Sweet Nothing
I’m still standing, still in it, still the only one who can bring me down.
    The announcer’s voice comes crackling over the PA. The race has started. I unlock the stall and run out to watch it on the nearest screen. The shouts of the spectators fill the cavern beneath the grandstand so that I can’t hear the call, but three of my picks look to be in position coming out of the backstretch, and the final one is moving up.
    My heart is pounding, and I set off at a run for the finish line. Skirting the crowds gathered under the monitors, I burst into the sunshine and fresh air and push my way up front where everybody is yelling “Go! Go! Go!” as the horses cross the line, my horses: seven, two, five, four. I pump my fist once, just once, and those aren’t tears you see, you fucker. Those aren’t tears.
      
    I WAVE LUPE’S money over my head as I approach her and Jesse in the stands. “Hey, hey, hey,” I say, doing a little dance. Lupe isn’t having any of it. Her eyes are icy cold. She snatches her winnings out of my hand and tells Jesse to get up. He looks like he’s been crying.
    “Take us home,” Lupe says.
    “Whoa, now, at least give me a chance to explain,” I say. Old friends, I tell her, guys from way back. One of them had gotten married; another’s dad had died. I tried to get away, but you know how it is. Sometimes you have to hear a buddy out.
    “I don’t care if it was your mother you saw,” she says. “Nobody treats me like that.”
    “Like what?” I say.
    “Like a dumb bitch.”
    “Mom!” Jesse wails, upset by the swearing.
    “I’m sorry, mijo, ” Lupe says. “I’m mad is all.”
    I thought she’d be happy to see me and her money, that the thrill of winning would do for her what it does for me: wipe away all the trouble it took to get there.
    “Come on,” I say. “I hit it big. Let’s celebrate.”
    “Celebrate with yourself,” she says.
    It’s a long, silent ride back to the valley. Jesse falls asleep in the backseat, and Lupe is busy texting, her hair hiding her face. I think about how excited I was this morning, looking forward to our date, and I wonder if there was ever any way it could have been what I wanted it to be.
    By the time we get to the condo, the sun is sinking fast, dragging the day down with it. I say something that I hope will turn Lupe around and make her see the good in me, something that starts with “Please” and that I’d be ashamed for anybody else to hear, but she won’t listen, won’t even let me help her unload Jesse. I watch in the rearview mirror as she unbuckles the seat belt, slings the sleeping kid over her shoulder, and carries him to the lobby without looking back.
    The streetlights come on as I’m driving to a bar I know with a hot backroom poker game. This normally gets my blood pumping, because I’m the kind of guy who does better at night than during the day. Night’s when my people are out and about. Night’s when the rules change in my favor. But right now I just feel sick. Sick of the hustle and the juke and the mask. I’ve got a pocketful of cash and luck running my way, but all I can think about is everything I’ve ever lost. And that’s no good, man, no good at all, because if you sit down to play carrying that load, you’re dead from the shuffle and cut.

Gather Darkness
    A TEXT COMES FROM Vince. All it says is Cal and Esther, and I have no idea what it means. Vince’s messages are often cryptic like this. I assume it’s because he wants to pique my interest in hope of receiving a response, but that doesn’t make his coyness any less irritating.
    I knew Cal and Esther at UCLA. We were friends, kind of, but lost touch after graduation. It’s been years since I’ve seen them, long enough that they don’t know about Julie, about Eve. Last I heard they’d gotten married. I think Vince still sees them now and then.
    So? I text him back.
    They’re having a housewarming June 12. Boys’ night out?
    I think about it

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