Gambling Men by Amy Lane

Author:Amy Lane
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2012-04-30T15:06:20+00:00

… Your Deal …

Quent

OH THANK God, poker night was back to normal. Between almost ending up in each other’s pants at the last game and Jace and Quent’s little relationship problem at Mitch’s house over Thanksgiving, Quent had been afraid they’d ruined the testosterone ritual forever. It was exactly the opposite, thank God! It was like their friends had always known about them and had never particularly given a shit. It was completely normal.

Jace had been the one to do that. He’d walked in and played like he always played—like he was a shark and money was blood, and his job was to make everyone else in the room bleed until he’d eaten his fill.

Something about walking into a room full of tough men and making them your personal ATM machines tended to make them think twice about prying into your sex life and concentrate on the game at hand.

And it helped that Quentin and Jace still bantered with (i.e. railed on) each other as they had since they’d started this game nearly five years before.

“Fold,” Quentin said, throwing his cards in. Jace peeked at his two pair—ace high, jack low—as the cards hit the table and swore. Usually, you didn’t see a guy’s hand, even when he folded, but Jace seemed to consider himself Quent’s personal poker coach, and the rest of the guys? They let him.

“Goddammit, Quent! You stay with a hand like that. That’s a strong hand!”

Quentin rolled his eyes. Jace bluffed with the steely-eyed blankness of an alligator. Is it sleeping? Is it dead? Is it going to rip your arm off with one deadly snap of a truly spectacular hand?

“Sure, that’s a strong hand. Until you beat it with an ace-high flush! Keep winning, oh mighty poker god. I’ve gotta use the head.”

As he stood up and threaded his way out of the back room of their favorite bar, where their game was held, he heard a chorus of groans that meant he’d been right. It had been time to show their cards, and Jace, per usual, held the winning hand.

He was not prepared to have Jace join him while he was in the bathroom standing at the urinal, though.

“Seriously, Quent!” Jace muttered, as though they had never stopped this conversation to take a leak. “When are you going to learn to hold a good hand?”

“I learned to hold you, didn’t I?” Quentin cracked, zipping up and moving to wash his hands. Jace hadn’t found his keel after Quentin had signed those legal papers; Quent knew it, and he wasn’t ashamed to use it.

“Funny.” Jace rolled his eyes, but in the over-bright lights of the sterile little bathroom, Quentin could see Jace’s blush over his shoulder in the mirror, right down to his stubbled scalp. Quentin’s grin cracked a flash of white through his dark goatee, and he leveled a sideways glance at his lover.

“At least you’re not telling me poker is life,” he said wryly. It was one of Jace’s favorite subjects. Poker is a metaphor for life, Quent.

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