one of the new poker dealers, having him lose to one of their friends. The three of them are splitting the takes. Probably two days and over $100,000 so far.”
Alexa laughed because it was an insignificant number for Chris to risk his job over. He made over three times that as his yearly salary. “He must be in some kind of trouble,” she speculated.
Carter shrugged. “You need to fire him. And the dealer.”
She bristled at the order. Of course she would fire them, but she didn’t need Carter to tell her so.
“Would you like to tell me how to do the rest of my job as well?”
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. He could be down there right now overseeing another run.”
“I’ll fire him after we eat,” she assured him, taking a much-needed sip of alcohol. She liked Chris and he’d been a good general manager, but she’d learned not to take this kind of stuff personally. The lure of so much free money was quite frequently too much temptation for employees to resist. She did, however, instruct the other general manager on duty to send the poker dealer in question on break.
“I’m sorry about this,” Carter told her. “I thought you’d rather hear the news from me instead of one of your tech guys.”
“That’s nice of you, but it happens.”
Besides, she was more broken up by the fact that her best friend was basically moving light-years away even though he hated San Francisco and the whole Silicon Valley scene. Just two months or so ago after a particularly nasty client meeting, he’d literally spent an entire evening ragging on everything about it, including the relatively blameless and objectively delicious sourdough bread.
Carter responded to a text, which was a thing he did all the time while they were hanging out. His undivided attention didn’t really exist. She assumed it was work-related, but when she glanced over, she saw that a cute blonde girl had literally sent him a nude picture. She looked away quickly since it wasn’t any of her business, but the image was burned in her brain.
Instead of being embarrassed like she was, Carter looked as if getting nudes was just an everyday occurrence for him. And maybe it was. Lord knew her DMs were crammed with dicks both figurative and literal. Of course, unlike Carter had just done, she never responded to said dicks.
“That’s one way to say hello,” she joked.
“Yeah, and a pretty effective one, too.”
She laughed, but the fact that Carter might be dating someone was inspiring something new and terrible in her—pure and simple jealousy. Maybe it was PMS hormones or something, because she’d never cared who Carter dated before. Of course, he’d never been leaving before, either.
Thankfully, a knock sounded and Carter got their food from the delivery guy before she could analyze her wayward emotional state.
While he set out the food, she texted her uncle about Chris Miller’s theft, making sure he knew she had everything under control.
“You got a hot date tonight?” Carter asked, referring to her texting.
She shook her head, setting her phone aside and piling a couple of tacos on her plate. “Nope, tomorrow.”
“So I get woman-about-town Alexa Lawson to myself for an entire night. I can’t remember the last time that happened.”
She snorted. “We hung out just last month.”
“On a Tuesday,” he pointed out. “For coffee.”
“I think we can admit we’ve both been guilty of getting bogged down with work lately,” she acknowledged. “Why don’t we go back to my place and catch up on some movie time? I’ve had to wait for you to finish that documentary series we started and I definitely resent you for it.”
Deep-cut documentaries were one of the first things they’d had in common as kids and had sustained them ever since.
“Sounds perfect,” he agreed.