Page 131 of Catch Me
“I’ll take two,” Diego says.
Kyle hands him two cards, face down. Diego’s face doesn’t give anything away as he looks at the cards.
“Call it,” Dae says.
“Rushing the game isn’t going to make seven o’clock come any sooner,” Kyle says with his eyes on the cards in his hands.
I look at the clock on the wall. I curse when I see it’s only four o’clock.
“As big of a pain in the ass as my older brother is, he’s also right,” I tell Dae, who’s glaring at all of us.
He pushes out a breath. “Fine.”
“Call it,” Diego says fifteen minutes later as we sit around, cards in front of us and a pile of poker chips in the center of the table.
I lay my cards down, and everyone except Kyle grunts in frustration.
His bet paid off this round and he draws the pile of chips in his direction. “Like taking candy from a baby.” He chuckles.
“I never got that expression,” Dae mutters, handing his cards to Diego to be reshuffled.
We all look at him.
“Learning English, idioms was one of the hardest things to understand,” he explains since he was born and grew up in Korea.
“There are some Korean idioms I’ve tried to explain to Little Warrior, and she just stares at me, waiting for the punchline.” He chuckles.
Little Warrior is his name for my sister. At first, I got the ick from hearing it, but in the three years they’ve been married it’s become as normal as hearing her actual name.
“Yeah, I remember you tried to explain one to me,” Kyle says with a shake of his head.
“Also, have you ever tried to take candy from a baby?” Dae continues. “I tried once when we were babysitting Kyrie atyour place,” he says to Kyle, referring to his youngest daughter. “She’d gotten into Riley’s gummy worms. After twenty minutes of wrestling the bag away from her, she cried at the top of her lungs. Easy my ass,” he gripes while the rest of us laugh.
“You just used an idiom, too,” Diego points out. “Good job.”
We all laugh at Dae’s mystified then astounded expression as he realizes what he just said.
Kyle clears his throat, takes the deck from Diego, and starts to deal out another hand.
“That’s really why we’re here, little brother.” He looks between Dae and Diego who give nods.
“What?” I ask.
“Family.”
“Come again?”
“Our dads and uncles have their golf outings,” Kyle explains before gesturing to the table between us. “And now, we have our poker meetings. For the past couple of years, it’s just been the three of us.”
“Why only three?”
“We’re the only married men in the group. From our generation,” Kyle clarifies.
I sit back in my chair and look between my brother, cousin, and brother-in-law. They’re all peering at me to see if I understand what they’re telling me.
A slow smile crests on my face as I place my cards face down on the table.
“You all know I’m next.”
