Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 92

Hey y'all! Happy summer! I can't promise I will publish a lot this summer, but I would like to get a few chapters out. This one should be a good one! Let me know your thoughts and feelings in the comments. Don't forget to leave a like! 

Enjoy! 

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For the umpteenth damn time, Cal reaches around my body and our cards for a drink of his Shirley Temple.

It breaks my focus. While my eyes stay trained on the other players, shadowy as they are, I feel the slight shift of Cal's body against mine. His chest presses into my shoulder, and the tart scent of fruit rushes back into my nose. Cal's other hand stays settled on my hip, relaxed now, although it could turn into a vice at a moment's notice.

I have to listen as ice clinks against his glass, as he quietly takes yet another sip. Cal hasn't taken more than three drinks in the thirty minutes I've been here, but it feels like three dozen.

Straining my neck, I angle my mouth at his ear, painfully aware of how close our lips come as I move. "Stop doing that," I mutter.

I'm angry enough that I have to take my eyes off the table.

"Doing what?" he returns. I wish he weren't genuinely confused.

"Drinking that. It's distracting."

"Drinking my drink?"

"Yes," I hiss back.

Cal raises his Shirley Temple to his lips again, this time drinking it in an obnoxious, intentional slurp. I'm sure he angles his mouth towards my ear. I wish I could start him on fire.

My lips are still paused at Cal's ear. My cheeks heat up as I realize how it's kind of cute the way that Cal slurps his drink like a child to piss me off.

Fuck me.

I force my attention back on the poker game. The big, glossy wooden table that Cal and I sit before is littered with poker chips, cards, and a gaggle of candles in the middle. The candlelight just reaches the edges of the game, so I can make out the others' faces when I focus my eyes. Their hands are more important, though. With another glance around the table, I take in their rings and bracelets and watches.

The others aren't as bad at poker as I had hoped. Some of them throw money at anything, but most show a little constraint. Some smile, some wear stone-cold faces. Cal and I might be the only sober players in the room, but apparently, that doesn't mean all the rest are incompetent. We've done okay so far, but not as well as I'd like. Cal mostly sits back, watches my hands over my shoulder, only budding in when he really thinks one way or another.

Contrary to how I feel on the inside—over the man I'm sitting on, over Maven, over everything—I wear a slight grin. A stage face, if one will. Even when Cal takes another slurp of his stupid drink, I smile.

I drop another four poker chips—they each represent hundreds—into my betting pile. With a queen and a nine in hand, Cal and I will get a full house.

As the betting ends, I toss down my cards so that the others can see them. So do three others. In the table's center, there's a queen, a nine, and an ace. That's the only thing that concerns me, but—

To my right, one of the girls puts down an ace and a nine.

That pisses me off. I can't help the wince of irritation that crosses my face, especially as I take in the gaudy rings and smug look that the girl wears. She sits on the lap of some guy or other. He looks rich and smarmy.

Don't assume, Mare. Maybe she's poor and just picked up an incredibly rich boyfriend. After all, a girl from East Harlem is sitting on the lap of the wealthiest man in the room.