"Fifty bucks says the Rams win." Vince pressed the mute button, sat forward in his leather armchair, and looked at me.
The other guys slowly turned away from the big screen TV.
I gritted my teeth. Everyone knew I'd gotten laid off four months ago. Everyone knew I couldn't afford fifty bucks.
I shrugged and took a sip of beer. It was warm and sour, but I pretended it tasted just fine. Over the silence in the room, I could hear my son, Jason, and the other kids playing in Vince's back yard. Their shouts sounded happy. The violent "thuckathuckathucka" bursts from the high-tech toy gun Vince had gotten for his son sounded downright joyful. I hadn't been able to buy Jason much of anything for Christmas, and anger crept up from my stomach like heartburn.
"Okay," Vince said, "a hundred bucks." He grinned.
I tried to smile back at him. His armchair must have cost a couple thousand dollars, the big screen a couple thousand more. The palms of my hands were suddenly slick, from sweat or from the condensation spotting my beer bottle. All that money, and Vince served Miller Lite.
I looked around at the guys, hoping someone would say something, anything. But their glances flickered away from me and toward the window overlooking the back yard. The kids' shouts were louder now.
"What's the matter with you?" Vince asked. "Come on. Two hundred."
Behind me, I heard a high-pitched cheer, as if the game had moved from the television to Vince's yard.
"What the hell?" Vince's mouth opened in a snarl.
I turned. Two boys twisted and writhed on the dry grass. One of them reared up, his fist pausing in the air like a thrown football at the top of its arc. It was Jason, and the boy under him was Vince's son.
I smiled and wiped my hands on my jeans. "How about two hundred on Jason?"