Re: Log, Ocean's Eleven, Seven Hills: Sam A & Cris M
It was a careful construct, thin, between artifice and authenticity. Cris was somewhat embarrassed, honestly, but he was good at reading people, and the woman's body language, outside of spastic, was all that of entitlement, like she had every right to the man in the chair across from the girl with gap-teeth. If he teased her, if he'd talked to her like the abuelita in the hospital, she'd be in his lap already. So Cris made sure to look away, watching through downcast lashes as Sam extorted the woman of her lipstick, a tub of wax and coloring that probably cost more than a good meal at a decent restaurant.
There came a weak flex of fingers as the man waved adiós, palm like sand against the dark brown of his jacket, sleeves cresting high on wrists. He gave her a smile, but it was demure, until she looked away and Sam reeled her foot out of his grasp. Cris' attention returned to the girl, una delgada y hambrienta mirada, without the cataract of shyness and he smiled at her, eyebrows up as she came forward.
She cleared the board of all but three pieces.
Black-glass gaze flicked from well-made king, to blotted blue eyes, to the careful application of lipstick. The color on her had the poppy effect on pupils and it reminded Cris of the bar on the beach and the high-hitch of pitch skirt, and he sat back in his chair, brushing his own bottom lip with the trigger-rough pad of his finger. He smiled under his own touch, and whatever angel's innocence had held before for the white woman in the white pearls was long gone. He wasn't making overtures—Sam was a girl with blood thinned by what he could only guess were anti-anxiety medications and that didn't put her in a position to receive overtures; Cris didn't want to confirm her la idea insensata that overtures and exposition were what he cared about either. So he behaved, whatever stirring want he had, he ignored.
He sat forward, forearms against the table's edge, and he picked up the king to look at it.
"Éste es el villano," the man told the girl across from him with seriousness, replacing the piece. He had hours of practice of this stuff, playing with his daughter. It hadn't come easy once, long before Teresita, but UC, all that, made it easy. Cris glanced up at Sam and held out his palm. "Necesito su reina." He blinked at her and her red-painted lips a minute. "Quiero besarte." He wiggled his fingers, palm still open. "Necesito su reina, por favor."