Page 45 of Lifeline

“What’s this about your writing?” Mika asked as he took the deck and began cutting and shuffling before dealing.

“C’mon,” I complained. “Let’s not.”

“I mean, we’ve all read the posts, watched the videos, seen what ya say to people in the comments,” Jake told me as he took his cards.

“You have?” I wondered, surprised, and looked around the table to see everyone but Mika nodding their heads.

“Reno reads some of them aloud to me,” Mika said as he set up the rest of the cards and peered at his, keeping them face down on the table. “Where’s the bets?”

“Oh shit,” Reno said, reaching into his pockets and pulling out a drawstring bag that jingled heavily and plopped it down. “Forgot, sorry, lemme break them up.”

“Loose change?” I asked.

“Trust me, you do not want to be playing for real money, especially your own,” Mika snorted as he reached out to take a handful of the change and help speed the process along. “It can get brutal.”

“Big Boss says we’re not allowed to play for real,” Jake said with a sigh. “But that’s probably because he gets taken to the cleaners.”

“By you,” Reno said with a snort, his attention locked onto the change he was divvying up carefully.

“And Mika,” Carter added.

“It’s about luck and numbers,” Mika said, as diligent as his brother in his separating.

“Xander’s read it too,” Colin pointed out, and I looked at him in surprise and then horror.

“He what?” I asked, eyes going wide. “I didn’t think he gave a fuck.”

“Oh, he gives a fuck,” Colin chuckled. “I mean, did you really think you were going to be given free rein to write your posts, your newsletter blogs, or whatever you want to call them, and he wouldn’t check to see what you were putting down?”

I honestly hadn’t thought he would care enough to check, and the idea that the man who had despised my position was checking how I was doing was…unnerving. Xander wasn’t a bad man, but he was definitely rough to deal with, especially for someone who held the job title I did at the outpost.

“Don’t worry,” Colin said as he accepted his allotment from the pile of change. “If he had a problem with what you were writing, you’d know by now.”

“We’d all know,” Jake said with a snicker as he took his change as well.

Mika snorted. “Bet you he’s still worried about what Xander thought of it.”

“Shut up, I am not,” I lied. “I’m just glad he doesn’t have a major issue with it, is all.”

“Sure,” Mika said as he played dealer.

I wasn’t the most experienced poker player, but it was funny to see how each man played. Jake was unsurprisingly loose with his style, prone to taking risks that didn’t always pay off, but when they did, it was big. Carter was more reserved and careful, never betting large, always careful to conserve his bank of coins. Reno couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to play bold or careful and jumped back and forth randomly. Colin definitely liked to mess with people, using his social skills to disarm or annoy others. Mika was more like Carter, and I had to admit that once again, I was more like Reno, but I wasn’t afraid to throw in some of Colin’s tactics either.

The two tables put together hadn’t been that large, so we were squished together, meaning most of us kept our cards flat on the table to avoid our neighbors accidentally seeing them. It also meant that Colin bumped into me frequently on one side, though he was careful not to let it happen too often. Mika’s leg bumped mine at one point, but then after a second had stayed there, pressing into my thigh.

It was distracting, but I was able to ignore it mostly as the piles of change in front of us shifted around the table between rounds. Every now and then, someone would get another round of drinks, but it was Carter, not Jake or even Mika, who was holding back on drinking. I hadn’t realized there was a selection process for the designated driver; I had just assumed it would default to the normal driver, or to Mika, who was not all that fond of drinking.

Yet the drinks flowed, the game was played, and Mika became less and less aware of his body and how it was moving. Or maybe he was perfectly aware that his leg kept pressing into mine and his hands had a habit of lying against my hip when he dropped them.

I decided to test it by letting my hand drop under the table and slide up his thigh while the game was paused, while Colin went to the bathroom and Jake went to buy more drinks. Mika’s head shifted, and I saw him looking at me from the corner of his eyes. He was still smiling from the stupid joke Reno had made about the three queens Colin had slapped down to win. A joke that wasn’t funny, but what was funny was Reno having to explain that it was funny because there were three queens next to one another at the table and Jake, still innocent and confused.

Carter was distracted by texting someone on his phone, but Mika? Mika was definitely paying attention to me. Feeling bolder than usual, due to the alcohol, I let my hand slide over his thigh to his groin. I had to bite down my surprise so it didn’t show when I discovered there was something quickly growing hard in his pants. I remembered how my touch had been a surefire way to get him hard when we were younger, and apparently that hadn’t changed.

There was no way in hell I could do what I was tempted to do, and I didn’t think Mika was drunk enough to let me risk pulling his dick out under the table. That didn’t stop me from stroking him with my fingers, knowing that full motion would give us away.

Not that Mika was going to give us away; he was the picture of innocence as he carried on the conversation as if I wasn’t groping him. If he was even remotely nervous about being caught, his dick certainly didn’t let on. If anything, the hardness as it strained against his jeans told me he was enjoying the idea that I was doing it in public.

I wasn’t doing much better; I could feel my body revving up, and with the help of the alcohol, common sense was leaving the building. I tracked back through my memory to think of what I’d seen since we’d shown up, and I finally settled on something.