Page 65 of Never Stop

I looked to Avery again, hoping he’d be on my side.

He wasn’t.

“He has a point.” Avery nodded.

“I don’t have a grand on me.” Hell, I barely had a hundred bucks in my wallet. I usually paid with a credit card for points to use for miles for my honeymoon.

“We’ll find an ATM,” Gary said.

Why was he now our ring leader?

“Where are we going to find an ATM?” I asked. I still didn’t want to do this plan.

Avery pointed, and I followed where his finger indicated. An ATM sat by the bar.

Son of a bitch.

“I don’t even think we can take out that much money at one time. Or in a day. Don’t banks have limits?”

“Only one way to find out.”

I wanted to slap Gary’s shit-eating grin off his face. “If we lose, you each owe me five hundred to make up for this shit. This isn’t my idea.” I pointed my finger in each of their faces. We were supposed to chill, and now I was going to have a thousand bucks on the line.

Avery and Gary turned to each other then back to me. “Deal,” they said in unison.

We broke apart, and Gary turned to the chick. “See what you can do, sweet cheeks.”

She smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched the back of her head as she nodded to the doorman and then stepped down the stairs. I had a bad feeling about this.

As Avery and Gary practiced, I chugged the rest of my beer. A few minutes later, the redhead returned. “Follow me.” Avery and Gary had grins plastered on their faces. “We need to get some money first,” Gary said and motioned to the ATM.

“I’ll wait right here for you.” She grinned politely.

After getting money out of the cash machine, I began to relax as we started to follow the broad. I really did have a bad feeling about this, but I wasn’t going to be out money. They had each promised to pay me back.

She nodded again to the guy at the door, and I gave a tight smile. He nodded back and we started down a case of dimly lit stairs. It wasn’t lost on me that she didn’t flash him anything like the other people had. Once we were down the stairs, I looked around the softly lit room. Red and black booth style seats lined three of the four walls. The booths faced out like a place to sit and wait your turn or watch the game in front of you. The pool tables were black with turquoise felt, and each of the four tables had their own box style florescent lighting overhead.

Thinking the redhead was a scout, I’d expected for there to be only men down here. For all I knew, she was. Her game was probably to bring shmucks down stairs when there weren’t enough players for a tournament.

But there was another woman.

She was standing beside a table and chalking the tip of her stick. We continued to walk over to the only corner table in the room. A slick looking man sat, his arms outreached along the cushioned seats and a whiskey neat sitting in front of him. I knew my drinks. I was a bartender after all.

“Rick, these are the gentlemen I was telling you about.” The redhead smiled at us.

“Thanks, Trish.”

“Good luck, boys.” And with that, Trish walked away. Total scout. I just hoped no one was a pro.

“Cash only,” Rick stated.

“How does this work?” I asked.

Rick stared at me for a beat. I got the impression he thought my question was stupid. “You play until you lose.”

I grunted. “I mean, are we playing each other or random people?” I asked, motioning between the three of us.