21 February 2020

Score: Poker Face - Lady Gaga

Mark

"I'm bored," Gloria says, blowing a stray strand of hair off her face. "How much longer?"

We have been playing poker for two hours, essentially, me and the Baby Lord the last men standing. We've stripped everyone else of their buy-in, and have allowed Marco to buy himself in again, just for him to feel better, after losing everything in the first dealing.

Now, it's me against Patrick, and none of us is going to budge.

The rest of the guys have just been watching us for a bit, while we try to trick one another into giving in.

I have to admit that Pretty Boy knows his game. I expected him to quit an hour or so ago, but he's put on quite the resistance.

"Technically, until one of them gives up, or runs out of money," Nate says.

"But that means they can play forever!" Gloria whines, throwing her hands in the air.

"We can go do something else," Alex says, standing up to her feet and stretching.

"Yes, let's go to the bar." Gloria throws her arms around Marco's neck. "You can make us something special, baby." Gloria leans in and kisses her boy toy on the cheek.

"I think I'm going to be sick," I say, not peeling my eyes off the cards, lying on the floor. However, I can see from the corner of my eye that Gloria is flipping me off.

OK, I deserved that one.

"I think I'm done drinking for the night," Lydia says, shaking her head.

She has been awfully quiet since our kiss earlier. She's been avoiding making eye contact with both me and Patrick, and she seems on edge. If I wasn't already on edge, I'd probably be flustered, too. But you can't play poker and be fucking distracted, and, even though I hate to admit it, I've been distracted way more than I'd like.

"Oh, come on, do you want to sit here, wasting your youth away watching these two play?" Gloria says, pulling Lydia by the wrist. Lydia hesitates for a bit, but then lifts off the floor and shakes her legs to normalize the blood flow in them, and walks towards Gloria and Marco, who are already standing by the door.

"Are you coming, babe?" Alex drapes her arm across Nate's shoulders and kisses his forehead.

"Nah, I'm good. I'm really enjoying myself right now." He tilts his chin towards Alex and nips at the skin of her neck lightly.

"You two, go get a room, but this time, NOT our room, Nate," I point a finger at his face.

"Oh, please, while you were trying to conduct an oral examination on Lydia mere hours ago, no one said a thing to you, right? We even cheered you on." Alex snaps.

My eyes dart to Lydia and I can see her flinch at the mention of our kiss.

"OK, see you, guys!" She waves from the doorway and walks out of the room.

Great. Now I'm sure she thinks this is awkward.

Get it together, Mark! I need to focus.

I take a deep breath and sit back, leaning against an armchair. I don't even move my gaze to say "Bye" to the others. I need to put all of my focus back into the game.

This here is my final blow. I'm going to teach the Baby Lord the lesson of his life.

I shoot a glance at the three cards, laid out on the floor between us. There are two Aces down there, and one in my hand. There are two more cards to be flipped, but I've already won and Patrick knows it, as well as I do.

"I raise fifty," Patrick says. Without a word, I take a fifty-quid chip and toss it on the floor.

"I call your fifty," I say, finally. "And raise another fifty."

Nate chuckles at my side. He doesn't know what cards either of us is holding, but it is obvious something extra is happening right now.

"Call," Patrick says.

I nod at Nate to turn the fourth card.

OH.MY.GOD!!!

Yeah, baby! Full house!!! It couldn't have been any better!!!

I wait for a bit, in order not to look too eager. Then, I say:

"I raise one hundred."

He's gonna fold! He is going to fold! There's no way he's that stupid.

"Call." He says, proving me wrong.

He really is that stupid. He's really getting on my nerves right now. I know his style. I have been watching him all night. And I know he's bluffing. And I know I'm not. I have a Full House, and, even if he's holding the Ace of Clubs, which is the only one missing, he can't beat my Full House.

It's going to be like taking sweets from a child.

Nate flips the last card over. Jack of Clubs.

Hmm. It's getting interesting.

Without saying a word, I take two fifty-quid chips and toss them on top of the small pile.

"Oooohh! Mate!" Nate says, chuckling. "Seems like the girls didn't have to leave. This is going to be over sooner than I thought."

"Shut up, Nate!" I spit out.

Patrick calls my raise and reaches for his wallet, retrieving five twenty euro notes and tossing them on top of the pile.

"We'll figure out the exchange rate later." He says with a smirk.

Big mistake. It's called Poker Face for a reason, asshole!

"Wooow, you can't do that, Mate!"

"I said, shut up, Nate!" I say again. "And yes, he can. We didn't specify in the beginning how buy-ins will be dealt. He can do whatever the hell he wants." I take my own wallet and put the cash on the floor. I then take out my debit card and place it on top of the chips and cash.

"I raise you one thousand pounds."

"Whoa!" Nate jumps to his feet and starts jumping up and down.

Idiot!

I watch as Patrick reaches for his wallet again, takes out a debit card, and puts it on top of mine.

"Deal." He says. "And I raise you ten thousand."

"Mate!!!" Nate yells. He's holding on to the backrest of one of the chairs that we pushed out of the way, and keeps bobbing up and down. Jesus, was I such an idiot, when I was sixteen?

"Call," I say, tapping my card. "And I raise you another Five."

"You two are crazy! I should have filmed this! This is insane! This is unreal!" I bet Nate is going to get a heart attack.

"All in," Patrick says, nodding to the table.

"Be. More. Specific." I spit out.

"There are twenty-five thousand pounds in that card." He nods again.

"That's not possible!" I say. "You're not eighteen yet. You cannot have that much money on a card." I sneer. That lying bastard!

"It's one of my mum's. She gave it to me." He shrugs his shoulders with an innocent expression.

Of course, she did.

"Won't your mum ask where you managed to spend twenty-five thousand pounds?" Nate asks.

"I'd only need to transfer it if I lost," Patrick says in a sing-song voice. "Plus, it's no big deal. To her, that's just another Hermes bag."

Unbelievable! Those people are outrageous! This is crazy! How can they be so impudent?

But, I don't have this amount of money on me. And, unlike the fucking Baby Lord, I cannot just borrow it from my precious mummy.

"I can't call you this amount of money," I spit through gritted teeth.

"I thought your dad was doing really well, being Big Pharma and shit," Patrick says, his smirk dripping with poison. "Don't worry, then, you don't need to call the full amount.

I can feel myself clenching my jaw. No, this is not good. Emotions are bad for the game, bad for the mind. But why is Patrick so fucking annoying and why do I want to erase his smirk so much? I'm sure he's not a bad guy. I barely know him. I don't really have the right to hate him.

Deep down, I know the answer. I just don't want to admit it. I can't be getting soft and weak over a girl, can I? This is certainly not me.

But just the way he fucking looks at her makes me want to poke his eyes out.

So I do the stupidest thing any gambler can do.

I succumb to emotion.

"I'll tell you what," I begin. "I have an offer for you. I raise you to fifty thousand pounds."

Nate's gasp next to me reminds me of his presence.

Good. I'd like to have an audience.

"But, I offer you an easy way out," I continue. "How about we forget about all of this stupid shit, split the pot, shake each other's hand and walk away." Patrick's eyebrows pull in.

"And?" He asks.

"And, what?"

"There has to be something else to it." He shrugs his shoulders. Maybe he's not as dumb as he looks.

"You," I lean forward, wagging a finger at him, "Are totally correct. There is one condition. You walk away from Lydia."

****************

Prompt #49: "Master the rules of the game until you can play it better than they can."