Basement - c.t.h. a.u.

8:55PM

     I wish Luke and I declined, saying we had other plans, that we were busy, or even that we were getting ready to go somewhere. If my eyes didn't drift off to the bottle in Michael's hands, all of the events subsequent to that moment could have been avoided. We could have said "no thanks" to escape any possible embarrassment.

     But no, like the dumbos we were, we stared at Michael as he walked past us. He turned around and said, "You guys coming?"

     Before we knew what we were doing, we were heading towards the dining room with Michael. Upon our entrance, we noticed that the table was full with two extra chairs, and some seniors stood around it. I immediately noticed Calum, and he smiled at me when I caught his eye. I smiled back.

     Archer smirked when he saw me. "Look who it is! It's the two losers who joined my party tonight, breaking my number one rule."

     The standbys snickered, and I rolled my eyes. If I could have punched my brother, I would have. But I didn't feel like getting blood on my hands at that moment.

     I was forced to sit in between Archer and Michael's girlfriend. Across from me, Luke sat down in between Calum and some guy I didn't know. At the ends of the table sat Michael and the girl Archer was with earlier near the front entrance.

     Michael starting shuffling a pack of playing cards. "So Audrey, Luke, do you guys know our method of poker?" He carefully placed the shuffled deck face down on the table.

     Archer took a sip from his Solo cup and chuckled. "Go over the rules. My sister's never played this game,"

     "I can speak for myself, you moron," I muttered at him in annoyance. "Please explain, Michael," Archer didn't need to treat me like a little girl. We were one year apart, yet he felt the urge to treat me like a little kid. Plus, he doesn't know if I never played this game before. Maybe I did.. Just not the way they played it.

     Michael laughed lightly, which didn't make me feel any better. "Alright, well, you guys know the basic suits and combinations, right? Diamonds, hearts, spades, then clovers? And for the combinations, there's royal flush, four-of-a-kind, full house, so on, so forth?" He started distributing cards evenly and occasionally looked up at Luke and I. We nodded, and he continued, "Everyone will have five cards. Your goal is to have the highest poker hand out of all the players before we get to the end of the tenth round."

     "Yeah," the guy to the left of Luke said, "Everyone takes turns picking from the deck. You can either keep the card or put it face up for someone else to take. You can't take more than one card, and you're only allowed five cards in one hand."

     Archer interrupted. "And if you're confident in your hand, you can call an early ending to the game, and everyone will have to put their cards down after one last round."

     Luke looked at Archer and Michael, confused by their definition of poker. "Are you sure this is considered a game of poker?"

     "It's our poker game, so deal with it," Archer said, picking up his hand of cards. He perked up again before returning to studying his cards. "Oh, and the loser with the lowest combination has to pay a penalty: they have to chug down ten shots of rum,"

     As if on cue, Michael put the bottle of Bacardi Rum in the middle of the table. I could almost see the fear in Luke's eyes as he stared in shock. The shot glasses were already on the table.

     Calum gave Archer and Michael a mean look. "Hey come on, these guys are new to this. They shouldn't need to pay the penalty if they lose."

    I was thankful someone in the room had a bit of sensibility. Drinking ten shots of alcohol? I wasn't ready to do something like that. I hoped Archer and Michael would realize how stupid it was.