Page 40 of Holiday Home 3
Her advance halted, and confusion sprung up like daises amongst the light array of faded freckles covering the bridge of her nose. Behind her, Anna seemed just as surprised.
“So, you did cheat, Liam?” she asked.
“No,” he said, using his right elbow to push Avril off him and return to sitting upright. “But that’s the name of the game we’re playing. Bullshit.”
Recognition sparked in the emerald set of eyes in the room, but only there. Anna grew even more perplexed.
“That’s… a card game?”
“Fun one, too,” he said. “If someone will let me finish doling the cards out so I can explain the rules.”
Staring at him for a little longer, Avril eventually nodded, though a caveat quickly followed. “I’m shuffling all future hands,” she proclaimed.
“Sure, sure.” Liam finished splitting the deck into three sets and took the stack of eighteen in a ploy to earn a little more trust.
You cheat one time, and then you tell everyone how you did it, and then they just never trust you again,he thought.
“It is a fun game,” Avril agreed.
Looking past her, he addressed Anna. “It’s fun, and it’s also pretty simple to pick up. You win by getting all the cards in your hand out of it. The way you do that is by putting cards facedown into the center pile on your turn. And when you do that, you declare how many cards of a certain number or face you’re putting down. It all goes sequentially, so it starts with aces, then moves to twos, then threes, and then all the way up to kings—and then you start back at aces.
“What makes the game worth playing is that the cards you set down aren’t shown, so you can—and should—lie occasionally. Say I’ve got only one six, and it’s my turn. I could put down two cards and announce that I’m putting down two sixes. And this isn’t a team game, so there’s no way of being certain if I’m telling the truth, not unless one of you has three sixes and knows for a fact that I’m lying.
“But if you doubt me, then you can call ‘Bullshit’ before the next person takes their turn. If that happens, the cards that were just put down are turned faceup by the player who had put them down. If you’ve caught them in a lie, they takeeverycard from the middle pile and add them to their hand. But if they’d been telling the truth, you have to take the whole middle pile. The game keeps going until someone has no cards in their hand.”
Quick on the uptake as ever, Anna nodded after his explanation. “All right. I understand.”
“You can just say ‘BS’ if you want to, seeing as how bullshit’s a swear and all,” Avril teased, which caused Anna to blush briefly.
“I’m not a child. I can say a swear word in a card game, Avril.”
“Just giving you the option if you want to keep your tongue nice and clean.”
Fortunately, Avril didn’t catch how her words deepened Anna’s blush, nor how it caused her to glance at him. As Liam picked up his stack of eighteen cards, he hurriedly bought her a few moments to recover by announcing who started the game.
“If you’ve got the Ace of Spades, you go first. You must put it down, and you can put down as many aces as you have—or don’t have.”
“Is there any reason not to put down all of a certain card you have?” Anna asked, imitating him and Avril as they ordered their cards while keeping them hidden.
“If youreallywant to make things serious and plan ahead, you could, but that’s not too common. I don’t think we should get that into things here.”
“All right.”
About a minute later, everyone looked to have ordered their cards as they preferred. Staring at his array of cards, he found two aces, but not the Ace of Spades, in his hand. He was rather heavy on low cards, having a pair of twos and three threes, as well.
“I have the Ace of Spades,” Anna said, glancing up from her hand. “Are we ready to start?”
“Bring it,” Avril said, reclining on the couch but keeping an eye on him.
So little trust,Liam thought.
Nodding, Anna pulled the leftmost card from her hand and placed it facedown on the coffee table. “Just one ace.”
Neither he nor Avril was inclined to pick up the Ace of Spades, so they remained silent until Avril removed two cards from the left side of her hand and plopped them down on top of Anna’s card.
“Two twos.”
The courtroom remained free of objections, and Liam noticed that Anna didn’t recheck her hand following Avril’s proclamation. But now it was his turn to cause a bit of a stir. Pulling three cards from his hand, he deposited them amongst the pile.