Page 63 of From the Start

“Mr. Crisp is a pickle. He can’t feel anything,” Jaxon says.

I cuddle the jar to my chest. “Don’t listen to him, Mr. Crisp. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“It’s an inanimate object. Inanimate objects…”

“Nope,” I cut my nerdy brother off before he can give me and everyone else a lecture. Knowing him, he has a PowerPoint presentation prepared. No thanks.

Rhett places his bowling shoe on the table and pulls out a chair. “Can we just once play poker without all the goofing off and jokes?”

He sits down andpfft.

“Are you serious?” he asks as he jumps to his feet. “How did you even get a whoopie cushion on the chair without me noticing?”

He throws the whoopie cushion at me. “Hey. Why am I to blame?”

“Because you’re a jokester who thinks fart jokes are still funny.”

“Dude.” Miles shakes his head. “Fart sounds are freaking hilarious.”

“High five!” Zane slaps my hand.

“I have to admire how you put down the cushion without anyone noticing,” Jaxon says as he fiddles with his glasses.

“Thank you.” I bow.

Eli hands out glasses of whiskey before pulling out a chair. He checks there’s nothing on it before sitting down and raising his glass. “To smugglers, bootleggers, rumrunners, and the mermaids who loved them.”

“Smugglers!” We repeat before drinking our whiskey.

Rhett grabs the deck of cards from the middle of the table and unwraps them before shuffling and dealing. We always use a new deck to prevent cheating. As if that’ll stop me.

Miles is the first one to notice something’s off. He elbows Zane, whose eyes widen when he realizes the cards are special.

“I’m feeling lucky,” Miles says before sliding a large stack of chips toward the center of the table.

“What did you do?” Eli asks me.

“Why me?”

“I believe it’s because you are the jokester of the family.”

I roll my eyes at Jaxon. “Thank you for clarifying, nerd.”

“What the hell?” Rhett explodes. “These cards are marked.”

He tears the first card into pieces but I jump from the table to stop him before he destroys any more. “Hey. I had to special order those.”

“Does your girlfriend know you cheat at poker?”

I glare at him. “Harper isn’t my girlfriend. And I didn’t cheat. It was a prank.”

“We discovered it in advance, it doesn’t count for the prank war,”Jaxon says.

“Whatever. Everyone’s being boring tonight. I’m going toRumrunner.”

“He’s running to his girlfriend because everyone’s being mean to him,” Miles taunts.

I ignore him. Let him think I’m upset and need comfort. If it helps me get out of here so I can spend some time with Harper, he can think what he wants.