn’t like her doing it in the house, though—thought it made them look—
“Cheap! Jesus on a surfboard, is your dad cheap!” Trey teased from a nearby lounge chair, the teenager’s thin frame looking like a needle. On the arm of his chair was his Sidekick, where a red notification light blinked in the dark.
Nola grinned at the crack at Royall, breathing an actual sigh of relief.
“You doing this for you or him?” Trey asked. At the foot of his chair were two empty beer cans. She thought he’d grabbed only one. He was faster than he looked.
“For him? Oh, shitty!” Trey laughed as Nola continued to rummage through the trash. He quickly felt bad, his tone shifting. “You should tell him to do it himself. Set him straight.”
Nola didn’t answer. She knew he meant well, but she also knew what would happen if Royall thought she was complaining.
“Here, I can— Lemme help,” Trey added, hopping from his seat and heading toward her, the red light still blinking from the armrest.
“Your dad’s gonna be looking for you,” Nola warned, pointing over her own shoulder.
“He won’t. He’ll think I walked home,” Trey said, reaching into the trash. “The real fun’ll start when I text my mom that he left me behind and messed up his court-appointed night with me.” The way Trey spoke . . . using words like knives to stab at his parents . . . It wasn’t something she’d soon forget.
“He’s a dick like that,” Trey added, standing on the opposite side of the trash as he pulled out a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon and two bottles of Stroh’s, which forever would be the smell Nola associated with tonight.
Across from him, Nola opened a plastic garbage bag to receive the recyclables. Trey threw the can inside, but as he went to hand over the bottles, he purposely missed the bag, letting one of the bottles plummet to the ground, where it shattered across the concrete.
“What’re you doing!?” Nola asked.
Trey shrugged and shot Nola his own devil’s grin, which lit her up in places she didn’t realize lit up. Holding the second bottle with two fingers, like an arcade crane game, he cocked an eyebrow, about to let it go.
“Don’t!” she called out, reaching to grab it.
She forgot how fast he was. He yanked the bottle up, out of her reach. Her hand gripped his wrist.
Too slow, he was about to say. He was fast for a drunk. But not nearly as fast as Nola.
Before he could get the words out, she snatched the bottle from his hand.
She held it up in victory. He playfully slapped it sideways, knocking it to the ground, where it shattered not far from the first one.
“Try it on purpose—it’s better when you mean it,” Trey said, reaching into the trash and handing her a new bottle.
She wanted to tell him he was a moron. Instead, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she let go of the bottle, letting it smash.
Royall would definitely be pissed, but even she knew that’s why it felt so good.
“Boy, am I clumsy tonight,” Trey teased, dropping another bottle, then another Pabst Blue Ribbon can that hit with a hollow clink.