Notes: Mari and Sammy – Thank you for the always awesome feedback at all times of the day and night!
Readers and REAL McRollers – Thank you for your always incredible support for the REAL World!
Hope you enjoy!
Game Night (A McRoll in the REAL World Story)
Steve opened the door for the Allen family, Jess, and Jadon, chuckling as Jacob barrelled in ahead of the others.
"Game Night!" he cried and burst into an impromptu dance in the middle of the living room. Cammie approached and wagged her tail happily at his excitement.
As various members of their ohana appeared from the kitchen and dining room at the noise, Jacob stopped and grinned happily. "Everyone's here!"
"Wouldn't miss it, buddy," Danny said.
"You ready to get schooled, D-Dawg?" Jadon asked.
Danny, having long since accepted the nickname, played along. "Name the game, All Day J."
"You know how to play mancala?"
"I'm sure I can learn."
"This was really nice of you to host," Jenna said to Steve as he closed the door behind them.
He smiled. "I need a rematch with Dylan," he said, ruffling the pre-teen's hair and nudging him in the direction of the dining room. The others followed to where Chin, Leilani, and Kono were setting up. Steve turned back to Jenna. "And we thought we'd get everybody together now that Catherine's back."
"Well, we brought plenty of games, just like you asked." Jenna nodded to indicate the bags they'd come in with.
"Good. I picked up a couple more at the store."
Danny snorted. "You? Shopped for board games?"
"Why is that so surprising?" Steve asked, hands going to his hips. "We needed supplies for tonight."
" 'Supplies.' Of course," Danny said wryly. "Operation Game Night, I suppose?"
Jacob, who had run back over for the bag his mother was carrying, heard the last part and said, "Yeah! Operation Game Night!"
Jenna smiled at him. "What are you gonna play first, honey?"
"Minion Operation!" he exclaimed, pulling it out of the bag she was holding. "No, wait! Uno!" He pulled the cards out, followed by another box. "Oh! Connect Four! Ahhh, I don't know!"
Catherine joined them from the kitchen with Grace and Gabby. "There's plenty of time, you'll be able to play them all." She gestured to the living room and dining room. "We've got every table we have set up so there shouldn't be any shortage on space. We can even use the deck."
Steve nodded. "And there're snacks in the kitchen."
"Yeah," Grace said and ticked off a list on her fingers. "We've got chips and salsa, pretzels and dip, crackers and cheese, a fruit and veggie tray …"
"What about dessert?" Jacob cut in.
"Jacob …" Jenna started warningly.
"For after I have some veggies?" he tried hopefully.
She smiled, shaking her head in amusement.
Gabby grinned and put a hand to the side of her mouth, mock-whispering to Jacob, "There's definitely dessert."
"Woooooo!" he exclaimed, pumping a fist.
"Now that that's settled," Steve said with a chuckle, "let's do this."
"Let's do this!" Jacob echoed, his smile stretching across his face.
Within ten minutes, games appeared on all the tables set up in living room, dining room, and deck. Most of the players had chosen their first game, though there were a couple who were acting more as spectators for the time being.
Danny wandered over to the table where Jacob sat with Chin, Jenna, and Dylan.
"What have we got here?" he asked.
"Sorry!" Jacob announced with a toothy grin.
Danny huffed. "Oh great, the game that teaches kids to be jerks."
"Polite jerks," Chin pointed out.
On his turn, Jacob flipped over a card. "Four!" he exclaimed, starting to move one of his red pieces forward.
"Wait, wait, read it again," Jenna said.
Jacob looked more closely at the card. "Ohh, it's the backwards one." He counted out four spaces backward which put him at the beginning of the slide. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "I get to move forward anyways! Right? 'Cause of the slide?" He looked up for confirmation and when Jenna nodded, he happily slid his piece forward. "Did you see Dylan? That's the best place to be if you get a four."
"I think the best place to be is right here," Dylan said, pointing to a spot just behind his own Start. "That way if you get a four, you can move backward up into the Safe Zone and you almost got a piece Home without going around the board."
Jacob gasped, staring at the board where Dylan indicated. "Oh yeah! I hope I get that!"
"Your turn, Dylan," Chin said, and Dylan picked up a card.
Grinning, he turned it around to show everyone. "Ha!"
Jacob's eyes widened, and he held his hands over his red piece protectively, but Dylan went straight for one of Chin's green pieces.
"Noooooo," Chin wailed dramatically as Dylan swapped the green piece for one of his own blue ones and put Chin's back in his Start.
"Soooorrrrryyyy!" he said, drawing out the word and laughing.
"What did I tell you?" Danny said, shaking his head.
Chin sighed, a smile appearing on his own face. "It was a smart move," he admitted.
"It was?" Jacob asked, looking between Chin and his brother.
"Yeah, look how close I am to my Home," Dylan said.
Jacob leaned over the board, reaching out a finger and touching each space as he counted. "One, two, three, four, five! You only need five to get safe! Then nobody can Sorry you."
Just then they heard the sound of wooden blocks falling to the floor from the coffee table and laughter from Cody, Jess, and Jadon.
"That was you!" Jadon cried.
"What?" Cody countered. "That was totally you."
"You bumped the table!"
"I did not. You hit the tower with your clumsy hand."
Jess shook her head in amusement. "Boys," she said, as if that explained everything.
Catherine and Steve had come over when the tower fell, and Danny now joined them.
Catherine grinned. "I know exactly what you mean, Jess."
Steve and Danny looked at her from either side. "What does that mean?" Steve asked.
"I think she's saying we resemble that remark."
"Okay, let's go, the three of us," Steve said. He motioned to the teens. "Clear the way."
"Oh, I gotta see this," Jadon said, rubbing his hands together excitedly as he shifted to the floor. "SuperSEAL versus D-Dawg, but I bet Catherine beats 'em both."
He held out a fist, and Catherine bumped it, giving him a smile. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, J."
Out on the deck, Kono, Casey, and Leilani opened the Yahtzee box.
"It's just dice?" Casey asked, picking up the five die and looking at them in her hand.
"You've never played Yahtzee?" Leilani asked.
Casey shook her head. "Nope."
"Okay, you take the cup," Kono said, holding it out to her, "and you roll all the dice. You're trying to make different combinations." She showed her the pad with the different categories. "You get three rolls, and you can save whatever dice you want from each roll to try and make whatever combination you're going for. Like, if you roll a couple sixes, you can save them and just roll the other dice to try and get more sixes. Get it?"
Casey nodded, looking at the paper. "So you can only get each one once?"
"Right," Leilani said as the back door opened and Kaitlyn came outside.
"What are you guys playing?" she asked.
"Yahtzee," Kono told her. "Do you want to play with us?"
Kaitlyn nodded vigorously and climbed onto an empty spot on the bench. "How do you play?"
"You roll the five dice in the cup and try to get all one number," Casey said. "Like, try to get all sixes. And then try to get all fives. Like that."
"And then there are the special categories," Leilani said. "Like three-of-a-kind or four-of-a-kind where you want three or four of one number."
"And then there's the full house," Kono continued.
" 'Full house'?" Kaitlyn repeated. "That's what Mom always says about us."
Kono smiled. "You guys do have a full house. But in the game, it means you have three of one number and two of another in one turn." She took the dice from Casey and turned them to show the girls what she meant.
"And the straights," Leilani said, turning each die, "are when you have one of each in a row, like one-two-three-four-and-five. Like that."
"Ohh," Kaitlyn said, "like straight in a row."
"Exactly," Kono said. She grinned. "And if you get all five dice to be the same number you have to yell, 'Yahtzee!' "
"Think you got it?" Leilani asked.
Casey nodded, but Kaitlyn twisted her lip uncertainly.
"Don't worry," Leilani said, putting a hand on her arm. "We'll help you."
Kaitlyn smiled in relief and looked at her gratefully.
"Here, you go first, Kaitlyn," Casey said, dropping the dice in the cup and giving it to her.
"Give it a good shake," Kono instructed.
Leilani nodded. "And you gotta blow on them."
"Blow on them?" Kaitlyn looked confused.
"For luck. Like this." She leaned forward and put her hand on the cup along with Kaitlyn's. Tilting it toward her mouth, she blew on the dice. She sat back, smiling, and nodded for Kaitlyn to do the same.
Kaitlyn grinned and blew on the dice, then dumped them onto the table.
"Okay, let's see what you got," Kono said.
Back inside, Chin came back into the dining room after a trip to the kitchen for some snacks.
"Come on, Uncle Chin," Dylan said from the table. "You said you'd play Uno."
"I'm coming, I'm coming." He sat down between Jenna, Grace, and Gabby.
"Are we playing Stacks?" Dylan asked.
Gabby looked confused. "Stacks?"
"No way," Chin said. "I don't have a good history with that game. I vote for regular ol' Uno."
Dylan laughed. "Oh yeah. When we learned how to play it at that barbecue and you had, like, 30 cards!"
"Yeah, I'm hoping that doesn't happen again."
"Regular ol' Uno sounds good to me," Jenna said.
"Me, too," Grace agreed.
Over at the coffee table, Danny reached for a block in the Jenga tower.
Jadon grabbed his shoulder. "No, no! Not that one!"
Danny shook him off. "Would you let me … I got this, okay?"
Jadon winced, turning his head away and squinting as Danny tried to pull the block out but it caused the whole tower to come down.
"Ohhhh!" came the chorus around him.
Jadon shook his head and clucked his tongue. "I told you not to pull that one."
"Should've listened, D-Dawg," Steve teased, and Danny glared at him.
"You're 'pposed to yell 'Jenga!' " Jacob said, standing by Cody and Jess at one end of the coffee table.
"Let's go again," Danny said, starting to pick up the blocks.
"No, no, Uncle Steve, you said you'd play Minion Operation again," Jacob insisted, reaching across the table for his arm and tugging on it.
"That's right, I did." He took Catherine's hand as he stood. "Time for that challenge, Lieutenant."
She grinned easily. "You're on, Commander."
"You playing Minion Operation?" Danny said incredulously. "This I gotta see."
"We should pick up this game first," Catherine said, motioning to the Jenga blocks on the coffee table and floor.
"We got this," Cody said and looked at Jess and Jadon. "Rematch?"
"Rematch," Jadon immediately agreed.
While the teens started rebuilding the Jenga tower, Steve, Catherine, and Danny followed Jacob to other table in the dining room to set up their game.
As they were taking it out of the box they heard an ecstatic yell of, "YAHTZEE!" from out on the deck through the open door, and everyone looked in that direction.
Chin was the first to recover, chuckling as he said, "Kono gets a little excited playing Yahtzee."
"I heard that, cuz," she hollered back from outside.
At the table, Gabby played a card, followed by Grace and then Chin who, realizing he only had one card left, yelled, "UNO!"
Laughter came from all around. "Who gets excited?" Kono called out.
"Redemption at long last," Chin replied.
After their game finished with Chin indeed victorious, Dylan said, "My friend Josh has Uno Attack, where the thing shoots cards out at you."
"Oh yeah," Grace jumped in, "my cousins in New Jersey have that. It's so funny."
Chin smiled. "Maybe next time."
At the other table, Jacob said, "You gotta get the unicorn fluff, Uncle Steve!"
Danny guffawed. "I bet that's a sentence you never thought you'd hear."
"He's already got the trigger finger, if he gets the unicorn fluff then he gets Doctor Dave!" Jacob explained, holding up a minion figurine.
Steve rubbed his head, wincing at that, and Danny slapped his back. "Just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"
Jacob looked confused. "Don't you want Doctor Dave, Uncle Steve?"
"Yeah, Uncle Steve," Danny needled.
Steve threw him a look, then smiled at Jacob. "Of course I do."
"Let's see those steady hands, Commander," Catherine said.
"That's the one he couldn't get before," Jacob told her.
Danny laughed. "Had trouble with the unicorn fluff, did you?"
Steve ignored him and focused on the game.
From his knees on the chair, Jacob held his breath as Steve, using the tweezers, carefully plucked the small unicorn figure inside the hole and started to draw it out.
"You did it!" Jacob yelled, throwing both hands in the air and inadvertently bumping Steve's arm, causing the tip of the tweezer to hit the side of the hole and the buzzer to sound.
Steve closed his eyes while Catherine hid a smile and Danny laughed.
"Oops," Jacob said sheepishly. "Sorry, Uncle Steve."
Kaitlyn came over to the pile of games with Leilani. "Do you wanna play Rummikub?" she asked.
"I've never played that one," Leilani said.
"I'll teach you. It's Grandma Ang's favorite. I played a lot with her at Thanksgiving and when she was here for Uncle Steve and Aunt Catherine's wedding."
"Speaking of Grandma Ang," Danny said, looking at Catherine. "She must be over the moon right now with how the Cubs beat the Giants."
"Definitely. She stayed up for all 13 innings on Monday, and had her rally cap going and everything in the 9th on Tuesday."
"That was an incredible comeback," Steve said.
Catherine nodded. "This could be the year. Gram's certainly ready. She made Dad get her one of those t-shirts that says 'Just One Before I Die.' "
"Well, I don't have a team in the playoffs," Danny said, "so tell her I'm pulling for the Cubbies to finally win."
"I will."
"But for now, I'm pulling for Jacob to finally decide what piece he's going to get."
"Fart gun!" Jacob announced loudly, holding the tweezers high in the air in preparation.
Danny shook his head and smiled. "I should've known."
Hours later, Catherine closed and locked the door after everyone else had left.
"That was a really fun night," she said, turning back toward Steve who was closing the drapes.
"Night's not over yet. You and I have another game to play."
"What do you mean? We had our Minion Operation game while Jacob and Danny were playing Guess Who?" she said, hands on her hips. "I beat you fair and square."
"I still think there's something wrong with that thing, but … that's not what I meant." He walked back to the dining room and pulled a box from the now smaller pile of games left after everyone had taken theirs home with them.
"Twister? Really?" she asked as he opened the box.
Steve spread out the mat on the living room floor while Cammie investigated it, sniffing around the edges before heading for her bed several feet away.
Straightening, Steve started to unbutton his shirt. "Thought we'd make things interesting …"
Catherine snorted. "You really think we'll make it through a game?"
He grinned. "Oh, I'm on counting on the fact that we won't, but I bet I can last longer than you." He flicked open the button on his cargoes and shucked them and his boxers in one move. "What do you say, Rollins?"
"Oh, you are on," she immediately replied, hearing the challenge in his voice. She reached for the hem of her t-shirt and pulled it off smoothly. Her bra quickly followed. Noting the way his eyes dropped and the catch in his breathing, she grinned. "You really think you got this, Commander?"
He smoothed his expression and picked up the spinner, eyes alight. Grinning back as she slid out of her jeans and panties, he made the first spin.
"Left hand blue, Lieutenant."
Hope you enjoyed!
Note: Naked Twister was inspired by an email exchange after sue2556's review comment on the possibility of Naked Minion Operation:
Mari: Heh. Naked Twister, maybe.
Ilna: They'd never last … :-)
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