“Whoo hoo!” My brothers converge on me with back slaps and half hugs.
“This calls for a celebration.” Eli lifts a bottle. “Good whiskey?” He lifts another bottle. “Or moonshine?”
“You have to ask?” I hand out shot glasses and he pours moonshine into them.
“Here’s to Zane and his little girl, Adele. May her and her cousins, Pearl, Mira, and Stephanie, learn to support each other.”
“After they wreak havoc on the Smuggler’s Hideaway school system,” I add.
“Here! Here!”
“Let’s play some poker!” Miles shouts.
We make our way down the hallway to Eli’s game room. This room – with its dark green walls and oak paneling – could be in a magazine. On one side of the room is a bar stocked with all the best whiskey and beer Smuggler’s Hideaway has to offer. On the other side is the largest television I’ve ever seen in a private home. There are leather couches scattered around the room so you can sit and enjoy a game while drinking your whiskey.
In the middle of the room is a pool table and a poker table. We sit around the poker table.
Jaxon clears his throat. “I’m allowed to make a new rule each month.”
Miles groans. “We know.”
Eli and Rhett insisted on this ‘rule’ because Jaxon felt left out of our prank wars. Until he married Blossom, he refused to participate in them. But his wife is super competitive – even with the prank wars! – and he can’t be feeling left out anymore. Nonetheless, the rule continues.
“How’s this for a rule? Whenever Zane mentions the baby, he has to drink a shot.”
I groan. “No fair. I just found out Adele is my baby.”
Kai slams a bottle down next to me. “Is that one or two shots?”
I glare at him as I pour a shot and down it. “Happy?”
“Not yet, but I will be soon.”
Rhett rubs his hands together. “Who’s ready for some poker?”
He removes the plastic from the deck of cards. Considering the pranks we play on each other and how often we’ve been known to ‘cheat’, we use a brand-new deck of cards each month.
Rhett starts to deal the cards, but stops. “What the hell? Why are the cards sticking together? This is a new deck.”
Kai bursts into laughter. “It is a new deck.”
Rhett smells his hands and cringes. “A new deck covered in maple syrup?”
“I wouldn’t say covered.”
Miles raises his hand and high-fives Kai. “Good one.”
Kai grins. “If anyone’s keeping score, I’m winning the prank war.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t have time for pranks, I have a baby to care for.”
“Drink!” Kai points to the bottle of moonshine.
Shit. At this rate, I’m going to be drunk before the first round of poker is finished.
Poker is serious business in the Raider family. You can’t skip a month. Even when Eli lived in California, he flew home for poker night. And the winner has bragging rights for an entire month. Whereas the loser won’t hear the end of it until the next poker night.
All this to say – I can’t be drunk off my face during poker.
