Poker Face

Chapter 18 - Royal Flush *

Play the cards with spades to start
And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart
~

Content warning: Light smut; foreplay.

"So why did you name your bat?" Aven asked after Negan called and pushed seven toothpicks into the pot. Negan had a few answers when people asked that question, but with only a brief moment of hesitation, he found himself revealing the truth. He couldn't let her be the brutally honest one between the two of them, he told himself.

"She's named after my wife," he answered, fixing his gaze on Aven as she contemplated her next move.

"Which one?" she joked, her expression unchanging.

"The real one." Aven peeked up at him with an eyebrow raised. "From before," he added.

"Check," Aven said, and Negan turned over another card, the King of spades. Aven purposely and subtly twitched the corner of her mouth, appearing to let slip a hint of nerves at her hand when in reality she was feeling lucky. "So your wives at the Sanctuary aren't real?"

"It's a different kind of marriage," he mumbled.

"That's not a very good fucking answer," she said in a mock-deep voice, repeating a sentiment he'd expressed to her several times.

"They're for status and pussy," he said, causing Aven to wrinkle her nose.

"You really think you need twenty wives to keep your image up? You carry a spiked baseball bat and burn dudes' faces of." Aven paused and looked up at him. "So that's not the real answer. That's just part of it."

"It's not twenty," he retorted. "And just what the fuck are you implying?"

"You're lonely," she answered immediately without thinking. Negan's eyes widened and he cocked his head.

"Oh really? So what, I'm just filling a fuckin' void or something?" he joked, albeit getting it exactly right. Aven watched him as he looked at his cards, then the table, then his pile of toothpicks, and finally back at his cards. "Raise," he said, pushing half of his large pile into the pot.

"Oh, fuck you, how many is that?" Aven said. "This doesn't work when there isn't real money at stake."

"Your move," he shrugged. The game went back and forth twice more before Negan turned over the final card, the King of hearts. The final hand was the two Kings, the nine and ten of hearts, and the four of clubs. With only two players, they each felt more comfortable in assuming the other didn't get the cards they needed from the deck. Aven's face broke with a triumphant smile; it was the last bet and she couldn't be sure, but she felt confident that she had him.

"All in," she said, pushing her pile to the middle and then leaning back with her arms crossed, her card hand leaning against her chest. Negan's face fell and he let his head follow, hanging it as he stared down at his cards, shaking his head slightly with a frown. But when he looked back up, his grin was wider than ever, heating his dark eyes as he stared into her.

"All in," he repeated, pushing his toothpicks to the center. Aven froze, narrowing her eyes in the moment of truth. She lay her hand down on the table without taking her eyes off him.

"Three of a kind." She flipped her cards, revealing the useless five of diamonds, and her best card, the King of clubs. Negan nodded thoughtfully, taking a page out of her book and letting his face go completely neutral as he lay out his cards: the Jack and Queen of hearts.