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  “Yep. It was my great-grandpa’s.”

  Davy touched the rosewood rail. “It’s like being in church. And you play on it every day.”

  “But I never take the privilege for granted,” Phin said.

  Davy met his eyes. “Harvard, you may not be a complete loss after all. What’s your game?”

  Phin shrugged. “Your choice.”

  “Straight pool,” Davy said, and Phin thought, Oh, hell, I don’t want to like you.

  Davy added, “To fifty?”

  “Works for me.”

  Davy went over to the rack, picked up a cue, bounced it on its end and checked the tip.

  “They’re all good,” Phin said.

  “So I see,” Davy said. “Should have known. I beg your pardon.” He sounded sincere.

  Phin won the break, and Davy racked for him without comment, keeping the front ball tight against the rest and treating the felt with the respect it deserved, and Phin picked up the break cue, interested to see what Davy had going for him.

  An hour later, the score was 32–30 with Phin in the lead, but that was pretty much meaningless. Davy’s position play was flawless, and his concentration was complete: he’d been in stroke since his first shot. Even more impressive was his safety play. When he turned the table over with the cue ball frozen to the rail for the second time, Phin said, “Where did you learn to play?”

  “My dad,” Davy said. “He has few skills, but the ones he has are sharp and profitable.”

  Phin raised his eyebrows on the “profitable.” “We playing for money here?”

  Davy shrugged. “We can. Makes no difference.”

  Phin looked at the mess on the table. “How about twenty?”

  Davy nodded. “Good bet. Enough to make you care but not enough to make you broke.”

  Phin studied the table and decided that a safety was the better part of his valor, too. “So your daddy was a hustler.”

  “Still is,” Davy said. “And not just at pool. He’s on the lam right now from a fraud charge.”

  Phin caromed the cue ball off the four and buried it in a cluster, and Davy said, “Damn.”

  “Thank you,” Phin said, and moved away from the table. “Zane Black mentioned your dad was . . . uh . . . colorful.”

  “Zane did?” Davy looked thoughtful. “Now, why would he share that with you?”

  “He was being helpful,” Phin said. “Explaining why Sophie was a bad influence.”

  Davy’s face darkened, and for the first time Phin realized that he wasn’t just a slacker; Davy Dempsey might be dangerous. “Now that annoys me,” Davy said softly. “He shouldn’t have been talking about my sister.”

  “Well, he’s dead, and I’m open to bad influences,” Phin said. “You going to take a shot here?”

  Davy bent to the table and did a bridge shot over the two ball, a beauty of a shot that did exactly what it was supposed to, and Phin shook his head in admiration. Then Davy picked up the cue ball and handed it to him.

  “Foul,” he said. “I brushed the two with my hand. That’s what I get for letting Zane in my head.”

  Phin took the ball and said, “I didn’t see it.”

  “I did,” Davy said, and moved out of Phin’s sight line.

  Phin nodded and studied the table. If he could pocket the two, there was a possibility he could run the table. He put the cue ball down in position so that he could draw it back after he hit the two.

  “That’s what I would have done,” Davy said ruefully from the side, as the two went in. “So you think my sister’s a bad influence?”

  Phin studied the table. “I think your sister’s a hell of a woman, but I don’t want to talk about her.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to,” Davy said. “Because that’s what I came for.”

  “And I was hoping it was for the pool.” Phin took his shot, but his ball missed the pocket by a fraction of an inch. Concentration is everything, he thought, and wondered if Davy had brought up the subject of Sophie to break his.

  “Here’s the deal with Sophie,” Davy said as he took the table. “She’s the finest person I know, so she should get everything she wants. Now, for some reason, she wants that ugly farmhouse, that stupid dog, and you.” Davy chalked his cue. “None of which I would have picked for her, but then, Sophie has always walked her own path.” He shot a plain vanilla draw shot with such elegance that Phin forgot about Sophie for a minute.

  “It’s a pleasure to watch you play pool,” he told Davy, and Davy said, “I know. It’s the simple shots that make you love the game.”

  “I really don’t want to like you,” Phin said.

  Davy nodded. “I don’t want to like you, either, Harvard, but we’re stuck with each other because Sophie loves us.”

  “I went to Michigan,” Phin said. “And Sophie doesn’t love me.”

  “You know,” Davy said as he chalked and shot again, “if you paid as much attention to your personal life as you do to your pool game, you wouldn’t make these stupid mistakes. She’s in love with you. And you’d better love her back.”

  “Is that a threat?” Phin said.

  “Pretty much.” Davy scowled at the table as his next ball missed the pocket. “And that’s what I get for trying to talk and play at the same time. Look at that table. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  “Davy, I care about Sophie, but that’s it,” Phin said. “And I never promised her anything at all, so you can back off now.” Then he looked at the spread Davy had left him. “Christ, it’s Christmas.”

  “Yeah,” Davy said. “I had plans for that table.” He sat down out of Phin’s sight line. “I’ll be over here in case you go blind and miss something. Now, about Sophie.”

  “I’m finished talking about Sophie,” Phin said, and bent to make his shot.

  “I’m not,” Davy said. “She never told you about how we grew up, did she?”

  “Yeah, she did.” Phin made his shot and straightened to chalk his cue. “At least, she told me about your mom dying.”

  “She did.” Davy seemed impressed. “So you know she’s been taking care of us ever since.”

  Phin nodded.

  “Well, it’s time she found a man to take care of her, and you’re the one she’s picked. You’re not my choice, Harvard. But you’re Sophie’s and you’re going to marry her.”

  “No, I’m not.” Phin bent to take his shot.

  “Why not?” Davy said. “Think about it. You could go home to Sophie every night.”

  Phin looked at the ball, thought about Sophie at night, and miscued. Just a fraction of an inch, but pool is not a forgiving sport.

  “Fuck,” he said, and Davy said, “That was my fault, talking to you like this.”

  “No shit,” Phin said, and walked away from the table, annoyed with himself for falling for it.

  “Take another shot,” Davy said.

  Phin glared at him, and Davy said, “Right. I apologize for even saying it,” and took the table back.

  “It was the Sophie-at-night bit, wasn’t it?” Davy said as he lined up his shot. “Sorry. It’s what I miss most about her. That quiet bit at the end of the day when we talked about everything.” He grinned at Phin over the top of his cue. “Of course, your nights with her are probably different.”

  Phin thought about the hours he’d spent talking with Sophie. Before he fell into bed with her and lost his mind. “Slightly different.”

  Davy nodded and began to run the table. When he was five balls from victory, he straightened and chalked his cue. “Here’s the thing. I learned early that life is full of cheats and liars.” He bent to the table and said, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus,” and hit his first ball into a pocket. “I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny.” Another ball went in. “And I don’t believe in the innate goodness of mankind.” A third ball went in.

  “But I believe in Sophie.”

  He pocketed the fourth ball and straightened to chalk, something that he should have