“I’m gonna win some money,” Chloe informed the table.

“I’d love to see that,” I murmured, frowning as the dealer laid down my faceup card. A five of hearts.

“As would I.” Bennett slid easily into the last empty chair at the table, on the opposite side of the half circle from Chloe and beside Sara. Between me and Sara was a skinny man wearing a ten-gallon hat and one of the most fantastic bits of facial hair I’d ever seen.

When I busted with a score of twenty-five, I turned to look at the man more closely. “Mate, that is a bloody brilliant mustache.”

He tipped his hat, thanking me before busting with a twenty-two.

Chloe held, and the dealer revealed that Chloe had both the ace and jack of spades. The house had a jack on the up card, but flipped the hole card: a king. The dealer paid out Chloe’s winnings before collecting the cards on the table with a sweep of her hands.

“Told you!” Chloe sang, dancing in her seat and blowing Bennett a kiss. “It’s my lucky night.”

He responded with a tiny lift of his brow.

Looking across the room to the bar, I found Will, who was sipping his drink and fucking around on his phone. He looked up and caught my eye after a moment, giving me a silent fuck-you face, and I waved, indicating that I’d be back soon.

The problem was, blackjack was fucking fun. Chloe was cleaning up, winning hand after hand. And although Bennett and I were systematically losing all of our money, it didn’t bloody matter. The dealer was easygoing, Sara’s laugh was infectious, and Mustache had started cracking the best awful jokes between each hand.

“Doctor walks into a room,” he said, running his fingers over his mustache and winking at Chloe. “Says hi to the patient on the exam table, goes to make note of something on his chart.”

The dealer dealt our facedown cards and we all looked at the table in time to see the next cards arriving faceup.

“He realizes he’s holding a thermometer and frowns. ‘Well, fuck,’ he says, ‘some asshole’s got my pen.’ ”

And because her sense of humor was always easy and gutter-loving, Sara completely lost it, falling onto the soft padded edge of the table in laughter and looking lovelier than I think she had all night. She was flushed from whatever she’d had to drink, but even more than that, she looked positively blissful. When she looked up and caught me staring, her smile straightened as if liquid heat had trickled into her veins, and she blinked down to look at my mouth. Going back to find her at the theater had been the best decision of my night.

Come to think of it, the only good one. I gave her a wink, licked my lips.