Andres
I watched as Kaitlin glanced wildly at the pile of blocks and then back at me, as if I’d suggested sweeping the game off the table and bending her over it right there in front of everyone. Which was a beautiful thought, only I was in no mood to get slapped by an outraged stranger or banned for life by the bouncers. So I clarified, “I’m asking you for a game.”
“No way!” She looked scandalized.
“Why not?” I asked peaceably.
“I haven’t played since I was a kid.”
I shrugged. “There’s not a lot to remember. You move the blocks without knocking them down.”
She glanced at the tuft of bills poking up from my front pocket, making me sizzle at the thought of what lay inches from her gaze. Her pause was brief, as if the image occurred to her too, and then to my disappointment she dragged her eyes away. “Well, I don’t gamble.” Pout. “And if you’re one of those grifters who roam from bar to bar, making a living conning unsuspecting marks into playing against you—”
“I don’t roam from bar to bar,” I answered, counting off on my fingers, “because I consider this one my spiritual home.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because this!” I pointed out some of the bar’s best features: faded Bob Marley posters, one of which was allegedly signed by a bona fide Wailer, rows of 45 and long-play records hot-glued to the wall, the dusty taxidermized body of an oversized hammerhead shark suspended above the counter on piano wire, and seven twirling disco balls that snatched light from the ceiling and broke it into colorful shards before scattering them around the room like sparkly birdseed. “Can’t beat that with a two-by-four!”
I became more serious, more sincere, for some reason anxious to be believed. “I don’t con anyone. My challengers play me of their own free will. And they sure as hell aren’t unsuspecting; my reputation precedes me all the way from here to Ocho Rios.” I cocked my head. “And I don’t intend to play you for money.” Although judging from the blessedly brief designer dress and the flash of red on the soles of her shoes, I was guessing she wasn’t short of that commodity.
My words of self-defense should have reassured her, but they only made her more suspicious. Her long lashes came down over chestnut eyes like shutters as she peered at me cautiously through the smoke. “What, then?”
I carefully adjusted my tone to make it sound as if the prize in question wasn’t the one thing I desired more than anything. “A dance.” And in case she didn’t get it, I added, “with me.”
She looked momentarily affronted, but then, for no reason I could discern, her suspicion seemed to fade and a flicker of a smile crossed her lips. “But what do I get if I win?”
“You get to dance with me.”
My audacity made her laugh, and with a gesture that could have been insulting if she hadn’t arched her brow playfully at the same time, she said, “Try again.”
With a graceful hand, fingers studded with silver rings, she flipped her braids over her shoulder, drawing my eyes to the shape of her jaw and the curve of her neck. The hollows in her throat, bared by the simple gesture, made me wonder what she’d smell like if I buried my nose right there.
It occurred to me just then that I’d never wanted to play this dumb game with anyone more than I did with her. That urgent need made me foolhardy. “If you win,” I coaxed, “You can name your forfeit.”
A glimmer of surprise, followed by a mischievous thought that I wished I could read in detail, and then Kaitlin grabbed a chair, scooped the wayward blocks toward the middle and began setting the game up. “Bring it!”
I bellied up to the table almost cautiously, eying her deft hands as they stacked block upon block, building the tower whose inevitable collapse would determine how the rest of the evening would go. At the back of my mind I was aware it was getting late; I didn’t even need to check my watch to verify. A slow, familiar ache was beginning to spread from the middle of my back outwards, down to my pelvis and up to my shoulders as my body began whispering it was time. Time to go through my nightly routine of stretching, self-soothing, and meds to dull the pain that would inevitably come.
But agonizing though it always was, that pain was still a couple hours off. I was in the here and now, in a smoke-filled, outdated coastal bar, with Beres Hammond’s melodious rasp washing over me from the speakers, clusters of locals swaying their hips to the reggae beat, and this curvaceous creature seated opposite. Under the relentless flash of colored lights her sapodilla skin glowed. Her lipstick was rich and dark, like the lips of a vampire who’d recently fed. I imagined what it would feel like if she bit me.
As if on cue, her white teeth flashed at me in triumph as she finished her Jenga tower and gestured to it. “You first.”