by Maria Geraci
He nodded.
“My speech was better.”
“You’re damn right it was.” He bent his head to kiss her. It was a long, slow, sweet kiss. After a couple of minutes, he broke it off and stared at her incredulously. “I’m hearing music now too.”
She smiled. “It’s ‘Free Bird.’ ”
“Oh.” He stuck his hand in his shorts pocket and flipped his phone open. “Yeah?” He listened for a second and then handed her the phone. “It’s for you.”
“For me?” Kitty took the phone. It was the Babes. All of them. “We tried your cell but it went to voice mail,” Pilar said, sounding way too giddy to only be drinking cafe lattes.
“I must have left my cell in the car,” Kitty said. “Why are you calling? And how did you get this number?”
“We got the number from Gus!” shouted Shea.
“Are you on speakerphone? And did you just say you woke up Gus?”
“We have to know, Kit!” said Shea. “Did you find him? Is he your Crash?”
Kitty glanced over at Steve. He was smiling patiently, looking at her like . . . well, like he had that first night they’d met. Only it was different. That night there’d been humor and lust and an unnamed connection she’d felt immediately. Tonight there was something extra in the mixture. She might not know he preferred tea over coffee, but all the really important stuff about him, somewhere deep down inside, she already knew.
She laughed. “Yes! To both questions!”
“She said yes!” Shea shouted. She could hear the Babes cheering in the background. She snapped the phone shut and handed it back to him.
“Have I ever told you that I love it when you laugh?”
“Not in so many words,” she said.
“I was thinking,” Steve said. “Now that I’m going to be moving here permanently, I’ll need to get a place. And with your mother’s house back on the market—”
“I almost forgot! My mother’s giving me the house.”
“That’s great,” he said, looking genuinely happy for her.
She wondered what he’d been about to say before she’d interrupted him. Listen to your gut, Kit. “And it just so happens I’m looking for a roommate. It’s a pretty big place for just one person. So, if you know anyone who’s interested—”
“I’m interested.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely.”
She smiled at the vehemence in his voice. “Maybe you could do some of that remodeling we talked about. Like tearing down the wall in the den to let in the light?”
“Sounds good.” He pulled her into his arms and started nibbling on her neck.
“I have to warn you,” Kitty said, moving her head to the side so he could get better access. “I’m a horrible cook.”
“I’m not.”
“And we’ll want to keep our finances separate. I’m terrible with money.”
“I could help you with that.”
“And you owe me one toenail-painting session. Tied up.”
“It’s at the top of my agenda,” he said, placing a kiss below her ear.
“And here’s the most important part.” She pushed against his chest so he’d be forced to look her in the eye. “I play Bunco on Thursdays. Every Thursday. No exceptions. It’s sort of like my religion.”
He smiled. “I know. I get it now.”
How to Play Bunco
Want to know how to start a Bunco group of your own? It’s simple! Here’s how Kitty, Shea, and Pilar formed the Bunco Babes of Whispering Bay.
Step one: Find twelve fun women. Twelve is an essential number. Bunco is played in groups of four and you need at least three groups for a lively game. If you can’t find twelve fun women, then find as many fun women as you can, and fill in the rest with women who have the potential to be fun. Don’t worry. After a few games, you won’t be able to tell the difference between the two groups.
Step two: You’ll need the following:
Three card tables, each with four chairs. Number the tables one, two, and three. Table number one is the head table.
Nine dice (three for each table).
Cowbell or other noisemaker to signal the end of a game.
Score cards—the Babes like to make homemade name tags/ score cards that they wear around their necks. That way, each player can easily visualize everyone’s score (something Brenda and every other Bunco Nazi appreciates). The name tag should have two columns with a space to record wins and Buncos. At the end of the night, the hostess collects the name tags and places them in the Bunco Box. The Bunco Box is a large cardboard box or container that contains the dice, hole punchers, and cowbell. It gets passed from hostess to hostess and at the end of the year, the Babes go through the name tags for fun. Shea keeps vowing to make a huge scrapbook with all the name tags. As soon as she finds a nanny and has the time, she plans on doing just that.
Hole puncher for each table.
Boobie hat—the more humiliating, the better.
Prizes—some Bunco groups play for money, but the Babes love prizes. The hostess provides four gifts of her choosing. The Babes chip in ten dollars apiece to help the hostess offset the cost of the prizes and refreshments. Here’s how the Babes do their prize breakdown:
Winner of most games—$30 prize
Winner of most buncos—$20 prize
Person with the least wins—$20 prize (because even losers get rewarded in Bunco!)
Person who rolled the last Boobie—$10 prize
Rules of the Game
Rules vary from group to group. But here’s how the Babes like to roll the dice:
The object of the game is to roll as many points as possible. You start by rolling for ones, then twos, threes, etc. Once you get through six games, you start back at ones again.
Start out by choosing a table. The person sitting opposite you is your partner for that game and that game alone (unless you are the winners from table one, which will be explained below).
Roll all three dice at once. If you get a one, then you go again. You keep rolling until you don’t roll a one, then you pass the dice to the person to your left. If during your turn you rolled four ones, then you and your partner’s score is now four. Whatever points your partner gets, you add to your score. Once a team at table one (and only table one) gets twenty-one points, they ring the cowbell and the game ends for everyone.
The teams at tables two and three with the most points win (even if they didn’t reach twenty-one yet), and they move up a table. For example, if you were at table three and won, you move to table two. If you were at table two and won, you move to table one. If you are at table one and are on the winning team, you stay at table one with your partner. This is the only time you keep your partner—when you are winning at table one.
The losers from table one go to table three and the losers from tables two and three stay at their tables, but everyone switches partners.
Rolling Buncos: Any time during the game, regardless of what number you’re rolling for, if you roll three sixes that’s called a Bunco and you and your partner get three points. But the Babes play this with a little twist. If someone from the other team scoops up the dice after you roll a Bunco, then that team gets three points too. If they are able to scoop up one of the dice, then they get one point. If they scoop up two dice, then they get two points. If you roll a Bunco and you or your partner can grab the dice off the table, then you get six points total. This can make for some aggressive play and is how you learn who the really serious players are!
Rolling a Boobie: Anytime you roll three ones (the only exception being when you are trying to roll for ones) it’s called a Boobie and it wipes out your and your partner’s score. To make the humiliation complete, you are required to wear a special hat that the Babes call the Boobie hat. It can be any hat of the hostess’s choice. You continue to wear the Boobie hat until another player rolls a Boobie and then you pass the hat to them. At the end of the night, the player wearing the hat gets a “Boobi
e” prize.
Every time you win a game or roll a Bunco, you punch a hole under the column on your scorecard.
The Babes like to play two rounds or twelve games.
At the end of the night, they tally who won most games and most Buncos, and who the big loser of the night is, and hand out the prizes. Then they pack up the Bunco Box, give it to the hostess for the next week, and leave for home, counting down the days until they play again.
Refreshments
Before the Babes sit down to play, they spend anywhere from a half hour to an hour socializing, and of course, eating and drinking. Here are some of the Babes’ favorite recipes. And don’t forget to have some munchies to eat at the tables—peanuts and/or M&M’s are always appreciated.
Kahlua Dip
1 8 oz. cream cheese (softened)
¾ cup light brown sugar
8 oz. sour cream
8 oz. Cool Whip
⅓ cup Kahlua
⅓ cup chopped pecans
Mix ingredients and chill. Serve with strawberries or other fresh fruit.
Piña Colada Cake
1 box yellow cake mix (and ingredients required on box)
1 can piña colada mix
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 large container Cool Whip
1 package frozen shredded coconut
Bake cake according to the package’s directions in sheet pan. Punch holes in cake after cooked while still hot. Combine piña colada mix and condensed milk and pour over cake. Let cake cool off completely, then top with Cool Whip and coconut.
Parmesan Bread Sticks
(Kitty was given this recipe by her friend Jan, who plays with the Bunco Broads of Tallahassee)
1 package of bacon
1 box thin bread sticks
Parmesan cheese
Cut each slice of bacon in half lengthwise. Take a single bacon strip and spiral it around a bread stick, covering the bread stick from end to end. Roll bacon-covered bread stick in Parmesan cheese until coated. Place on baking sheet. Repeat until all bread sticks are wrapped and rolled.
Place baking sheet in very low (250 degrees) oven and bake for about one hour. Serve hot.
Champagne Cocktails
Small bottle of Angostura bitters
Sugar cubes
Chilled champagne
Place a few drops (or more to taste) of bitters over each sugar cube and let soak a few minutes. Drop soaked sugar cube to the bottom of your flute and then pour chilled champagne over it. Simple, but tasty!
RB&V
(This is one of Pilar’s favorite drinks because it’s so simple and doesn’t require any special prep. She started drinking these when she visited another sister Bunco group—the Tallahassee Bunco Babes)
Red Bull
Vodka
Red Bull and vodka to taste (preferred vodkas are Skyy Melon and Grey Goose). A nice RB&V from time to time keeps the dice rolling!
Shea’s Secret Frozen Margaritas
If Shea won’t give Kitty or Pilar her recipe, then do you really think she’s going to give it to you?
a cognizant original v5 release october 08 2010
Keep reading for a preview of the next Bunco Babes novel by Maria Geraci
Bunco Babes Gone Wild
Coming November 2009 from Berkley Books!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a woman gets a boob job, she must show it off to her closest friends.
If Georgia Meyer were a man (or a lesbian), she’d have died and gone to heaven. But she wasn’t either of those, so staring at a complete stranger’s breasts while standing behind the counter at her sister’s coffee shop, no matter how “firm and uplifted” the breasts in question now were, was making her a little uncomfortable. The fact that the breasts belonged to one of her sister’s best friends and that the coffee shop was closed should have put her at ease. But it didn’t. For one thing, her sister Frida seemed to have a lot of “best friends,” and secondly, the Bistro by the Beach had these large plate glass windows that any passerby could easily look into.
She mentally shrugged. Maybe they did things differently here in Whispering Bay, Florida. After all, it was a beach town.
“They’re so perky!” Frida crooned, nudging Georgia on with a roll of her eyes. This must be Georgia’s cue to say something.
“Yeah, totally awesome,” Georgia replied, hoping she sounded more enthusiastic than she felt. Since she’d never seen the boobs in question before the “firming and uplifting,” she really couldn’t make a fair comparison, but the petite, dark haired owner of the now fabulous tatas seemed pleased with her response. So did the two other “best friends” standing by her side.
“Thanks!” Pilar Diaz-Rothman gushed, carefully covering up the prized twins with a sturdy sports bra.
“Are they sore?” Frida asked.
“A little. But it was totally worth it. I finally have boobs that point north again.”
“What does Nick think?” Frida asked.
“He’s crazy about them, of course,” interjected Shea Masterson, a tall, stunning redhead who appeared to have been the recipient of her own upper-body surgery.
Pilar grinned. “He was a little freaked at first that I went through with it. But he’s totally on board now.”
“Nick is Pilar’s husband,” Kitty Burke, the last of the Charlie’s Angels trio, explained. Kitty was tall, like Shea, and while she lacked Shea’s Heidi Klum-like model looks or Pilar’s more compact exoticness, she made up for it with a wholesome prettiness and a warm smile. Definitely the Drew Barrymore of the group.
“So, Georgia,” Shea said, “you’re coming to Bunco tonight. Right? Great outfit, by the way. Is that Alexander McQueen?”
Georgia blinked, not quite sure which question to respond to first.
“Don’t mind Shea,” Pilar said. “She has two little girls under the age of five so she’s experienced at bi-processing.”
“That’s multi-tasking, but in your brain,” explained Kitty, sensing Georgia’s confusion. “Pilar likes to make up words to fit the occasion.”
Boy, things sure were different down here in Whispering Bay. Maybe it was all that sodium floating in the air.
“You must really know your designers,” Georgia said, pleased that Frida’s friends had noticed her Alexander McQueen high-waisted navy silk trousers and matching top. Georgia took pride in her appearance. It was one of the things Spencer loved about her. She fought back a frown. She wasn’t going to think about Spencer. Not now. Not for the entire weekend. Maybe not ever. Although that would be impractical, considering he was her boss. “And I’m afraid I’m not sure about the Bunco thing.”
Shea turned to Frida. “You didn’t invite your sister to Bunco?”
“I didn’t know my sister was coming to visit until she walked through the door ten minutes before you three did.”
“I wanted to surprise you,” Georgia said, trying not to squirm beneath her older sister’s level gaze.
“Where are you from, Georgia?” asked Kitty.
Georgia hesitated. It was one of those generic questions people always asked one another. Despite years of practicing a pat answer, it sometimes took her off guard.
“You know, Georgia and I are from everywhere,” Frida said, saving Georgia from responding.
“That’s right!” Pilar said. “You guys were raised by hippies. That is sooo cool.”
Groupies, not hippies, Georgia wanted to clarify. Although in her mother’s case, there probably wasn’t much difference between the two. Instead, she said, “I’ve lived in Birmingham for the past five years.”
“Georgia’s the Chief Financial Officer for a major electronics company,” Frida said proudly. “She graduated from Stanford.”
“Impressive,” said Pilar, giving Georgia a thumbs up.
Georgia felt herself blush. “It’s a small company and I’m really a glorified bean counter.” Although a damn good one, she had to admit, even if it was just to herself.
“Moody Electronics is the Southeast’s fastest growing company. Georgia was selected one of Birmingham’s top ten busi nesswomen last year,” said Frida. “Which explains why she never comes to visit me. She’s too busy working.”
Georgia ignored the dig.
Pilar sighed. “I know how that goes. I’m an ambulance chaser,” she confided to Georgia. “Only I really don’t chase ambulances. I read contracts all day. But for the past few years, my life has revolved around billable hours.”
“Not anymore,” said Kitty. “You’re cutting back at work, remember?”
“That’s right,” said Pilar, looking chastised. “I keep forgetting.”
Kitty smiled at Georgia. “Are you on vacation?”
Frida gazed at her expectantly.
“Sort of,” Georgia said, hoping she wouldn’t have to elaborate. “I’m here for a long weekend. All work and no play . . .” she added with a shrug.
“How’s Spencer?” Frida asked. “Is he coming too?”
“He wanted to,” Georgia said quickly, “but he couldn’t get away.”
“Spencer is Georgia’s boss,” explained Frida. “He’s also her fiancé.”
“Congratulations!” said Shea. “When’s the wedding?”
Georgia wondered the exact same thing. “Actually, we’re not officially engaged yet.”
Frida’s brows scrunched together. “But I thought—”
“The timing’s not right.” Georgia gave Frida’s friends what she knew was a shaky smile. But she couldn’t help it. She’d always sucked at subterfuge. “Spencer has children from his previous marriage, and they’re both at a very fragile age. We need to make sure they’re in the right place first.”
Her sister’s friends went quiet.