Member-only story
Luck Be a Lady
Oh, love was a game of fortune.
Jon Lourdes had never thought much of love at first sight. To him, it was just a fancy concocted from the shadowy figures behind fat baby Cupid and the capitalistic nightmare of Valentine’s Day. He had played those games when he was a kid, thinking the way to a girl’s heart involved heart-shaped boxes filled with cheap chocolate, but of course it had always ended with his own heart trampled in the process. Love was a fickle mistress in that regard.
Then he met someone at Bailey’s on the night of St. Patrick’s Day. Old Marta had strewn a string of green beads around his neck, and the wise Irish woman had whispered to him that she thought luck would be kind to him in the months ahead. He had laughed it off — only to look up and find a pair of dark eyes watching him. The woman looked away a moment later, but that stillness across the distance — something about it shook a piece of him awake. It was like being splashed with cold water in the morning. It was like having your eyes blinded by sunlight while you were driving in midday traffic. Ordinary, but it left you quaking. Simple, but it made you wince.
It was jarring.
Jon might have downed one more shot before heading home with one of his buddies. But then the guy next to him threw him a few dollars and told him to go play the jukebox. “You…
