“Strip Poker?” I question, and they all stare at me like I have three eyes.

“Fuck you, Dex, you think I’m going to let you see my girl naked?” Trey says, winking at Kailey. “Although you’re missing something pretty spectacular.” She giggles next to me, and I want to lean over and vomit.

“I’ve already seen her,” I mention, and Kailey slaps me over the head.

“WHAT?” Trey stands up, peering down at me.

“I accidentally walked in on her once,” I tell him, and his nostrils start flaring.

Kailey cocks her head to the side and gives him a long sigh. “No, he didn’t, he’s just joking, baby,” she says.

“Do you think we didn’t all hear you every time you told her to ‘make sure you lock Dex’s door’?” I give my best Trey voice. Lame as it might be.

“So, you didn’t, right?” he persists.

“No, man, I’ve never seen your girl naked,” I laugh, and Kailey joins with me.

“Thank god. I was seeing red there for a minute,” he sits back down and shuffles the cards.

We end up playing poker, but no stripping involved. For hours, we rip each other apart and laugh remembering stories. Grant and Brady start talking about when they were younger, and Brady, Trey, and I go back down memory lane as freshman. It’s like old times except the three women they all love sit next to them. I can’t help but feel like the odd man out, not that I want to join them. It actually scares me that what’s happened to them is going to happen to me. That some girl will walk into my life, and I’ll be them in three months.

Hours pass by and suddenly Elena, Trey’s mom is at the screen door. “Trey, Chloe’s screaming, and I can’t calm her down. She’s calling for you.” Trey bolts up, and Kailey follows. Minutes later Kailey emerges back through the door.

“Is she okay?” Jessa asks.

“Yeah, she has them on and off. Usually when she’s thrown off her routine or overtired. Trey’s calming her down now. He’ll sing her their song. It’s like a magic spell that calms her down.”

I excuse myself from the table to use the bathroom when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, but I don’t recognize the number, so I let it go to voicemail. After I finish taking a piss, my phone alerts me of a voice message.

“Hi, Dex, It’s Hank down at Weddles. I thought you’d want to know a pretty hot dirty blonde you know is here. She’s been playing for an hour and losing kinda bad. Figured since you guys have always been so close, you might want to take care of this yourself. “Fuck me, what the hell is she doing there? Why the hell is she tossing her money away, she has always been so against “the lifestyle”?

Sneaking upstairs, hoping to catch Trey to say goodbye. I don’t really want to explain myself to the others. I hear his voice from the top of the stairs. He’s lying with Chloe, singing “Elderly Woman Behind a Counter In a Small Town” by Pearl Jam. It’s an incredible sight to see him with his daughter, the love he has for not only her, but all of them emanates from him daily. Not that I would ever tell him. Once he finishes the last of the lyrics, she’s fast asleep and he slides out from beside her. Quietly he shuts the door and points me down the hall.

“Sorry, man, I gotta go.” I shake his hand, and he pulls me into a one arm hug. “Great song by the way. It really fits the two of you.”

“Yes, it does. I feel like I’ve never been apart from her.” His face has a sappy look of contentment. “Thanks for coming. Thanks for her dollhouse. She loves it.” Trey says.

He walks me to the door, and I venture outside alone. I climb into my truck, figuring my night just took a turn I wasn’t expecting.

When I arrive at Weddles down in the city, I walk through the door, into the dark and dingy shack of a bar. Old men are slumped over in their chairs, half naked working girls, peering my way. I nod to Hank and the others before knocking on the red door in the back hallway. When Jeff sees it’s me, he opens the door, and I spot her in the middle seat among a bunch of middle-aged men. Sitting back, I watch her for a while. She’s playing stupid, not at all like her usual style. Sloppy and all over the place. The only thing she has going on for herself is the men keep flirting with her and underestimating how talented she really is at a poker table. I wish I could wait and see if she can turn this around, but when the bald comb over guy next her reaches around and kisses her under her ear I can’t wait patiently anymore.

I’m out of the old vinyl chair I’m occupying before he can sit straight into his own chair again. Ivy behind the table spots me coming and holds her deal, knowing I’m about to steal one of her players. When my hand wraps around her bare arm, she jolts up. Those gorgeous sky blue eyes swim into mine shocked to find it’s me. Yanking her off the stool, the men whine that I’m taking her away. Ivy does her job and quietly settles them down with a joke, making them forget the whole scene entirely. Once we escape into the dingy cover up bar, she tears her arm out of my hand and whips around to face me.

“What the hell? I had them,” she tells me. I haven’t seen her this angry since high school when I beat her boyfriend at blackjack. She’d begged me to take it easy on him, to let him win, but fuck that.

“You didn’t have them. You’re under by over five bills. You’ll never make it up, and pretty soon Len will come in and stop it himself. Why the hell are you here anyway? Aren’t you the one who hates this scene? Everything and everyone who’s involved?” I remind her of heated words she spoke to me not only four months ago.

“I do. Just let me go back in there.” She’s digging into her pockets, no doubt searching for more money.

“Hell no, you stay here.” I signal to Hank to get her a drink and position her on the stool. Since she already appears as though she’s had her fair share of drinks tonight, she’ll probably happily accept what Hank offers her.

I retreat back to the room, walking past the poker tables and through the black curtains. Len’s there like I assumed, eyebrows raised and a tight smile. Digging into my pocket, I toss the bills on the table in front of him, and he picks up the money. Motioning for me to take a seat, I happily pull out a chair and join him. “She’s been here a few times, there are rumors around town,” Len begins to tell me.

“Why didn’t anyone call me before? We know she’s not involved in all this.” I lean up, resting my elbows on the table.

“I thought you left her a long time ago?” he coyly questions, lifting his dark amber liquid drink to his lips.

“We just went different paths. What are the rumors? Ralph?” I question, already knowing the answer.

“Who else? He’s a damn fuck up.” He shakes his head. “She’s in the thick of it, Edge.” He refers to me by the nickname my dad and Ralph gave me the first time I made the right picks when I was nine.

I sit there for fifteen minutes, letting Len fill me in on what I should have been told by either her or my damn dad months ago. Why am I surprised they were covering up Ralph’s fuck up again? Who the hell knows! He’s given her a damn life filled with nothing but heartbreak and poverty.

Len says he’ll alert me if he sees her again, but we both know he won’t. Not unless he needs me to bail her out again. That’s exactly why I’m taking control of this situation whether she likes it or not. She’ll fight me every step, so I’ll keep my new found knowledge to myself until she’s ready to reveal what’s really going on.

She’s slumped over the bar when I return, her dishwater blonde hair splayed across the dirty ass wood in front of her. An empty shot glass rests in her hand. The clothes she’s wearing filthy with stains. Her sandals are missing a strap across the top. She’s a fucked up mess, but my mess to clean up now.

“What the hell, Hank?” I question him, and he shrugs his shoulders.