Pool, Poker and Players

Original story by Niceguy
(This is a prequel to Aces and Eights.)


In a smokey bar, two friends debated politics over the sound of pool balls being racked up and broken.

“And you wanna end up paying more in taxes?” Bill yelled before taking another sip of his scotch.

“I fail to see how the two are related. I just don’t think we’re going to get what we need with McCain…” Jake tried to reason.

“OK, first, you known I’m no McCain booster… But the Democrats WILL raise taxes – you KNOW this! And I don’t know why you even care about Global Warming or Gay Marriage… You’re NOT even gay, and your great grandchildren will be DEAD before there’s any real climate change, even assuming that Al Gore’s little minions aren’t completely full of hooey!”

“Now hang on a second! First of all…” But Jake trailed off, his eye catching something (someone, actually) on the other side of the bar, playing pool. “Hang… on… a….second…”

“Yeah, you just said that… huh?” Bill followed Jake’s glance. “Forget it my friend. She’s way out of your league. So why don’t you move over and let the big boy here give it a try.” He patted Jake’s chest as he got up an made his way over the pool table.

Jake was barely of aware of what had just happened, but Bill was now clearly in front of him in line. He watched as his friend went over to the tall redhead who was racking up another game at the pool table after (apparently) hustling the last guy there. From Jake’s vantage point at the bar, it seemed Bill was going to play a few rounds with her. Now he was laughing as she held up some money. Was he going to make a bet? “Be careful Bill,” Jake thought, “Your old fashioned, manly-man attitude is going to get you into trouble one of these days.”

After losing the first round, it looked like he said something that got the breezy pool-girl upset. Jake never did hear what it was, but for the next two games, all pretenses were gone. The red-head absolutely mopped the floor with him. He paid up and came back to the bar.

“She's all yours buddy… But she’ll eat you alive.” He tossed his last 10-spot to Jake and left. It wasn’t enough by half to cover his part of the tab, but Jake just shrugged and paid up. They were celebrating his getting a new job anyway. Before heading home, he figured he’d take a good crack at the auburn tomboy that had so captivated him.

“Sorry about my friend. He’s a little bit…”

“Of a sexist pig?” She answered sharply. “Well, at least he paid up.”

“Well, sort of…” Jake laughed. “You cleaned him out and he stiffed me on the tab.”

“And you want some money back?” She answered, with a frightening gleam in her eye as she started to rack up again.

“Oh no…” Jake took a step back waving his hands, knowing a poisonous trap when he saw one. “I’m not much of a pool player. I just wanted to come meet the woman who finally put him in his place. Bill’s a pretty good player, so… you must be pretty good then.”

“He’s alright. Above average but nothing special though. My name’s Brigid by the way.”

“Then I guess he plays pool about as well as he debates politics!” Jake laughed. “Mine’s Jake.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you.”

“Would you… uh… like me to walk you home?”

She was an inch away for declaring that she hardly needed an escort, but then realized that this guy was not the chauvinistic blowhard she just hustled out of a C-Bill. So she decided she could use the company after all. “Sure.”

As they walked home, Jake was surprised how well they’d hit it off. Jake always had an affinity for strong, independent women and Brigid liked the fact that he appreciated that aspect of her. It was far more common for men to flee from her in terror. (Of course, most of the men she talked to she ended up conning into a high-stakes pool game, which might explain a lot of it.) But she got a strong sense that this little man with the quiet demeanor and fairly unremarkable appearance had a very strong character. He seemed… solid somehow, like the kind of guy you could really depend on. In her experience this was a fairly uncommon trait in men.

When they reached her apartment building, Jake, feeling as though they were hitting it off pretty well, thought he’d press his luck just a bit further. “I… uh… don’t suppose you like to have dinner with me? Tomorrow night maybe?” Whoops. He hadn’t meant to make it so soon. Did he sound desperate?

She looked at him (more like through him, actually) with piercing green eyes for a few moments before saying. “Sure. Tomorrow would be fine. 8:00 then?”

“Eight… yeah … I’ll see you then!”

“I look forward to it.” And, almost to her surprise, she found that she really did.
__________________________________________________

The following evening she found herself standing outside of Jake’s apartment, reading a note that was taped to the door. “If he even thinks of standing me up…” She thought, feeling both angry and disappointed. She unfolded the note and read it.

“Brigid,

I’m SO SORRY, but I’m going to be late. I’m taking Bill to the hospital (his appendix.) Mrs. Lacey in 205 has a key and will let you in. Make yourself at home and I’ll be back ASAP.

SORRY!
Jake”

Although she felt a bit awkward and even considered just calling it off and going home, she knocked on the door to 205 and got Jake’s key from a kind old lady who commented on “what a pretty friend Jacob had” and went to “make herself at home” in Jake’s apartment.
________________________________________________

She had to admit he had a pretty nice place. After looking around a bit, not enough to be nosey, but just to figure out where things were, she made herself a drink and started to look though the DVD’s on the shelf, trying to find something to pass the time while she waited. As she did this, she started to notice her nose growing really itchy and starting to run a little. She sniffed strongly and turned to go look for a tissue or grab some toilet paper when she almost tripped over something. Looking down she saw that a cat had crept up behind her and started rubbing its head against her leg just as she stepped away from the shelf.

“*sniff* Well hello there! *sniff*” she said, looking at the cat through eyes that were already starting to fill with tears. “So he has a cat, huh? Well, I guess this little fling’s not gonna last long. *sniff*.” She laughed to herself as she went to look for some tissues, hoping that her date was not going to keep her waiting for long.

“hah… haaaAAAAAHHHSOOO! *sniff* Oh my god… Need tissues…” She went from room to room and even checked the closets but to no avail. The cat seemed intent to follow here everywhere which, if it were happening to anyone else, she would have found a bit amusing. Her nose was getting very runny now, and judging from her vision, now obscured by her watery eyes, she was pretty sure her makeup looked frightful at this point.

“haaaAAAAHHHTCHOO-oo! Oh… *sniff*… Ok… *sniff* toilet paper then. And YOU stay out!” she said to the cat, keeping it at bay with her foot as she closed the bathroom door.

Sitting on the toilet seat, she blew her nose, which brought on several more sneezes. Blowing her nose again, she wondered if it would be worth waiting for him after all. She was very allergic to cats, and medicine rarely helped. She contemplated a future of chronic sneezing, a constantly runny nose and itchy eyes, and just when she decided that she’d better quit before the prospect seemed liked a reasonable trade off, she heard a knock at the door.

She left the bathroom and started down the hall. She tried to yell out “Hang on, I’m coming,” but the cat, and its dander, had other ideas.

“Ha-hang… on…. I… Ha… haaaAAASSSHOOO! *sniff* huh… I’m coming!”

She sneezed again in the crook of her elbow as she opened the door. It was Jake.

“Hi. I’m sorry to make you wait like this.”

“It’s… OK… hah… aaaAAATCHH-hoo.”

“Bless you.”

“Thanks. Say, why exactly did you need… hold on, gotta sneeze… haaaah… haaaAAASSSHOOO! Sorry. Why did you need to knock on your own apartment door?”

“Bless you again! Well, I uh, kinda left you my only key.”

She laughed. “Well, it's a good thing I waited. If I’d left you’d have been locked out. Hah… Haaah… haaaAAAAHHHTCHOO-oo! Oh… *sniff*”

“Wow, bless you again. Are you, uh, feeling OK.”

“Well, *sniff* now that you mentioned no, not really. You see I’m very al… aahhh…. aaaAAATCHHOOO! VERY, allergic to cats. So, uh if you don’t mind, maybe we could get going then?”

“Uh, yeah, sure let’s go. Sorry to, uh, put you through that.”

“It’s OK, let’s just go. Oh but could you do me one favor and grab me some tissues?” She asked, rubbing her nose with her index finger.

“Sure.” Jake said with a smile, going back in to get some while she waited in the hall.
_______________________________________

She enjoyed herself at dinner, and was happy to learn that cat was not, in fact, Jake’s but that he was minding it for a friend while his apartment had some remodeling done in it. She was relieved to hear this since she was having a good time and had already decided that they would be seeing each other again. All the same, her nose was still a little runny even by the end of the meal, and she had just about depleted her supply of tissues.

After dinner, they took a walk around the downtown area for a while, stopping to get some ice cream for dessert, window shopping and just getting to know one another. After walking for an hour that seemed a lot shorter, they ran into a couple a friends of Jake’s.

“Hey guys! Brigid, these guys are a couple of friends of mine and Bill’s. This is Logan and James. Guys this is my date, Brigid”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you, darling!” James said excitedly, in an effete drawl which immediately piqued Brigid’s curiosity as to his sexual orientation.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Logan said, a sly, lopsided grin creeping across his face as he gazed at her with his deep brown eyes. If Brigid had not been thinking about Jake or Jake was more in tune to these kinds of things, it would have seemed apparent to either that Logan had become rather infatuated with the lithe redhead. As much as he was struck by how beautiful that she was his attention was drawn to some rather specific details that he almost never failed notice. He could see the tinges of redness around her nose and eyes. He could here that here voice was a little stuffy, and from her breathing that she had a runny nose. He would bet that she had allergies of some kind, and he would bet that they had been bothering her recently. He always noticed these kinds of things, because women’s sneezing was a HUGE turn on for him. ‘Lucky bastard’ he thought about Jake, not unkindly, smiling on the inside at the good fortune he knew his friend would never appreciate. After a short but polite chat, Jake and Brigid continued on there way, as James and Logan continued in the opposite direction, the way they had been headed.

“They seem nice.” Brigid offered.

“Yeah, not a bad bunch of guys. Logan’s a much better pool played than Bill, by the way.”

“Yeah, and uh… James. Is he…?”

“Nah, he doesn’t really play pool much. About as much a player as I am.”

If she’d been drinking a drink, she would have choked on it. She wasn’t sure what made her laugh more, the fact that he totally missed the point, or his answer, which was unintentionally hilarious in the context of her actual question.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” She laughed.

“He’s a pretty good poker player too. Logan, that is. Well, Bill too.”

“You don’t say?”

“Yeah, we had a regular game set up. Well, we still do in fact, except that our fifth player dropped out. Hey… I don’t suppose, I mean I’d hafta ask the guys but… you don’t happen to play poker do you?”

“I’ve played a little.” She answered coyly as they strolled back to his apartment. She looked forward to beating that chauvinistic blowhard Bill at something else he fancied himself an expert at, once he was out of the hospital anyway. They continued the rest of the way back to Jake’s apartment in silence. She decided not to go up with him, as much because of the cat as the fact that she planned on seeing him again.