Chapter Eight

Part 4

I was still wet from the shower when Winter showed up.

“Hey,” she said cautiously. “Are you all right?”

“Not really,” I replied. “I need to talk to you. Thanks for coming.”

“No problem,” she said, my comments clearly augmenting her concern.

I brought her back to my room and sat her down on the bed. I had no idea whether she was going to offer condemnation or consolation, but I was hoping for the latter. Of course, once she was there, I had trouble finding the words. I took a step back and started to pace. How was I going to tell her this? She knew about the first game but had no clue how deep a hole I had dug for myself since then. What if she just berated me and stormed out? At this point, it was probably the reaction I deserved.

“Mike, can you just tell me what’s going on?” she asked finally. “ ’Cuz you’re starting to freak me out here.”

“Sorry. Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath and looked her in the eye. “I’m kind of in a lot of trouble.”

Winter leaned forward as I told her the whole story. Once I got started I became quite garrulous, actually. I told her all about the high-stakes game and Dominic and his friends and how I had thought they were so easy to beat. While I spoke, she listened carefully, commiserating at all the right moments and growing paler and paler as I related the amounts of money I had lost.

“So . . . what’s the cumulative damage?” she asked finally. “How much have you actually lost?”

I swallowed against a dry throat. “All of it,” I said. “Every last dime.”

Winter whistled long and low. She leaned back on her hands. “Well. That is quite the quandary,” she said.

“Tell me about it,” I replied, sitting down next to her. I put my head in my hands and stared at the floor. At least she wasn’t flipping out. Her calm demeanor seemed like a propitious sign.

“Sorry,” I said. “When I asked you out you probably thought you were getting involved with this upstanding, responsible guy. I feel like I misled you,” I added with a wry laugh.

Winter leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “It’s cool. It actually kind of makes you more interesting,” she joked. And I laughed. Even in all my misery, I laughed.

“So, forgive me if I’m suggesting the obvious here, but why don’t you just get a job?” she asked.

“I would, but I have a deal with my parents,” I told her. “I’m only allowed to have part-time jobs during the summer and when it’s not football season. They want any time I’m not spending on practice and games to be spent studying. They’re afraid that if I try to do too much my grades will suffer.”

The irony, of course, was that they were suffering anyway.

“So if you got a job now, they would be suspicious,” she said.

“They would probably make me quit,” I replied with a nod.

Winter took a deep breath and blew it out. She stood up and ran her hands through her hair, contemplating me. As she bit her lip, I knew she was forming a plan. I just had no idea what it might be.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Well, I think I might know a way I can help you, but . . .”

My heart skipped in excitement. I felt like she was about to throw me a life raft, and I sat up straight.

“But what?”

“Well, the last thing you should probably do is get involved in more gambling,” she said. “But . . .”

The muscles in my shoulders and neck coiled. More gambling? What was she talking about?

“Winter, what is it? I’m out of ideas here. If you can help . . .”

She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but here it is. My brother . . . you know my brother Gray.”

I nodded. Gray had graduated a couple of years ago and went to our local community college.

“Well, he and his friends have a weekly game too,” she said. “They play at my house, and they’re not exactly the greatest players. Gray’s friend Lenny is totally obtuse, and he has a penchant for going all in.”

I knew the Lenny she was talking about. Lenny Racine. He had always been a total jerk to me when he went to Hillside, and I felt nothing but antipathy for the guy. Like Dominic, he would be someone I wouldn’t mind winning money from.

“If you could get into their game . . . well, it might be a way out of destitution,” she said

I don’t think I had ever been more enamored of her than I was in that moment. Of course, there was one small flaw in the plan.

“Thanks, but I don’t even have any money to bet with,” I said.

“I could lend you some,” Winter offered.

I snorted a laugh. “Thanks, but I don’t want to be your debtor,” I said. I was already in it up to my eyeballs with Ian. “What if I lost and couldn’t compensate you? Somehow I don’t think that would be good for our relationship.”

It certainly hadn’t been good for my relationship with Ian.

“Well, what else are you going to do?” Winter asked.

A very good question.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Well, what if you don’t have to pay me back?” she asked.

“Yeah, right,” I said.

“No! I’m serious!” Winter dropped down onto the bed, causing us both to bounce. “Look, it’ll be my philanthropic act for the year,” she said. “I’ll lend you the money, and if you lose it, you won’t have to pay it back, but that’ll be it. It’s going to be a one-time thing. That way we both know what the rules are going in. You won’t ask me for more, and I won’t be mad you lost my money because I know the risks.”

I was tempted. Of course I was. But she was clearly nuts. “I can’t do that,” I said. “I can’t just take your money.”

“You’re forgetting that if you win, you will be paying me back,” she said. “It’s only if you lose that I’m down. Have a little confidence, football star.”

I looked at her in awe. How could I have possibly been so lucky to find someone this amazing?

“You’re incredible, you know that?” I said.

She smiled. “Who’s espousing my virtues now?” she joked. “But listen, you have to promise me something.”

“Anything,” I replied quickly.

“If you do lose the money, and I’m not saying you will, because, trust me, these guys are not the sharpest tools in the shed . . . But if you do, you have to tell your parents what’s going on,” she said. “You have to put an end to this.”

Nothing filled me with more dread than the thought of confessing to my parents. I took a deep breath to try to quell the butterflies in my stomach and around my heart and finally nodded. If that was a condition she wanted to impose, then I would have to go with it. I had no other options.

“Fine,” I said. “If I lose, I’ll tell them. I promise.”

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me, and I stared past her at the football trophies over my bed. I knew that if I wanted Winter to trust me—if I had any chance of keeping her as my girlfriend—that this promise was irrevocable. But it was also the last promise in the world I wanted to fulfill. I would just have to win. That was all there was to it. I had to win.