‘Celeste,’ she said. She eyed Jules as you might a steak: hungrily, greedily. Jules was shocked to meet her eyes and see a jolt of recognition. They were the same. And in that moment, to Jules, that didn’t seem like such a bad thing. She looked great, she was obviously doing well for herself and she was having a good time. Jules wondered what pain she was burying beneath the stacks of chips and then wondered if it mattered.

Celeste wasn’t a bad player but Jules had her tells mastered quickly: her bob tucked behind her left ear, a twist of the hoop in her right. Jules knew her own tells and worked hard to override them.

‘Pfft!’ Celeste would exclaim when she lost a hand, often followed by an ‘Alors…’ with a shrug. It was usually at this point that a woman would make her way over to Celeste and they would speak rapidly in hushed tones. Jules couldn’t tell whether it was friendly or not.

‘They always want me to stay! They love me here!’ Celeste said melodramatically, and Jules swallowed uncomfortably, her eyes raking over the room. Noticing the small interactions between clients and croupiers and the casino management for the first time. Drinks being brought over, small gifts, extensions of credit. Jules was here of her own free will, as she was when she gambled online. How many of the others here were? There was a grubbiness to the scene she wanted to distance herself from.

Nina and Alice crashed over then, giddy. Alice up a couple of hundred euro and Nina down. ‘Come on,’ Alice was saying, ‘champagne on me.’ Jules saw Celeste smirk and felt a wash of embarrassment. They didn’t see how things worked here, even though it was right in front of them.

‘You guys go ahead, I’ll catch you up,’ Jules said, but to her irritation her friends stuck around, curious. She felt unmoored, exposed, her two lives intersecting.

‘Where did you learn to play?’ Nina asked in between hands.

‘I’m no expert. We’ve had a few work things at casinos.’

‘So you start with two cards, and if they’re good you put in money to stay in the game, and if they’re bad, you fold and leave the game?’

‘Right,’ said Jules, but she sounded distracted.

‘And then three cards are laid in the middle, which anyone can use?’ Nina continued. She’d spent a lot of time in pubs with her Uncle Seamus growing up.

‘The flop,’ Alice giggled. She knew that bit.

‘Then you can put more money in and play on for another card…’

‘The turn…’

‘Right, the turn, and then if you’re still going, and you put in even more money, there’s one final card, the river?’

‘Yep, you’ve got it,’ Jules said quickly, then indicated it was time to be quiet as a new hand was dealt.

Jules looked at her cards and instantly stiffened, every hair on her body standing on end. She had a good hand. A damn good hand. She found the strip of white light in her head, the beam of calm. Focused on it, thinking ahead, through plays and possibilities. She surveyed the stacks of chips before her. She took a deep, steadying breath and pushed the whole lot over the betting line. €3,000. Behind her, she heard Alice gasp and she wondered what Nina was thinking. When it came to her friends, was this her biggest tell of all?