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When James Nesbitt had suggested a poker night, the entire company had agreed (if not to play, then to sit on the sides and peek at everyone’s hand). It had started off harmlessly enough; a simple game over a beer played for whatever loose change they could come up with. But as the night wore on and more alcohol was consumed than intended, things went rather rapidly out of control. It was all Martin’s fault. It had started when he was down to nothing more than a five pence piece, a button and whatever fluff he could scrape from the bottom of his wallet. So Martin, being the unabashed sort, undid his shoe and placed it on the table. He raised his eyebrows as the room took on a sort of confused hush and shrugged. “Anyone want to see me?”
Then James had let out a roar of laughter and said, “Oh, so we’re playing like that now, are we?”
And that is how they’d suddenly started a game of strip poker (much to Sir Ian’s delight, who had folded from the game early and had taken to watching from the sidelines).
Dean always thought he was pretty good at poker. But this game wasn’t between him and his cousins on a camping holiday, and it wasn’t between a mob of not-quite-adults at Rangitoto College; this was a match between seasoned professionals. Who knew actors could have such good poker faces? Anyway, nothing quite puts your five-card draw skills into perspective like rapidly losing all your clothes.
They were all in various states of undress. The best of the group were the ones that still had all their clothes on - this consisted of William Kircher and Jed Brophy, who were both sharing a sort of silent smugness. The decent enough players were missing the odd sock or jumper. Stephen Hunter was having the worst night of them all, and was sat cross-legged on the floor in just his button up shirt, underpants and one sock (nobody really knew why he’d bet the jeans over the sock, but still, nobody questioned it). Adam wasn’t fairing much better. He had been the first to lose his trousers, which had evoked some loud catcalls and cheers from the rest of the cast. Now he was perched on his chair in just his boxers, t-shirt and his glasses and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Dean himself was barefoot and missing his hoodie, but was still otherwise intact.
He was lounging across the sofa, head resting on the arm and legs bent up in front of him. Sat next to him was one Mr Aidan Turner, who nobody could really figure out. They didn’t know if he was bluffing them, or double bluffing them, or triple buffing them – or if he was just plain bad. No matter what sort of a hand he got he always seemed to find it hilarious, and he appeared to have one of the worst poker faces in the world. At least until he put down a straight flush and had everyone choking into their beers. He was at a similar level to Dean, dress wise: missing shoes, socks and plaid shirt, and left in just his jeans and a black vest top. Still, he seemed to be having fun, so they just left him to it.
Ken Stott was on dealing duties and he passed the cards out around the table. Dean lifted his cards to his eyes and tried to ignore the giggles of the slightly intoxicated Irishman sitting next to him.
“I have all you bastards beat,” he said gleefully as he leant against Dean’s shins. It earned him several eye rolls from the rest of the cast, who had been putting up with Aidan’s weirdly deceptive mind games all night. Ken shook his head, then turned to the person at his immediate left, which happened to be Graham.
“Come on, McTavish, what are you doing?”
“I’ll check,” Graham replied, rubbing his hand thoughtfully across his chin. James was next. He let out a puff of air, then shook his head.
“Nah, I’ve got nothing. I’m out.”
The rest of the group grumbled at that. The reason why James was only down both shoes was because he kept pulling out of the game before betting anything. Although he claimed it was because of a string of bad hands, the others were beginning to think that James quite enjoyed watching the events unfold as opposed to actually playing.
Martin was next in line. He hummed and cocked his head to the side as he looked down at his cards, before a smirk started creeping across his face.
“Alright, I’ll bet,” he said, and placed his cards face-down on the floor (not because he didn’t trust the others, of course; he did that because Sir Ian had a habit of popping up behind him to see his hand and pulling faces, subsequently ruining his entire game). He unbuttoned his burgundy cardigan and threw it into the middle, on top of the slowly growing mound of clothes. Then he turned to offer Richard a wicked grin.
“What are you going to do, Rich?”
There were two things that the cast had learned during this experience. Firstly, Richard Armitage could be very intimidating when he wanted to be. Secondly, Martin absolutely loved it. Their Hobbit was practically squirming in his seat in delight as Richard shot him a piercing gaze over the top of his cards. Then Richard broke out into his own sly smirk.
“Mr. Freeman, I will see your bet,” he declared, yanking off his charcoal coloured pullover and throwing it onto the pile. Aidan, by this point, was finding it difficult to keep his laughter at bay, and nearly inhaled his beer when another wave of giggles hit him as he tried to take a drink. Dean prodded him in the thigh with his foot, but that only served to make Aidan laugh harder.
“I’m sorry, Deano,” he said one he’d caught his breath back. He patted Dean on the knee. “I am sorry. I’ll stop, I promise.”
During this exchange between Dean and Aidan, it seemed that Stephen was trying to haggle with the rest of the cast. They kept informing him that socks were only worth about $1 each whereas sweaters were at least $5, but Stephen was insistent on keeping his modesty. Eventually he folded with a bitter mumble about how unfair this entire situation was, and it’s not like clothes were even a form of currency anyway.
Then it was Aidan’s turn. He grinned and stretched, like some sort of lazy cat, before chucking his cards to the floor and pulling his vest top over his head. The amount of wolf-whistles his naked chest received was astounding, but Aidan simply found it all hilarious. He placed his palms over his nipples and pulled an exaggerated expression similar to that of a Victorian woman who had been caught showing her ankles, much to the amusement of the cast, and then he chucked his shirt onto the pot.
“That classes as a raise, Dean,” Ken said with a slightly evil smile. “T-shirts and trousers are $10.”
“Yeah, Deano, you’ve got to see me,” Aidan said with a definitely evil grin. He gave Dean’s shins a light shove with his shoulder, who responded by nudging the younger with his foot again. Well, thought Dean. He was hardly going to get anywhere with his lousy two-pair. He looked down at his cards and sighed internally.
“I’m going to check,” he said with a shrug, which earned himself a moan of disappointment from Aidan.
“You’re no fun, O’Gorman.” But still he offered Dean one of his bright grins to show that he was joking, and returned his leaning against his legs.
They carried on around the table. Adam checked as well, William folded, and finally it was left to Jed to make the last move. He decided to call Aidan’s bet with a defiant cry of “yolo!” and received a few groans and even more noises of absolute confusion. He shucked out of his jeans, tossed them into the middle, and rubbed at his bare legs.
“Christ, James, couldn’t you have picked a warmer room?”
“Ah, hush it, Brophy. We all know why you’re blaming the cold,” James retorted with a wink, and the rest of the group burst into uproarious laughter. Jed flipped him the bird but laughed all the same.
The seven remaining players then switched cards with Ken as they attempted to procure a better (or in some cases, a somewhat decent) hand. Then it was on to the second lot of betting, in which various different articles of clothing were lost. Graham folded; Martin decided to continue with the call by removing his shirt. Although it had produced an appreciative eyebrow raise from Richard, he decided he couldn’t continue and folded his cards (Martin seemed to deflate slightly with disappointment at this). Aidan stuck with his hand and checked. So now it was all up to Dean. He’d managed to upgrade his hand from a two-pair to a three of a kind – not much of a boost, but at this stage in the night nobody really seemed to care about trivial things like winning or modesty. Plus there was one rather insistent voice demanding that he put something in the pot.
“Come on, let’s see those legs,” Aidan said with a grin, and he ran a hand up Dean’s thigh. If it had been anyone else, Dean would have been severely weirded out, but the concept of personal space seemed to be completely lost between the two of them. They were always doing little things like that: touching each other on the back or the arm or the neck, leaning against each other when they sat together, or ruffling each other’s hair. It was just something they’d grown used to doing, and the others found their ‘lolloping kittens in a basket’ approach rather adorable.
Dean slapped Aidan’s hand away and chuckled. “Alright, alright! I’ll call the bet, just get off me.” He stood up to pull his jeans off, added them to the mountain of clothes, and then sat back down on the couch with his legs crossed. A faint blush rose across his face at the whooping from the other men, so he decided to move them on as quickly as possible.
“Okay, Ads, your go. It’s either the shirt or the glasses, buddy.”
Adam let out a high-pitched laughed and shook his head. “I can’t lose my glasses; I won’t be able to see!”
“Shirt it is then!” Graham cut in with a mischievous grin. Adam shot him an exaggerated wink back, then pulled the white t-shirt over his head and dropped it onto the pile. The man was down to just his skivvies, and still he seemed to take his almost nakedness in his stride – Dean had to admire that, as he tugged his t-shirt as far down his legs at it would go. Finally Jed checked, and that was the end of the round.
Dean swallowed and ran a hand through his hair. There was no way on this Earth that he’d won, and if things kept going the way they were going, he was soon going to be rather naked, in a room full of other equally naked men. Maybe if Aidan had as good a hand as he said, he’d spare Dean and let him have his trousers back. Although judging by the way the Irishman was resting his hand on his knee and tracing small circles against his skin with his fingers, Dean didn’t think that would be very likely.
The last five revealed their cards, and it turned out that Martin had won. Martin let out a bark of laughter, then stood up to bow as the group gave him a round of applause. He pulled the pile of clothes towards him and dumped them at his feet, like some sort of trophy. All except for Richard’s grey jumper, which he tugged on to his bare torso. Richard raised his eyebrows in surprise, but then hummed approvingly as he pulled some fluff from the sleeve and smiled.
The cast then began debating whether they could fit in another game before calling it a night. During this, Aidan leaned in until his mouth was close to Dean’s ear, balancing himself on the older man’s bare leg for support.
“What’s the betting that Adam loses his pants first?” Aidan whispered with a giggle. Dean laughed in response and took another swig from his bottle of beer.
“I’m going with 100% definite.”
Aidan snickered like a child and dropped his head onto Dean’s shoulder, his curly hair brushing against his neck. “More than likely. It’s a shame, though – I was kind of hoping you’d be the first to go commando.”
Dean may or may not have choked on his drink.