the graceless

[instar]

Bella sits out, this year as every year, from gym class. It's just asking for a lawsuit. She does stretches and crunches and push-ups in the corner.

Comments

[aeskhyne]

Trouble giggles.

[pandion]

"That's a sisters privilege," says Andi, pointing her fork at Trouble, "if you had any designs on my cake."

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah, I figured," he says.

[pandion]

"Long as that's clear," says Andi contently.

[instar]

Bella's pie is all gone. She leans back in her chair, smiling.

[aeskhyne]

"I'll go for another one," says Trouble.

He goes for another one. Mmm. Pie.

[kindestgarden]

Renée wanders out of the room - she pats Andi on the head once as she goes, since she's right there.

[instar]

"What does your evening look like?" Bella inquires of Trouble.

[aeskhyne]

"Beats me," he laughs. "Guess I'll hang around for a while, then go somewhere else."

[pandion]

"Should we be entertaining you?" asks Andi vaguely. "There are, um... board games?"

[aeskhyne]

"We can play board games if you wanna play board games," says Trouble. "If they're fun. Or we could play, I dunno, poker."

[pandion]

"I only know Texas Hold 'Em."

[instar]

"And we don't have any chips."

[aeskhyne]

"Does that mean you don't wanna play poker?"

[instar]

"It means there exist practical obstacles to playing poker. I am largely indifferent to the choice of specific activity."

[pandion]

"We could go raid the change drawer, it's full of pennies," says Andi. "We have to put it all back after so Mom can put it through the machine at the grocery store but that's not a big deal."

[aeskhyne]

"Sounds good to me," says Trouble.

[pandion]

Andi goes and gets a little dish full of pennies, which she distributes.

[instar]

Bella finds a deck of cards near the phone.

[aeskhyne]

"I'll deal," offers Trouble.

[instar]

Bella hands over the cards and arranges her pennies into stacks.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble shuffles the deck, three different fancy ways, apparently just to show off. He's good at it.



He's also really, really good at poker.

[instar]

Each twin can always tell when her sister is bluffing. But neither has much practice at poker in general, or with reading Trouble.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble is completely readable. That's not the problem. He has emotions, but most of them are laughter and they don't seem to correlate with the state of his cards in any meaningful way.

[instar]

Then he will not have much trouble collecting the girls' pennies.