Gettin' Lucky by Micol Ostow Read Free Book Online Page B

so loaded.
    “Uh, no, actually,” I stammered. As amatter of fact, my own hot date was probably on his way out with my ex-best friend right about now. “I’m just going over to my friend Kelly’s house.”
    He furrowed his brow. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention Kelly before.” He was clearly relieved to be off of the topic of my nonexistent dating life and on to the issue of my imaginary friends.
    “No, she’s in my film class,” I said. “We sort of just started hanging out. Anyway, it’s not just me going over there tonight….”
    I trailed off. My father would so not approve of me attending a poker night, that much I knew. I hated to lie to him, but I hated the thought of sitting home for yet another weekend, moping, even more. I decided that a concentrated stretching of the truth was in order. “It’s a game night,” I finally managed. There. It was ambiguous enough not to be a lie.
    Unlike Alana and my other former friends, Kelly actually lived right on the Strip proper. In a casino, in point of fact. Her mother was a showgirl, and her father was someone very, very important at the casino. I didn’t know exactly what his job was, buthe was the guy you didn’t want to have to meet after a particularly lucky streak at the tables.
    Each of the casinos on the Strip is built to a different theme, and each one takes its theme and really runs with it, 150 percent. So you’ve got Treasure Island, with a waterfall and a pirate motif; or the Luxor, which is actually built in the shape of a pyramid; and even the Paris, with a scale-model Eiffel Tower. Kelly lived in the Venetian, which I particularly love because of how it has an actual canal running through it. People elope to Vegas and get married alongside the canal, believe it or not. Crazy.
    I deferred valet parking and found my way through the lot with the rest of the plebes, taking the elevator up to a special floor marked GUEST SUITES. Kelly had given me a key code for the elevator. It was all very exciting. I only had a key to my own house, none of this cloak-dagger business.
    The elevator doors slid open directly into Kelly’s apartment. The first thing I noticed as she opened the door was a crazy panoramic view of the Strip.
    “Hi,” I said, stepping through her doorway and into the apartment. “Andwow.” I gestured toward the neon sign from the Mirage. It was twinkling, fading in and out.
    “Yeah, it’s like, a mirage, get it?” Kelly asked, rolling her eyes. She snorted. “Now you see it, now you don’t. This place is ridiculous.” I assumed she meant the psychedelic skyline, but she just as easily could have meant Vegas, I suppose.
    “Ridiculous, yes. But it’s an awesome backdrop to a poker game,” I acknowledged.
    Kelly led me farther inside and into the enormous sunken living room. She’d set up a card table in the far corner, and on the opposite side of the room, on the coffee table, she’d laid out an impressive array of eats: chips, pretzels, chocolate, and every possible soft drink you could imagine. “Help yourself,” she said. “Do you know everybody?”
    I squinted at the four people who were already settled at the table. “By sight, yes, but I think that might be it,” I admitted guiltily. Had my Alana-Jesse bubble really been so hermetically sealed?
    “No worries,” Kelly said, pulling me forward. “Guys—this is Cass, she’s in filmclass with me, and she’s been doing the horoscopes for my site. So if you’ve had any big brushes with fate this week—for better or for worse—you can blame her.”
    One girl, a redhead with supermodel proportions, hooted at me and clapped loudly. “Hi, Cass!” she screeched goodnaturedly.
    “That’s Andy. Don’t mind her; she doesn’t have an inside voice,” Kelly explained. “And that’s James—”
    “Jim,” the boy interjected.
    “He’s been trying to build up a following of people calling him Jim, but it won’t take,” Kelly continued. “And