Page 21 of Only One Tent
Danny bounced in his seat. “Oh! Oh! I love that one too.”
Lee put his hand on Danny’s shoulder, probably to calm him down. “It’s like a regular Wild, except that the next player chooses the color and has to draw, putting the cards face up until he gets that color. Then they all go in his hand.”
“And he doesn’t even get to play the card!” Danny said without the bounce this time, but he was overly loud.
“Got it.” A very dangerous card.
Danny bumped his shoulder into Skyler, who was sitting next to me. “Hate to be you, getting that one thrown on ya.”
Skyler rolled his eyes and pulled his cards closer to his chest. “Whatever. You don’t know what I have.” I imagined Skyler would be a shrewd player based on what I’d seen of his performance in the courtroom. We would have most definitely won the case had I not stepped away from it to negotiate a settlement on my own.
“Okay. You go first, Crow.” He motioned around the direction of the play and dropped a yellow four on the discard pile.
I played a yellow seven.
“Already?” Danny called out.
But Lee explained, probably based on my blank face. “That’s the swap hands card.”
“Oh. Shit. Can I take it back?”
“It’s our first time playing this one,” Skyler argued. “I think we should let him. And we now know two cards in his hand. That’s fair.” I wasn’t wrong about him. So cunning.
Danny opened his mouth as if to argue, but Lee shut him up quickly. “Okay, but last time. Don’t forget the rules. Sevenyou swap and zero everyone shifts hands.” He motioned again around the circle.
“Okay. Got it.” I took it back and played a yellow six.
We went around with Skyler playing a yellow four, Danny playing a blue four to change the color, and so on. Lee and I also played blues, and then Skyler popped a reverse card and a shark-like smile as he glared at me. “You’re in trouble now, Crow.” Then he laughed maniacally, and the rest of the table cracked up.
“Well, shit.” All my good cards would now be aimed at Lee. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I didn’t have to wait long to see what happened because I didn’t have anything else that would play. “Sorry, Lee.” I played the Wild frowny faces down.
“Why did I know that was coming?” Lee hung his head.
“What color?” Danny asked.
Lee looked at his hand. It probably didn’t matter much since no one had even drawn from the pile yet. “Green, I guess.” Then he flipped three cards until he got to green, and none of them were special cards. “Go, Danny.”
Danny played a green four, and then it was Skyler’s play, and that worried me. He scrunched his nose. “Well, no fours and no greens, so…” He played a Wild card. Not just any Wild card, either. This one was better than the frowny faces, and I hadn’t expected it. Draw ten.
“Really?” He gave me an odd look, accompanied by a foot nudge. Okay then. I drew my ten cards.
“What color?” Lee asked.
Skyler answered, “Blue.”
He probably thought I didn’t have blue since I didn’t before, but I did now that I’d drawn so many fucking cards.
We went around the circle a couple of times until Danny and Skyler were both down to two cards. I slapped down a Wild I’d drawn with my draw-ten, which I was pretty sure would reverse the play to Skyler as well as making him draw four.
“I see how you are,” he said as he drew, but then we were exchanging sexy looks and more foot nudges.
Danny bounced in his seat again. “What color? What color?”
“Red.”
Danny slammed a red card down and yelled, “Uno!”
Then it was Lee laughing as he slapped a seven down, which made me think I should have done that since I still had mine, but I hadn’t thought it through. Lee made a gimme sign with his hands and exchanged with Danny, who pouted and stuck his tongue out. “Mean Daddy.”
