Valley of the Gods
He's a betting man who stopped backing long shots years ago, love included. Every afternoon at three he takes the same table, drinks the same flat white and puts the same money on the same trap. He watches a girl from the bookstore cycle past on an old Belgravia with bottle tops in its spokes. He wants nothing from her. Then a gunshot across the street changes everything.
Valley of the Gods is a short story about a man who had stopped expecting anything, and the one bet he never thought to place.
