Read Online Shelly's Second Chance (The Wish Granters, Book One) by L B Gschwandtner - Free Book Online Page B

doubled her initial
chips, lost half of them, won again, lost again, won some more, and now had
nothing to show for her effort. It was impossible to tell the time in here.
Impossible to know for sure how long she’d been at it. But the way she felt was
familiar. Like she’d been had. Spent. Depleted. The bright-colored high was
long gone and in its place was a gray sort of feeling. Joe was at her side. He
looked into the bucket and shook his head.
    “I thought you were supposed
to make my wish come true,” Shelly mumbled. “I’m beginning to think you and
that . . . ” she jerked her thumb over toward Alanna, “are just a couple of
weirdoes following me around for some reason.”
    “Don’t get discouraged. You
have time. You don’t always win in the first round. I’ve done some time at the
casinos. You have to be in it for the long haul.”
    Shelly perked up a bit.
“Where are you from, anyway?”
    “Let’s not talk about me.
Y
ou
need
some sleep. The
casinos may stay up all night but there’s no reason why you should.”
    “I’m hungry. Where’s the
restaurant?”
    “Good idea,” Alanna said from
behind Shelly. “We could all go together.”
    “Do you gamble too?” Shelly
turned to Alanna.
    “No. I think this must be my
first time in a casino. I don’t get it. All these people sitting around and
basically pouring their hard earned money down a toilet. It doesn’t make sense.
What exactly is fun about this anyway?”
    They moved down the aisles,
past an old woman wearing bifocals, a scruffy looking man with a day old growth
of beard, men in loud print shirts with stubby fingers, women with bleached out
hair, young, old, middle aged, all of them staring intently at the screen in
front of them, pushing buttons, feeding quarters, oblivious to the world.
    “They do look kind of sad,”
Shelly mused after they reached the lobby. She glanced back at the casino. “Is
that the way I look?”
    “What do they look like to
you?”
    “
Z
ombies.” Shelly shook her head.
    “Yeah, they do,” Joe said. “I
never played the slots. Poker is my game. Now that’s where you have to employ
skill. You’ve got to understand people
, be able to read them, to find their tells
.
It’s like life. You can’t
just sit there and let it happen. You’ve got to participate. There’s luck
involved but there’s a lot more. Those machines,” he jerked his thumb back
towards the bank of slot machines, “are for suckers. Sorry, Shelly. But be
honest. The odds are really lousy in there. You should know that better than
anyone.”

Chapter Fifteen
     
     
    “I want a steak. And red
wine. Whatever you think is good. And a baked potato—loaded.” Shelly handed the
menu to the waiter. “I had no idea I was so hungry.” She sighed and leaned back
in her chair, surveying the restaurant. “Or how late it was.” Turned out she’d
been standing at her so-called lucky slot machine for three hours. “How about
you two?” She looked at Joe and then Alanna. The waiter did what his title
implied.
    “I’m not sure,” Alanna
hesitated. She was thinking that a not-drink would be really good right now but
Joe ordered a bottle of red wine for all of them and he told the waiter to bring
the chateaubriand for two—it was the kind they sliced at the table complete
with flaming brandy. He figured what the hell, as long as they were on the tab
of whoever had sent them here, they might as well go all out.
    “You do eat meat, don’t you?”
he suddenly thought to ask Alanna
,
but before she could even think about what
she was saying she blurted out an answer that sent the whole conversation in a
different direction.
    “I’m not sure. That’s one of
the things I can’t remember. I’m pretty sure I never gambled before but I don’t
know what food I liked.”
    “How can you not know what
kind of food you like?” Shelly looked mystified, missing the past tense
entirely, and then brightened. “I get it. You have amnesia.