Under the Surface (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ren

“Ren, man, hurry the fuck up!”

Mason has
been yelling at me to get a move on for the last fifteen minutes. I keep
telling him I’m almost ready, but I’ve been struggling to decide on the best
picture I took for an upcoming project. After three hours of contemplation, I
still have nothing. I can’t drag out Mason’s wait any longer, so I’ll just have
to come up with my decision later.

“Alright,
alright. Keep your pants on, Mase, I’
m coming.
”
I grab the final piece to my costume, a colorful sombrero, and
meet Mason in the living room.

We both tried
to go as characters from our favorite Clint Eastwood film,
The Good the Bad
and the Ugly
. Mason is Blondie, and he insisted I go as
Tuco
—he
said he was too good looking to dress as “The Ugly.” We both refused to buy
anything new, but our makeshift costumes make us look more like two drunk college
guys who found a sombrero and a carpet lying around and decided to put them on.

“I have been
sucking down shots of tequila for the last twenty minutes without you, Ren.
What has taken you so long?”

“I’ve been
working. But I got nothing done today, so it was kind of a waste.”

He shoves a
tequila shot in my hand.

“I’m not even
going to take the time to give you a lime or salt. Drink that right now or we
aren’t friends.”

I down it.

“Fuck that
tasted nasty. How much was this tequila, two bucks?”

“The woman at
the liquor store was actually giving it away. Nobody wanted it.”

I hope he’s
joking.

Mason starts
laughing. “Nah, nah. It was pretty cheap though. You know I never spend the big
bucks on drinks. That’s your job. Now here, take another one. Noel and Emmy
will be here any minute to pick us up.”

I take
another shot, this time opting for the salt and lime. After I’m done I hear a
knock at the door.

“Ladies have
arrived!” Mason goes to open the door and I hear him whistle.

And the
whistle was definitely well deserved. I can’t help but lock eyes on Emmy. She
and Noel are both wearing nurse costumes, if you can even call them that. And
Emmy, let me say, looks sexy as fuck.

I wrap my
arms around her waist when I greet her. “Nurse, nurse, I think you need to take
my temperature. I’m definitely running a fever,”
I say into
her ear.

“Well why
don’t you
bend over, sir.”
She snaps one
of her red leather gloves on her hand. “And I’ll be sure to take your
temperature. I think I brought my anal thermometer.”
Emmy taps her finger against her lips while she tries to cover her
smile.

“Damnit,
Emmy. Even when you say weird shit to me I think it’s funny. Now let’s get to
this party. I can’t wait to tell all the guys who look at you to fuck off.”

And I know
I’ll have to. Emmy’s with me now, and I’m normally not the jealous type, okay I
can get a little jealous, but something tells me that I’m
actually
going
to be telling guys to fuck off tonight.

“Stop acting
jealous. We date for a week and suddenly you get all overprotective? What
happened to keeping things the way they were?”

She sounds
determined. I hold my hands up in defeat. If not acting overbearing, which I
didn’t realize I was, will keep things going smoothly between the two of us,
then I’ll roll with it.

Emmy gets
another look at my costume as we head out the door. “From the waist down are
you naked under this thing?”
She asks while laughing.

“Later I will
be,”
I wink. “But no, I’ve got basketball shorts on underneath this
poncho. It’s just so long that it reaches past my knees.”

Emmy just
purses her lips at me.

“I have to
say, the nurse costumes are a bit of a Halloween cliché, but I have zero
complaints,”
Mason says.

I can’t hear
what Noel says to him in response, but it makes Mason’s face turn bright red.
She’s got the kid blushing. He says nothing in return, just rubs the back of
his neck as we all get into Noel’
s car.

“Where we
headed?”
Mason asks. The hat he’s wearing is so oversized it’s basically
taking up the entire front of the car. I pull mine off so I don’t block Noel’s
view.

“My friends,
Tyler and Blake’s place. The party should be good. It’s not supposed to be a
huge crowd, just the right amount of people. But they bought a bunch of alcohol
for tonight. And Blake is letting us sleep there, so we don’t need to worry
about driving or walking back.”

I turn to
Emmy, taking another look at her tiny, little costume. The street lights
outside are turning her white dress a dark amber color. She’s all toned legs
and a head full of curly blonde hair.

I still can
’t believe
that it was just a few days ago that she agreed to be with me. I haven’t
discussed with her yet that I want to call her my girlfriend, but I figured we
would get the logistics figured out later on.

“You drunk
yet?”
Emmy asks me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Nah, I only
had a few shots with Mason. I think he’s a lot further along than I am. What
about you? You don’t really look trashed.”

She laughs.

“No, not
drunk either. I had two beers while I was getting ready. I’m not sure yet if I
want to get super drunk tonight. More like a nice, comfortable buzz. I think
there can be some benefits to me ending the night with a clear head.”

I wish I knew
exactly what she meant by that, but my head is coming up with all different
kinds of ideas of what she can mean. All of them ending up with us together and
that nurse’s costume on the floor. And yes, I’ll definitely avoid getting drunk
for those purposes.

“What are you
two lovebirds yapping on about back there?”
Mason asks from the front
seat. I can see Noel looking at us now from the rearview mirror.

I’m about to
speak when Emmy chimes in. “We’re taking bets on how sloppy you’re going to get
tonight, Mason. My money is on you waking up in a bathtub somewhere. Probably
not even at Tyler’s house.”

“Although,
that’s probably very likely, I have a better feeling you two are whispering
about your filthy intentions later,”
Mason says.

“Yeah, Emmy,
you still have all those condoms you bought? The ones I reminded you to put in
your purse?”
Noel asks her.

At this point
Noel and Mason are laughing up a storm in the front. Both enjoying messing with
the two of us.

I look to
Emmy, almost expecting her to be embarrassed, but she just purses her lips
together and shakes her head back and forth.

“Don’t worry,
I’
ve got
everything
I could need for
tonight.”
She says before shooting me a devious smile.

Goddamn I
love this woman.

Nope. Nope. I
definitely did not just say that.

I like this
woman.
Like
. I’ve only know her for a few weeks, saying love is the craziest
thing I could possibly say.

“We’re here,
kids,”
Noel says to us before parking her car.

As I get out,
I grab my sombrero and place it back on my head. I go around the car to get
Emmy’s door for her, taking her hand to help her out of her seat.

“This dress
is going to be a little dangerous tonight,”
Emmy says, pulling down
the short hemline.

I’m drawn
to the little
scrap
of fabric, noticing again how short it is, and barely registering her words.

“You’re
telling me,”
I say under my breath.

Emmy takes my
hand. “Come on bandit, or whatever the hell you’re dressed up as, let’s get to
having fun.”

* *

Emmy and I just finished a round of beer
pong. Unfortunately, we lost. She didn’t land a single ball in a cup, which she
blamed on the table being off balance. A point that she was unable to prove was
true.

“You guys
want to do another game?”
One of the girls we were playing,
Madison,
asks us.
She’s dressed as a ninja. Her girlfriend and playing partner, Anna, is dressed like
Carmen Miranda, floral headpiece and all.

“I think
we’re good. But nice match, though. Maybe next time I’ll actually land a cup,”
Emmy says.

I feel
someone grab my right shoulder and discover it to be Mason.

He puts his
arms around Emmy and me. “We’re headed to the basement.”
He tilts his head back to point in the direction of where he wants
us to go.

“What’s in
the basement?”
I ask, curious.

“Not sure,
but Noel told me she’d have my balls if I didn’t get the two of you to join us.
So basically you have no choice but to come with. Now let’s go, people are
waiting.”

Emmy raises
her shoulders up. “Let’s go then,”
she says.

“Maybe if
we’re lucky, it’s an orgy,”
Mason says.

“I highly
doubt that,”
I tell him.

The door to
the basement is right next to the kitchen. There’s about twenty other people on
the main floor of the house, and I wonder how many are downstairs where we’re
heading.

Mason leads
the way. When we get to the stairs I see five people, all sitting around a
large poker table.

“We’re playing
cards?”
 
I ask the group. I notice Noel, but the two other girls and two
guys sitting down I don’
t recognize.

“Poker, to be
more specific,”
says the guy sitting to the right of Noel.
He doesn’t have a costume on, just a Yankee’s jersey. Or maybe that is his
costume.

I notice the
other guy at the table is dressed exactly like Mr. Yankee’s jersey. He’s
rolling a joint at the table and his hat is on backwards. “But there are no
chips at this table. Tonight we’re playing with another form of currency.”

Oh I know
where this is heading. I look to Emmy to see if she’s caught on yet. She’s
smiling so I know she knows what’s going on. “Strip poker,”
she says.

“Exactly, Ms.
Nurse,”
says the guys with the backwards cap. He finishes getting his
joint together, licking the thin paper to seal off the edge. “Anyone got a
light?”

Mason tosses
one his way. He joins the table while rubbing both his hands together. Looking
equally as excited as everyone else.

“You game,
Warren?”
Emmy asks me, using my last name. She has a devious little glint
in her eyes.

“You know I
am, princess.”

She punches
my arm playfully, and we take the last two seats at the table. Everyone is
pretty crammed in, but nobody seems to care.

“Let’s make
some introductions,”
says Backwards Cap. “I’m Tyler, to my
right here is Noel, then Blake, Trisha, and Laney.”

“I’m Emilie.”

“Ren.”

“Mason.”

“And that
concludes the introductions,”
Tyler says while keeping the
joint he was smoking in the corner of his mouth. “The rules of the game are
simple. Everyone know five card draw?”
We all nod. “Perfect,
that saves me the time of explaining it. Now the first round will be a free
pass. So if you want to exchange cards after what you’re given, this is your
one opportunity to do so for free. For every round after that, if you want to
continue with your hand, it will cost you one item you’re wearing. Hats, socks,
and underwear all count. Literally anything on your body can go into the pot.
Jewelry all counts as one. Both sets of the earrings in your ears, all the
bracelets on your wrist, yada, yada. Winner of the hand gets the clothes in the
middle. Everyone clear?”

The group at
the table all chime in with variations of “Yeahs,”
and “
Gotchas.
”
Tyler shuffles the cards and deals five to each person at the
table.

Five card
draw is pretty simple. I’ve played it a bunch of times with friends in the
past. Basically, Tyler will give everyone five cards. Each player gets to
assess what they have and see if they want to get rid of a few cards and be
given more, then keep playing,
or
keep their original hand and keep
playing. Those will each cost the player a bet. Which in this case means an
item of clothing. Of course the player has the option to fold, and not continue
with their hand. That will cost the player nothing, but they’ll be out, making
it impossible to win the “pot,”
or pile of clothes in the
middle.