Out of Aces (Betting Blind #2) Read online

  PRAISE FOR TORN:

  “[A] spectacularly realistic portrait of a teen torn between her former friends and the new girl in school . . .”

  —School Library Journal, starred review, audio edition

  “Strong voice and complex characters . . .”

  —Booklist

  “The author’s thoughtful and nonjudgmental approach creates an engaging, authentic portrayal of female friendship.”

  —The Horn Book Guide

  “In her debut, Guerra demonstrates insight into the temptations and troubles of late adolescence, all rendered with nicely flowing prose and dialogue. She grounds her story in reality, and her characters come across as interesting, believable individuals, with Stella especially sympathetic and Ruby a standout original. . . . A strong new voice.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  PRAISE FOR BILLY THE KID IS NOT CRAZY:

  “Most readers, children and adults, will cheer for Billy instead of his folks the whole way through, even as he’s acting up. . . . It’s really hard not to like Billy.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Billy and his family are fully drawn, and many kids will recognize familiar dynamics in this funny tale. Black-and-white spot art and comic strips highlight Billy’s humorous inner musings.”

  —The Horn Book

  “Authentic insight into the mixed-up thinking of a young boy’s world view.”

  —Children’s Literature

  ALSO BY STEPHANIE GUERRA:

  The Betting Blind series:

  Book One: Betting Blind

  Torn

  Billy the Kid Is Not Crazy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Stephanie Guerra

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  The excerpt on page 186 is from the poem “Desire” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and is in the public domain.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477829899

  ISBN-10: 147782989X

  Front cover design by Tony Sahara

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014958152

  For the teens at King County Juvenile Detention Center, especially P. K.

  Many thanks to the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture for generously supporting this work.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  My apartment was such a dive, they could have used it as a set in Breaking Bad. Four Horizons, on the corner of Harmon and Tamarus, was a run-down roach motel full of hustlers. There was actually a “no Dumpster diving” rule on the rental agreement.

  I pulled down the drive past a bunch of skinny stoners leaning on the railing. They eyed my car as I rolled by. There were exactly two reasons it hadn’t been stolen yet: one, I had made friends with the toughest of them, Berto; and two, my parking spot was right under my window, and I always left the shade up so I could keep one eye on the lot.

  I waved at the guys, parked, and beeped the alarm for show. I had to rattle the key in the lock of my apartment door a few times before it opened. My digs were one room in a quadruplex: water-stained walls, cracked mirror on the closet door, and cottage cheese ceiling. I shared the bathroom with one person and the kitchen with three.

  My phone buzzed in my hand as I pulled the door closed behind me. Mom again. The second time in the last hour. I dropped onto my mattress, which I’d covered with a fuzzy blue towel until I could afford some sheets, and answered. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, baby.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  She sighed. “Gabe, it’s four miles away. It’s open six days a week. How hard can it be?”

  “You have to sign up,” I said, watching Berto and his friend slink past my window.

  “I sent you the website! Come on. Please, Gabe.”

  I picked at the towel. “I will. So how’s home?”

  “All right. Things are good. But you’re worrying me.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. I’m still getting settled in.”

  “You’ve been there a month.” Mom’s voice got softer. “Look, I feel like it’s my fault you dropped out. I’ve been thinking about how we could work this out so you can come back. I talked to your teacher—”

  “Mr. Newport?”

  “Yes. He said it’s not too late. He wants you back.”

  “Mom.”

  “He did! It would only take two extra quarters, and he wants to help you . . .”

  I held the phone away from my ear, let her talk into the air. I was done with people thinking they could fix me. My mom was the worst; she never stopped hoping. Which made me never stop feeling like I was letting her down.

  I put the phone back to my ear—she was still going—and said, “Newport already tried to help me, and it didn’t work. That’s why I dropped out. I’ll take the GED if you leave me alone.” And I hung up the phone. Then I rolled over and stared at the dirty wall and its missing chunks of plaster. I really had tried. I had studied my ass off and still flunked. But I had a bartending certificate now, and Paul, my teacher at Crescent School of Bartending and Gaming, told me that good Vegas bartenders made eighty or a hundred grand a year.

  There was just one small problem: I was only eighteen. Technically you had to be twenty-one to bartend in Nevada. But I had a driver’s license and a TAM serving card that said otherwise. I wondered for the hundredth time what they did to people who faked their age to get a job.

  I stood up, shoving it all out of my head. I had more important things to deal with, like getting my hands on some food. I’d lost weight since I got to Vegas and could feel the lines of my ribs. I looked at the kitchen door, weighing my risks. Should I? All my quad mates were psycho in their own special ways. As soon as I got a job, I wouldn’t set foot in there again.

  I pressed my ear against the warped wood. No sound. I turned the handle as quietly as I could and eased open the door.

  “Hi, baby.”

  I sighed and took a step in. “Hey, Tilda.”

  She was at the stove with a fork in her hand, smiling a big gold grin at me. She had braids tied back in a bandanna, sunken cheeks, and a funky housedress on. “Sorry if it smells in here.” She waved a hand over a pot. I backed out. Last time I looked in her pot, I regretted it.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” Tilda said softly. “Got a girl waitin’ on me.” Tilda ran some kind of witch doctor business for the Jamaicans who rented at Four Horizons. I’d see th
em outside her door, heads down, leaving with Tupperware or paper bags.

  “No, it’s cool, I’ll come back later.” I smiled at her and pulled the door closed. It would have to be beef jerky from 7-Eleven again. The minute I got a job, I was going straight to In-N-Out Burger, then Dairy Queen, then Safeway.

  I looked at my phone—no texts. Then I flipped open my laptop, which I’d set up on a cardboard box. E-mail first: a bunch of promos, some forwards from my friends back in Washington, and an e-mail from Paul, my teacher at Crescent School:

  Gabe: Nick, the owner of Hush, called me at the school. He needs a bartender. I recommended you. He wants to interview you tomorrow at 1pm. The business offices are right behind the club. You interested?

  P

  My breath stopped for a second. I was down to my last hundred bucks—I’d used up my whole roll getting out of Washington and away from my family situation. I typed out a reply:

  Thanks. I’ll be there.

  I was back to my inbox in time to see a new e-mail ping through. Mom, also known as [email protected].

  Gabe, don’t be mad, I signed you up for the GED. You take it at the Professional Institute of Technology on Decatur Blvd. Details below. I registered you for the science and math parts and I paid for them so you have to go, pleeeeease. They need a waiver from your old school, and that’s attached. PLEASE. Love you, xoxoxoxoxoxoxo and don’t be mad.

  I stared at the screen for a second. The date was next week. It pretty much washed away my good feeling from getting an interview. I got up, went to the window, and leaned my head on the glass. Outside, some kids were making a pile of trash on the gravel. A girl was putting pebbles and broken pieces of bottle, green and blue, in a ring around the trash. It almost made me jealous. Kids don’t worry about anything. Not paying rent, or passing computer tests that say you’re out of aces, fold your cards, you’re a loser forever.

  If I flunked the GED, I’d feel like such a loser.

  I couldn’t be mad at Mom, though. She knew I’d take another six months to pull the trigger if she left me alone. And it had to be done, because I’d promised my girlfriend I would take the test. She was applying to big-name schools next year: Penn, Dartmouth, Notre Dame. She didn’t deserve a man who didn’t even have his GED.

  The little girl looked up and saw me staring. She had long cornrows with white-and-blue beads and big, startled eyes. I crossed my eyes and puffed out my cheeks. She smiled, and I smiled back. Make your rock piles, kid. Enjoy life while you can. I flopped back on my mattress and picked up the GED study guide from where it lived next to my bed. My girlfriend, Irina, had mailed it to me two days after I moved in; that’s how serious she was about me passing.

  “What are you wearing right now?” I said into the phone. This was how we always started our good-night calls. It had started out sexy the first few times I asked, but it had sort of changed over time.

  “A pink leather miniskirt and a T-shirt that says, ‘Dear math, I’m not a therapist. Solve your own problems,’” Irina said immediately.

  “You had that ready!” We had a rule that we weren’t supposed to look up crazy outfits online, but neither of us followed it.

  “What are you wearing?”

  I pulled at my old gray sweatpants with the hole in the crotch. “Old gray sweatpants with a hole in the crotch.”

  Irina giggled. “That’s hot. A wifebeater, too?”

  “Maybe. Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I have an interview.”

  Silence. Then Irina asked in a worried voice, “Where?”

  “It’s called Hush. It’s this after-hours club off the Strip.”

  “Gabe, you’re going to get caught. It’s not worth it.”

  “Will you just trust me?”

  “It’s not about trust! You could go to jail.”

  I looked at the little angel picture on my windowsill. Irina had sent it to me, one of the first things she did when I moved. She was religious and very straight-edge. Not exactly the kind of girl I usually went for. I said quietly, “I don’t think I’d go to jail. I’d probably get a hearing and a fine.”

  “Do you know that for sure?”

  “No.”

  I could hear her tapping something on the other end. “What about your social security number? That’s going to show you’re eighteen.”

  “Why would the feds be matching up socials with birthdays and jobs? They’re just looking to see if I’m paying taxes. Which I will.” I wanted to say more, to tell her she didn’t have a clue what it was like to need money so bad you were keeping an eye on the ground for quarters. And I wasn’t about to let the feds get in the way of me getting paid—especially when this wasn’t some bullshit minimum wage job. This job could change my life. It could keep me from slinking back to Washington, and it could prove to Irina—and a few other people—that I could make it on my own.

  “Oh, Gabe.” Irina sounded like she was getting depressed, so I changed the subject.

  “How was school?” I asked.

  “Annoying. My poli-sci teacher keeps asking me all these questions, like, just because I’m Russian, I can explain what my country is doing.”

  “Pick on the high schooler,” I said. Irina should have been a high school senior, but she was homeschooled, and now she was taking courses at UW for early college credit.

  “Micah knows a lot about international politics, so he answered,” she said. “Which made the professor mad. She went off on a whole tangent about men dominating discussions.”

  I frowned and propped one foot on the wall. “How come you’re always talking about this guy?”

  “Who? Micah?”

  “Every time we talk, you bring him up.”

  “He’s the only other person there my age. And he’s my friend.” She paused, and I could practically see her rolling her eyes. “I didn’t think you were the insecure type, Gabe.”

  “I’m not. But I know guys, okay? And they don’t have ‘friends’ who look like you.”

  “Hmmph,” she said, but I could hear the smile in her voice. It was true. I glanced at the picture of her taped on my wall. Honey-blond hair down her back. Slanted, beautiful Russian brown eyes. Pretty lips, pale skin . . . Barbie looked like American cheese compared to Irina.

  “Well, just make sure and tell him you have a boyfriend,” I said.

  She laughed softly. “I already did.”

  “If I get this job, I’m buying you tickets out here the second I get paid. Is that okay?”

  “Okay isn’t the word I was thinking,” Irina said.

  “What about your parents?”

  “I’ll deal with them.” Irina’s dad wasn’t exactly my biggest fan. Not that I could blame him; when I’d dropped out of school, I had convinced Irina to run away with me for the weekend. We ended up in Vegas. She went home; I didn’t.

  “You’re eighteen now,” I reminded her.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”

  We talked some more, and then around midnight she said she had to go, so we did our kissy-kissy, “I love you” routine and hung up.

  I stared at her picture, wondering how I had fallen so hard for this girl. I had never been in love before. But I really did love her. She was weird, a little stuck-up, feisty, smart, impatient, sometimes rude, and could be crazy. And she never put up with any nonsense, which I liked. I wanted to see her so bad right then, I wished I had something to pawn so I could go buy that plane ticket today. But I had to wait, get the job so I could afford to take her out on the town for real when she came.

  Where would I take her? I pictured the city out there, a web of lights and action spreading around me. There were plenty of places that Irina would like. I wished I could go to one of them now, get out of these sketchy four walls and around some people. But my bankroll
was too low to even go to a restaurant, let alone buy into a poker game, which was what I really wanted to do.

  If I don’t get this job . . .

  I grabbed my keys and pulled on my hoodie, because I needed to outrun my thoughts if I could. I slipped out the door and walked along the cracked sidewalk through the complex. The place looked different in the dark, more respectable. You couldn’t see the trash or the peeling paint, just low rectangular buildings like army barracks.

  A thin figure turned the corner ahead and walked down the sidewalk toward me, a big jug of detergent bumping his leg as he pinned a pile of clothes to his chest with his arm. His hoodie was pulled far over his face. I stepped aside to let him pass.

  “What’s up?” he said in a low voice—and I realized it was Berto.

  “Hey,” I said. We’d made friends (sort of) a few weeks back, when he lost his phone and I let him use mine. He was a smooth, skinny dude, lean but tough, covered in tats. He reminded me of a cat, stealthy, always in the shadows.

  “You doing laundry?” I asked. It was a dumb question. I guess I just wanted to talk to somebody.

  He glanced down. “I’m always doing laundry. Car grease.”

  “You’re a mechanic?”

  “I do custom cars.”

  “I wish I was good with cars.”

  Berto looked me over, his eyes peering from under his hoodie. “What do you do?”

  “I’m trying to get a bartending job.”

  “Everybody wants to be a bartender,” he commented.

  “I have an interview at Hush.”

  “Serio?” His expression got a little more respectful. “Hope you get it. I’ll bring my boys to see you.” He nodded and stepped around me, heading for the laundry room.

  CHAPTER TWO