“Do you want to go again, double or nothing?” The woman wasn’t issuing a challenge, merely asking a question. Mark glanced at his watch as if he had somewhere to be, stalling as he considered his options. He was not used to losing, and was especially unhappy losing to a beautiful woman. She’d been balancing a tray of empty pint glasses on her shoulder when she glided behind him and scrawled a name on the small challenge chalkboard mounted next to the pool table: Leilani
He’d noticed her waiting tables, of course. Leilani was tall and slender with shiny black hair that she often twisted into a braid while working. She seemed to have an endless summer tan, and her dark eyes were framed by long lashes. Now those eyes watched him struggle with his pride. She’d run the table after Mark missed a fairly straightforward bank shot. His break had spread the balls sufficiently across the green felt, so he felt confident that if he hadn’t messed up the easy shot, he would have won. She was skilled, clearly, but so was he. And he had a skill that she couldn’t see: he could move the balls with his mind.
Mark pulled his billfold from his back pocket and removed four more $20 bills. He forced a smile as he added them to the cash already clutched by the clothes pin next to the chalkboard. “Well sure, you’ve got to give me a chance to heal my wounded ego,” he said with a wink. He collected the pocketed balls and rolled them toward the empty rack at one end of the table. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Leilani shook out her hair and then pulled it back again, wrapping it into a bun that rested loosely at the nape of her neck. Focus, he commanded himself, forcing his attention back to the green felt. After winning this game, he would offer to buy her a drink when her shift was over, and then allow himself to freely admire the curve of her neck. And everything else. But first, he had to beat her.
Leilani took a moment to chalk her cue as her opponent slid the racked balls into position and carefully lifted the rack. Leilani lowered her torso and stared down the length of the table toward the target, breathing deeply and slowly sliding the cue through her curled finger. Mark was appreciating the almost feline grace with which she moved when the sudden crack of her break scattered the balls across the felt and startled him back to reality. It was a decent break, but not terrific, and nothing dropped. His shot.
Mark surveyed the table and planned his attack. He’d been playing for many years and knew how to capitalize on his unusual skill set. His straight shots had to be solid because any mental interference would be obvious to onlookers. He figured his shots had to be executed at 95% accuracy in order for that 5% telekinetic nudge to go unnoticed. And ideally, he wouldn’t even need it. In theory he understood that there were people in the world who could “hear” when someone used their telekinetic powers, and some said they could even suppress the powers. But Mark had never met one, or known anyone who had. The “Listeners”, as they were known, might not even exist, they were so rare. But he still wanted to be careful.
Better to lose a game here and there than to be outed as a bender. Everyone knew benders weren’t strong enough to be a real threat to society at large, but no one took kindly to being cheated. The way Mark looked at it, though, it wasn’t cheating at all. He won games using the natural advantages available to him, just like a tall man would use his height in basketball. The rest was hard work, and practice, and getting his shots close enough so that a little nudge here or spin there would go undetected. The cue ball was his best chance for adjustments, because the lack of markings meant that unexpected movements could be chalked up to spin. Back in his college days, his fraternity brothers had nicknamed him “The Professor” because of his uncanny ability to put english on the cue ball. The skill won him plenty of beer money back in the day; maybe today it would earn him a phone number.
Mark glanced at the cash clipped next to the challenge chalkboard to remind himself what was at stake, then chalked his cue. With quick, decisive shots, he quickly sank the 12 and 14 balls in the two corner pockets. The 15 was just a bit off center from his line, but Mark felt sure he could bring it in and leave himself a solid follow-up. Taking a little extra time to visualize his shot, he drew back the cue and sent the cue ball rolling down the table. He knew immediately that his contact hadn’t been quite right, and he watched with disappointment as it slowly drifted away from the precise angle he wanted. Focusing on the cue ball, he reached out with his mind and felt the smooth evenness of the resin, gently guiding it to curve back on target. A small nudge like that should have been simple, but he nearly overcorrected and the 15 rattled in the jaws before finally dropping into the pocket.
Dragging his sleeve across his brow, Mark looked at his opponent again and swallowed. Pull it together, he scolded himself. She glanced over at the bartender and then at the tables in her section, making sure no one needed her attention. Then she looked back to Mark and smiled, her painted lips and perfect teeth arresting his gaze once again.
“Nice shot,” she said, tilting her head slightly as she appraised the table. One lock of hair slid out of her bun and she tucked it behind her ear. She must be flirting with me, he thought. She saw that he’d almost missed, and maybe now she was teasing him. Maybe being gorgeous was her secret game, like telekinesis was his. Mark steeled himself and tried to ignore her eyes as they followed him around the table. Dropping the 9 ball wouldn’t be easy, but if he made that shot, he felt confident he could run the rest of the table. Win the game, take the money, impress the girl. That was the plan.
The 9 ball was near a side pocket, and if Mark could just kiss the side as the cue ball rolled by, he could pot the 9 ball while putting the cue ball at the other end of the table, the ideal position to finish out the game. As he lined up his shot, he reached out with his mind and felt the 9 ball, inserted his thoughts into the smooth center. He didn’t want to move it, but he reminded himself that he could. He needed this ball to drop. He turned his attention to the cue ball, looked at the faint blue smudge of chalk on the shiny surface, and again reached inside, feeling the weight of the ball against the table as his cue slid through his bridge. I am The Professor, he told himself, and this is my classroom.
With a thump, he drove the cue into the center of the cue ball and sent it rolling toward the very edge of the 9 ball. He inhaled sharply as he saw the trajectory and tried to pull the cue ball back in line before it passed by the 9 ball. It was too heavy though, and in his determination to keep his interference subtle, he didn’t nudge it far enough. The 9 ball barely moved as the cue ball whizzed by, and Mark hung his head. He’d made it a personal rule to only tweak his own shots, and never interfere with his opponents’ play. He told himself it was a matter of honor, but he also knew messing with someone else’s shot could get him busted. What he needed now was for this waitress to miss.
Instead, Leilani made quick work of the table, and with each thwack of her cue and rattle of a ball dropping into a pocket, Mark slouched further into defeat. She’d beaten him. He had the chance to win, and he’d blown it again. She pulled the cash from the clothes pin and erased her name from the challenge chalkboard. “My break’s over anyway, so the table’s yours if you want to keep playing,” she said. “Thanks for the games.” And just like that, she sashayed away.
Later that night at the service well, Leilani checked her notepad against the cocktails waiting to be picked up. “Taking money off the new folks again, huh?” the bartender, Anna, asked as she dropped the maraschino cherry into a Manhattan. Leilani pulled the folded twenties out of her apron and tossed them into the community tip jar.
“You know I don’t do it for the money. I do it to protect the regulars,” she said as she began transferring the prepared drinks onto her tray.
“Ok Sheriff, but maybe that guy would’ve become a regular if a hot girl hadn’t crushed his pride,” Anna said with a smile. “Why can’t you ever go easy on them?” Leilani smiled back but shook her head.
“Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose,” she said as she hoisted the tray to her shoulder. “But we don’t need regulars like him. We want players, not hustlers. It should be an honest game, whichever way it goes.”
“He hadn’t even been here for an hour. How can you decide who’s honest just by watching a couple games?” Anna asked, wiping her hands on a bar towel and swinging it over her shoulder.
“I don’t just watch,” Leilani said over her shoulder as she walked away. “I listen.”
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