When the last card is dealt, Thatcher Kelly, a numbers genius, friend, fellow billionaire, and client of mine, places his cigar in an ashtray and shoves back in his chair to make his massive frame look even bigger. Frankly, I’m the only one in this group of guys who even comes close to his size, but I’m still not a giant like him. At six foot three and just over two hundred pounds, I’m leaner, but I can still pretty much guarantee I’m the stronger of the two of us.
“Welcome, motherfluffers…to the official Thatcher Kelly Poker Night, trademark.”
I roll my eyes at his theatrics, and trust me, I’m not the only one. Thatch has been trying to get a poker night going for our group for months, and now that it’s finally happening, I’m not even a little surprised he’s treating it like the first night of the Olympics. “What happens here, stays here, locked away from the women, the men, the children in your lives. This is a sacred table, a sacred ritual, a sacred game, and you will respect it.”
“Jesus,” Kline Brooks, another client of mine, CEO of the popular dating app TapNext, and Thatch’s best friend in the whole world, mutters.
Thatch carries on, unaffected. “I know you have other things in your lives, and I’ll allow it, but from here forward, this biweekly game is to become your priority.”
“No,” Wes Lancaster, owner of the New York Mavericks and another one of Thatch’s best friends, remarks. “I’ll be here when and if I have time. Fuck your sanctity. And, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, let’s keep your text reminders of poker night down to one in the future.”
“You’re disrespectful and disappointing, Whitney. You should be happy I allowed you, a woman, to participate.” Thatch smirks. “This is supposed to be boys only.”
Wes holds up his middle finger and takes a puff on his cigar, and I jump in as a colorful referee.
“Relax, guys. I think what Thatch is trying to say is that he misses you guys. You’re all so busy with your pussy—”
“Hey!”
“Yo!”
“What the fuck?”
“I’d tread lightly…”
The chorus of responses is loud and overwhelming, but I shush them with a hand and continue. “That we never really get to hang out anymore. This is a chance to bond like men. To talk about things you can’t talk about at home. To relax and play poker and not give a fuck about anything else.”
“I’m pretty fucking relaxed at home,” Milo interjects, and unfortunately, the rest of the band of misfits nods in agreement.
“Well, fuck you guys very much,” I say with a sour laugh. “Do it for me, then.”
“Technically, they’re doing it for me,” Thatch corrects. “And I’d keep your voice down. If Cassie hears you say some of this shit, I’m not gonna hold her back for you.”
“Your wife is here?” I question with a groan. “I thought this was about the guys. A sacred ritual locked away from the women and children in your lives—”
“It is, it is,” Thatch interrupts with a sigh. “But Cassie wouldn’t let me come into the city to have poker night at our Manhattan apartment and leave her with the kids at the New Jersey house, so she got a sitter, and the girls are having a meeting in their space, all the way on the other side of the apartment. Don’t worry. This is the guys’ space. They know that.”
Manhattan apartment. New Jersey house. Talk about first world problems.
Thatcher Kelly has more houses and apartments than he has members of his family.
Not that I can’t say the same for myself, but that’s minor details.
I roll my eyes at his pathetic words. Cassie Kelly wouldn’t follow a directive given by her husband if it literally saved her life. She wears the pants in their relationship, and Thatch usually doesn’t deny it. Instead, he just presents her tits as evidence.
They’re great tits, I’ll give him that, but I play with my fair share of great fucking tits, and I do it without having someone holding my balls hostage in exchange.
“So, we should expect her to pop in within the next ten minutes, then,” I remark, and even Kline, the most adult of the entire group, snickers behind a hand.
“She’s not gonna pop in, okay?” Thatch booms. “Fluffing hell. It’s like you don’t trust—”
“Yoo-hoo!” his wife interrupts appropriately, peeking her head around the door of the smoky room. “You guys hungry, or are you too busy punching one another in the dick?”
Thatch sighs and closes his eyes as I give him a hard glare. The rest of the group breaks out in smiles. Thatch places his cards on the table and turns to look over his shoulder so he can meet his wife’s startlingly blue eyes.
“Honey, I thought we talked about this. Poker night needs separation from ladies’ night. Like church and fluffing state.”
“Well, excuse me,” Cassie replies pseudoangrily, opening the door fully to step inside, “for fluffing checking on the status of your big, ogre stomach. From here on out, I’ll let you starve.”
I bite my lip and lower my cards to the table before letting my head drop back as Thatch jumps up so they can bicker in closer proximity.
“Christ, woman! Did you get your annual exam today, or are you just raging for no reason?”
“Your exams are gonna be reduced down to annual if you don’t cool your fluffing jets.”
“My jets are cool!” Thatch shouts, and the rest of us groan as Cassie lunges forward and punches him…right in the dick.
Ah hell.
As annoyed as I am at him, my crotch throbs sympathetically.
Cassie storms off, and Thatch, hunched over in a ball of agony, turns back to the table. “I’ll be right back.”
Still almost fetal, he waddles through the opening at a surprisingly brisk pace.
As the door closes behind him, the other guys start to chatter.
“The rest of our lives, guys. It will be this way for the rest of our lives,” Kline mutters, and Wes laughs.
“Not if we cut him out of the friendship circle.”
Kline smirks but simultaneously rolls his eyes. “Like that’s possible. Try to cut that fucker out, and he’ll end up shadowing you during your colonoscopy.”
“I’m not scheduled for a colonoscopy,” Wes refutes with a laugh.
Kline clucks. “Ah, but you will be. That’s how ridiculous his power is. You won’t even know how it happened until he’s snapping on latex gloves and suiting up.”
Harrison Hughes, a longtime employee of my father’s media company HawCom and friend of ours, laughs. He’s a little older than I am, but I’ve known him long enough that it doesn’t feel like there was a time when we weren’t friends. He also played rugby with Wes, Kline, and Thatch for a while, and he still throws his old, dilapidated ass into a game in the park every now and then. But, as the only single guy left other than Theo and me, I’m fairly certain he does it all just so he has a way to impress the ladies. “Wait. He’s the doctor now? What the fuck?”
Kline shrugs and chuckles. “Trust me. After this many years of friendship, I don’t put anything past that guy.”
Wes nods begrudgingly. “He’s surprisingly adept at making just about anything possible. That’s how Lexi ended up interning for fucking Hugo Clouse. She’s a teenager, and he’s basically the Wolf of fucking Wall Street, without the cocaine and hookers.”