Blackjack 

During the summers of my university years, I earned money as a croupier in the gaudy new casino my hometown had built itself. In my third summer of slinging cards and separating old ladies and working-class gentlemen from their money, a new batch of trainees arrived, among them a whip-thin, razor-witted, sunburnt Quebecois girl who immediately caught my eye.

Our mutual attraction was obvious to all of my co-workers, but I had always had a strict “No dipping your pen in the company ink” policy. A fairly empty principle, given that I’d never had any previous opportunity to challenge it. It wasn’t until we were on a midnight boat ride with some co-workers that we found ourselves huddling together under a blanket. Shivering clutches turned into soft caresses and an invitation to her apartment for dinner the next night.

Since we worked at a casino, our shifts didn’t begin until six in the evening. Dinner time meant midnight — if it was slow and we got off early. It’s a little eerie, making dinner in the middle of the night in complete silence, so as to not wake up roommates with more conventional hours. We retreated to her room with our food and talked until dawn. For the next few months I ended up at her apartment almost every night after work. She was adventurous and a rock-climber; taut muscle on a tiny frame. A few weeks in, I came over to discover she had smashed a mirror and glued the pieces to the ceiling above her bed. I could look up and see fractured glimpses of our sweaty, intertwined bodies. I barely went home after that. We were both young and insatiable and it was a very, very hot summer.

Sadly, we always had an end date. I was going back to school on one side of the country; she was returning to her family on the other side. She decided to write me a poem (in French!) that was a prelude to a discussion about staying together, and how she’d come to visit me in the city where I was going to school. I was brash and cold and refused the idea outright and had to spend a very uncomfortable three more weeks working with her, sometimes side by side at adjacent blackjack tables, until I left. I’ve never slept with a co-worker since, but I do still have the poem. — Michael

Submit to our next round-up. 15 Stories: Biggest Courtship Blunders. Remember that time, when you were certain you had it made with the man or woman of your dreams? And then you ruined everything with one ill-timed quip, spilled drink, or sneeze? Tell us about it 75-100 words, on our Facebook page or to submissions@nerve.com