Brothers In Arms

Chapter 3

Three weeks later and no pranks were pulled. I hung out with Alec and his crew during the day when I didn't have classes. No one bothered me. I had gotten my teachers to give me all the homework from the previous month I missed and handed it back a week later.

To say they were in shock would be an understatement. I had already caught up to the rest of the class and I could modestly say I was in the top 10 students in my year. I wasn't stupid. I knew that working hard gave me the in with the seniors and allowed me to relax my guard on the singles floor.

A few of them said 'hey' to me in the hall now and nodded when we passed in the school. Alec finally got around to asking me if he could come up and check it out upstairs. I said sure, so now we sat in my room playing cards on my bed with Mike and Ferret. Micah had sprained his ankle in Fitness class so he was laying down to rest it and Roger was keeping him company.

"I win again boys." Mike flipped his cards and we all groaned. I heard a knock at the door and looked up to see my neighbour standing there watching us.

"What's up Reggie?" I asked him. I beckoned him inside and introduced him around.

"Hey, nice to meet you guys. Listen, I was wondering if you could tutor my brother. He is in your English class and my dad flipped when he saw his last marks." He asked politely. I nodded, since it was one of my best subjects.

"Sure thing. Bring him around tomorrow night with his workbook and I will have a look before he hands it in, okay?" I sat back in my desk chair as Alec shuffled for the next hand. Reggie grinned and seemed reluctant to leave.

"Thanks I'd appreciate it. You guys play cards often?" He nodded to our poker game with candy bets, since we weren't allowed to bet with money. Mike grinned and played with his larger stack of gummy candies.

"Often enough I get cavities." Mike said cheekily. Ferret rolled his eyes.

"You want me to deal you in? I can lend you a bag of Cherry Blasters." Alec asked kindly. Reggie grinned and nodded, taking a seat on the corner of the bed. He dealt the cards and the blinds were thrown in before the guys began betting in earnest.

I had a two and an Ace, but I figured I should at least wait for four cards to surface before I bowed out. When a second two came up, I bet in earnest and since I didn't really have a sweet tooth it was all for fun.

Imagine my surprise when it was down to Reggie and I and an Ace turned up on the last card. We flipped our cards and I had two pair with aces high and he had two pair with Jacks high. I won a whole lot of candy on that hand and couldn't stop grinning.

I popped a Cherry Blaster in my mouth and Mike grumbled about not eating the chips. Another senior came over to see what we were up to and watched the next hand, where I had to fold early and Reggie took them with a bluff.

I laughed when Ferret growled at Mike for trying to touch his licorice. He had been trying to offer some gummy bears in exchange but Ferret didn't want them. I offered to trade my licorice for his caramels and we shook on it and exchanged. I popped a caramel and put in a pack of Rockets as small blind.

I had a King and a Jack so I had to pay attention for a bit. There was already a ten in the flop and an Ace came up in the turn so I had to school my features as careless as possible. Especially since Alec had put a handful of Sour keys down on the flop.

I put in a modest number of Cherry Blasters in on my turn and waited to see what he would do next. He upped the ante with five extra gummy worms. The crowd in my room had grown as about six seniors stood watching shoulder to shoulder as I deliberated.

I met his worms, Ferret folded, and we waited for the river. It was a Queen. I bet ten caramels. He went all in and I grinned from ear-to-ear. I had more candy so I met his bet and we showed our cards. He had three of a kind, all tens.

I won with my straight so Alec swore and tried to steal back a couple sour keys. Ferret grabbed his hands and called him a sore looser. Mike groaned as the bell sounded for curfew and tried to make me promise to save all my candy so he could win some back next time. I shook my head and popped another caramel. It all went into bags and I shook the sugar off my blanket out the window as the boys filed from my room.

"Good game. We play on Wednesdays if you want to join us next week. Room 506 down the hall." I turned to see a very tall, muscular boy with hazel eyes and short black hair looking me over before he turned to leave.

"Ah yeah, thanks." I breathed, but he didn't turn back around as he left. I followed after him to watch his retreating form before closing and locking my door for the night. Habits die hard.

*

"Who is that black haired senior at the end of the table?" I whispered to Alec at breakfast on Monday. He glanced over at the seniors table and then looked over at me.

"The really tall one you mean?" He questioned my description. I nodded. "That's Vincent. Vincent Wright. He is top of his class and rumour has it the special forces are holding a spot open for him when he graduates. Why do you ask?" I stared at my tray and chewed slowly.

"He asked me to come play poker with some of the seniors on Wednesday." I said more nonchalantly than I felt. Alec choked on his bite and stared at me wide-eyed.

I was a little grossed out by the food I could see with his mouth hanging open like that. He swallowed his food without fully chewing on it so he could speak without spitting it out.

"Are you kidding me? The Vincent Wright asked you to play in his Wednesday poker game? You are just now telling me this?" Alec was grabbing my sleeve now and I was staring at him as he whispered cuss words under his breath.

"I... I'm sorry? Didn't realise it was such a big deal to you. I was trying to decide if I was going to go or not." I was suddenly shaken viciously from side to side.

"You have to go!" He whisper-screamed at me. I was now laughing and trying to break his grip on my clothes before they got completely wrinkled or worse yet, ripped.

"Alright, alright. I'll go. Relax. I'll tell you all about it on Thursday okay?" I was finally released and I heard him sigh in contentment. I rolled my eyes at him and finished my juice now that it wouldn't spill everywhere if I tried. Micah gave us a strange look and I shrugged.

"We should head to class now." He said and I nodded in agreement. Alec shoveled the last of his eggs into his mouth and headed to put his tray away before he had even swallowed. Someone should tell him not to try to eat while he's walking, he was going to choke one of these days.

We stopped at our lockers to grab our books and headed to class. Reggie's brother Eric waved at me when I walked in and I waved back. He was pretty creative when he wrote, just needed a little help with grammar rules and had a tendency to skip words when he was writing.

I spent an hour going over his paper with him last week and made a few suggestions on what he could do to self edit more effectively. I had a feeling he was going to do much better on this paper than he did on the last one.

I added my own paper to the top of the pile on the teacher's desk and sat down to await my daily torture session. Joking, I loved English and the teacher wasn't too bad. Alec was less thrilled with the class and spent most of it passing notes with another boy at the back.

It wasn't until after lunch that I noticed the strange looks I was getting from some of the other guys. I was changing in Fitness when someone finally came up to me and I figured out why. He asked if I was really going to be in the Wednesday night poker game. That explained it.

I told him I had been invited so I was probably going to go. I also said I thought I was going to lose all my candy, and we both laughed at that. I guess it was more of an unusual thing than I thought, being invited to the game that is. For myself, I wasn't that excited. I just couldn't stop looking every time Vincent came within sight.

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