I felt my heart thumping faster and harder in my chest as my eyes were glued to the card that he had just slid out. For a moment, it truly felt like time had slowed and I used that moment to wish hard that whatever the card that Bradon had pulled out would be a lower ranking card than my queen of hearts. The odds were on my side but a nagging feeling at the back of my mind told me that I might have been playing a game where I was destined to lose.
“Ready?” Bradon turned and asked me.
“Just flip it over,” I replied coldly as I tried to hide my nervousness.
The identity of the card would determine whether or not I would be free of my sudden 28 million dollar debt. I felt a stinging pain shoot through my lower lip and realized that I had started chewing on it in my nervousness. I wished that Bradon would just turn the card over right away but at the same time I found myself feeling scared of finding out the result of our game. Bradon’s hand and beautiful fingers moved almost too slowly and gracefully as he turned the card over to reveal its face.
“The King of Hearts,” Jake announced with a firm nod of his head.
I stared at the card that was indeed the king of hearts before letting out a sigh. For some reason, I wasn’t at all that surprised that Bradon would pull out a card that was higher than mine. Granting him one wish wasn’t going to be the end of the world and if he did wish for something that I absolutely hated or was impossible, I could probably come up with a way to negotiate my way out of it or for him to change his mind. Regardless, granting one wish has got to be better than working my entire life or beyond to pay off the ridiculous debt that I somehow managed to rack up in the matter of a few hours.
At least Bradon didn’t manage to pull out the highest card from the deck. For some reason, that made me feel slightly better about everything even if the outcome was still the same for me.
“I guess you won...” I said dispassionately.
“I did...” he replied.
“Can we go home now?” I asked because I suddenly felt too tired to deal with anything else.
“Not yet...” he said before turning to nod a little at Jake.
Jake immediately knew that that was his cue to leave. I watched Jake from the corner of my eye as he bowed a little and quickly strode away from us, leaving Bradon and me alone at the large card table.
“Is there something else that isn’t settled here?” I asked while wondering what more he wanted from me.
“Where do you think the highest card is?” he asked as he nodded toward the cards still arranged in a semi-circle on the table.
How am I supposed to know something like that?
“If I knew, I would have pulled it out already...” I muttered darkly in reply.
Bradon showed me a smile that I thought looked overly confident and slightly mocking at the same time. I watched as his hand slowly moved along the curve of the semi-circle as if he was hesitating. Suddenly, his hand moved in the opposite direction and quickly slid out a card from the formation.
It can’t be...
“Ace of Spades,” he announced matter-of-factly.
I gasped out loud as my hands flew to cover my mouth when the card was revealed. Just like what he had said a moment before, the card really was the highest card in the deck.
The Ace of Spades...
“How? Why?” I murmured as numerous questions flooded into my mind all at the same time.
I couldn’t form the words or voice the all the questions that came to my mind. I had no idea how he managed to do what he just did.
How did he know where the highest card was?
If he knew where it was, why didn’t he pull it out during the game?
“Now, where are the other aces?” he asked softly before grinning my way.
The look of confidence in his blue eyes told me that he knew exactly where they were. As to how he could figure something like that out was frankly beyond my understanding and comprehension. This time, Bradon didn’t even pretend to hesitate or act like he was considering where those cards may be. His hand moved swiftly to slide out three cards one at a time.
“The ace of hearts, the ace of diamonds, and the ace of clubs...” he recited monotonously as he turned over each card in turn.
I let out a soft scoff at the ridiculousness of this game that he called simple. That was when it occurred to me that I was bound to lose this game from the moment that I agreed to play it. The game was simple, but it wasn’t at all fair and luck had completely no play in it at all. I could feel Bradon’s eyes on me and when I looked up from the table, my eyes met his intense blue gaze. It felt so outrageous that I didn’t know whether I wanted to scream, cry, or laugh all at the same time.
“Here are the kings...and the rest of the queens...” he said as he pulled out the relevant cards that he wanted to show me.
Sure enough, when I glanced at the cards on the table again, all the kings and queens had been revealed as well.
“Why? If you knew where the highest card is, why didn’t you just pull it out?” I asked.
“Because it wasn’t necessary. The King of Hearts is already higher than the Queen of Hearts. Plus, don’t you think that the king looks better next to his queen?” Bradon replied before winking at me.
His hands moved to place the two cards side by side before he smiled at me. I wondered briefly if he somehow knew the location of all the cards in the deck.
--To be continued...