Under the Surface (21 page)

I check my
hand. Two jacks, a five of hearts, a seven of diamonds, and an ace of spades. I
try leaning to my left to get a peek at Emmy’s hand, but she shoves me away
playfully.

“
No cheating,
”
she tells me. She puts two cards in front of her. Looking
confident in her hand.

I keep the
jacks and place the other three cards on the table. Everyone gets rid of what
they don’t want. Tyler passes around the joint. Mason takes two hits and hands
it my way. I haven’t smoked weed in a few months, I usually cough up a lung
when I do. I opt against it and pass it along to Emmy. She takes a small hit,
then immediately starts coughing, waving her hand by her mouth to move the smoke
away. She gives it to the girl next to her, Laney.

“You okay?”
I ask her.

“Yeah, just
didn’t expect it to burn as bad as it did.”

“You haven’t
smoked before?”
I ask, surprised she tried weed for the
first time right now.

“No,”
she coughs. “When you handed it to me, I just thought, what the
hell, I’ll give this a go. But uh…maybe I shouldn’t have inhaled so much.”

I laugh. Give
it to Emmy to always surprise me.

Tyler deals
the cards to fill in what everybody rejected. Mine’s a bust. I got nothing to
help my hand of two jacks. I doubt it’s the strongest of the group, so I decide
I won’t bet on the next round.

“Okay, Tyler
says. “Everyone got a second draw of cards, and this is the only time that is
done without placing a bet. Now if you all want to keep playing, and think you
have a strong enough hand to last until the end you can bet clothing, or fold.

I toss my
cards in, signaling I’m out. Noel does the same as me. Everyone else chooses to
play, pulling off different items and throwing them in the center.

Emmy puts hers nurse
’s hat in the
middle. It joins a pair of shoes, another hat, and two separate sets of
bracelets.

“Do we show
our cards now?”
Trisha asks.

“Yeah, we all
place our cards down now. Whoever has the best hand wins”
Blake, the guy sitting to the right of Noel says.

“Yeah,
motherfuckers! Three kings. This hand is all mine,”
declares Mason. He pulls the clothing items towards his small
portion of the table.

The rest of the
players with the losing hands toss their cards into the center of the table.
Tyler gathers them and shuffles again.

The game
continues on. Blake, Emmy, and I are the only players who are yet to win a
hand. I’m left wearing nothing but my basketball shorts, underwear, and socks.
Blake has his socks, boxers, and Yankee’s jersey—he’s playing just as bad as I
am. And Emmy has on a necklace, her nurse’s costume, and whatever she has on
underneath. She’s lost her hat, shoes, gloves, and bracelet in the duration of
the game.

“Next hand.
Get your clothes ready.”
Tyler tells us then deals. “And Emilie, it
looks like you better bet wisely…or not wisely. I wouldn’t have a problem with
that either,”
he smiles.

She just sits
up straighter to show her confidence, staring intently at the hand of cards she
was dealt.

I look at my
cards. I’ve got nothing. The only one worth keeping is an ace of hearts. I
debate betting at all on this hand.

I feel Emmy
nudge my arm with her elbow. “I need some help,”
she whispers.

I turn to
her. “What were you dealt?”

“Three jacks,
a seven, and a two.”
She continues to whisper.

It’s a good
hand. She’s probably got a shot of winning the whole pot, giving her more
clothes to play with.

“Keep the
jacks,”
I tell her.
“Bet
this hand so you can get more cards. But you’ll have to throw in your dress to
play for the winning hand.”

“That’s fine.
I actually think I can win this hand for once. I won’t care if I have to sit in
my underwear in front of everyone for a minute. They’re all drunk and high. They’ll
barely remember it in the morning.”
She tells me with
complete confidence.

Woman’
s got guts. I don
’t care that I’m sitting here in nothing but my underwear either.
And I have to say the confidence she has in herself is definitely sexy.

I toss in my cards.
Knowing what Emmy’s got, there’
s no chance I
’ll get enough good cards to
beat her hand.

She’s up
against Tyler, who has plenty of clothes to play with, and Blake, who is now
left in just his boxers.

She tosses in
her necklace and gives Tyler her bad cards, getting another two back. She looks
at her new hand, and I can catch only a whisper of a smile on her lips.

Blake and
Tyler throw in clothing for the winning bet. Everyone else folds.

“You in on
this hand, Emilie?”
Blake asks. He’s got a look on his face
that shows he’s hoping she’s about to say yes.

She doesn’t
give an answer, just pushes her stool back from the table and steps off it.
Emmy unbuttons the top of her nurse’s costume and pulls it over her head.
Revealing nothing but a red lace bra and matching underwear.

Well, fuck me.

The outfit
gets thrown in the middle.

“I’m in,”
Emmy says to Blake.

Noel bites
her bottom lip, stifling a grin. The girl sitting next to Emmy, I think her
name was Laney, gives off a nasty look. But Emmy doesn’t seem to mind.

Tyler just
wipes his hand down his mouth. “Everyone hold tight,”
he says before leaving the table and going into one of the rooms
in the basement.

Blake is
speeches. His mouth is wide open, forming a big, gaping
o
shape.

I’m guessing
my expression looks the same as Blake’s. I’m almost in shock, like about to
fall onto the table and have a coronary kind of shock.

Not only is
she the first woman to get fully undressed during the game, but she also
happens to be donning the sexiest lingerie I’ve ever seen.

Emmy catches
my stare.

“This was
supposed to be a surprise later,”
she whispers in my ear.
“But you look pretty surprised right now, so I wouldn’t say it was a total
bust.”

“You wore
this for me?”

She nods. “I might
have had you in mind when I put it on earlier. And I was hoping the expression
on your face when you saw it would look exactly like is does now.”

I’m happy my
reaction is what she wanted. But I can’t tear my eyes away from her. Her skin
has just the fairest brush of freckles on it, mostly on her chest. And the bra
she’s wearing is keeping her tits on perfect display.

Every inch of
her creamy, pale skin is gorgeous. Not one flaw in my eyes.

Even though
we’re in front of a group of people I can’t help myself. I graze the back of my
knuckles down the curve of her waist. Starting just below her breast and moving
to her hip. Emmy watches my hand the entire time.

“This is
quite a nice surprise. Although I do think I would have preferred I was the
only person seeing it. But please don’t take that as a complaint.”

She purses
her lips. “Don’t worry, you can enjoy this all by yourself later.”

“Hey,
lovebirds.”
I hear someone yell to us. “No fucking at the table.”

We
reluctantly move away from each other.

“Later,”
Emmy mouths to me.

Yes. Later.

I catch Tyler
walking back to the table. He’s holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and a
coffee mug in the other.

“Emilie, in
honor of you being the first woman at the table to strip down to your lovely
panties, you get the first glass of champagne,”
Tyler says.
He pours the champagne into the coffee mug, filling it to the brim. “I would
give you a nicer glass, but this was all that was down here.”
He passes it to Emmy.

Emmy grabs
the glass and takes a long sip. “Hmm, well don’t I feel special. How come you
didn’t pour a glass for Blake? He was the first guy to end up in his
underwear.”

“Ah, that is
true, but we gentlemen here like to honor the ladies first. I see this guy
walking around the house all the time in his underwear, but at the naked poker
table the first woman naked gets the first taste of champagne. A lovely
tradition I think.”

Emmy shrugs.
“A slightly flawed concept. But I’m going to shut my mouth now because I can’t
deny free champagne.”

“That a
girl,”
says Tyler. “Now let’s show our hands and see if we all get the
honor of having Emilie sit here in her underwear any longer.”

“If I lose
this hand, does that mean I’m out of the game?”

“
Not necessarily,
”
says Noel, whose looking pretty high at the moment. Her eyes are
red and her posture is relaxed. She has her right arm draped over the back of
her chair, leaning her body pretty close to Blake’s. “You could always lose the
bra and panties,” she says jokingly.

Blake joins
Noel in laughing at her comment.

“
Well, let
’s hope this
game doesn’t come to that. Now boys, let’s show our cards so I can win some
clothing back,”
says Emmy.

Blake shows
his hand of a pair of aces and points to Emmy and Tyler. “From the look on both
your faces after seeing my cards I can tell I already lost.”

“
You aren
’t wrong, my
friend,”
says Tyler. He shows the table his cards, four tens. Four fucking
tens.

Emmy is
fucked.

I try to gage
her reaction but her face is in the perfect poker face. Everybody at the table
is waiting on baited breath to see if she can somehow overcome Tyler’s hand of
four tens.

Emmy puts one
jack on the table. Followed by another, and another, and another.

Four of a
kind, all jacks.

My woman just
beat Tyler’s hand of cards.

“What!”
he shouts. “That is not fucking possible.”
He’s gripping his hair with both his hands in a mixture of anger
and confusion.

We’re all
laughing, congratulating Emmy on her win. She grabs the clothes from the center
of the table, smiling the entire time. Instead of putting her costume back on
she dons Blake’s Yankee jersey.

“Bold move,
woman,”
he tells her, but from the sound of his voice we all know he isn’t
mad.

“You’re
welcome to take my costume, Blake. I wouldn’t mind giving you something to
wear.”
Emmy holds up her costume for him. But instead of Blake grabbing
it Noel does.

“Put this on,
we can both match now,”
Noel says to Blake. She wiggles the outfit
back and forth in front of him. He looks reluctant, but something Noel says to
him makes him change his mind. I’ve grown to learn Noel has a way with words
when it comes to men. She had the same effect on Mason earlier tonight when she
made him blush.

Blake fully
unbuttons the costume and puts it on. The outfit isn’t even close to being big
enough to close around his chest, so he just leaves it undone.

“Looks like
Tyler’s still bitter over that loss,”
Mason says.

Tyler is
looking out of sorts. “God, what are the odds she beat my hand like that. Two
players with a four of a kind.”
He pauses. Now looking even
more confused and like he’s focusing on something. “When did the music turn
off?”
He asks.

I didn’t even
notice the lack of music. It was all coming from upstairs so down in the
basement it came across as a low hum.

“
I don
’t know. It
must have just happened. I swear I heard it a minute ago.”
Blake tells Tyler.

Tyler gets
out of his seat. “I’ll check it out. People shouldn’t be leaving yet. But if it
stopped for a fight, I swear to God I’ll throw whoever is involved out of our
house.”
He leaves to run up the stairs. I hear the door open and close.
Just as fast as Tyler was up the stairs, he’s down them.

Now he’s
looking worried.

“Hide the
weed, Blake. Cops are here.”

Blake
scrambles to take care of anything that could get him in trouble with the police.
I see him disappear into one of the rooms in the basement and comes back to
stand by Noel. The two girls who were at the table with us start going for the
stairs.

“
Wait,
”
Tyler yells to them, but they don’
t listen.
“Are those
chicks twenty-one?”
He asks Blake.