"I'll take two."
"Two. There you go."
"Are you cold?"
"You might be cold, considering you don't have any pants on, or a shirt, or shoes, or socks." Josh paused. "You really are horrible at poker."
"You suggested it! We should have played go fish or something!" Drake said indignantly as he shuffled the cards in his hands again, never breaking concentration.
"I gave you a choice," Josh said, taking his cards. "Dealer takes one."
"Okay, then...I'll start. I see you a sock, and raise you a shirt..." He pushed around his small pile of markers and lined them up in a row, taking stock of what he has left.
"You don't have a sock to bet."
"I know, but I'm betting your sock, and I'll bet my undershirt."
"What against my undershirt then?"
"My underwear."
"You better hope I'm as bad as you have been with this hand."
Drake shrugs. Josh tosses in the marker for shirt and socks, warily eying the discarded pile that contains most of Drake's clothing and his pants and shoes.
Drake pulled the last two cards he has holds them above the bidding pile. Josh looks up to meet his eye as Drake hovers and then the cards drop.
Drake's undershirt for Josh's button down, his boxer briefs for his socks. In a few moments Drake might be sitting in front of his step brother with nothing more to bet but good will and smiles.
"I call." Josh throws down his cards, showing a straight.
"Ha!" Drake's fly in a random pattern, but the objective is clear: full house.
Josh slowly moves and pulls of his shirt and then next, his socks.
"Your deal," Drake says as he smoothes the cards together and hands them across the coffee table to Josh. Their hands overlapped, but Josh was too busy re-reading his markers to notice.
Josh deals and after thinking over their cards, they take three and one respectively.
"And what do you bid, dear bother?" Drake wagged his head from side to side and fanned his cards out in front of him.
"Have you ever even heard of a poker face?" Josh asked condescendingly.
Drake narrowed his eyes and slumped his body down, grimacing at him.
"I'll bet in my shirt." Josh moved the marker inwards on the table.
Drake surveyed the pile; he knew that Josh didn't have an undershirt on so if he bet his shirt and won, they could potentially be even.
"I see your shirt, and I call."
Cards tossed, Drake won again; three-of-a-kind -7's to Josh's pair of Jack's. Drake's broad smiled beamed across the table as he watched Josh take off his shirt.
"Hmmm...can't believe that you thought that you'd win with a pair of Jacks." He shined his nails on his shirt and smiled up at Josh.
"I really thought you were bluffing," he said, while folding his shirt nicely among the pile of Drake's clothes. "Or you really didn't know what you had."
Drake sat back and looked at him, his face even. He looked over at his brother, who was sitting in only his underwear with his shoulders hunched a little from the cold.
"We are even," Drake says as he looks at Josh and then himself. Josh then looks warily at his pile of markers, the pile of clothes, and then over Drake.
"Yeah."
"Another hand then?" He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "Or are you just want to quit, scared that I'll beat you?"
Josh gave him a sardonic smile. "I don't think that's what this is."
"Okay, okay...sure." Drake threw his hands up into the air and flopped back on the chair. His arms folded over his chest. Josh just sat motionless on the couch and he attempted to smile at Josh. But Josh refused to meet his glance, choosing instead on being fixated on the pile of cards.
"Chicken." Drake gave a little chuckle as he said it.
Josh's head rose and he glare at him. "Not fair."
"Whatever." He sat forward and made a move to pick up his pile of clothes from the table.
"Deal the cards." Drake's hand froze over his t-shirt as Josh's voice sounded from across the table.
"Pardon?" Drake asked, drawing his hand back. Once again, he leaned forward on his elbows.
"Deal the cards." Josh's face had a small smile, only the corners of his mouth pointing upwards.
Drake collects up the cards and deals for another hand. Gingerly he picks up his five cards; no faces to smile at him, but a 2, 4, 5, 6, and a 10.
He looks up at Josh, who is fussing with the cards as he rearranged the order. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was screwed up but then he finally plucked out two cards.
"Two please," Josh's voice is even, his poker face flawless.
"Two." Drake slides the cards over to his step-brother, "Dealer takes one." The cards unfold into a fan, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, a perfect straight. This would do extremely well; not much else that Josh could have that could bet him. This would be enough to bet with.
"Your bid," Drake looked up at Josh, whose face was bent low with his cards, his shoulders hunched and his eyes were working nervously back and forth. Josh's head nudged up, his eyes meeting Drake's.
"I'll...I'll bet your shirt for my underwear." He slid his marker into the center of the table.
Drake paused for a few seconds, feeling the slight cold around him. The air was too high, the feel of the chair's fabric under him where his bare skin peaked through was not comfortable, and he could most of all hear the roaring of his blood beating in his ears.
"I'll see your underwear..." He swallowed, moving the corresponding marker across the table to meet Josh's. "And I'll see you my shirt. What will you match it with?"
"I...I don't have anything to match it with." Josh straightened his body back and glanced over a Drake.
"Then I will have to give you a dare," Drake said as he felt overly self-assured. He smiled and leaned back. "What would be good? Hmmm... I think you will have to streak once you are naked. Down the block." He turned and looked out of the window. "Thank god it's night time."
Josh turned slightly ashy white. Slowly, he turned his head and looked out of the window too. He realized they had been playing for a while because the thick blue sky had settled down for the night.
He weighed the pros and cons. He couldn't back down, because he would make Drake do whatever he dared as well.
"Fine." Gritted teeth, he looked back at his brother.
Drakes eyes widened in surprise. "What! Really!" He sat forward and looked Josh eagerly in the face. Then he sunk back into the chair and his face turned slightly red. Josh was surprised to see that his blush crept down his neck and underneath his undershirt. Upon realization that he was thinking this, he snapped his view back to his own cards. He fussed with them and folded the cards so that they fanned downward.
"I call." Josh straightened up and looked at his brother.
Drake sat up, smiled, and threw his cards down onto the table. His hand falling evenly right under Josh's nose.
"A straight." His smile broadened and he tossed his hair about slightly, his hair shinning and swaying.
Josh didn't move, his eyes fixed on the cards. His breathing was irregular and his body shivering slightly. He took his hand and slapped it down on the table, wiping the cards down and across revealing his hand.
"Flush beats a straight." His triumphant smile beamed over at Drake, who was as white as a sheet. His mouth popped open and closed a few times before he slowly looked around the room and cleared his throat.
"It does..." Drake's voice trailed off.
"So I win." Josh's voice is bright and strong with triumph.
"You do..." Drake pulls on the hem of his t-shirt, twisting it around his fingers.
Josh sat back and smiled as he sank into the couch cushion as he crossed his arms against his chest. Drake grew indignant and in one movement ripped the shirt over his head and threw it on top of the cards. A few flutter to the floor but he is still left there shirtless, only with his boxer-briefs to save him.
Drake looked up and became keenly aware of Josh's stare on him - which has now switched from being amused to darting looks under his eyelashes. He can't take the stare either; Drake jumped out of his chair and started pacing around the room. Josh kept his seat on the couch and watched him ping-pong around the room.
Drake stopped and tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his underwear ever so slowly, turning so that he is directly facing Josh. Standing in front of the couch, in front of him, in font of his hooded stare.
He starts to tug them down.
Then immediately loses his nerve.
He starts to ping-pong around the room again.
Moving around to the back of the couch and his eyes burned into the back of Josh's head, his vision blurring into the dark swirls of brown hair.
"Ha ha, very funny. Joke's over!" Drake exclaimed as he shuffled around on the carpet.
"What!" Josh jumped up from the couch and was now walking around to meet him in the space between the couch and their beds.
"I'm done with this! It's gone wayyyy to far, to the point where it could be scarring!" He turned in place and Josh stuck an arm out to steady him.
"IT WAS YOUR IDEA!" Josh was now waving his arms around that way he does only at his most aggravated.
"It wasn't my idea to turn it into STRIP POKER!" Drake threw back. They were now both at battle stance, only a few feet away from each other.
"You wanted to bet something! You don't have any money to even start betting and there is nothing that we would want from each other! You agreed to that! This was mutually embarrassing!" Josh had grown red in the face and was now taking quick, shallow breaths.
Drake just stood there, no longer being able to keep his eyes locked with Josh's.
"What does it matter?" Josh's voice was tight and strangled in his throat.
"What!" Drake's hold on the waistband tightened.
"What does it matter! It's me! Josh!" He was now standing in front of him, seeming larger and more intimidating than he remembered. Josh's hold on his forearm was still bracing and he struggled out of it.
Cold, all Drake could feel was the cold around him again, painfully aware of who he was and what he was doing. Pushing fabric down, cold rushed on to Drake's skin. Goose-flesh spread down his back and over his butt as he watched the blue knit fabric slide down his legs and pile around his ankles. Still staring down at his feet, he stepped out of them.
Naked, he stood naked, in front of Josh.
His eyes traveled up Josh's body slowly, unsure, and scared of what look he would find in his eyes. He wondered for a moment if he could hear laughing, but the blood was still pounding in his ears too hard to hear anything else.
Josh's eyes were dark, pupils dilated and wide, his stare piercing and deep. Heat flooded Drake's body, first being mistaken for embarrassment with his face becoming hot. His neck, chest, and back soon followed. But after a few seconds, it was clear that it was do to the look that his step-brother was giving him.
In the blur of the next few seconds, he couldn't quite remember what had taken hold on him (most likely teenage hormones). But his feet had taken the few steps to close the distance between himself and Josh. His hands were on Josh's face and neck.
And his lips and found his.
Blur, which would be the operative word. His body melted into sensations of touch of hot and cold while trembling with a strong sense of knowing. Fumbling and caressing, they met together with bodies trying so hard to take up the same space. Hands over skin and Josh's finger nails digging into this back. Weight of both of them, pulling them backwards onto Josh's bed.
His weight landed on Josh (who didn't seem to notice), his hands groping on his bare skin turning them both around and onto their sides where the fight for dominance appeared to start. Each boy struggling to find where their hands should be, but the issue was short lived when they settled into a pattern of occupying wherever their hands would fit; on skin, in hair, on faces and laced between fingers. Josh's hands traveled up Drake's chest and into his hair, yanking back his head and his lips then devouring the skin he found.
Drake was fighting for something; control over himself and Josh, anything and everything. His hands roamed blindly over Josh's shin, but his mind grasped desperately at what was going on. His eyes blinked rapidly and he swallowed several times, his breath ragged and harsh. Drake's skin danced with heat and his mind scattered too far and in too many places to have any hope of reconnecting back in some functioning manner.
The strength that over the past few years Josh has matured to have was currently controlling Drake's body (and also his tongue, which was quite talented). For a brief moment he let his mind wonder how it became that way (probably hours spent in the company of Mindy), but he found it ironic that in this situation that Drake was currently the one taking the back seat, reclined into the bedding, and having Josh's tongue and lips take care of his skin and neck like he was. It caused that knot in his stomach, his chest to heave and his blood to run red in his veins.
The next thing that mattered to him is that Josh continued to practice anytime he wanted. A fleeting thought while Josh peppered kisses over Drake's collarbones and started back toward his mouth via his Adam's apple, which gave him a shock and he jumped each timed he breathed or swallowed.
Josh's mouth and tongue back on his lips and Drake happily agreed, leaning his body over Josh's and enjoying his chance for power over the other. Drake's blur was not officially clouding his senses; his filter now only could capture Josh.
His boldness followed with his temporary disillusions. His hand wandered down and was pleased to find that in the one piece of clothing that Josh still had, his body was fully responding to Drake's, for there was a hard length that Drake wrapped the fabric around.
Josh's head jerked away from Drake's painfully (a great feeling of loss to Drake's body) but surprisingly, Josh reached down and removed his hands and slowly nudged himself away. Drake laid there, a true image to beheld; naked, aroused, flung on top of his step-brother's bed.
Josh didn't look him in the eye, his gaze fixated on the ground. Drake stared at Josh, both frozen in their respective positions until Josh turned his head and met Drake in the eyes.
Drake slowly rose from the bed, his arms stretching in each direction as if trying to regain control of his body. He calmly, with a quick look over his shoulder at Josh, grabbed a pillow and blanket off the couch and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Once Josh was safely wrapped up in his sheets, he crawled into his own bed, turning to shut off the light. He took one last look at the pile of clothes, mash of playing cards, and the scatter of markers left on the coffee table.
He would just clean them up in the morning.