~𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔~ 𝑎 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑢𝑡𝑦 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦

𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒃𝒍𝒆, 𝒌𝒊𝒅𝒔!

it was a hot day on base. everyone (well, mostly everyone) was freshly showered after drills and were now shooting the shit in the common room, drinking, playing cards, and enjoying the AC as the sun went down slowly but surely.

Andrea was sat at a chair in the corner, reading a book and slowly nursing her glass of jack daniel's as the boys pounded back what seemed like an infinite supply of shots while gambling til their pockets were empty. they'd been going for a good two hours now.

she didn't always keep to herself like this but after the borderline heatstroke they'd all experienced today, you could say she was a bit exhausted. she was amazed they were so rowdy and not passed out in the barracks's by now.

she was a few drinks in and about half way through the book when she heard one of them call her name. "DREA." she heard. a bit too loud, especially since she was no more than 10 feet away from the group.

it was corporal daniel whitlock. a friend she made when she was first stationed. "why don't you come play a few rounds with me?" he asked.

the girl closed the book on her thumb, saving her place. "why? so you can run my pockets like these idiots? yeah no thanks." she joked, earning a slew of offended protests from the group.

"you don't have to put any money in. just a friendly game of cards." he reasons.

"yeah right, friendly my ass." she shakes her head, folding the corner of her page as a marker and chugging down the rest of her drink. "fine."

this time the group erupts into claps and whoops to which andrea sarcastically pumps her fist in the air mocking a cheer and shuffles over to the group sitting around the table. some on the floor some on the couch and chairs.

she uses her foot to give a light tap on the man's back  sitting on the floor across from daniel. "scootch it." she says. "yes sergeant." he replies and moves over to make space.

she sits down crisscrossed on the floor and folds her arms. "i don't think i even know how to play this, dan." she points out.

"it's easy i'll teach you." he says while shuffling the deck. "and if you have a hard time understanding just let me know so i can dumb it down a bit for you." he smirks.

the girl narrows her eyes at his drunken cockiness. "alright then, dickhead. go on."

"so basically, we start off with three cards each.  your goal is to get out before the other person and get zero points. each card being worth the numbered amount of points, jack is eleven, queen is twelve, king is thirteen and ace is a whopping fifteen. in this game the player with the least points wins. to get out your hand has to be... complete basically. like, each card has to go together." he rushes out, just barley coherent.

"so they all have to match?" she says.

"sort of but not really." he squints at her, trying to find the words to explain. the shots he took previously not making it very easy.

she looked at him blankly for a few seconds "what?"

"hold on let me finish." he shouted, slurring his words. the boys laughed at him.

"okay so, say you had six cards. to be out you could have 6,7, and 8 of spades and three... i don't know... three nines maybe? or you could just do 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and a jack, all spades, and you would be out. they all have to match with something for you to be out. and you can't do pairs. pairs don't count. it has to be at least three to be a match." it was obvious how hard he had to focus to make that all make sense. the girl internally congratulated him on the fact that she understood most of it.