"I see your five and raise ten." I say tossing in my chips.
"To rich for me. I fold."
"Me to."
"I'm broke."
I look at Alex and arch an eyebrow saying, "Well?"
She looks at me for a second, then down at her cards. Me then her cards again. "I see your ten and raise ten more."
She must have something good. But I might have better. I throw in a chip and lay down my cards, three aces and two kings. "Full house."
Alex looks at me for a second and then lays her cards down. "Four of a kind." She says. Four kings and a queen. Damn. Now I'm down 50 bucks. And I had been doing so well until then. It's ladies poker night and my first one. Along with me and Alex, there's Lydia, Laura, Elizabeth, Katie Brown, Kate Hightmeyer, Andera Brio, Melissa Finerty, and Asha Simpson. It's also three days after 'the kneeing' and I still redden at the mere mention of Logan's name or training. From what I've been hearing there hasn't been this much talk about something since Rodney McKay kissed Carson. That's one thing I just don't want to know the details about.
"What'll it be?" Alex asks, shuffling the deck of cards.
"What about five card draw, three's wild?" Asha suggests.
"Nah, we already did that." Melissa says. "Why don't we do something to liven it up a bit? One card each, highest has to tell about the strangest place they got hit on."
Hmm, sounds interesting. "Sounds fun to me." I say. The other girls agree and Alex deals out the first card to Asha which is a two of spades. Lucky. The next cards are a three of hearts, king of cloves, queen of diamonds, five of spades, ten of hearts, and a three of cloves to Melissa, Katie, Kate, Andera and Lydia (in that order). So Katie and Kate are still in and that leaves me, Laura, Elizabeth and Alex. This should be interesting. Laura gets a five of diamonds, I end up with a queen of hearts, and Elizabeth gets an ace of hearts. Alex deals herself a king of diamonds, but it was pointless because we all knew that Elizabeth has gotten the highest card.
"So, Dr. Weir, where was the strangest place someone hit on you?" Melissa asks, since she was the one to suggest it.
"Would you believe that it was when I was negotiating for the UN?" she says.
"Really?" I ask. Suddenly my pick up at a charity drive seemed rather lame in comparison.
She nods her head and smiles. "That was before I started teaching at Georgetown and a US delegate got a little "grabby" with me."
"Who?" Asha asks, asking the question that we were all dying to know the answer to.
"Senator Raymond." We all nod our heads in understanding. We all knew who he was, a number of years back he had made the media with corruption as well as sexual harassment charges. Well, hey; now we knew that the harassment charges weren't so bogus after all.
"Ok, how about whoever gets the lowest card has to tell us their most embarrassing moment?" Lydia says, looking directly at me while saying it. Everyone, except me, agrees; the cards are gathered up, shuffled, and dealt. While this is happening, I pray to the author she'll spare me the embarrassment; but she must have missed that call and I end up with a two of hearts while everyone ends up with a five or higher. Everyone looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to speak. "Is this really necessary?" I ask, my face already starting to heat up. "I think that you all know my most embarrassing moment."
"We know of one, there might be more." Asha says, grinning.
I groan and flop my head into my folded arms. You know how you sometimes wish that you could blend into the wall? Well, I've wished for that certain power since I tumbled into Logan and am still waiting for it to kick in. Hey, I know; maybe I could ask Jillian if she could come up with some new gene that would give me mutant powers, like in X-Men. I could be 'Invisagirl' or 'chamelonlady'. Ok, so the name needs work, but the idea's still good.
"C'mon. Spill." I hear someone, Andera I think, say.
Might as well get it over with. "Think about what happened three days ago." I say, my voice muffled by my arms. "That's my most embarrassing moment."
"So you really did knee him?" Kate Brown asks.
"Yes." I say raising my head. "Yes, I kneed the same guy in the cahonas that I knocked into while coming out of the Gate."
Everyone gives each other knowing glances but I'm left out of the loop. "What?" I ask.
"Nothing." Alex says in a 'we know something you don't' tone of voice.
"What? Tell me."
"It's just that you seem to become extremely accident prone whenever you're around him."
"And…" I say, drawing a blank as to where this is going.
"Well, you know what that usually means."
I'm silent for a few seconds, until everything clicks. "You all think that I like him?" I say. They all nod their agreement. I don't know where to begin. Oh I know; maybe with the fact that I already have a boyfriend! I roll my eyes and say, "Please. I hardly know the man. And I have a boyfriend back on Earth, and we're very happy, thank you very much."
They all suddenly find the green felt table very interesting and I realize that maybe I had protested just a bit too forcefully. Damn you, Bartlett. You just had to come up with this to create a subplot didn't you?
"Are we gonna just sit here in silence or play?" Kate asks.
"Play." Asha says, taking the cards from Alex and shuffling them. "What'll it be? Seven card stud or strip poker?"
"Strip." We all say at the same time and laugh.
"Ok no skins; tops, bottoms, socks, shoes, and any jewelry you happen to be wearing." Asha says as she deals. Before we can begin though, Elizabeth holds up a hand and taps on her headset.
"Major, could you please turn off the camera in Dr. Simpson's quarters?" she says. She sighs and says, "Yes I know that you need Bates' authorization but I am the higher authority here….Thank you." Snickering, we all imagine the crest fallen looks on the men pulling security duty. After making sure the light was no longer blinking, we start the bets.
A/N: Sorry for the long time in between updates, life's gotten really busy all of a sudden; I'm still upset over the recent SG news, school start the other day, work's been crazy, family stuff's reared it's ugly head, and I've been busy getting ready for the Chicago SG convention (which starts tomorrow!) -does happy dance- I can't wait to go! I even got my hair cut for the occasion and I'm dressing up. Yea, I know I'm showing my nerdiness by dresssing up at the con, but I see it as the only other time I can wear my costume when it's not Halloween and not look like a weirdo. I realized that I never said who got the bonus points for guessing the song/band from two chapters ago, so here it is: Nenya won. Don't know what she's gonna do with them -lightbulb goes off over Bartlett's head- hey I know! I could have an informal "contest" by putting pop culture refrences in the chapters and award points to whoever guesses the refrences correctly. And then at the end of the story whoever has the most will get a cameo in my next story. -crickets chirping- Well, it's just an idea. Anyhoo, now it's time for all the credits -cracks fingers- ok, here we go; Lydia belongs to BiteMeTechie, Alex belongs to Reefgirl, I own Max, and everything else beongs to MGM/Cooper-Wright. There, that wasn't so bad was it? I made up names for Brio and Simpson because they haven't mentioned them by first name on the show. I'll try to post another chapter tomorrow before I go to the con for the weekend. Ok, enough of the novel that is my Author's Note, Reveiw at you leasure.