We were early, the celebrities not in place to play the game yet, and we took up seats far in the back where the lighting was low and I could pull my dark baseball hat down low over my eyes.

  “If this is for charity,” Jenna whispered to me as we sat down, “then how does that work? Do they buy in and play for nothing? Does everyone go into it knowing they won’t win anything?”

  “Is this your first time?” a boisterous voice boomed from her left.

  Jenna glanced hesitantly at the big man next to her. He was wearing a Hard Rock café shirt, a Luxor lanyard with a card carefully tucked inside a plastic sleeve at the end, and a sun visor advertising a Britney Spears show from three years ago. The guy had to live around here. He was only in his mid-thirties, though tell it to his arteries. By the looks of him they were going on seventy.

  “It is,” Jenna answered warmly, her tone belying her wary eyes. “You’ve been to one before.”

  The guy laughed. “Try all of them! I never miss it. Different ones all the time. All year. Celebrities in and out of the casinos constantly. I have a wall of autographs and pictures with the players. It’s phenomenal, really. You should see more of them.”

  “It sounds amazing.”

  “You’ll love it. Just love it. But you were asking how the tournament works?”

  “Yeah. How do the buy-ins work and what are they playing for, besides charity? Do they win anything?”

  “Only a pile of cash!” he explained excitedly. “You can’t get people like Chet Misner and Barkley Thorpe out of bed without a purse.”

  “Where the hell do they get these names?” I mumbled.

  Jenna’s friend either didn’t hear me or he ignored me.

  He shuffled in his seat, turning toward Jenna excitedly. “Everyone buys in, right? Sometimes as much as twenty thousand dollars, but that doesn’t mean anything to these guys. They’re loaded. So they pay their twenty, they play the game, and if they win they walk away with a set amount. Depending on the charity it might be twenty percent to twenty-five percent of the pot. Between ten players buying in at twenty thousand dollars you’re talking about… let’s see, if you had ten and—“

  “Forty to fifty thousand dollars,” I rattled off, barely paying attention.

  People were filing into the room, one by one. I watched for one with brown hair and broad shoulders. A square jaw. Straight unbroken nose.

  “Yeah, yeah,” the guy said, sounding annoyed by my help. “That sounds right. So yeah, they can double their money. The rest goes to the charity.”

  “Why doesn’t the charity just hit them all up for twenty thousand dollars?” Jenna asked curiously.

  The guy laughed condescendingly. “Because where’s the fun in that?”

  Jenna smiled and turned away from him, acting suddenly interested in the people coming into the room. She laced her arm through mine and leaned her chin against my shoulder.

  “Trade me seats,” she whispered.

  I snorted. “Not a chance.”

  “He was looking at my chest half the time he was talking to me.”

  “Maybe he likes your tattoos.”

  “Maybe you’d like to take this seriously. I’m in hell over here.”

  “Networking.”

  “I do not want anything to do with this guy’s nets.”

  “No,” I chuckled. “I was answering your question. The reason the charities don’t just hit up celebrities for flat donations is because of the networking they do by bringing these people out and making them faces for their cause. Their friends see them playing, friends with equally deep pockets, and suddenly they want to donate too. If Sam was doing a Run For the Cure, would you sponsor her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Same deal. Except instead of a hundred dollars they’re probably getting five to ten thousand a head. Then there’s the ticket sales.” I nodded to the TV cameras set up all around the table in the center of the stage we were facing. “Broadcasting rights. Merchandising. Exposure.”

  Jenna nodded against my shoulder, her body leaning heavily into mine.

  I wasn’t complaining.

  We watched silently as people milled around the stage. A dealer came in, taking up camp in the dip at the center of the table. Another similarly dressed Luxor employee rolled in a heavy cart, presumably full of chips. Other people moved in and out of the shadows surrounding the small stage where the table sat. Most were probably people from the film crew. Only a couple looked like they could actually be players, none of them people I recognized. Not until the crowd started clapping.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath, watching a tall, blond man walk into the room and wave absently at the crowd. “That’s Kurtis Matthews.”

  “Who?”

  “Kurtis Matthews. He’s a tight end for the Montana Miners.”

  “He’s a football player? A famous one?”

  “Yeah. I heard he’s a gambler. Guess we’ll see how good of one.”

  Kurtis ignored everyone, even the girls who swarmed at the edge of the seating area and called his name. His eyes were cast down, his collar tipped high around his neck. He sat in his seat and folded his hands patiently, statue still.

  “Montana Miners,” Jenna grumbled to herself. “Is Montana even known for mining?”

  “No, but Minnesota is.”

  “What does Minnesota have to do with it?”

  “That’s where the team originally is from. The owner sold them forever ago and they relocated to Montana with the new owner.”

  “Why not change the name?”

  “Because they were a franchise at that point. It’d be like Applebee’s changing their name to Orangeblossom. It would only confuse people. It happens in every sport. The Lakers started in Minnesota too. The Jazz started in New Orleans, not Utah.”

  A rush of people suddenly poured into the entrance. A few took their seats but most hovered in a group, moving slowly forward toward the center table. They were laughing together and I recognized a couple of the celebrities. The mass stopped just shy of the stage and an eruption of cheers suddenly filled the auditorium. A guy with his back to us in jeans and a white V neck waved to the crowd, riling them up.

  I watched as Kurtis Matthews sat back in his chair at the table, pulled a black baseball hat from his jacket pocket, and pulled it down low over his eyes in response.

  I lifted my hand to adjust my hat, carefully doing the same.

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” Jenna whispered.

  I nodded, though I didn’t know how I knew. I just did. I knew it was him the way you know when someone is standing behind you. You can feel their presence pushing against yours, edging you out and making you uneven. I felt that way in that moment – off-kilter. Rough and raw on the inside, rigid as stone on the out.

  The swarm of women surged at him. They pushed the limits set by the guards stationed at intervals around the perimeter and called out his name when they were denied access to the stage. He lifted his head, pushed black sunglasses up into his thick, brown hair, and waved at them.

  “Oh, this is familiar,” Jenna mumbled dryly.

  “It was never this bad with me at the gym,” I protested, not taking my eyes off the show.

  She laughed incredulously. “Who are you kidding? It’s always been like this.”

  Suddenly he turned around, scanning the crowd and giving me my first glimpse of his face. I sucked in a sharp breath, holding it as it froze in my chest.

  Jenna gasped audibly. “Kellen—“

  “I know,” I said, cutting her off before she could say it. I wanted to rip the cap off my head, the hair from my scalp, and beat the shape from my face. From my nose and my chin. I wanted none of it, not now that I knew for sure where it’d all come from. Now that I knew it was fruit of a poisoned tree. “I look exactly like him,” I seethed quietly.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she laid her hand on top of mine and left it there, warm and soft. Gentle.

  “Maybe he’ll lose,” she said quietly. “Big. Maybe you’ll get to sit here and watch as thousands and thousands of dollars slip through his fingertips. As he squirms in his seat and his women turn cold, warming up to the winner across the table, and won’t that make you feel just a little bit better?”

  I allowed a small grin. “Maybe.”

  “Then we’ll stay,” she said squeezing my hand before letting it go. “We’ll watch and we’ll hope like hell that Kurtis Matthews kicks his ass.”

  I turned to her, looking into her dancing gray eyes and savoring the wicked smirk on her sweet mouth. I couldn’t stop myself. I leaned in and kissed her softly, slowly, tasting the delicious flavor of her light and letting it burn away the angry bitterness on my tongue.

  I pulled away, then returned for one last quick taste. “I love you, Nonpareil,” I whispered almost silently.

  Jenna smiled. “I love you too, Kellen.”

  “Here we go!” the burly man on the other side of Jenna called excitedly.

  The room erupted in cheers as the last of the contenders took their place at the table, Barkley Thorp included, and I resigned myself to the fact that this was happening.

  I was in the same state, same city, same room as my dad. I had the same hair, the same nose, the same chin and chest and arms and cheeks. We were cut from the same mold, and suddenly for the first time in my life I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to know the whys of what he did, of what my mom did. The whys of how my life turned out the way it did, but most of all I wanted to find out what was underneath everything that looked so familiar to me. Under the face that mimicked mine, under the hate I’d buried him under.

  For the first time in my life I wanted to know the man behind the mask.

  Chapter Thirty

  Kellen

  He won. My dad took the purse, shook hands with the losers and joked with the stars like they were old friends. Once his job was finished, though, he immediately searched the emptying stands.

  I didn’t run and I didn’t hide. Instead I tipped my hat back on my head until my face was exposed, and as the lights came up in the room and the cameras were packed away, our eyes met. They were the only thing different about us. The only thing I’d taken from my mom instead of him. While mine were a dark blue his were a rich green tinged with brown. Earthy and honest looking, but I knew he was a liar. It was his job. It was his way.

  “Kellen,” he called up to the stands.

  I stood, stuffing my hands in my pockets to still them. “Dad,” I answered, the word foreign on my tongue.

  He smiled and I wanted to scream because of how disarming it was. How real. He was genuinely excited to see me, his face beaming as he walked up the steps toward us. I felt Jenna stand next to me and when he took notice of her his face changed slightly. It softened the way the world did in her presence. He greeted her first, offering her his hand and thanking her again for bringing me to the event. She said something I didn’t hear, things I’d never remember, and then he was looking at me. Smiling at me.

  It was my smile. The one Jenna loved. The one I used too sparingly.

  It looked like he used it without compulsion, doling it out like candy and air.

  “Kellen,” he repeated reverently. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”

  I swallowed hard, my hands balled into fists in my pockets. “Congratulations on the win.”

  “Thank you. Thanks, so—Kellen. I understand you have a boxing match tomorrow? I’d love to come watch if that’s alright?”

  “It’s open to the public.”

  His smile fluttered, threatening to fade.

  “I’ll text you the information,” Jenna promised. “The where and the when.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Barkley looked to me again. Jenna looked at the floor. Both got the same amount of reaction from their subject. “Have you eaten dinner?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Alright. Do you want to get a drink? There’s a bar in this hotel with an incredible DJ.”

  “No.”

  Barkley put his lips together in a tight, straight line, the warmth in his eyes fading. “If you were going to stonewall me maybe you should have saved us all the time and trouble and not contacted me in the first place.”

  I stared at him blankly, feeling trapped; mired by so many emotions that I couldn’t begin to sort them under the murky surface. I wasn’t angry or sad. Not happy or relieved to finally meet him. I was something else, something strange and muddled and it caged me. It backed me into a corner I didn’t know how to get out of or even if I wanted out.

  Barkley sighed, turning his back. I thought he would leave. He’d walk away and I’d never talk to him again, never wade into these swampy waters, but instead of leaving he took up one of the metal chairs behind him, spun it around to face me, and sat down. He motioned for us to do the same.

  Jenna sat down immediately. I didn’t follow suit until she tugged lightly on my arm.

  “We don’t have to go anywhere,” he explained. “We don’t have to pretend. Personally, I like a little candor. My job is pretty smoke and mirrors so straightforward will be refreshing.” He spread his hands openly. “Ask me anything you want. I’ll answer every question. I’ve wanted to talk to you your whole life. I’ll talk about rubber bands if that’s what you’re into.”

  “Do you really own the Tampa Bay Rays?” I blurted out, putting voice to the first foolish thing that popped into my head.

  He grinned. “Not exclusively. Me and six other guys own the team. I’m not even the majority owner.”

  “How can you afford to send me the money you do every month?”

  “It wasn’t easy to start. I didn’t have my finances as sorted back then as I do now, but these days it’s not a problem. I’ve made a lot of money in tournaments. Honestly, I’ve made more at private tables, but don’t tell Uncle Sam that. I get invited to sit in with whales; guys with more money than you can imagine. I don’t go easy on them. I take all the money from them I can because that’s how I play. To win. For some reason they like me, even when they’re losing to me. When I was younger I offered them tips on gambling and they offered me tips on stocks. Big trades that could wipe me out if I took a chance on them, but I didn’t hesitate. Gambler’s blood, I guess. It runs cold. Every time you sit down at a table you have to consider your money already lost. You’re playing for nothing. Every hand is the same. You keep it calm. You keep your cool and you stand to make a lot of money. The stock market is the same way. It was a good fit for me. What I send to you, it’s a large portion of the interest earned on one of my savings accounts.”

  I nodded distractedly, barely listening. My blood hummed in my veins, my ears buzzing wildly.

  Barkley glanced between Jenna and I, spreading his hands again. “Anything else? Honestly, anything. I’ll—“

  “Why did my mom hate you?” I spit out.

  There it was. The center of my universe. The crux of my pain and suffering, my doubt and fear. The greatest ‘why’ in my entire life that had set the rest of the events into motion that would nearly destroy me. This was the answer to everything, but most importantly it was my mom’s salvation. Her restoration in my eyes. This single, solitary ‘why.’

  “I don’t know,” Barkley told me plainly. His face fell, the first negative emotion he’d shown since I saw him walk into this room. “I wish I understood it but I don’t. Not a hundred percent.”

  I stared at him, stone still. Frozen as a block of ice.

  “You don’t know?” I asked, nearly whispering.

  Jenna sat forward, catching his eye. “What part do you understand? You said you don’t understand one hundred percent, but what of it do you know?”

  “She was looking for something I couldn’t give her,” he explained to Jenna. “We were young and she was lonely. I was fun. She needed that and I liked her a lot. Madeline, she was a wonderful woman. Smart, funny, sexy; the whole package. But what she wanted from me… I couldn’t give her.”

  “You couldn’t love her,” I spat.

  Barkley sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I’m not a bad guy, Kellen, but I’m not the guy, do you know what I mean?”

  I shook my head stiffly.

  “You’re not a leading man,” Jenna offered.

  Barkley’s eyes lit up and he pointed at her gratefully. “Yes, exactly. Yeah. I’m not the guy who falls in love with the right girl and changes his ways, settles down, and makes a family. That’s not me. I got kicked out of my own family for refusing to settle down and quit the gambling, and that’s what Madeline wanted too. My parents gave up on me. Cut me off and kicked me out. Maddie was a lot of fun and I loved being with her but I didn’t love her. Not like she wanted me to. I thought she understood that, but when you were born I think she hoped I’d fall in love with her and you and everything, but I didn’t. I held you and nothing in me changed for us.”

  “You held me?” I asked roughly.

  He nodded faintly. “Yeah. I was there at the hospital when you were born. I was with her. I didn’t abandon her, is what I’m trying to tell you. I went to every doctor visit. I made sure she was comfortable. I offered to help get her a place of her own, get her out of that dank little apartment, but she wouldn’t take it.”

  “You didn’t offer to have her move in with you?”

  “No,” he replied unapologetically. “I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be tied down to anyone, not even Maddie. It wasn’t what I was looking for and I didn’t want to lie to her about that. If I’d committed to her I’d have cheated on her, I know that for a fact. I knew it then. It’s why I never made that promise. But you, it wasn’t like that with you. Not in my mind. I could separate you, my kid, from Maddie and I. When you were born on that day-“

  “Your lucky number.”

  He smiled. “Double eights. And you were eight months. You came early. Born eight pounds seven ounces on August 8th. It was like a sign from God. My number kept coming up and I felt so relieved when you were born. I thought everything was going to work out fine. Like I said, I was in the hospital room when you were born. Maddie held you then they handed you to me and I think she expected that to be the moment. She wanted that to change my mind about her and us, and it didn’t and so she kicked me out. Out of the hospital, out of her life, out of yours. It blindsided me. I was furious. Just because I couldn’t be what she wanted me to be for her she wouldn’t let me be anything to you. That hurt. You’re my blood and she took you from me. She hid you. I’ve never gotten over that. I’ve wondered about you every day of your life.”