9:49 am Sunday -
Amity
David
This can't be happening. What is she thinking?
"I'm sorry? What?"
"Well, since I'm stuck like this it only seems fair that you help disguise me by being a more overt curiosity."
"And how does that equate to me cross-dressing too?"
"Only if I win, and I have to win well. And it likely won't be for long." Don't tempt me with a good time during a hurricane, Grace. I'm crazy enough to go for it. "We'll play poker, I'll start with ten dollars, and you can bring as much money to the table as you want."
She's set herself up very comfortably in the kitchen. At this time of day I'd expect to find all sorts of dirty dishes Mar and Jill would have left behind waiting for me to clean before Sunday dinner starts. It feels a bit odd to come out and have Grace waiting here instead.
Actually where did she find tape to build some of her set? Marissa never lends out that tape...she got both Marissa and Jillian to go along with whatever this is...how? Why?
"So, the twist is: every dollar more than I start with is an hour you have to be a girl for. Say I end up at eleven am with twenty three bucks? You have to be Amity until midnight tonight. I'm sure even with my meager winnings I can buy you something to wear...say...a maid outfit."
This utter minx.
How can she be so sexy and cool all at once? It's the bra. The peek of her bra's waistband through the bottom of the arm holes of her shirt are redefining everything I thought I knew about her chest. I'm pretty sure I've seen Gavin shirtless briefly when he took of a jumper last winter. But I'm unable to shake the mental image that Grace has a very small pair of breasts somehow.
Okay, let's not think about Grace naked. Let's think about something else. Like losing at this game.
"So you're betting on beating me at a purely luck based game AND I'll fall for the gambler's fallacy to end up losing any substantial amount of money?" No. That's clear. Her wicked smile that makes my heart pound says otherwise. But I don't see how this could go any other way.
She's got the table in the kitchen set up like a poker table with some green fabric I didn't know we had taped to the top for effect. Laid out on both sides is about twenty bucks in small change. Like, yeah I could get stuck trying to recover a big loss, but how do the blinds work? What's the mechanism I can't overcome?
"How do the blinds work? That's normally how casinos get you to actually lose money. Without those I'd never bet on hands I didn't think could win and it'd be too easy to play it safe." There's that same smile again. Is she planning to cheat? No. Everything I know about Grace says she wants to win honestly. But I don't see how I can lose much of anything. "Okay, so what's the restriction? There's gotta be a catch."
"If you sit down to play you gotta stay the whole hour and what I have at the end of that is calculated as time with dollars to hours and you stick to it."
I don't see anything detrimental. And I've not really got anything planned for this morning. I can have breakfast while we play too.
"Sure. It's a bet."
She looks so sexy right now, the confidence radiating off her is unfathomable.
I sit down and start pouring myself a bowl of cereal. Grace shuffles the cards and deals both her and myself a pair of cards.
A pair of twos. Not an amazing hand, but it's worth seeing what the common cards are before folding.
"Check."
"Check." Grace didn't even look at her cards, she is looking at her phone though...that's suspicious.
She flips over the first three common cards and it's a three a four and an eight. That's a nothing burger if I ever saw one.
As I think about how to count to five the door opens and Aaron and Blake come in. I check my own phone for the time and they're right on time: ten AM.
...Was that the reason Grace checked her phone?
"Great, now for phase two." Grace pulls a piece of paper that by the sounds of it was taped to the bottom of the table and slaps it on the side facing Aaron and Blake. I can't see it from where I'm sitting but I can see them reading it silently. They don't seem to recognise Grace, but Blake didn't meet Gavin or Grace and Aaron has forgotten how own name before, so this isn't the real test.
They start muttering quietly among the pair of them. I can only assume Grace wrote a request for quiet on her sign.
Or that would be the case if Aaron and Blake didn't back out of the apartment and leave again with a weird look on their faces.
"Check." Grace's voice brings me back to the game at hand.
"Check." I respond, still unsure what's going on.
The next card is a nine. Everything is odd suits so not even a flush is possible.
"Twenty cents." A pair is worth a small bet.
"Call." I could get used to this game, I like listening to Grace's voice. The smile that's impossible to hide from her voice just does things to me I would never tell anyone else about.
Grace flips the river.
Another nine. So I'm looking at two pair eight high. Pretty much any card on the board beats me. A pair of twos is kinda a terrible hand to keep. But I kept it more to watch Grace and see if she had any obvious tells. And aside from smiling the whole time, I have no better grasp on her mind.
"So what do I get if I'm ahead?"
"Is drawing attention away from me not prize enough? I thought we were on a team here."
"If you want me to fall for the gambler's fallacy I would think I need something worth foolishly chasing, otherwise I'd just never bet and fold every hand."
"Dealer's choice. You can ask any favor of me you want." Don't say that. All I can think about would be to ask for another... "Like even a a second kiss."
She knows.
How does she know? I've been so well behaved since Friday.
"Ohh, looks like you win this hand."
She has to know, she has to be playing me.