One of the Guys

“I need to make one change to the bet,” Diego said.

Ronnie raised a brow. “What kind of change?”

“If I win, I won’t take your money.”

“Ha!” the promoter interjected. “You were never going to get it.”

Diego ignored him and zeroed in on Ronnie’s lips. Full on the bottom and the top. He really wanted to know what they tasted like. How they felt. “If I win…” He let the sentence trail off dramatically before delivering his ultimatum: “…you give me a kiss.”

Murmurs filled the room, and Ronnie’s face settled into lines of alarm. “No way.”

“You picked the wrong one, pal. Ronnie doesn’t swing that way,” one of the men said.

A few awkward chuckles sprinkled throughout the room.

Ronnie swung her head in the direction of the joker. “Shut up. Just because I won’t sleep with you doesn’t mean I’m gay,” she snapped. The men settled down and she switched her attention to Diego. “No.”

“Why not?” Diego asked. She was so adamantly against the idea that he became more determined to get her to agree.

“No. That’s final. Let’s go back to the money. You win, I give you one hundred dollars. I win, you give me one hundred dollars. You can make other bets on the spread.”

“I don’t want your money,” Diego said.

“That’s all that’s on offer.”

“A kiss,” he pushed back.

Her lips flattened, and he imagined kissing them again. He wasn’t giving up.

A solid-looking male, a few inches taller than Diego, came up behind Ronnie and dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You’re not going to lose, Ronnie. Go ahead. I put my money on you.”

Diego waited for her response.

“I’m not giving you a kiss.” Ronnie glanced at his lips and then quickly found his eyes again, biting the corner of her mouth.

Diego smiled. The little firecracker seemed to be having the same thoughts he did. Maybe she wasn’t as immune as she pretended to be. “Then all you have to do is beat me,” he said.

“Come on, Ronnie, you can take him.” Her hype man squeezed her shoulder.

Diego held her gaze. She wouldn’t look away, and neither would he.

Tense seconds ticked by while everyone waited. A roar went up from the crowd in the stadium at the NBA final, but Diego didn’t let the game distract him.

Ronnie took a deep breath. “Fine,” she said, lips so tight they barely moved.

“Yes!” Her promoter turned back to the room. “Place your bets, place your bets. Who’s got Ronnie and who’s got—Hey, what’s your name?”

“Diego.”

Ronnie eyed him with suspicion. “I’m not going easy on you,” she warned in a fierce whisper.

Diego angled closer. “I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he whispered back.

They held each other’s gazes for a little bit longer as the men around them moved into a flurry of action and her hype man collected the funds, noting who bet on whom, the spread, etc.

At long last, Ronnie wheeled away and marched over to the other side of the pool table. While Ronnie’s promoter racked the balls, Diego checked out the sticks on the wall. One after the other, he bounced each across his palm, gauging the weight until he found a suitable one. It wasn’t the same as the one he had at home, but it would suffice.

Diego waved his hand at the table. “Ladies first.”

Without a word, Ronnie removed the triangle and bent over the table, lined up the tip of her stick, and with a firm stroke slammed the cue ball into the other balls and scattered them into all corners. Red flew into a hole.

“Solids,” Ronnie said.

Eyes narrowed, she sized up the next play. Diego fixated on the tight line of her body bent over the table. Toned arms, pert bottom sticking out. His breathing became shallow, his loins heavy with the idea of stepping behind her, and cupping and lifting her hips against his groin.

Calling the next shot, Ronnie tapped the blue solid into the side pocket. She missed the next one and stepped back so Diego could take over.

He swiped chalk onto the tip of the stick and rotated his shoulders, scanning the layout before him. He analyzed the position of the balls and mentally drew lines across the table. Satisfied with his decision, he called a shot and knocked the striped ball into the corner pocket. As the group watched him hit balls into the holes two more times, tension radiated in the air.

Ronnie took control of the table again, and three shots later, it was Diego’s turn once more. She’d warmed up during the first match up and was better than he expected. He couldn’t prolong the game anymore or risked losing.

The next shot would be a kick shot, where he bounced the cue ball off the rail cushion and knocked the striped ball into the corner. He called the move and the group around him shook their heads in disbelief, some of them chuckling softly at the unlikelihood of success.

Ronnie didn’t laugh, though. She watched him closely, perhaps recognizing he was better than he’d originally let on.

Which he was.

Diego rubbed chalk on the tip of the pool stick. “Did I mention I made it to the World Pool Masters Tournament?” Bending over the table, he lined up the shot. He was a master of trick shots. “They called me el Brujo. The Magician.” His eyes glided up to Ronnie’s. A hard swallow moved along the length of her slender throat, and his mouth lifted into a slow smile of victory.

He hit the cue ball and it bounced off the side and flew down in triangle formation to knock the orange stripe into the corner pocket.

Someone behind him cursed and the tension in the room thickened. There was a lot of money at stake.

“Yellow, corner pocket, and then green in the side pocket.”

“Hell no,” Ronnie’s hype man said.

“Want to put money on it?” Diego asked.

The guy shut up real quick and fell back.

Diego sat on the edge of the table and held the pool stick almost perpendicular. This was a tricky shot better done with his own stick, but he was confident he could do it.

The white ball knocked in the yellow, and spinning rapidly, circled around to the green and tapped it in. The room erupted.

“Whoa!”

“Holy shit!”

Diego shot a look at Ronnie. She silently observed him, confidence swept from her face. He cleaned off the table and called the last shot. “Eight ball, side pocket.” He hit the cue ball low and hard. The eight ball sank into the hole and the white one rolled back toward him.

Noise erupted in the room, a mixture of cheers of disbelief that someone had finally beaten Ronnie, but also low groans at the money they’d lost.

He and Ronnie stared across the table at each other. Her features appeared decidedly grim, all emotion wiped away.

“You tricked me,” she said.

Diego almost felt bad for her. Almost. But not quite.

He grinned. “Somebody owes me a kiss.”