StillWaters:Book4oftheSophieGreenMysteries Read Free Page A

eyes.
    “Sophie…”
    “Well, you never know,” I protested.
    She rolled her eyes. “You two,” she said, but she didn’t say anything else.
    We went back to the cottage, Maria and Luke a couple of pints up and me stone cold sober, and just when I was about to announce my intention to retire, Maria flicked on the stereo and put a Fun Lovin’ Criminals CD in. Then she got out a pack of cards. And a pack of beer.
    “Okay,” she said, shuffling expertly. “Who’s in?”
    “What are we playing?” I asked suspiciously, knowing I’d never be able to sleep with the music booming through the floor.
    “Five card draw?”
    “Seven card stud,” Luke said.
    “Poker?” I said.
    She nodded and fetched a box of matches, handing us a pile each.
    “Ante up.”
    Luke and I looked at the matches, then at each other.
    “Um…”
    “I don’t have any actual money,” Maria explained, “and what I have I’m not giving you two. So we’ll play for matches.”
    “Oh, I’m so motivated,” Luke said, but he put a matchstick on the table in the ante pile.
    I bit my lip. “I’m actually not very good with poker,” I confessed. “I tend to kind of forget which hand goes where.”
    “I’ll write it down for you,” Luke said, and did, while Maria and I worked out the kinks in the seven card stud rules. When we thought we’d got it figured out, (actually I’m pretty sure she was bluffing to help me out), Luke handed me my cheat sheet and proceeded to win all my matches.
    For you see, there is the difference between my colleagues and myself. They know how to play poker and don’t need to be reminded of the rules. They can charm coffee mugs out of vinegar-faced tea shop owners. They get offered fifty grand jobs—and take them. They eat crab.
    I don’t.
    It got late, Huey and the boys chilling out on the stereo, beer bottles mounting up but no one seeming to get drunk (that’s another thing they can do that I can’t), and I looked around and said, “How cool are we?”
    They both looked at me. Luke was sorting cards in his hand—I’d long since folded.
    “I mean, playing poker, listening to the Fun Lovin’s. All we need is some fat cigars and a couple of lines of coke and we’ll be sub zero.”
    “Actually.” Maria put her cards facedown. “I might be able to help you there.”
    Luke and I exchanged glances as she got up and ran up the steep stairs to her room.
    “I was joking,” I said uncertainly.
    “Maria?” Luke called up. “We don’t really want any Class A—oh.”
    She had come back downstairs and was holding out a box of fat cigars.
    “Are those Cuban?” Luke asked, looking at them.
    She nodded. “Go on, you know you want to.”
    He shook his head. “Not about to start that again.”
    What was that supposed to mean?
    Maria held the box out to me, and I could feel Luke watching, so I picked one up and ran it under my nose. It always used to make him laugh the way I smelled everything I ate and drank.
    I looked right at him and said, “Yeah. Why not?”
    Maria produced a cigar cutter and was just about to do mine when she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! No, you—I mean—no, I don’t think so.”
    I glared at her. “I’m sure I’ll be okay,” I said. “It’s not going to stunt my growth.”
    “No,” she said firmly. “You’re not going to.”
    And with that, she shut the box like a mother withdrawing sweeties and took it back up to her room.
    Luke fixed me with his blue eyes, oddly reminiscent of lightsabre blades. “You want to tell me what that was about?”
    No.
    “Maria thinks it’s unhealthy,” I said primly.
    “Which is why she imported them in the first place. Nice try.”
    I hate it when he does that.
    “Well, it’s all you’re going to get,” I said, rising. “I’m going to bed.”
    “Sophie—”
    “Goodnight,” I said firmly, going into the bathroom and locking the door behind me.
    I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was flushed, my hair was flat. I did