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Tonight was a date.
*~*~*
Up till tonight, if you’d ask Nate what he knew about Bunco, he would have probably shrugged and said it was a bunch of women who got together to drink wine and do a little gossiping. He would have only been partially right. Bunco, much to his surprise, was a lot like guys’ poker night. He’d been to a few of those back during his residency. Generally, it involved drinking, cigar smoking, raunchy jokes, and a healthy dose of some good natured competitive betting.
Couples Bunco was exactly the same. Except the cigar smoking and the raunchy jokes were done in the privacy of the outdoor patio, away from the women. Nate imagined the women had their own similar version going on in another part of the house.
They’d been playing for over an hour now, and were officially on break. Which meant it was time to get a fresh drink, eat some food, and mingle. Nate was in the backyard patio with a few of the husbands, drinking a longneck and listening to Moose Masterson, tonight’s host, tell what was apparently a well-known story about his wife, Shea. A couple of years ago while hosting their regular Thursday night Bunco
game, she’d accidentally spiked the margaritas with some grain alcohol Moose kept stashed in the garage, resulting in the women getting uproariously drunk. The incident had been accidentally taped, then played for the whole town to see during a Bunco Black Tie fundraiser for the town’s new rec center. It had made the headline Bunco Babes Gone Wild in the town’s paper, The Whispering Bay Gazette.
Moose, a big guy who perfectly matched his name, puffed on a cigar and laughed. “You can believe Shea never came near my moonshine again!”
The rest of the men, obviously familiar with the story, laughed as well, including Nate. He hadn’t had many opportunities to meet people or to socialize since coming back to town and his few high school friends were all living in different parts of the country now. This party was a situation where everyone obviously knew everyone well. Old friends. Old stories to laugh at. Ordinarily, he might have felt like an outsider. But they’d all gone out of their way to make him feel comfortable. Tonight had been pleasant. In more ways than one.
He glanced through the open French doors and caught a glimpse of Lauren, standing in the kitchen, a glass of wine in one hand. She was talking to a group of women and she looked unbelievably hot in that white dress. It wasn’t that it was too short or that it showed any cleavage. She was covered up in all the places that men usually liked exposed.
But damn. That dress clung to her like a second skin. It curved her ass like nobody’s business and he found himself reduced to that eighteen-year-old kid who’d followed her down the hall just to see her walk from behind. He tossed back the rest of his beer. He was in trouble, all right. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could take of this “friends” thing of hers.
“Not drinking tonight, Steve?” Zeke Grant asked. Zeke was Whispering Bay’s chief of police. His wife, Mimi, was Lauren’s closest friend.
“Kitty can’t drink, so I figured I wouldn’t either,” said Steve Pappas. He was a nice guy. Quiet, but not easily overlooked. He raised his bottle of water in salute to his wife. Kitty was the pregnant one. Almost thirty-seven weeks according to what Lauren had told him. The Bunco group had thrown her a baby shower just last week. It was Kitty who Lauren had designed the original maternity dress for. She was wearing another of Lauren’s designs tonight and the other women had all oohed and aahed over the dress. Lauren had beamed at their praise and Nate had been proud of her. He hoped like hell this new business of hers took off.
“If you’re not drinking, does that mean you’re the designated driving couple?” Moose asked Steve.
“That’s us,” Steve said.
“So,” Zeke said to Nate, “You’re dating Lauren?”
The men all turned to look at him.
“I wouldn’t say we’re dating. We’re more like friends,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” Moose said.
“That’s how it always starts out,” Steve said. “First they just want to be friends. Then before you know it, you’re a couple.”
“But only when she tells you you’re a couple,” Zeke emphasized. “Got it?”
“Got it.”
They grinned and took turns slapping him on the back like he’d just gone through some sort of initiation, and then the talk turned to baseball, and after a few minutes, someone rang the cowbell, also known as the Bunco Bell. They used the bell to signal when to change tables or to announce that a break was over.
Nate slid a couple of loaded nachos onto a plate, found his designated table and took a seat across from Lauren. Her blue eyes were flushed with happiness. “Having a good time?” she asked him.
“Having a great time,” he said. Their gazes held for a few seconds, then the bell rang again signaling the beginning of the game.
It had only taken Nate a couple of games to catch on. They played in two teams of two at each table. There were six tables tonight—for a total of twenty-four players—the twelve Bunco Babes plus their significant others. Each table was numbered from one to six, with table one as the “head” table. Whenever a team won at table one, the game was over for everyone in the room. The winning team stayed at their table, and the losing team rotated to the next table down.
Currently, they were rolling for fours. Nate picked up the three dice and tossed them, but no fours. Frida Hampton, the owner of The Bistro by the Beach and her husband, Ed, were their competition this round. Ed went on a streak, easily outscoring Lauren and Nate. Within a few minutes, someone at the head table yelled, “Bunco!” causing the entire room to shout with glee or to boo, depending on how well they’d done that game.
It was Kitty Pappas who’d rolled the Bunco. She pumped her fist in the air. “Who’s going to be tonight’s big winner? Me! That’s who!”
Steve shook his head and grinned. “And that’s my wife without liquor,” he said, causing everyone to laugh.
The bell rang and the losing couple switched tables to begin another game. “How are we doing?” Lauren asked, glancing at their scorecard.
“Okay, I guess,” Nate said. This time they were rolling for fives, and once again, Kitty and Steve Pappas won at the head table, only this time Kitty not only shouted out her victory, she began doing a little dance around the room. “Bathroom break!” she cried and the rest of the women laughed as Kitty made a dash down the hallway.
