You reviewers are lovely! And Kyman? I'm not going to say, keep reading to find out!

This chapter turned out to be too big so I cut it in half. The next half is very nice, but you'll have to wait a bit longer for that.

Note: I don't find European history boring myself.

Defiance

With a frown I looked at my text book. European history was extremely dull to me. Kyle always got really excited over it, saying it was all so interesting: all these tiny little countries fighting each other then merging into bigger countries, then splitting up again to form new countries. It all was just very confusing to me. This one French province that was German, then French again and then German again then ending up French again. Or something. It really couldn't interest me and I realized I was just staring at my book and not taking in a word. But since it was Saturday I had wanted to squeeze in some studying before practice. But I really couldn't focus on European history.
Maybe it was better to have a look at Kenny's notes on how to read people's tells when playing poker. Once that thought had entered my mind I knew I couldn't concentrate anymore. I pushed my textbook away and got the notes out of my desk drawer. I started reading them and had to bite back a smile. The notes were both hilarious and useless:

Everybody has a different tell, usually the only way of finding out is by spending time with them and paying attention to them. Therefore the only way of learning how to find out people's tells is by practicing a lot.

What was hilarious was the fact that Kenny had obviously tried to form proper sentences for a while, but it was still written in his usual messy scribble.
I frowned at the first lines however. So basically it meant that I would have to practice a lot with playing with other people. Fortunately he had left me some clues that I could work with. At the very least I could learn those and try to put them in use with the next poker practice with the other guys. Underneath those first lines came his list of tells.

Body tells:

- Fidgeting

- Scratching (ear/neck)

- Stretching

Basically any body movement that appears unnecessary. But the most important tell of all is voices. That's the reason many poker players don't speak during the game. But if people do speak make the moist of it. Recent research has shown that most people notice the way other people are lying not only by their body language but most of all by their voice. That's why it is possible to tell someone is lying when speaking to them over the phone.

When did Kenny learn to write so…? Well academic or eloquent wasn't exactly the word, but he had certainly lost his white trash way of talking. And the sentence 'Recent research' was hilarious, Kenny had probably just heard that somewhere on TV. I knew instantly that all this was one of his ways of joking with me. I smiled at the thought and pondered his advice for a while.

It was good to know voices were so important. Cartman for one, never shut up, so it would probably easiest to figure him out. Clyde was more difficult. My last session with Kenny had already proven that I was most distracted by those emotional types.
I started to make a list of how to figure people out when I played to them:

Cartman: listening to what he talks about- any specific topics when he has a bad hand. Or change in voice: maybe louder, faster or more aggressive.

Clyde:

I stopped and tapped my pen against my desk. Yes, what about Clyde? Clyde blabbed a lot so what to focus on with him? His fidgeting! Of course! Find out when he fidgeted and how and then I would have him. Quickly I jotted it down on the paper.

Find out when and how he fidgets. Try and see if it is just his hands, his whole body, if he touches certain body parts.

At that last bit I suddenly had a vision of Kenny raising one of his eyebrows. I grinned. Yep, he was definitely rubbing off on me.

Token:

Hm, he always played it safe, he would be hard to read. I guess I would also have to focus on his body language when playing against him. Especially his body language when he wasn't playing it safe. So I added:

Find out if his body language changes when he calls or raises.

Jason:

I knew him least of all. I figured I would try to focus on him only when I had extra time. I figured Cartman's assholeness and Clyde's nervousness would probably take up a lot of energy. I remembered Cartman blowing cigar smoke into my face at the last practice.

A lot of energy.

I put down my pen and looked at the clock. It was time for me to leave for football practice. I figured I would have to try and get some work done on that history test in the evening. My rucksack was already packed and by the door. I pushed my chair away from my desk and with a last look at my notes I got up and left my room, picking up my rucksack as I went.

Some of the others were already changing into their outfits and they greeted me with a nod as I came in. I said a general 'hi' and started changing into my football clothes. I was just tying my shoes when Token sat down next to me. I turned to him and he spoke:

"Hey, dude. My place tonight after practice."

I looked back at Token and knew I must have a bewildered expression on my face.

"For what?"

"Another round of poker, of course!"

"Oh man, I don't know. With all those projects and that damn history test coming up.."

"Don't worry man, just an hour. We're all busy after all."

I hesitated but decided he was right. Kenny's notes had said it after all: practice was the best way of noticing how people played and what their tells were.

"Okay." I said. "But really, just an hour."

"Don't worry about it man." He slapped me on my back and walked off.

Practice was the usual: intense but satisfying. I loved sports and always gave it my all. I was usually exhausted afterwards but then I held back a little. If I were too tired I wouldn't be any good at concentrating at playing poker.
After showering we all met outside again. Token offered us all a ride and soon I found myself squeezed between Clyde and Jason in the backseat. Token had borrowed one of his parents' cars that only had 5 seats. Of course, Cartman was too fat to sit in the backseat, hence the 3 of us being pressed together in the back. I found that I didn't mind much. Although I did prefer being pressed against somebody else.

And right there, squeezed between Jason who was lounging against the window and Clyde who was absentmindedly texting someone, I suddenly had a difficult time not getting hard. Suddenly I was reminded of Kenny's warm body behind mine as he had spooned me. But arousal wasn't the only feeling that washed over me. Also deep, deep affection for my blond friend. Not only was really hot but he was also terribly sweet and funny. I could not wait to see him again soon. Not just to touch him, which I felt he would certainly want me to do, but also to just laugh with him and hang out with him. It was a need and desire I had never had with Kyle, or even with Wendy.

Wendy. Seeing her during class or lunch wasn't so difficult anymore. Not when I had Kenny's grin to look at. Or his jokes to look forward to. I glanced at Clyde as we got out of the car. I had heard they were having more and more troubles recently. Not surprising. Wendy was quite stubborn and confident whereas Clyde tended to be a whiny bitch sometimes.

Token led us to the room we had first practiced in. We added a chair for Jason and immediately started playing. It seemed as if we were all eager to practice some more. I felt lucky that I had made that list before practice and I tried to remember it as Token shuffled the cards. I didn't have to wait long before I could put it into practice however. Cartman was already blabbing before we even had our cards. I decided to focus on him first, so that I could still focus on my own hand while we played.

"You're all lucky I could make it tonight, my date cancelled on me."

I grabbed my cards. An eight and a nine. Not bad, a straight would be a possibility. I focused on taking on a happy expression. Bluffing already came quite naturally.

"A date, really?" Jason scoffed.

"Yeah really." Cartman replied angrily.

It turned out soon that Cartman's voice, way of telling his stories or his stories in itself didn't change. Not enough for me to notice anything out of the ordinary anyway. It was very frustrating. It was also proving very difficult to focus on both my hand and on other people's tells. What, with Cartman being obnoxious, Jason joining in on him, Clyde being nervous as hell and Token brooding it was all rather much. I decided to focus on Clyde's fidgeting for a moment. It became clear quickly that Clyde had a few ticks:

Tugging at his sleeves

Tugging at his shirt collar

Scratching his left ear

Tapping his fingers on the table

When, in the third game he had a bad hand but had tried to not let it show I knew I had him. He had tugged at his shirt collar the whole game. But I had a feeling the others might see through it as well. But as I shifted my attention to try and figure out Token I was brutally pulled from my concentration by Cartman.

"See you're getting better, Marsh. Good to see you're not letting yourself get all emotional over Wendy." Ah, the Wendy card. But I just took another sip from my drink and let it slide. But Cartman wasn't done, nor had I expected him to.

"Unlike Clyde here who looks like he's about to cry his eyes out."

"Hey!" Clyde said, indignantly. But it was true, he was more distracted than usual.

"Wendy dumped him yesterday." Cartman clarified in a rather loud voice. The blush was on Clyde's cheeks instantly.

"No she didn't! I broke up with her."

"Oh, please Clyde. Like anyone in their right mind would break up with Wendy. I mean have you seen her?" He made a rather rude gesture indicating large breasts. "You must be gay to dump her!"

Clyde's reaction surprised us all. He slammed his fists on the table, discarding his cards and shouted at Cartman.

"Just because you're gay for Kyle doesn't mean everybody else is gay too!" I had half a mind of applauding his comeback. Clyde had the courage the say what everybody thought but never dared to say. But there was a reason people never said those things to Cartman: his temper. His eyes flashed and slammed his cards onto the table. Both guys got up from the table and I immediately could see where this was heading: Clyde getting his face smashed in by Cartman. Both Token and I got up from our chairs too, ready to interfere.

"Woah woah!" Token said, grabbing Cartman's hand that was already balled into a fist.

"I AM NOT GAY FOR THE JEW!"

"Oh come on." Clyde scoffed. "There's no one else you pay so much attention to as him!"

"Clyde, dude." I said and then moved in to whisper in his ear. "Not that it isn't totally true what you're saying but Cartman will smash your face in."

"I know, I don't care." Clyde had an oddly determined expression on his face. Not something I was used to. Meanwhile Token was trying to calm Cartman down who was visibly fuming.

"I fucking hate that scrawny ass ginger!"

"The fact that you're getting so angry over it only proves it's true!"

That remark made Cartman oddly calm and he backed away. I knew Cartman long enough to know that when he was calm it was even more dangerous. It meant that he was plotting something. We all sat down again. But the friendly vibe that we had had during playing had all but evaporated. The mood was effectively killed with that outburst. I was not enjoying myself at all anymore and was distracted throughout the whole game. That resulted in Cartman beating me magnificently.

"Well well, getting dumped by Wendy is certainly effecting your gaming skills as well, Stan." He grabbed my poker chips with a grin. Suddenly the unfairness of that remark was too much. I had the weird urge to cry. Not because he was talking about Wendy but because it sounded as if my studying and Kenny's advice had not helped at all. I stood up from the table.

"Stan, relax." Token said.

"No, I'm leaving. Cartman is ruining the mood for all of us. Only Clyde and I seem to fully notice it." Clyde nodded at me.

"If you're not man enough for the game..." Cartman said. I huffed and grabbed my coat and rucksack.

"I'll see you guys at school."

As I walked outside I noticed it was still warm and that I didn't have to put on my coat. It lifted my spirits somewhat. I stuffed my coat into my rucksack and slung it over my shoulder. The urge to talk to a friend about the impromptu practice was overwhelming. It was hard to choose between Kyle and Kenny at a moment like this. I wanted to talk to Kenny because he had given me so much advise over the past days and because I had had such a great time last time I was at his place. But I also really wanted to talk to Kyle. If there was one person who loved to bitch about Cartman and who would just love to hear about Clyde's fabulous bashing it would be him. I decided to just call both of them, starting with my ginger friend. He picked up at the third ring.

"Hey dude."

"Hey man. So, I just got back from a surprise poker practice at Token;s"

"Really? So, how did it go?"

"Well it started out quite okay, I won a couple of times. But it ended weird, Cartman and Clyde got into a fight."

"Wait, what?" Kyle sounded just as surprised as I pictured him to be.

"For real. Cartman said how Clyde must be gay for breaking up with Wendy and then Clyde said how Cartman must be gay for you."

Kyle was silent.

"Come again?"

"No, really dude! Clyde said that Cartman paid too much attention to you and how that must make him gay for you. Really, he totally threw that in Cartman's face! It was awesome." I could Kyle snicker at the other end of the phone.

"Really?"

"Yeah! He totally said what everybody thinks and Cartman threw a fit!" Kyle burst out laughing. I grinned too as I heard my best friend laugh nearly uncontrollably at the other end of the phone.

"Cartman…"He hiccoughed. "Hot for me! Oh, frikkin hilarious!"

"He's the first to finally say something like that to him. It was priceless."

"Aw man, I should have been there."

"Yeah, you should. You really owe one to Clyde."

"I'll, uh, I'll thank him next time I see him."

"Yeah and warn him."

"Warn him?"

"You know how Cartman is. He got all silent all of a sudden it was almost as if he was-."

"Plotting revenge." Kyle finished for me. "Oh dear. Yeah, we better warn Clyde. Ugh, Cartman can be such an asshole sometimes."

"You know it, babe."

"...babe?" Kyle asked, stunned. Kenny's influence was more profound than I had realized. I decided to quickly wrap up the conversation as if I had not said anything out of the ordinary.

"Listen I gotta go, I'm tired as hell from the practice and playing poker after."

"I can imagine, get some rest...dude." He added. I could hear the grin in his voice. It was obvious he knew I had picked that one up from Kenny.

"I'll talk to you soon."

"Okay, bye."

I hung up and looked at my phone in doubt. The need to talk to Kenny about tonight was overwhelming. He alone knew what I was going through with the whole poker business. My mentor, guide and most of all my friend who had helped me so much in my gaming skills. And I knew him well. I knew he would want me to call him after a night like that. So I did.

"Hey babe." He said as he picked up. I grinned at the pet name I had said to Kyle only minutes before. It sounded good when Kenny said that to me.

"Hey man. Uhm, you busy?" I asked. I never asked him that. But somehow I wanted to make sure that I wasn't disturbing him. All of a sudden I was nervous about interrupting. Where the hell did that come from?

"No, of course not!" He laughed. "I'll make time for you, you know that." He teased.

"Okay, so uhm, I had an impromptu poker practice tonight."

"Really? " I could nearly see him sit up suddenly in his desk chair. All exited to hear more.

"Yeah, after football practice."

"And? Come dude! Tell me! How did it go?"

"Well.."

"Aw, no! Don't tell me you lost!"

"Not at first. It went really well. But in the end I took Cartman's bait about Wendy and I wasn't able to concentrate anymore."

"Hm, yeah I can imagine that. But did you manage to find out other people's clues?" He finished excitedly.

"Yeah, yeah I'm pretty sure I did!"

"Really? Ow, that is awesome!" His enthusiasm got me exited too.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that when Clyde has a bad hand he starts tugging at his shirt collar."

"Classic! Really good, Stan!" I blushed at his compliment.

"So I managed to beat him quite easily but Cartman is just really good and he keeps trying to get a rise out of me."

"Yeah, I figured he would."

"And I really can't read him! It's so frustrating. So in the end I lost to him…again."

"Aw, babe! But don't worry we'll get you better. We'll just practice some more."

I blushed some more at the thought of us practicing more. Boy, did I like the sound of that!

"We definitely should." I heard him snicker at the other end of the line. "And uhm, I was thinking have you got any plans tonight? Do you wanna hang out?"

"Oh, I'm sorry I, ah, I have to take care of some business later tonight." He sounded rather evasive and unsure, as if he didn't want to fully answer my question. I decided not to pressure it too much.

"Oh, okay." But my disappointment must have shown in my voice because he added quickly:

"I'd love to hang out with you, really!" He said quickly and I knew he was telling the truth. "It's just, that I really am busy later tonight. Soon though?"

"Yeah." I said, relieved.

"Great." I heard the smile in his voice. He really was happy with the idea of hanging out with me soon.

"But hey, I'm home now, so I'm gonna hang up." I could see my house come into view already.

"Okay. Sweet dreams, honey." He whispered seductively. And even though he had flirted with me endlessly in the past it made me smile happily and blush even more.

"Yeah, you too. Bye!"

"Bye."

I hung up and got out my keys to unlock the door. My father lay passed out on the couch, snoring loudly. Some sports program was playing on the TV. I tiptoed past him and went up the stairs. I was exhausted and just dumped my stuff on the floor. Washing my things could wait. I brushed my teeth quickly and changed out of my clothes. I grabbed my laptop to maybe watch a movie and check my email. I crawled into bed and turned of the lights, leaving only my bedside lamp turned on.
As I opened my email I saw I had two new ones. One sent by Kyle containing even more notes about European history and the other one was from Kenny. Naturally I skipped the boring email and opened Kenny's. He hardly ever emailed me so I got a little excited when I opened it.

The text in it was short:

Hiya Babe,

Sorry you had to miss my hot bootay tonite. I will make it up to you soon ;)

The email had a zip file attached and I opened it, smiling as I saw what was in it. Pictures, lots and lots of pictures. Random funny ones alternated with pictures of movie quotes. He had also added a bunch of pictures of our vacation of last year.

I sniggered as I looked them:

Cartman tripping over a treebranch

Craig smiling as some squirrels ate out of his hand

Clyde and Kyle drunk of their asses, giggling together

Token picking his nose

The last one was a surprise. It was one of Kenny, standing in front of the mirror and lifting up his shirt, showing his chest. One of his eyebrows raised. He had clearly taken it minutes before sending me the email. It was obvious he was joking. I could tell by his expression in the picture he was doing his best not to laugh really hard. I grabbed my phone and texted him.

Jesus Christ Kenny

I held my phone in my hand, waiting for a reply. I knew he would understand I was talking about the picture. Meanwhile my eyes were travelling over Kenny's body on the screen. He was very thin. But it didn't really bother me. I jerked as my phone buzzed in my hand. It was a reply from Kenny.

I knew you'd love it ;)

And I did.