Max stared hard at the cards facing him in his hands. How had things gone so wrong? He had been winning quite handily a minute or two ago. Now it seemed like he was holding half the deck! He needed to find a way to make the dramatic comeback. He could not lose. Not again. This was too important.
“Max is gonna have to vash zee toooooilets!” Natalia announced in a sing song voice.
“Have I mentioned recently how helpful you are?” Max asked her across the table, doing his best to ignore the fact that she only had three cards left.
“Nein!” she replied cheerfully.
“I wonder why that is.”
Max returned to studying his hand, vaguely disappointed it had not magically improved since last he looked. Things were looking pretty grim – his hopes for avoiding toilet duty seemed doomed for the third straight day. Oh well, Nat still had three more full days left at Mossy’s after tomorrow, he would have time to get his revenge yet.
Over the top of his cards he saw her lean forward and start idly twirling her blonde hair in her fingers. Just throw in some bubble gum, Max thought to himself distractedly, and she would fit right in on any beach in
“You know,” he began, being careful to look directly at her eyes, “I don’t know why you insist on wearing low cut tops whenever we play cards. Your boyfriend is sitting right beside you – a boyfriend, I might add, who is an amateur boxing champion back home in
“Ja,” Natalia answered with an innocent smile. “But maybe you are too vorried about zee boxing boyfriend to play vell at cards?”
Max glanced over at Tomas, who shrugged his chiseled shoulders as if to say “Yeah, I could break your nose any time I wanted to, but you haven’t given me a reason to, so what’s there to worry about?” The man may not speak much, but he had some seriously eloquent shrugs.
He was also way too good at cards, Max thought glumly. Tomas had been the first one out as always – the only time he had done the toilets in the four weeks he had been here was the morning after the Halloween party when Nat had been too hung over to do them.
Hopefully the people Mossy hired to replace them would be terrible at cards. Speaking of whom, where the hell was he? It was
“Good evening all!” Mossy boomed from the doorway. A chorus of greetings met him as he crossed the room to reach the dinner/card table. Before Max could get a word out Mossy had placed two bottles of dark beer in front of him.
“Stuck cleaning the loo again?” he asked after a quick survey of the table.
Max tossed his cards down on the table in mock disgust and grabbed a beer. After cracking it open he slid it across the table to Nat and took the other bottle for himself.
“To piss and shyza duty,” he proposed.
“To piss and shyza duty,” Natalia replied brightly, clinking her bottle against his.
“Articulate as always Max,” Mossy chuckled. “So, who’s the new blood? Come introduce me around.”
“Sure ting bozz.”
Max led the way over to the sofas where several new arrivals were making the usual backpacker small talk. It appeared as though the How Long Have You Been Traveling round was just finishing up.
“Excuse us for a moment,” Max broke in before the Where Are You Headed Next round could begin. “I just wanted to introduce y’all to the man, the myth, the leg… oof!”
He tried to take the elbow to the ribs in stride, but Mossy had some big damn elbows.
“This here would be Mossy, your gracious host,” he finished. “Mossy, these two lovely sisters would be Sara and
“Nice to meet you both,” Mossy told them as he enveloped their hands with two quick handshakes.
“And this is Haya and Kisho from
“Good stuff,” the big man beamed as he shook hands again. ”And if Mark is full up on workers then you two could just take over for Nat…”
“Yup, we’ll find you work one way or another,” Max interrupted, ignoring Mossy’s sideways glance. “No worries at all. We’ve got one last new arrival for you to meet around here somewhere…”
Just then Max spotted Caitlin stretched out in front of the TV in the lounge, chatting with Cindy and Greg. Max nodded his head in their direction and brought Mossy over for the evening’s final introduction.
“Hiya Mossy, how’s it going?” Cindy called out. “Have you met Caitlin yet? She may sound half English but she’s another one of those wise arse Canadians, ya best watch out!”
“Oh no,” Mossy moaned. “Max is all the Canadian I can handle! I guess there’s only one thing to be done about it…”
“Too right,” Greg chipped in. “It’s been nice having ya around Max, real grand. But ya know, the hostel is moving in a different direction now. We’ll throw a nice retirement party for ya. I bet Mossy will even bake you a pie!”
Well. This wasn’t going according to plan at all, Max thought to himself. Maybe he should just stick to losing at cards.
“Well I could definitely use the cash,” Caitlin began, almost shyly. She brushed a stray hair away from her green eyes and barreled on. “I’m pretty much flat broke!”
“Tell you what,” Mossy told her. “Nat and Tomas are gone on Thursday and I’ll need someone to help Max take care of things around here for me. It’s a free bed and a bit of cash to go with it, and we’ll try to get you hooked up with some other work until then.”
“That sounds pretty good to me!” she replied, a little taken aback by the suddenness of it all.
Then again, Max thought while doing his best to hide his delight at this rapid turn of events, maybe he should just keep his damn mouth shut more often.
“Aww Mossy, mate!” Greg sighed dramatically. “Don’t do this to us! Two Canadians watching our gear while we’re out working?”
“What’s the matter?” Caitlin shot back with a wicked grin. “Afraid you’ll come home to find maple syrup in your socks? Or maybe a half-mad beaver in yer bags?”
Oh yes, Max thought with a laugh. This was going to be very good.
1 comment:
LOL
Best line ever: "Or maybe a half-mad beaver in yer bags?"
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