Never Winter Again

Chapter Eleven - Walk Away

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.