2- Hearts

"This is the source of my luck." -James McManus

The first time I met Sango was over a card table.

She was so beautiful.

It was an apartment-warming party for my best friend InuYasha, and his girlfriend Kagome. InuYasha and I were roommates our first year of college, and somehow never got rid of each other; Kagome was currently in one of my graduate seminars, taking a breather from her med school studies to check out the finer points of religion. I was familiar with most of the people at the party that night, including my most recent ex-girlfriend Koharu, but the dark-haired wonder laughing with Kagome was completely new and lucious.

Late in the evening, when several people had left and we were all down to cheap beers -the apartment rent was expensive, and the fancier drinks had been few- Kagome pushed me over to the card table, one of their few pieces of furniture, reminding everyone that I came from a long line of poker players, and I was one of the best they'd ever meet. InuYasha rolled his eyes, but he knew it well enough - I used to play him for laundry money, and there were several times when he ended up having to construct clean clothes out of sheets. It's always been my rule that if you're going to win, you win on every count and every cent possible... Although being the compassionate man I am, I sometimes did his laundry with mine.

So we had Kagome, InuYasha, and Kagome's old flame Hojou... and this woman, this unbelievable woman.

"I'm Sango Hunter." She reached across the table to shake my hand, and I immediately noticed the lack of ring. Good, good.

"Miroku." I said, flashing her the most charming smile I've ever mustered. "Miroku McHoushi."

"Your grandfather placed second in the World Poker Series, 1974. I heard it was a family game."

There was a round of mocking "Oooo's" like you hear on a cheap sitcom when someone does something naughty or racy. For my part, I was glad my crotch was under the table. What a turn-on, I thought, to meet a woman who is not only stunning but knows about my family legacy in the card business and...and...

...and seems totally unimpressed.

In fact I was shocked how blase she was about it. Kagome took pity on me and leaned in: "Sango is the best player I've ever met besides you."

What a conflicting explosion of emotions that night set off. Round after round, dollar after dollar, cleaning out Hojou, Kagome, and finally InuYasha, I got the feeling Sango really didn't like me. I was as good as she was, and she wasn't used to losing. Especially not to a man who, because of another family legacy, liked to hit on lovely women at every possible opportunity.

She didn't much care for that either.

It came down to a game of Texas Hold'em: two cards for each player, three cards dealt face down in a row on the table, then one to each side. The flop, then fourth and fifth street respectively. The rest of the game works the same way as normal poker, with flushes and straights and pairs. The trick is knowing when to bet, when to call, when to raise, and when to fold.

It's a game of pure, delicious tension. It's always been my favorite.

And that night, on the last round, with Kagome dozing on the couch and InuYasha sitting backwards on his chair, I looked down at my hand and found my favorite card: the King of Diamonds. A king and a black nine, and I was all in. I never fold with my king, and I never lose with it either.

But Sango just looked at me coolly, went all-in, and lay down what I would later learn was her own magic card: the Queen of Hearts. That queen and a black ten.

Tension built. InuYasha turned over the flop, all of it rags, low cards, meaningless.

And then fourth street. A queen. Holy shit, a queen. For the first time in my poker career, I thought I might lose. A queen with no king showing for me on fifth would mean a pair for her, minus thirty dollars for me and one indelible smirch on my pride and my success record.

If I won, I promised myself, my dead grandfather and parents and all the gods of poker, I would do anything. I would chase this woman to the edge of the world and beg her to be my bride. I would marry her and raise a line of poker-playing geniuses. I would, I would, I would...

A king. Holy...everything in the world, fifth street was a king, and I won.

"Shit!"was InuYasha's take on the situation, and Kagome offered a half-awake "Huh?"

Sango was livid, but she tried to play it bravely. She stood up and offered her hand again.

"You really are incredible. You played an excellent game."

"The same to you," I said.

And then, because I'd noticed it earlier, because I've always had a thing for that part of a woman, because it looked like an upside down heart and she'd been counting on hearts, I pulled her forward slightly and reached across to give her behind a consolation grope.

She punched me in the face.

-

She won't answer the phone.

I've left at least ten messages since I got here yesterday morning, suffered another sleepless night, and she won't answer the phone.

I'm a wreck. I've never been this upset.

I tell myself that if I'd known she was THIS angry, I never would have come. If there wasn't so much on the line, I reason, I would be home right now, rubbing her feet and making her laugh, making her love me. I'd be at home with my wife and our child, and not sitting alone in this room, the sunlight blazing in on a twenty-seven year old with a death sentence and no one to kiss him for good luck.

I've been running my left hand around the beads on my right, the rosary I've worn for the past twenty years, since my dad left me an orphan in the hands of a family friend. These beads are the reason I'm here.

Because I knew she was THIS angry, and I came anyway. Because there's my life on the line, and the possibility that if I don't beat nearly five hundred other men, women and demons in the next five or so days, I won't get to know the baby I helped make.

"Don't you understand that, Sango?!"