***
"Two pair. King high."
"Two pair. Ace high."
"Straight."
"God dammit!" Rob and Will yelled in unison. Chandra grinned and joined them in a reconciliatory shot. "We've got a card shark on the lease," Rob sputtered after downing the thimble of Bacardi.
"It's all in being able to hold one's liquor," she countered. "I believe I've matched you both shot-for-shot, and I'm the only one at this table with any chips left."
"Why couldn't we have brought a more family-suitable game on this trip, one easier to play under the influence, like checkers or...Chinese checkers?" Rob lamented.
"Because," Will said slowly, careful not to slur his words, "it's not as fun to play strip checkers."
"Oh ho! Is the next round a nudie round?" Rob's eyes lit up. "Count me in. Do you two mind if I run down the block to grab some beer first?"
"Beer? You just had six shots of Bacardi!"
"Oh come on, don't fear a little bite of the Beast."
"You're seriously going to pause our game to buy that piss water, Milwaukee's Best? Dude, how far will your misguided allegiance to that industrial wasteland of a city go?"
"Hey, it's my alma mater. And besides, if you get the Beast Ice, it's got a whopping six percent alcohol! Now who's in?"
"I'll stick with the Captain, thank you very much," Chandra said.
"That's Bacardi you're drinking, babushka. Sounds like it's starting to kick in, too." And with that, Rob grabbed his wallet and left.
Chandra and Will mused in the silence that ensued. Will was the first to break it by gathering the cards in a pile and shuffling them. "I don't think he realizes that the liquor store we stopped at earlier is more than just a block away."
"Good, that'll give me a chance to pee," Chandra replied, and sprinted to the bathroom.
When she returned, she saw that Will had moved to the window, and was studying the illuminated concrete guitar in the parking lot below. "You're more thoughtful than you let on," he said with his back to her.
She moved to stand next to him. Her head came up to his shoulders, but something in his stance made her feel at ease, and not at all overshadowed. "I wasn't counting the cards, if that's what you're implying."
"No...during our conversation at the restaurant, it was pretty clear to me that you've given the topic of race a lot of thought."
Chandra took a deep breath, and tried to steady herself against the windowsill without her tipsiness becoming apparent. "All you have to do is put yourself in someone else's position to realize that there's more to the world than just yourself." She took her time and chose her words carefully. "I've had it pretty easy, I guess, being white. I can be quiet and fit in one day, and adamantly proclaim myself a victimized minority the next. But not everyone can hide behind the mask of white privilege."
Her eyes traced the gaudiness of the scene in the parking lot below her, taking note of the pink and green neon light reflected in the windows of cars parked around it, until she realized silence was hanging in the room. Worrying that she had just overstepped her bounds, she glanced up at Will, who had turned and was staring her in the face. His brown eyes bored into hers with an intensity that made her heart jump nervously. He really was quite handsome – did he know that? Chandra hoped she hadn't drunk her senses under the table.
The staring match continued. Not wanting to be the one to break the gaze, Chandra blinked and watched his eyes watching hers. She wondered what was up.
"You really are quite pretty," he said to her after a solid minute of silence. Taken aback, she opened her mouth to reply, though she had nothing to say. Acting on her immobility, Will took her face in his hands and leaned down to kiss her.
Chandra was frozen. His lips were warm and full and gentle, and his hands held her head in place as the moment in time stretched like a diver suspended in the air over a sea-green pool. With his next breath, he moved one hand behind her head to push her more forcefully into his delicious mouth, and the other slid down her spine to the small of her back, exposed by her rumpled shirt, and he pressed her into his jean-clad hips.
Chandra's mind dissolved. He was taller, but bent his body to match hers. The pressure on her lips and hips thrilled her, and without thinking, she pressed her torso into him and uttered something low and guttural in the back of her throat.
In an instant, though, her heart raced to catch up, and with a quick draw of breath, she withdrew from his body, uttering a more purposeful moan of surprise and protest. His hands remained gentle yet held her in an iron grasp. She reached her hands to his shoulders to try to push a couple inches between their mouths, but the moment she shifted her attention, he bent his torso and stepped forward, sending her helplessly backwards into the wall where he pressed his body and mouth into hers, sending up another unconscious moan from deep within her throat.
Her entire body had, within a few moments, grown astonishingly more sensitive. Her lips relished in Will's full, relentless kiss. Her jaw and teeth registered the intense pressure of his face meshing with hers. The small of her back tingled and grew warm with his strong hand's presence. An intense flutter in her belly grew into a fiery ball and stretched from her groin into her chest. And her breasts – her breasts grew so sensitive. She wanted him to reach for them, to squeeze them in his large hands, to pinch them. And as though he could read her mind, his hand followed the pulsing of her hips – when did she start pulsing her hips? – and moved to her belly, sliding up her rumpled shirt an inch at a time as his lips drove into hers and his hips began undulating to her rhythm. She wanted him to close her hand around her breast, to knead it and pinch it and –
Her eyes flew open, and she realized that she was passionately embracing...her future roommate. With a strength that surprised him, she shoved at his shoulders, hard and fast enough to throw him off balance. He stumbled backwards, but slid his hands along her arms until they reached her wrists, and then he yanked. She flew at him, the strength of his tug pulling him back to his feet, and she hit his chest hard. Not missing a beat, he grabbed her shoulders, held her strong and fell, with her underneath him, onto the nearest bed.
