"Vergraishen!"

"What?" Martin looked over his glasses at Amanda with raised eyebrows.

Amanda swallowed the mouthful of food she had been trying to talk around and repeated herself, "Vacation. It's completely and totally obvious that the universe is telling us that we need a vacation."

"Funny," Martin grunted skeptically, but he was smiling,"How do you figure?"

She rolled her head back on the pillow of the couch bed, feet propped up against the wall, "Well, we have thirteen thousand dollars to play with…."

"What do you mean, 'We'?" Cross grinned wickedly at her, "Pretty sure we just took all your money, drummer girl."

She gave him a sour look, especially since she had in fact been sulking for the last hour. Playing poker against the Rowdy 3 when you weren't a psychic vampire was an exercise in futility, because they all knew when she was bluffing. She threw them off for a couple of hands by manufacturing emotions based on old memories, but she was still the first out of the game. She laughed now and threw a pillow at him, muttering, "Whatever. I'd be a lot more upset about it if these weren't the best damn tacos I've ever eaten."

"That's Texas for you," Martin muttered,"Fucking amazing tacos in every gas station."

He got up to get another bottle, and Vogel took advantage of the opportunity to peek at the cards he left on the table.

"Out," Vogel threw his own cards on the pile and leaned back, grinning innocently. Cross tossed his cards in without a word, but Gripps murmured softly, "All in."

Martin glanced at Gripps, but Amanda pulled his attention back away from the game by pushing forward determinedly in a too loud voice,"Point one: we have $13,000 courtesy of those asshole Neo-Nazis in Oklahoma. Point two: we have the Spaceship…."

Martin, Cross,and Gripps groaned, while Vogel giggled maniacally. They had been unable to find The Beast again since their escape from Blackwing, but Amanda and Vogel had commandeered a vintage Airstream trailer which they promptly nicknamed "The Spaceship" due to the silver exterior. Gripps had slowly been transforming the outside of The Spaceship into a Rowdy-worthy vehicle, but it was still a long way from ideal for the pack.

Amanda gestured emphatically towards the ceiling, still talking too loud, "The Spaceship was made for vacations! It was meant for fun and freedom! It's a sign from the universe that…."

Martin interrupted this spiel by pointing a finger at her, "You're drunk," he turned back to Gripps, "And you're bluffing. Call," he flipped his own cards over, taking a celebratory drink of beer while laying out his hand, "I got a straight."

Gripps scoffed at Martin with a cat's smile, "Nice try. Straight. Flush."

Martin growled at the cards laid out neatly on the table and slammed his bottle down, pushing his stack of Neo-Nazi money towards Gripps, "Great—just great. Where'd the rest of those tacos go?"

Gripps chuckled as Martin turned away and the other two boys protested (Gripps now had most of the money). Martin wrestled the paper bag full of foil packages away from Amanda and began to rummage through it, but froze when Gripps commented slyly, "Well, well…what am I going to do with all this money? Or should I say 'where am I going to go'?"

Amanda squealed, falling off of the couch bed with a solid "thump". She didn't stay down for long, but popped up to plant a kiss on the side of Gripps' cheek, crowing, "Beach trip!"

The others echoed the words, howling. Hell, even Rowdies deserve a vacation sometimes.

#Rowdy3 #Rowdy 3 #Amanda #Gripps #Martin #Cross #Vogel #Rowdiesplayingpoker #Firstchapter #TheSpaceship