Page 16 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls (Kissing At Work #2)

S kye’s eighty-two-year-old grandmother had a livelier social life than she did.

Following a thorough lecture of “don’t make me look foolish out here” in her sensible heels and cashmere shawl, Luce strutted to her usual seat. None of the shuffling she did in the confines of their house.

Luce set up her ritual area: a single game board, two beverages, and sea glass Pokeno chips she’d fashioned herself, doubling as her good luck charms. This precision echoed to every senior’s space on four rows of long gray tables in the activity room.

All other games and furniture had been pushed to the outer banks, as this was serious business.

“Three pages of stress,” Skye muttered as she pored over notes left by the usual caller, Austin.

They read like he was under duress. Good reason, as this same group physically ran the caller before Austin out of the recreation center when he accidentally left three playing cards out of the game deck.

They’d pinned his picture on the bulletin board in the lobby: permanently banned.

Marta, the dealer, sported a deathly serious face as she sat by Skye at the front of the room.

She’d finished phase two of her role: handing out the play boards and talking down the most superstitious of the twenty-seven attendees.

Phase one had been setting out the gifts, from where Marta would bring them to the caller’s table each round.

She’d also patrol around at intervals to keep the peace.

As the caller, Skye kept a laptop connected to a projector to show the playing card selected from a specialized app.

Being that the group didn’t trust overused technology, Skye had been tasked to pull from a mechanical shuffling machine, read the card into the mic (“Don’t mess up,” Luce warned), and select the corresponding card to project.

That prevented continuous ‘What suit?’ ‘Eight or Ace?’ ‘Can she speak up?’ interruptions all game.

“We start at four o’clock. Sharp.” Marta indicated twelve minutes ‘til with a bow of her flat chin. Skye swore this lady was once a prison correctional officer.

“Okay. Okay, I got this,” Skye murmured to herself, trying a smile at Marta. “Any tips?”

Marta’s eyes hardened to rock. “You know how everyone would usually say, ‘Have fun,’ and ‘relax, you’ll be fine.’”

“Mmhm?”

“Don’t. Stay frosty. Stay alert. If you’re too comfortable or try to sneak in anything cutesy, you’ll flub naming the card, and these citizens will riot. That’s why I swapped your seat for something metal.”

Skye shifted in the dented, cold chair—an artifact from Marta’s old prison, she imagined. Three hours like this ? Her ass already ached. “I’m very uncomfortable. Appreciate it.”

“We play by covering spaces, not poker hands. We do the first hour like normal bingo, the second hour’s two diagonals, then we play Blackout for the rest of our time, when the whole Pokeno board is filled. If they give you any lip, I’ll step in.”

Skye wiped increasingly damp hands on her long sleeves, as she’d woefully worn shorts. The air conditioner blew the room into arctic territory, so she’d surely remain as frosty as Marta instructed.

Luce had been turned around in her chair, chatting with a friend.

She and the other woman tangled their fingers as they laughed, and Skye broke from her fear to grin at them.

An almost school-like air filledthe room.

Even the table closest to her and Marta was left empty, similar to students avoiding desks next to teachers. Bad luck to them? Who knew.

Marta’s stiff bun gleamed in the rectangular overhead lights as she stood with her mic. She even barked the “welcome everybody” in a gruff tone meant for compliance.

While Marta listed all things forbidden (wandering to other tables during gameplay, badgering personnel, sneaking in alcoholic contraband), Skye found Luce smiling at her table on the second row.

Her grandmother’s eyes crinkled, lips dabbed with a color that made them pop.

It eased Skye, but only temporarily, as that metal chair wasn’t letting up on her.

Right as Marta began her spiel on game rules, the tan double doors swooped open. And a straggler arrived.

Not just any straggler. Not even someone over seventy.

Celene Vale. In slim-fit jeans and a soft-looking cardigan she tightened around herself once she stepped into their ice box. She stuck out like...uh, like a woman decades too young who had no ritualistic gear.

“Is it too late to play?” she asked in a volume that stunned even Marta, who was used to immediate respect.

Marta blew air from her nose with a low whistle, right into the mic. “I will help you in a minute.” She repeated the rules with the latecomer in mind, but Celene made a beeline for the caller/dealer table.

Skye’s heart took out its own mic and beatboxed directly into her ears. Faintly, she noticed Luce watching, wide-eyed, but Celene approached Skye much too casually, unlike anyone who paid the regulars attention. Marta’s head would probably burst into hot steam.

“Where do I get one of those boards?” Celene asked softly, bending to rest her hands on the table, but thankfully from the side, or else everyone would learn of her nice assets. “Do I sit anywhere I want?”

Skye had known Marta since she’d been a kid. She respected Marta. She heeded Marta’s word. Barring all that, her hand trespassed into Marta’s sacred space, snatching up the last Pokeno boards. “Um, yeah, anywhere empty.”

Celene denied the stack with a head shake. “Choose a winning one for me.”

“That’s not how luck works.”

Instead of backing off, she leaned onto her forearms, flapping long, black eyelashes. “Go on. Choose.”

Marta had finished speaking; Skye sensed the eye daggers slaughtering the other side of her face as she flipped through the boards with varying images of fifteen card faces. Until she stopped on one with all four queens on it. Celene gave queen energy.

“For you,” Skye whispered, trying her damndest not to focus on Celene’s inviting, peaked lips. “Marta will give you the chips.”

“Who’s Marta?”

“I am,” Marta growled, holding out a small plastic cup with a muscled arm she’d use to wrest rule-breakers into submission. “Take these and for the love of god, stop disrupting the game. We’re six minutes behind.”

Celene peered at her, expressionless, then addressed Skye. “Which one is your grandmother?”

Skye straightened her microphone on its stand, busying her hand as she answered, “Straight ahead, second row. Shawl on her shoulders?—”

“And the flower in her hair?” Her pupils flit over to Luce, then Skye, then Luce again, connecting the two. “She’s beautiful.”

Marta plopped into her comfier chair as Celene took the cup and trailed off.

Not to a seat, but to rest a hand on the corner of Luce’s table.

All languid movements as Celene held a hand out to introduce herself.

Skye stared, wishing for a coyote’s keen hearing, distracted long enough for Marta to switch the caller mic on with an aggressive click.

Skye coughed once to clear the cobwebs and greeted the players. Disconcerting, hearing her own voice come in from the room’s fat, boxy speakers. Had she always sounded so tinny and sing-songy? With a flourish, she ripped the cellophane off a brand-new deck of cards, removing the unnecessary extras.

Luce brushed a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking in a hard chuckle at Celene’s small talk. No longer dormant, untouchable thoughts took over: Was Celene into women?

Tall boyfriend or not, Celene carried herself differently today. The effortless sway of her hips. Banter despite time constraints. Something blipped.

Skye activated the loud mechanical card shuffler. It’d done just the trick to silence a crowd that’d begun murmuring impatiently.

“First card of the night,” she announced in time for Celene to sit at the frontmost table.

All alone. In direct eye-line to Skye. “King of hearts.” She let that resonate for a couple of seconds, selecting the matching image for the projector, as Austin instructed. Then she repeated, “King of hearts.”

Marta should thank Celene. Skye wouldn’t be comfortable for the next few hours and possibly the next few days.

If Skye assumed the event to be less strenuous as time passed, she’d be kidding herself. Celene didn’t idly slide around plastic chips with hands too elegant, too pretty not to be a big distraction. She was a winner —for two rounds so far.

Marta’s frown became a perpetual configuration on her brickish face.

And Celene couldn’t quietly float to their table to grab the prize Marta indicated.

A budding rapport with the other players began, since they loved to crack jokes between callings, and as the youngest in the game, she was the primary target.

Lots of “okay, city girl” and “are you married?” commentary.

The marriage question occurred for Celene’s first victory when she swiped up a ten-dollar scratch-off lottery ticket.

Skye listened hard, almost toppling out of her seat to hear Celene’s sly little: “No, I’m free as a bird.”

Free as a bird.

Celene was single.

This changed nothing. Celene hadn’t suddenly transformed into a woman welcoming vulnerability. Not to mention, she’d vanish after she sold the house.

“Three of spades.” Skye selected the corresponding image with a now-fluent double tap. She repeated, “Three of spades.”

Skye couldn’t determine what had her knees bouncing the most: Celene being single, her intermittent eye contact with Skye, or the third thing that blew her.

For both prizes sitting between Marta and Skye, Celene took long moments to pick among the choices.

Then, she’d walk past her seat on her return, placing her prize in front of Luce. Luce would squeal and thank her.

Maybe they were falling in love, for all Skye knew.