Jim felt his phone vibrate and would have looked at it right away, but it was in his pocket and he was currently carrying a couch into the house of his friend.  So it was a few minutes before he got to check out the message, during which another text came in.  Jim had no idea who was texting him at this time of night, he didn't usually get many texts outside of work.  He opened the first:<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=100402.msg4482103#msg4482103">Quote from: lovelygirl on 09-04-2011, 04:51:34</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Jim, can't make it tomorrow. So sorry."<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>"Well, that sucks!"  Jim said.  "What does?" his friend replied.  "Oh, nothing, just bad news."  Jim didn't want to say what it was because he hadn't invited his friend to poker.  Jim opened the second text:<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=100402.msg4482141#msg4482141">Quote from: GaGa88 on 09-04-2011, 05:03:23</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"I'm not gonna be able to come to the poker night, but would it be okay if I came over to talk to you about something tomorrow?"<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>This time Jim was able to keep the swearing internal.  He was discouraged.  Ali and Bree were the whole reason he was having the poker night.  Now neither of them were coming.  He thought it was kinda rude to cancel this late, but obviously they had gotten some better offer.  It was not unexpected.  Jim had been through it before.  He wasn't really in their league.  He sent a text to both of them, "Sorry you guys can't make it, I guess I'll see you Monday."  He wasn't going to be rude back, he would be polite.  He then sent a text to Ali, "I'm cancelling poker.  Which means I no longer have an excuse to skip Aunt Mildred's birthday party, so I won't be around for you to come over, sorry.  I'll see you on Monday and we can talk then."  Jim was sure that Ali just wanted him to fix something or another and he wasn't about to used like that again.