7. Aidan #2
Mika smirked. “Some, Jake and Reno for instance, insist there should be a required round of shots every hour we’re out. The rest of us believe we should all be allowed to drink however much we want after the opening salvo. Expect there to be a loud argument about it at some point.”
“So,” Colin said, eyeing me. “What is your shot of choice for an opener?”
I glanced at Mika. “You know what it is.”
“Do I?” Mika wondered, then grunted. “That hasn’t changed? Seriously?”
“Nope.”
“Sheesh, most people end up with a horror story by this time in their life and swear off it.”
“Not me.”
“So it seems,” Mika said with a snort. “Alright, that’s a tequila for you. Colin?”
“Hey, a man of taste, same for me,” Colin said. “And if it’s gotta be a drink, I’ll take a G and T.”
“Tequila sunrise,” I said, and when they glanced at me, I shrugged. “I’m a man of consistency.”
“Sure,” Mika said, and the doubt in his voice made Colin snort as he clamped a hand on my shoulder and directed me to the tables the guys had pushed together.
“We miss anything?” Colin asked as we found our seats.
I couldn’t prove he’d sat in a seat that forced me to leave the spot between Reno and myself open…
but I didn’t trust him for a minute. It wasn’t a secret that he was a sneaky son of a bitch, but without him being smug or obvious, I was stuck with a suspicion.
“We found out that apparently, our new guy doesn’t think what he does counts as writing,” Jake said, jabbing a finger in my direction as if it wasn’t obvious who he’d been talking about.
I stared at Carter. “You really told everyone?”
He didn’t look the slightest bit bothered by my glare. “What? It’s what you said.”
“And you’re the one who’s making a bigger deal out of it than it was,” I pointed out as I dropped into my seat with a huff. “Sheesh, can’t tell y’all nothin’ without it being a whole thing.”
Reno nudged Jake. “He’s starting to sound like you.”
“There’s no one in the world who sounds like him,” I said and laughed when Jake looked like he was trying to figure out if I was insulting or complimenting him.
“He is…unique,” Colin said, laughing when Jake flipped him the bird because that comment wasn’t meant as a compliment.
A bark of laughter drew my attention to the front doors as a group of men came in, their conversation loud and carrying across the bar. Jake’s comment brought me back to the conversation. “Y’all always wanna give me hell, like Big Boss don’t do that enough as it is.”
“I really want us to choose a different nickname for Xander,” Reno said, wrinkling his nose.
I laughed. “You’re just upset because you think Colin ‘ruined’ it.”
“He did,” Carter said with a heavy sigh. “Now that we know he calls Xander that to turn him on, it just doesn’t feel the same.”
“Feels just fine to me,” Colin said with a grin as the rest of the table, save me, let out a heavy groan.
“I guess it is kinda weird,” Jake admitted with a sigh. “I just dunno what else to call ’em since that’s just who he’s been forever. Be weirder to change his name, ya know?”
“Whatever you say, Jackson,” Colin said.
“Hey!” Jake protested with more indignity than I’d heard out of the normally goofy man. “That’s doctor-patient confidentiality!”
“I’m not a doctor, and legal names are printed on every form,” Colin pointed out as the rest of us looked at Jake.
“Your name is Jackson, really?” I wondered.
“How the fuck do you go from Jackson to Jake?” Carter scoffed.
“How did I not know that?” Reno asked.
“Why are you like this?” Jake demanded of Colin, who smirked, fully aware of the chaos he had caused and clearly loving every moment.
Mika appeared with a tray laden with drinks, and I had to admit, his ability to balance all of them on the massive tray was…impressive. “What the hell did I just walk up to?”
“Yes, my name is Jackson,” Jake interrupted, earning a curious look from Mika as he handed out the drinks and shots. “And ya get ‘Jake’ from it because ‘Jake’ came from the name ‘Jack’ somehow, and I dunno, I went from Jackson to Jack, and then Jake. Just kinda happened.”
“When the hell did people start taking Jake from Jack?” Reno wondered.
“Medieval times, I guess,” Jake said, grinning as he took his large beer from Mika. “Cheers.”
“Not that I’ve ever doubted there is a brain in that skull,” Mika began, shooting me a curious look at the empty seat next to me. He rolled his eyes when I nodded my head toward my first suspect before sitting down. “But why do you know that?”
“Dunno that either,” Jake said and held up his shot glass. “Now, here’s to us!”
“Lame,” Reno exclaimed. “To us? C’mon Jake. Think of something better.”
“Better how?”
“I don’t know. Something…more interesting. Make it funny, or make it…something else.”
“Hmm, alright, here’s to the entire group of us, but especially to the new guys. Colin, for bein’ our Doc and keepin’ us in line, but also wrappin’ Big Boss around your little finger-”
“Oh, boy, do I wish Xander had joined us,” Colin said with a laugh.
“And to Aidan, who’s totally a writer even if he doesn’t think he is, and for putting up with our shit so well,” Jake finished, and I blinked at him in surprise, making him grin. “What? Didn’t think I noticed ya hopped on a new conversation so we’d start talking about it?”
“Fuck off,” I said with a weary sigh and a shake of my head.
“You know what? I’ll drink to that,” Carter said with a laugh, and we clinked glasses and downed the shots in one go.
“Satisfied with yourself?” I asked Jake, despite knowing the answer.
“Hell yes, I am,” he said, reaching into his pocket and slapping a deck of cards on the table. “Let’s play.”
“What’s this about your writing?” Mika asked as he took the deck and began cutting and shuffling before dealing.
“C’mon,” I complained. “Let’s not.”
“I mean, we’ve all read the posts, watched the videos, seen what ya say to people in the comments,” Jake told me as he took his cards.
“You have?” I wondered, surprised, and looked around the table to see everyone but Mika nodding their heads.
“Reno reads some of them aloud to me,” Mika said as he set up the rest of the cards and peered at his, keeping them face down on the table. “Where’s the bets?”
“Oh shit,” Reno said, reaching into his pockets and pulling out a drawstring bag that jingled heavily and plopped it down. “Forgot, sorry, lemme break them up.”
“Loose change?” I asked.
“Trust me, you do not want to be playing for real money, especially your own,” Mika snorted as he reached out to take a handful of the change and help speed the process along. “It can get brutal.”
“Big Boss says we’re not allowed to play for real,” Jake said with a sigh. “But that’s probably because he gets taken to the cleaners.”
“By you,” Reno said with a snort, his attention locked onto the change he was divvying up carefully.
“And Mika,” Carter added.
“It’s about luck and numbers,” Mika said, as diligent as his brother in his separating.
“Xander’s read it too,” Colin pointed out, and I looked at him in surprise and then horror.
“He what?” I asked, eyes going wide. “I didn’t think he gave a fuck.”
“Oh, he gives a fuck,” Colin chuckled. “I mean, did you really think you were going to be given free rein to write your posts, your newsletter blogs, or whatever you want to call them, and he wouldn’t check to see what you were putting down?”
I honestly hadn’t thought he would care enough to check, and the idea that the man who had despised my position was checking how I was doing was…unnerving. Xander wasn’t a bad man, but he was definitely rough to deal with, especially for someone who held the job title I did at the outpost.
“Don’t worry,” Colin said as he accepted his allotment from the pile of change. “If he had a problem with what you were writing, you’d know by now.”
“We’d all know,” Jake said with a snicker as he took his change as well.
Mika snorted. “Bet you he’s still worried about what Xander thought of it.”
“Shut up, I am not,” I lied. “I’m just glad he doesn’t have a major issue with it, is all.”
“Sure,” Mika said as he played dealer.
I wasn’t the most experienced poker player, but it was funny to see how each man played.
Jake was unsurprisingly loose with his style, prone to taking risks that didn’t always pay off, but when they did, it was big.
Carter was more reserved and careful, never betting large, always careful to conserve his bank of coins.
Reno couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to play bold or careful and jumped back and forth randomly.
Colin definitely liked to mess with people, using his social skills to disarm or annoy others.
Mika was more like Carter, and I had to admit that once again, I was more like Reno, but I wasn’t afraid to throw in some of Colin’s tactics either.
The two tables put together hadn’t been that large, so we were squished together, meaning most of us kept our cards flat on the table to avoid our neighbors accidentally seeing them.
It also meant that Colin bumped into me frequently on one side, though he was careful not to let it happen too often.
Mika’s leg bumped mine at one point, but then after a second had stayed there, pressing into my thigh.
It was distracting, but I was able to ignore it mostly as the piles of change in front of us shifted around the table between rounds.
Every now and then, someone would get another round of drinks, but it was Carter, not Jake or even Mika, who was holding back on drinking.
I hadn’t realized there was a selection process for the designated driver; I had just assumed it would default to the normal driver, or to Mika, who was not all that fond of drinking.
Yet the drinks flowed, the game was played, and Mika became less and less aware of his body and how it was moving. Or maybe he was perfectly aware that his leg kept pressing into mine and his hands had a habit of lying against my hip when he dropped them.