Random Things

Playing Cards

Sitting all around the dining room table, my eyes dart every direction filled with worry.
"How are these idiots going to act?"
This was all that would run through my mind as my boyfriend sat next to me. He was sitting to my left twiddling his thumbs. He stopped then started to pick at the skin around his nails. I smiled a little.
"Aw. He's nervous. So adorkable."
We were all just sitting in silence. Every once in a while, a ding would go off to tell everyone my sister was talking with her fíance.
"So let's play a game or something," I had finally broken the silence.
Everyone turned to look at me.
"Like what, baby?"
My dad was staring back at the floor avoiding eye contact with my boyfriend. Luckily, my little brother wasn't here to embarrass me by saying how much I use to talk about my boyfriend. If he were here, he would be blabbing on and on about all the nicknames he came up with for my boyfriend. I would end up red in the face and having to leave the room. But, thankfully, he is at a friend's house.
"Um, I honestly don't know. Hand and foot?"
My dad nods in agreement, so I grab out the cards from the drawer behind me. I start to shuffle the cards when I heard a small voice.
"Here, let me help," my boyfriend took some of the cards and tried to shuffle.
I smiled as his fingers fumbled with the cards.
"Darn!"
Cards flew all onto the floor. He scrambled to the floor to pick up the cards. I quickly got out of my chair to help. Some giggles fell from my family's mouths while we gathered the cards back up. Finally we had all the cards, we climbed back up into our seats and started to shuffle again. My dad started to deal the cards.
"Um. I don't know how to play this actually."
I volunteered to work with my boyfriend rather than be a competitor. I scooted nearer to him, and my dad's eyes just about jumped out of his head. My sister sat next to him and calmly put her hand on his shoulder.
After a while, my father finally finished dealing and handed out the pairs of cards. I picked up the two and looked at the bottoms of the stacks.
"Which one?" I asked my boyfriend, who pointed to the right stack.
I sat the left one down and started to sort out the right one.
"So nines through kings are ten points, black threes through eights are five points. Red threes are negative 300, and aces and twos are twenty points. Jokers and other extra cards are fifty points," my sister explained.
My boyfriend nodded in response.
"Kris, you go first."
She drew two cards from the left pile, shuffled through her cards, laid down all but four of her cards, then discarded.
"It's not as hard as it looks. It's really quite simply," I say in a mocking Harry Potter tone.
My boyfriend just laughed. A smile tugged at the side of my lips.
It was our turn now. He started to reach to grab two cards, but I patted his hand away. I picked up the pile because it had an ace on top, my lucky card to play first. I took the groups out of our hand and put them down.
"Which card should be discard?"
I turned the hand towards him, and he grabbed out a three of spades.
"Just go in order of the cards. That's usually how I discard."
I looked over at my boyfriend and smiled.
"That's how I discard too."
My sister awed as he and I looked at each other while my dad continued to have his eyes wide. I finally broke eye contact with him and handed him the cards.