Page 91 of Stranded

“Zee…” Weston says slowly. “Get back here, now.” I slowly step towards him and as soon as I’m in reach, he grabs my arms and pulls me out onto the skywalk and crushes me in a giant hug. “Okay, nobody goes back in there.”

“Agreed,” I say easily against his chest, my heart hammering quickly. Not only was it clearly not safe anymore, but there were things in there I didn’t want them seeing.

After a few more seconds pass, he lets go and carefully pushes the door closed.

“Did you get the cards?” he asks, gesturing to the bag I’m holding.

“Oh, I’m not sure,” I open it up and look inside, a smile quickly covering my face. “Yes!” I cheer, pulling them out and holding them high in the air in victory.

We go back to the main hut, where we find Kingsley and Bower watching us from the open doorway with frowns on their faces.

“Nobody goes back there, it’s not safe. Consider it condemned,” Weston tells them and they nod, stepping aside, letting us in.

“I got the cards, will you teach me to play King’s game now?”

“It’s King’s Cup, and yes, let’s all sit on the mattresses and we’ll explain.”

“I’m gonna change first,” I tell them as I grab my bag from the floor and pull out my pilfered ACDC shirt and boxers. Feeling a little self conscious with them at my back, I pull the shirt on first and manage to pull off my other clothes under it before stepping into the boxers, keeping what modesty I have in check.

When I turn around, they’re all grinning at me, like they find something amusing.

I decide to ignore it as I join them, sitting in some sort of circle, facing each other on the mattresses as they scatter the cards face down in front of us. Weston places half a coconut shell in the middle.

“Basically, a task is assigned to each card value. For example,five is guys, so all the guys take a drink.Six is chicks, so if someone flipped that card, all the girls would take a drink,” Bower explains. I nod along.

“Everyone plays the game differently, and you can make up different values for each game, if you want,” Kingsley adds. “Since we don’t have alcohol, we could assign a different task to each card.”

“Like what?” I ask curiously, hoping we can figure out a way to play the game without any beer, it kinda sounded like fun. Although I suppose any game would after so long in isolation.

“I have an idea,” Bower says with a smirk. “How about the first person to flip a new number, has to assign its value? So if I flip a nine, I could say that means everyone who flips it has to tickle the person on their left.”

I frown for a moment before he suddenly lunges for me, his fingers digging into my sides. I squeal, laughing and twisting away. “Stop, stop!” I cry out, scrambling into Kingsley’s lap in a desperate attempt to escape.

Luckily, Bower backs off, but I wedge myself firmly between Weston and Kingsley, still catching my breath and not trusting him not to try again. I shoot him a glare and stick out my tongue. “Not funny, Bower.”

He smirks back at me. “I thought it was.”

“Just wait until I get to make up a rule, I’ll make you go stand in the rain while we finish the game.”

“You wouldn’t!” he gasps in mock horror.

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see,” I say with a smirk of my own.

“Alright let’s start, we can explain more as we go. King, why don’t you start?” Weston suggests.

King flips over an eight before tossing it in the coconut shell and sitting back. “An eight, okay let's see.” He glances at me and grins. “Eight means mate, so whoever flips it, gets to have Zee in their lap until the nexteight is found.” He reaches over and grabs me by the hips, easily lifting me into his lap.

“What if I flip over an eight?” I ask, turning my head to look at him over my shoulder as I get comfortable, wiggling my ass against him.

His fingers dig into my hips, trying to keep me still. “You have to move to the next lap on your left.” I nod as Bower reaches forward for a card, flipping over a nine.

His eyes meet mine as he smirks. “Don’t even think about it,” I warn him with a glare.

“You have to marry anyone who flips over a nine.”

“Bower!” Kingsley and Weston both hiss at him as my eyes go wide. He keeps bringing that up. And at first it was easy to think it was just the way he flirts. But now… with so many feelings involved, that word has a lot more meaning behind it.

Kingsley is still chastising him, and he holds up his hands in surrender.

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