Chapter One

“Luck is for losers.”

I hated it when Bill said that. I hated the tone, the words, the way it made me feel like just that: a loser.

“Shut up,” I said. “I can’t think with you jabbering at me like that.”

I ran a hand through my shaggy hair and stared down at the cards before me. I ignored the five laid out face-up in the middle of the table. I couldn’t do anything about them. The two hole cards face-down in front of me worried me though, and I hadn’t even looked at them.

Bill slapped a hand on the polished wood. The cards jumped off the table a fraction of an inch and settled right back down where they’d been. Nothing about them changed a bit.

“You think it’s hard to concentrate here, in a hotel room?” Bill sneered at me. “Just imagine how much worse it’s going to be on the floor in a real game with real money on the table.”

“We won’t be playing for chips?”

“Chips are money, Jackson,” he said. “That’s one of the tricks the casinos play on you to keep you coming back. Losing a stack of black chips doesn’t seem like that big a deal. But that stack’s worth all your textbooks for the year.”

I glared at Bill now. He stared back at me with his blue eyes under his dark, close-cut hair. Everything about him was razor-sharp, from the edges of his sideburns to the creases in his khakis. He was only nineteen, a few months older than me, but he always seemed far more sophisticated.

“You’re not helping, brother,” I said. I turned and reached for my laptop.

Bill lean...