We all laugh and Jess takes a pull of her bottle as I lift mine to my lips, too. “I love you girls. Thank you.”

Ashlei shrugs. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“Do you guys mind if I talk to Little alone?”

They all blow me kisses and offer various forms of advice before leaving, letting me sit with just Cassie. I inhale a shaky breath and she shakes her head fiercely.

“Do not cry on me, Big.”

I exhale. “I’m trying not to. Little, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. This tournament means everything to me, or it did, anyway. But now, I’m not sure what matters most to me anymore.” I bury my face in my hands. Saying the words out loud scares me more than I thought.

“I think you do know.” She offers a soft smile. “Skyler, you were going to pretty much be done with tournaments after this, right?” I nod, blinking quickly to keep the water from pooling in my eyes. “You want this more than anything not for the title, but for your family. You want to pay off school at Palm South and help your parents out. I get that, I totally do. But Sky, it’s not up to you to set your parents up for life. And you and I both know that it wouldn’t take first place for you to be able to pay off your tuition. Don’t let the pressure of winning get to you. Just play like I know you know how to and let the cards fall where they’re meant to fall.”

I bite my lower lip, chewing on her words. She’s right, it wouldn’t take first place to pay off my tuition, and she’s also right that I’ve thought about that. It was almost all I could think about last night. But the fact that I’m even thinking of the possibility of losing makes me hate myself because poker is my thing, it’s everything I know, everything I am. I don’t want to give that up.

But then again, I don’t know if I want it to be everything I am anymore.

“What are you going to do about Kip?”

I shrug. “What is there to do? It’s over.”

“I call bullshit.”

Huffing, I take a long drink from the bottle of wine. “It is! How could I ever forgive him for what he did? How do I know what’s been real and what was just a game?”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. Every single moment between the two of you has been one-hundred percent real and you know it.” She leans forward a little. “Look at me, Big. I have known you for two years now and I’ve never seen you like this with a guy. Ever. You may not be sure about what’s happening between you and Kip, but I am. When he says he loves you, he means it – and I think you know that, too.”

“I don’t though, that’s what’s so hard!” I say a little louder than I intended, slamming the wine bottle down on the bedside table in frustration. “I would never have guessed he was playing this game, Little. Never. Everything with him felt so real, so genuine, so unlike anything I’ve ever had before. If it was so easy for him to pull off this whole scheme without me knowing the difference, wouldn’t it be just as easy for him to make me believe he loved me when he didn’t?”

Cassie shakes her head. “But then why would he still be trying to convince you? If it was all just a game, why would he bother?”

I scoff. “He’s probably trying to get under my skin for tomorrow.”

“You and I both know that’s complete crap,” she says firmly. “You’re scared, Skyler. I know you are and it’s okay to be scared. But remember, some of life’s best experiences are masked as terrifying leaps of faith. Just please, please – think about what you want before tomorrow. Think about what matters to you. What really matters.”

I nod, though I’m not sure I want to think about anything right now. Tomorrow is one of the biggest days of my life and I need a clear head, but at this point there’s practically no hope for that.

“I love you, Big. We’ll all be watching tomorrow. Just know you have a team rooting for you, no matter what happens.”

We end the video call and I fall back on my bed, exhausted from the day. The wine is lulling my body into a relaxed peacefulness while a war rages in my head. If I win tomorrow, there’s no telling if Kip will want anything to do with me at all. And even if he does still want me, will I want anything to do with him? And what if he beats me? Even if I do get enough prize money to pay off tuition, this is my tournament. What will I feel for him if I see him holding that champion ring instead of me? I trusted him, I told him my strategy for this tournament, I let him videotape me and I believed him when he said he wanted to help. I let him in only to find out everything he said was a lie.

Or was it?

I roll over onto my side, feeling a wave of nausea roll over me. Everything is a mess. A big, nasty, steaming pile of mess. Before Kip, I never knew what love was. I never knew love could hurt like this. I never knew how cruel it was. How heartless. Careless.

But that’s the thing about love.

Love doesn’t care about the games we play. It doesn’t care about the rules or the players or what’s at stake. Love is wild and unruly and it does what it wants with our hearts without us having any say in it. It’s beautiful and paralyzing and breathtaking. And it kills us because it’s the only thing that keeps us alive. Love doesn’t play our games because love is a completely different game in and of itself. And in the game of love, when all the chips are on the table, no one emerges unscarred. No one.

But sometimes our scars are the most beautiful story tellers.

I’ve been playing poker professionally now for exactly three years, seven months, and twelve days. I’ve been in countless tournaments, played everyone from a fish to a pro, lost and won amounts of money I never thought possible – but nothing, nothing, in my poker life could ever have prepared me to feel any less calm in this moment.

I am sitting at the final table.

In one of the biggest poker tournaments in the country.

Only ten players are left out of thousands.

One of them is me.

And one of them is Kip.

We somehow managed to not get placed at the same table throughout the tournament, which either means luck loves me or really, really hates me. I silently prayed every time I got a new table assignment that his name wouldn’t show up on the screen, but now, sitting across from his electric blue eyes, I wish I could take it back. Part of me thought he would be knocked out by now, as shitty as that makes me sound, and part of me didn’t think I would even make it this far. I’m confident, yes, but I’m also realistic. There are thousands of pros here, and right now Kip and I are about to take on eight people who I know by name without looking at the table details. That’s a bad sign and we both know it. They know what they’re doing, and this isn’t going to be easy. For anyone.

Kip is nervous. He can’t even hide it anymore. I watched him play a table earlier and I knew he was nervous then, too, but he was hiding it from everyone else. Now, he’s visibly shaking slightly, a thin film of sweat gathering on his forehead. Pulling off my sunglasses, I catch his eyes with mine and try to silently reassure him, to calm him, but if anything I just make things worse. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple moving along his throat and pulling more of my attention than I care to admit. I chew my lip and pull the glasses back over my eyes, taking shelter in the protection they provide.

This is it.

All or nothing.

Quickly, I size up the stacks at the table. I’m definitely not the lead chip holder right now, but I’m far from the bottom. Unfortunately, Kip is low. He’s here, which is what’s important, but compared to the rest of us, he’s low. I think only one person has less than he does, Veronica Small, an older woman from Indiana who I played once before. I don’t think she’ll be here long, and unless Kip can play smart, he’s not going to last, either.