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“Ok, so!” Elaine bounced up to sit on her heels. “This game has like a million names, but the most fun one is called BS.” She paused, possibly for effect. Possibly from embarrassment. He cheeks were a bit pink. “It’s short for bullshit, which is a swear, but you don’t actually say it, so it’s sort of like swearing without actually swearing.”
Selva tried not to giggle, and Warrick elbowed her. “That makes sense,” he said, slightly awkwardly. “The fun part of being bad, but not the part that gets you in trouble.”
Elaine shot him a look, like she couldn’t tell if he was humoring her, but nodded curtly. “So, the rules. We split up the whole deck evenly between us. We go around the circle, and the first person puts down any aces they have, then the next person puts down any twos, and the next person does threes, and so on. You want to get rid of all your cards.”
“What if you don’t have any of the right rank?” Fred asked seriously. He always referred to different numbers as ranks, and had on occasion looked close to saluting the face cards.
“You lie!” Elaine said brightly. “That’s the fun part! You say, ‘I have three jacks,’ or whatever, but you play them face down so no one actually knows. If you think someone is lying, you say ‘BS,’ and then they have to turn the cards over. If they were lying, they put all the cards that have been played in their hand. But if they were telling the truth, you get all the cards. Got it?”
A round of nods. Selva looked eager and alarmingly competitive. Warrick looked mildly amused. Fred looked stoically determined.
The first few rounds contained a lot of suspicious looks and absolutely no call-outs. Then Selva put down a stack of cards and said, “Five nines!”
“BS! There’s only four of each number, Selva,” Elaine said admonishingly.
“Oh really?” Selva’s smile had not changed at all. She flipped the cards over, revealing not a single nine. “Oops!”
The game picked up from there, accusations and laughter flying.
“Three fives!” Elaine put down the cards, still grinning so hard her face was starting to hurt.
“BS!” Fred rose halfway to standing in sheer indignancy. “That was only two cards!”
“Oh really?” Elaine flipped the cards over. “I’ve got the five of clubs, I’ve got the five of diamonds, and –“ she reached over and bopped him on the nose “- I’ve got you.”
Fred sputtered mightily for a moment, then tackled her across the circle to tickle her sides. She shrieked and fought back. The deck scattered everywhere.
Warrick put down his cards in a neat stack and stood up, pulling Selva after him. He jerked his head towards the door and the two of them slipped out into the hallway.
“Well!” Selva said cheerfully. “That was a fun introduction to Earth customs. Should we go teach the others?”
“Sure.” Warrick tried to sound indifferent, but a bit of eyebrow waggling and elbowing had him blushing and laughing. Selva grabbed his elbow and swept her other arm out dramatically.
“Well then! Lead on, lead on, where your heart takes you.”
Warrick elbowed her sharply and they set off, half-walking and half-wrestling, toward the faint pulsing tug in his chest.