TWELVE Strip Poker
N OAH
I’m accustomed to being around a group of guys. Throughout my youth, I was surrounded by the other boys at church, and I clowned around with my younger brothers day in and day out. As soon as he was able to dribble a basketball, my brother Aaron and I played HORSE and one-on-one despite our five-year age gap.
The twins, Oliver and Kayden, are three years younger than Aaron, yet from the time they could walk, they insisted on joining us, too. Once we moved to D.C., basketball became one of the things the four of us did to relieve stress.
Our apartment complex might not be the best in the city, but it has a clean and well-maintained court where we can shoot hoops. Now that my siblings are fifteen and twelve respectively, they’re good at giving me a better run for my money.
I miss that.
Many of the people I fight fires with like to play ball as well—both baseball and basketball—and once they found out that I usually went in as a center while shooting hoops, they challenged me to compete during some of their pick-up sessions.
After the firehouse and all our equipment has been scrubbed and repaired, that is. Gutiérrez-Pedro, the only woman firefighter in our ladder company, is the best at three-point shots, while Cunningham is the best guard.
Yet my height means I can block and rebound like nobody’s business.
Regardless, the skills I developed in these areas of my life have not prepared me for sharing a house with Elle, Tristan, and Jackson. I’m attempting to find my footing with people I’m still getting to know.
Maybe it’s the unpredictability.
One minute, I’ll come home to see Elle and Tristan all serene and cuddled up on the sofa watching TV, and the next, I’ll wander in right when Jackson and Tristan are sniping at each other. Usually, they do this only if she’s not there, but not always.
At other times, it’ll be tranquil here. Jackson will be playing a song on his guitar that almost reminds me of a hymn while Tristan flambés something over the stove and Elle does yoga in the living room. All of us men really enjoy it when she does that.
Even me.
So basically, my new abode either has a great environment or an uncomfortable one. I just never know which from moment to moment.
It’s too bad that the other men don’t seem to like each other because I get along fine with them both. I do feel like Elle’s been going out of her way to unite us. Maybe that’s why one Sunday when all four of us are there together, she suggests we play a game. That part doesn’t shock me. What does end up shocking me is the name of that game.
“I want to have some fun.” She eyes each of us individually. “Tell me you’re all in.”
I glance briefly at the other two. We’re here to do her bidding, so it’s not as if we’ll say no. Besides, how terrible could fun be?
Tristan nods.
Jackson pulls his customary smirk. “You know I am, sweet thing.”
“Me, too,” I say.
“I hope you’ll like it,” she drips out the information as if it’s in an eyedropper.
“Is this going to be another break-the-ice type of thing?” Tristan grinds out, sounding as long-suffering as Job from the Bible. “Like Hot Seat?”
“No. It’s going to be poker.”
Relief floods me.
The guys and gals at the firehouse play poker all the time, and when they found out I didn’t, were all too eager to teach me how. Well, “teach” might not be the right term. I learned through trial and error as well as a loss of fifty bucks that first time.
Poker can be expensive when you don’t know what you’re doing. After that, I observed everyone else until I had a handle on it, then folded anytime things became—to borrow one of their phrases—“too rich for my blood.”
“Nice,” Jackson remarks with a feral look in his eye.
“And since playing for cash is so unnecessarily cutthroat, we’ll stick to the strip version,” Elle suggests, and I’m not sure if I understood her correctly.
“The strip version?” I rasp out.
“Strip poker is where you take off an item of clothing rather than paying with your cash every time you lose a hand,” Tristan explains. “The winner is the last one not buck-ass nude.”
My neck feels like it’s just been roasted on a spit.
Yet it’s as if there are multiple sides of me battling for supremacy. The original me who recently left the church and feels that such an activity is not only immoral but scandalous. And another more secular version of me who’s now lain with a woman a full nine times—yes, I’ve been counting, so sue me—and well, likes it .
Even if I’m frequently riddled with shame for doing so.
There’s also the firefighter and EMT me who yesterday assisted with extinguishing a three-story warehouse blaze. The wind kept whipping more oxygen into the fire, making everything take longer. Fortunately, the structure was empty.
Despite this, one of the onsite news reporters suffered a cardiac arrest during her coverage, so I administered CPR in the ambulance on the way to George Washington University Hospital. Touching a victim while my training kicks in feels so completely different from touching Elle, and this didn’t even register with me until after the emergency had passed.
One minute I’ll be soaping Elle up in her shower stall as a prelude to sex. Yet during another, I’ll be chuckling with her at a meme on her phone’s screen. I found the one of a koala gaping its mouth open in dismay midway through eating eucalyptus captioned with, “You mean I could’ve had donuts?” particularly funny.
I live a bizarre existence in many ways.
Now, come what may, we retire to the dining room to play cards. Elle cuts them as Jackson shuffles and acts as the dealer. The weather hasn’t exactly been balmy, but we’re not dressed in layers or anything. Elle’s wearing a cute head scarf and matching socks with a short skirt and form-fitting top none of the women I used to know would don in a million years.
Jackson’s in long shorts and a tie-dyed shirt. He probably regrets not putting on some socks now. Tristan’s wearing his typical black Docker-type pants, along with a black polo as well as socks and shoes. I enter this tournament of ours wearing jeans, a short-sleeved button-down, an undershirt, boxers, and socks.
Tristan wins the first hand, with Jackson winning the next one. But after that, I claim victory over the next two rounds.
Part of it is paying attention—which means avoiding the beauty of Elle’s body as more and more of it comes into view—and the other is good fortune. Somehow, I’ve managed to draw some amazing combinations. A full house. And a straight. But that means Elle is sitting there in nothing but her panties now.
It’s distracting in the extreme. I’ve been hard ever since she removed her bra. It’s funny how knowing exactly what it feels like to caress those breasts and bury myself inside her ratchets up my desire to do it again. And that’s despite knowing it’s a sin.
Another weird thing is that because her dining room table is transparent, not only is everyone visible from the waist up, we’re also exposed from the waist down. One more loss and I’ll be able to spy the pierced promised land between her thighs, something I’m trying not to think about.
Something else I’m trying not to think about is the fact that I’m not the only one with a notable erection.
With this last win, I’ve made Tristan shuck off his fancy trousers, Jackson shove his outerwear shorts down, and Elle drop those panties.
“Oh yeah,” Jackson remarks. “There go the teeny-weeny bikinis.” He reaches out and pinches her bottom, making her slap his hand away.
“Hey, I’m playing a game here.”
“I believe you just lost that game, sweet thing.”
But the musician pulls his hand back with obvious reluctance, his smirk now coming across as a bit pained. Since I’m pressing up against my zipper so fiercely, I’m in pain, too. Tristan might be if it weren’t for the fact that he’s poking out through his fly. He attempts to close the flap of his boxer briefs, but maybe his underwear is a size too small because it doesn’t work.
My own erection jerks for some reason, and I immediately glance away.
Didn’t mean to see that.
Anyway, with each of the other men down to a single garment each, one more losing hand means they’re out. Or I assume it does. Tristan, as this round’s dealer, no longer offers any cards to Elle, so that sounds right.
Yet, Jackson wears that impertinent smirk on his face like a badge of honor or something. His fingers mess with the guitar pick secured around his neck like he’s almost happy to lose. Or maybe to strip down. Elle doesn’t seem too put out about her loss either as she remains at the table as a spectator.
As I discard an unhelpful two of hearts and nine of clubs, she makes an announcement that alters everything.
“By the way, there’s a prize for the winner.”
“He gets to join you tonight?” Jackson guesses, waggling his eyebrows as he likes to do.
“In a manner of speaking.”
Tristan frowns at her. “Please explain ‘in a manner of speaking.’”
“Oh, you’ll find out,” is her cryptic answer.
As we continue the game, I find myself in the astounding position of holding five cards that all happen to bear the suit of diamonds. I’ve never had this particular type of hand before, but if memory serves, this is a flush.
A flush . One of the best hands possible.
I scuff my bare feet—I did lose each of my socks, after all—against the area rug beneath the table. Then, as everything circles back around to me, I call.
And I win.
“Guess you’re the man getting lucky tonight,” Jackson says, his smirk dimming by a degree or two. Of the three of us, he’s by far the most vocal about his libido.
“That’s not what he wins,” Elle interjects, lacing her hands together in front of her as if she’s not in nothing but her skin.
“What did the kid win then?” Tristan asks, scrunching up one side of his mouth.
“Oh, he gets to fuck me, all right, but not in my bed.” She turns to me. “I want you to do it right here.” Elle pats the tabletop in the spot where her plate normally sits. I attempt to swallow but can’t. My throat’s too dry, and the bleachy taste of pure alarm coating my tongue only makes the sensation worse. Then, she points at Tristan and Jackson. “And I want you two to stay right here and watch.”