“Yeah.” Too bad the nice time they were starting to have together is sure to come to an end as soon as they reenter the loud, overwhelming main part of the bar.
As they start to move away from the table, Mr. Deloitte sighs. “Fine. Five hundred.”
Charlie pauses, turns. He has a strange fake smile on his face, one that Gretchen’s never seen him wear before. “Five hundred? That’s a lot of cash, my friend.”
“To some people, maybe.” The guy glances at the model, raising an eyebrow as if to say,I make a lot of money, please be impressed.She mostly looks bored, as she has the entire conversation.
“Okay. You’re on. Eight ball, winner breaks,” Charlie says. “Three-game race?”
“Charlie—” Gretchen starts, but he takes her hand and gives it a firm squeeze. Which is unexpected enough to silence the rest of her objection.
“Found your balls, huh?” The consultant hands the beer he’s holding to his companion, who takes it without any acknowledgment or change in her expression or posture. “Let’s go.”
And then... Gretchen watches Charlie play pool against a DC bro.It’s like watching my present fighting my past. She sets down the pint of beer she’s been nursing since Dutch delivered it a moment ago, as if the few sips she’s had may be to blame for that ridiculous thought.
Charlie wins the first and second games, but not by much. And then he fouls by pocketing the cue ball on his first shot during the third. He shakes his head as if disappointed in himself, but when his eyes meet Gretchen’s across the table he...
Charlie fuckingwinks.
And that’s when it hits her. She has to admit, Charlie puts on a good show, making it look like he’s just not quite skilled enough to carry out his shots. Anyone who isn’t watching the way his shoulders shift ever so slightly as he takes aim would have no reason to suspect a thing. But Gretchen’s eyes have become so attuned to his movements that it’s now clear as day to her that he is intentionally throwing this game. He’shustling. She knows this playbook, grew up reading it, wrote a page or two of it herself, even. ButCharliefollowing it feels like she’s in a bizarro world.
“What the actual fuck are you doing?” she whispers when he comes close to her to take a sip of his beer after officially losing the third game.
He shrugs, but that crooked grin on his face tells her that he knows exactly what she means. “Playing pool.”
She watches as Charlie sinks a ball, then miscues on his next shot. He’s good at pretending not to be good at this.Have I ruined this man?But no, her influence isn’t enough to account for Charlie knowing how to hustle. He’s done this before, she realizes. And then has absolutely no clue what to do with that information.
“Shit,” Charlie mutters after he loses the fourth game too.
His opponent nods, his grin smug. “Keep playing, man. Practice makes perfect.”
“Yeah, good advice.” Charlie glances over to Gretchen again and presses his lips together. To anyone else he might look frustrated, disappointed. But she spots how the corner of his mouth struggles not to rise. He’s hiding something like giddiness as he grabs the back of his neck, turns to Mr. Deloitte, and says, “I’m feeling like my luck’s about to pick up. What do you say we change this to a race to four, double or nothing?”
The asshole weighs the proposition, no doubt thinking about the first and second games versus the third and fourth, trying to determine if Charlie’s luck might actually return. Guys like this always err on the side of arrogance, though, so it’s not surprising when he nods and says, “A thousand bucks? Sure a hick like you can afford that?”
God, Charlie picked a perfect mark. Gretchen really has to hand it to him.
He makes a show of checking his pockets, then says, “I might need to hit up an ATM. But I can scrape it together.”
The next game goes just like the last one, though. Charlie is missing more than he’s making, and he loses again. “What are you doing?” Gretchen hisses when he comes over to partake of the nachos someone dropped off a few minutes ago.
“My best,” he says out of the corner of his mouth as he chews.
“Are you, though?” Gretchen wants to tell him that if he’s in over his head, she can help. She can find a way to intervene before he loses a shit ton of money—money she knows he desperately needs. But offering to lie on the spot would definitely add alarge tally to the pro column of hisIs Gretchen Acorn a fraud?accounting. So she keeps her mouth shut.
Charlie bends down as he puts his beer back on the high-top table and whispers, “Trust me.”
And then he goes back to eke out a win. They’re tied at three games apiece now. The next game will be the last. Some might think the two players are evenly matched. But Gretchen knows better, just from those few shots she watched Charlie take when they were playing around earlier. The relief whenthatCharlie returns! It’s like watching a completely different person as he runs the table after the break. The feigned timidity and the hesitation disappear. There are no slight adjustments after he takes aim. He’s on fire—the way he could have been this entire time if he felt like it—and Mr. Deloitte can tell he’s been had. His face gets redder and redder with each sunken ball. Charlie shrugs and smiles, as if he can’t believe just how powerfully his luck has come charging back.
His opponent looks like he’s going to burst a blood vessel when it’s finally his turn, and his anger interferes with his concentration, causing him to miscue.
Charlie gives him a sympathetic look that Gretchen is surprised doesn’t immediately get him punched in the face. “Eight ball to bottom right corner,” he says, going in for the kill. It’s a complex shot with one of his opponent’s balls in the way—not something an amateur should be able to make. Of course, Charlie Waybill is no amateur.
Gretchen gathers up their jackets, because her Eichorn DNA is whispering to her to plan for a hasty exit.
The cue ball jumps over the obstacle in its way, hits the bumper, and careens into the eight, sinking it into the bottom rightcorner. Several people have gathered around to watch as the game progressed, and now someone lets out a whistle of appreciation.
“Damn, Waybill,” Dutch says. “That wasfiiine.”
