Three word prompt: topic, shark, cheat

“How can sharks play cards? They don’t have hands.”

He would have rolled his eyes, but that would have made her continue that line of jokes.

“Anyway, isn’t it illegal?” She asked, changing topics. If only he were as good at card games as at their little games, he wouldn’t need to cheat.

“No, it just gets you beat up. Maybe killed.”

“Oh, okay then.”

He turned away so he could roll his eyes in peace. He couldn’t resist any longer.

“Why?”

“Money. Adrenaline. Notoriousness.”

That was mostly lies, of course. The truth was he hated being nervous, hated gambling, hated card games and the people who played them. What he loved was the idea of quitting his day job, quitting her, riding off into the sunset to gamble in a different city every few weeks. He would fake his own death; she already believed he was about to be executed, mob-style.

“Do you owe people money?”

“Not yet.”

He glanced at the cupboard by the front door. That’s where his suitcase was. It was already packed, though he’d repack a few times before he had the cash to run off, he knew that. Get everything out on the bed, make sure it’s folded correctly, change his mind about where he’d head off to first and, therefore, what clothes he needed.

But his swim trunks were nonnegotiable; wherever he was going, it was going to be warm enough to swim. To sit in the sun, too. He never really liked sand, but he could learn to tolerate it.

He wondered whether he’d packed sunscreen. No one would take him seriously at the card table if he was a sun-crisped out-of-towner. Maybe that was a good thing, though, for a cheat. Make them assume he’s going to lose.

He’d already written a letter to her, “in the event of my death”, with his life insurance details and the deed to the house. It was his house – he’d bought it three years before they met – but he won’t be coming back. And he didn’t want the money he’d sunk into it; from now on, he’d only use his winnings. If he couldn’t make it as a card shark, he’d starve. It would be an honest death.

“Did you get fired?”

Well, obviously, yes. And there would probably be charges. Embezzlement, fraud, breach of trust. But that wasn’t why he was becoming a card shark; it was in service of it. He needed seed money, after all.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“About you getting fired or about you getting killed?”

“Yes.”

She rolled her eyes, with a loud huff for emphasis. On her way to the kitchen she muttered “At least get a tattoo so I can identify your body”, then he heard her unload the dishwasher. That was normally his job; she’d already started practising for life without him.

He kept one eye on the kitchen door as he opened the cupboard to check on his suitcase. Matilda, he’d named her, after the girl from the musical. A childish rebellion, that’s what it was. A midlife crisis would be too dignified a title for this plan.

But a plan it was, and it was his. New name, new life, new reasons to die. He’d be damned if he was going to wait till 65 to get a heart attack on his back porch; he’d rather go swimming with the sharks.