Page 17 of Play for Power (Central Sparks #3)

broken like me

Rosie

“ I didn’t realize you were such a sore loser,” I tease him, enjoying the furrow of his brows and the unique look of frustration plastered across his face.

Caleb and I sit on the fluffy rug on the floor of my living room, the take-out pasta he brought over, finished, with the mess still across the coffee table.

The city lights pierce through the window, adding to the glow from the warm lamp in the corner of the room while Caleb stares down at the pile of cards between us, eyes darting back to the cards in his hand every so often.

“I am not a sore loser. You are just obviously cheating.”

“It’s impossible to cheat in this game.” It isn’t, but he doesn’t need to know that. Not that I am cheating, I would never ruin my winning reputation for something as sly as cheating. But I have caught my tío shoving cards under his lap during a game before.

“I’m going gray waiting for you to decide, guapo .”

“What is this game anyway?” he mumbles, finally placing a card down, turning his frown back to a smile when his eyes meet mine. I look down to the pile in the middle and giggle, immediately placing my own card down. Eat shit, sex pest.

“Okay, now I know you’re cheating.” He grimaces and rubs a hand down his face.

“You can’t accuse everyone who beats you of cheating, Mr. Smith. It’s unflattering. Besides, surely you expected me to win when I’m teaching you a new game.”

“You didn’t answer me before, what’s it called? I’m googling the rules.”

“ Cabeza de mierda, or shithead, I suppose.” I watch him put down a card. Quickly analyzing my hand, I throw down four queens, clearing the pile before putting down my last card, a five.

“Bullshit!” he scolds, the look of shock across his face sending me into a fit of laughter. When I recover and look back at him, there is a weird smirk across his face, some kind of sparkle in his eye as he looks at me…so intently.

I clear my throat, returning my gaze to the remaining cards on the floor in front of me.

“No, it’s shithead, not bullshit.” He rolls his eyes. “But close. Plus, it’s not over yet, I have these six cards to get through. This is when it gets fun.”

He pouts slightly, almost like he is trying to withhold his smile as he looks down to his hand and the cards in front of him. He places down two eights and then looks back at me.

“How about we up the stakes.” The tongue-in-cheek expression he wears has me narrowing my eyes with hesitation.

He mirrors the gesture, drinking his beer.

The two of us, grown adults, locked in a staring competition.

“Before that pretty, conceited head of yours jumps to conclusions, I know we aren’t fucking, and I’m not going to try to get you naked.

” I snort at his obvious lies. “Unless you want to.”

There it is.

I laugh under my breath, shaking my head as I place down my top three cards—kings, and he retaliates with a ten, clearing the deck and putting down the last card in his hand. An ace. Motherfucker.

When I lift my head to meet his stare, he just grins.

“Fine, what did you have in mind.”

“For the rest of the game, and the next, anytime we have to collect the pile, we tell the other a personal fact.”

“That’s lame.”

“Well, it was that or remove a piece of clothing.” Of course it was.

I sit back, toying with the wine glass and tilting my head to analyze him.

He mirrors me again, sitting back, relaxing, almost like he is letting me see him.

I don’t know what it is about this one, but there are…

layers. He seems deeper, or at least there is certainly more to him than the fuckboy persona he lets everyone else see.

Maybe it’s the loneliness, or maybe it’s the wine, but for some unknown reason… I’m intrigued.

“Okay. Deal.”

“Removing clothes?” He sits up, excited.

“No, you little slut.” He spits his beer in a laugh, and a reluctant smile spreads across my face.

“I meant the truths thing. I concede. If I have to pick up a pile, I will tell you a fact.” His assessment turns appreciative, a little bit of his bottom lip drawn between his teeth.

I don’t know why I notice that, or that he has quite luscious lips. I remember how sweet they were too.

What the fuck was that?

I clear my throat, looking down at my cards. This is the part of the game where it is almost impossible to cheat. Even if I were to stoop that low for the sake of holding on to my secrets, it wouldn’t be possible now.

Three cards lie in front of me, side by side, facedown.

I need to flip one for my turn, but it has to be higher than the card in the middle.

The kicker? The card Caleb just put down was an ace, the highest card.

I can only beat it with another ace, a ten, two, or three, which act as magic cards in this game.

“What are you waiting for, Rosebud?” That damn nickname.

I lock my eyes with his, not able to ignore their mesmerizing color. On top of his stupid good looks, height, and panty-melting smile, this fucker had Elizabeth Taylor eyes; so deep blue they were almost purple. Criminal.

Flipping the middle card, I place it on the pile. Neither of us has looked, but he seems to know what it is by the size of the smile that spreads across his face. I glance down. “Fucker,” I mumble, pulling the four back and grabbing the rest of the pile too.

“Let’s have it then.”

“A personal fact?”

“And don’t pussy out on me, Rosebud, make it worth it.”

“It’s funny you men use the word ‘pussy’ for weaknesses. We push a whole-ass watermelon out of that thing and go back for seconds. You little hoes can’t even handle a slight knock to your sack without throwing up and claiming to be the stronger sex.” I roll my eyes and he laughs.

“Touché.”

“A personal fact.” I breathe a heavy breath and lean back against the end of the couch I’m seated against, taking a moment to throw around some facts in my head. Some I’m willing to part with, some I’m not.

“Okay, my legal name.” He sits up straighter, a small smile across his face. “It’s Rosita Estefania Antonia Garcia.”

“What!?” He gasps, the smile even wider. “That is quite the mouthful. Why do you shorten it?”

I smirk, downing the rest of my wine. “That’s two facts. You only get one.” I wink at him and he bites his damn lip again— something he needs to stop doing because the flip of my belly every time he does it is not something that should be happening.

Caleb ducks his chin, returning to his cards; his three face-down cards are still stacked with three face-up cards on top.

He grabs the matching jacks and places them down together, with a clear pile he had nothing to beat.

I sort through the cards in my hand, reordering them and keeping an eye on the one card he has left on top—a seven. Amateur.

I place down another jack, folding in my lips in a poor attempt to hide my smugness as I giggle and pour myself another glass of wine.

“Nice.” He grumbles, snatching up the pile then downing his beer.

“Another?” I ask, and he nods.

His wandering regard lands outside the window as I get up to grab a beer from the fridge.

On the way back I notice the way his head leans back against the couch, the sudden melancholy that seems to surround him as he gets lost in the view.

I take a few slow steps toward the couch, analyzing him, the way his hands are in tight fists, almost crushing the cards, and when I get closer, I see the tightness in his jaw.

“You good?” I ask softly, for some reason feeling uneasy at his shift in demeanor. He clears his throat and looks down. “You owe me a fact.” I smile, trying to lighten the mood that changed so suddenly, and the smile that hits his face is empty.

“Okay,” he says, bowing his head. “My mom left me when I was eight.”

Ooft. The heaviness of that smacks me hard in the chest. Not just at what he said but how he said it.

His mom left him.

I feel the slight part of my lips as I try to think of something comforting, anything really to retort…but I have nothing. I’m not a nurturing person by nature, this is Casey territory, I… fuck, what am I supposed to do here?

“Oh…” Really creative, Rosie. “I’m sorry.”

The night of the bar suddenly refreshes in my memory, I called him a mommy’s boy. Fuck.

He must see the realization hit me because he smiles again. “It’s okay. Really, you didn’t know.”

“Yeah, but I still said it. I’m a moron. I’m sorry.”

“No shit, Rosie Garcia, just apologized.” The humor lights up his face again as I lean down and hand him the beer. I’m suddenly stuck between wanting him to tell me the full story and letting him change the subject again to something lighter.

“Do…do you want to talk about it?” I wince at the way the words come out, and he barks a laugh, grabbing the beer, popping the top, and taking a swig.

“God no. Your turn.” He gestures to the cards and then averts his gaze.

It isn’t until I’m busy sorting through my pile, trying to plan my next few moves with this remaining card, calculating his possible moves with the cards in his hand and the cards he has in front of him, that I notice his eyes on me and I double take, letting my eyes linger on him, and damn.

Those twilight eyes caught between blue and purple, are filling with something intense.

It’s a mix of longing and sorrow. There is so much depth he hides in them they are almost begging me to dig deeper, to let him out from where he locks himself away.

I take a slow drink of my wine, and, in this moment, I realize, like a puzzle piece sliding into place, it all starts to make sense. I have the real Caleb Smith nailed down to a T . The womanizing, the humor, never spending a night alone, and never committing himself to a person…he hurts.

Just like me, Caleb Smith is broken.

“You cheated.” Caleb grumbles, arms crossed over his broad torso.