“Sadly, I don’t have a cool nickname yet, Travis. You, our lovely host and I can sit in the nickname free corner and let MC Tibbs and the Champ take all the nicknamed glory for the night,” Julius suggested, looking to Tetsuo and noticing exactly how out of place he appeared. He approached the young scientist and clapped him on the shoulder, smiling as sincerely as he could. “I promise, your house will still be in one piece when we leave, and perhaps we can get you to let your hair down a little bit, non?” he elbowed the shier man in the side.
He turned to Jacob when he mentioned exactly how poorly he played poker. “Oh, you need to live a little! Go fish? I promise, I will turn you into Un Champion de Poker. Either that or MC Tibbs is trying to hustle us,” he joked. “We can play for pretzels, so that those of us with wives don’t have to go home and explain why our pockets are suddenly lighter,” he eyed Jacob, Ty and Travis with a grin.
Opening the top of one of his own beer bottles (because he maintained that the best beer came from a bottle), he offered one to their gracious host and then drank a decent sized gulp of his own. “Question not, for the Champ and I will discover the quality of said cigars, which I’m sure is quite high, for the rest of you.”