Page 82 of The Hardest Hit

“Yes, miss,” said the host, touching her lightly on the arm and pointing to the door where an employee was toting two trays of chips.

“Oh, good. Evan, do I do something?”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Evan, and she smiled.

“Thank you, sugar.” Then she turned to Dr. Onishi and followed him.

Evan gestured to the table where his carousel of chips sat. The employee gravely set down the chips and Evan tipped him with one of the smaller denominations. Then he sat back down and took a sip of his drink.

“Your girlfriend is a doctor who has recently been published inScientific American?” asked Eizo.

“Yes,” said Evan. “Double Ph.D.’s actually.”

“And she went away for a half-hour and came back with…” Eizo checked the stacks. “Seventy-five thousand dollars?”

Evan looked the stacks over himself. “Closer to eighty-five I think, but yes.”

Eizo sat back and glared at him. “How American of you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You always take the best.”

“What else would I want?” asked Evan.

An hour later, Olivia returned, all smiles, and leaned against him, while he continued to sit. Her ass was distractingly near his face, but he pretended he didn’t notice as he wrapped his arm around her waist.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked. “I was starting to think that we lost you to the fish.”

“Well, you very nearly did,” she said, taking a piece of sushi off his plate with delicate fingers.

“What do you mean?” asked Eizo, eyeing her with a sort of skeptical amusement.

“Well,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth as she finished chewing, “we went to look in a tank and we were using one of those industrial step-ladders, you know the kind made of diamond-plate? And my heel got stuck in one of the holes, and I just about pitched headfirst into the fish tank. I think I gave Dr. Onishi a heart attack. I don’t know if it was because he thought I was going to drown or because he thought I was going to crash his tank, but either way, he may wish to consult a doctor.”

“You didn’t end up in the tank, though?” asked Evan, laughing.

“No, no, don’t laugh yet. That’s not the funny part. Just as I was thinking,holy crap I’m going to get squid in my hair, the little translator guy caught me. Only I look down and he’s got just a whole hand full of boob.”

Eizo began to laugh.

“Which I suppose I could have been offended about, but considering that he just saved me from a close encounter of the squid kind, I was inclined to let it go. But then he blushed. And I mean, blu-u-shed. I haven’t seen a blush that red on someone who wasn’t a redhead since, well, never. Anyway, the poor kid goes red like a cherry tomato. So, and this is totally unkind, and I’ll probably go to hell for it, I said,and he’s safe at second base. Poor kid nearly dropped me.”

Evan found himself laughing, which set Eizo off on another round.

“Yes, I’m a terrible person,” she agreed. “And I plan to feel bad about that later after it stops being funny.”

“So never, then?” asked Eizo.

“We’ll see,” she said. “Are these my chips?”

“Yes,” said Evan.

“Well, I guess they were starting to crowd the Blackjack table a bit,” she said, looking doubtful, “but, my, they did stack up.” She picked up one of the chips and flipped it from one knuckle to the next. “I do like this place better than Vegas. These days in Vegas, they just give you that stupid plastic card. Who wants a credit card? No one. You don’t feel like you’ve won anything!” She paused and flipped the chip in the air and caught it. “Although, you also don’t feel like you’ve lost anything, so I suppose that’s why they do it.” She put the chip back in the stack. “But chips are so much more fun.”

“Also, harder to carry,” said Evan, and she sighed.

“Stop being smart,” she said, leaning down to kiss him.