I'm No Good At Goodbyes

Chapter 43

Austin's POV

I spent the next several hours with Sierra at the hospital, her headache dissipating just enough for her to be able to focus her attention on things besides her throbbing head and eyes. I had asked the nurses station if they had a deck of playing cards, the request granting an eye roll from the nurses on shift before they finally surfaced some from somewhere. I grabbed them with a smile as I walked back towards Sierra's room. "Care to play baby?" I asked her, moving my wrist back and forth with the deck of cards in my hand.

"I'd love to, but I don't really know how to play anything" she laughed as she sat herself up in the bed, moving her right leg as far to the side of the bed as she could as she pulled her other one up underneath her. I rolled the table over towards her before climbing onto the end of the bed and sitting myself down.

"What do you wanna learn?" I asked with a smile as I started shuffling the deck before setting them down softly on the table. I couldn't help but smile at her as she looked around the room as if something in here was going to give her an idea of what she wanted to learn, when I saw her eyes light up as she looked at me.

"Blackjack" she said with a smirk. I tilted my head at her with a laugh as I raised my eyebrows letting out a deep breath.

"I'm not quite sure if I can teach you that SiSi" I laughed, my hands not moving to grab the cards as I looked at her. "I don't need to be bringing you to the table and having you beating me and stealing all my money" I laughed, pushing my tongue on the inside of my cheek as I started shuffling the cards out of habit again.

"What? You scared I'll be better than you big guy?" she teased, bringing her hands up as she rested them on the table.

"Maybe" I tilted my head as I dealt her two cards face up. She looked down at them and then looked up at me with a shocked expression on her face. "What?" I laughed.

"Your cheating! You can see my cards!" she laughed beautifully as she pointed down to the two cards laying face up on the table. I couldn't help but laugh at her, running my hand over my head as I started to explain it to her.

"It's not cheating baby, that is how the game is played" I said with a smile. "All of the players are dealt two cards face up and the dealer has one face up and one face down" I said pointing to the cards in front of me.

"What makes you so special to be the dealer?" she said in a teasing voice as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Because I know how to play missy, now are you going to listen to me" I smirked. She rolled her eyes as she nodded her head, her eyes focusing on me as she listened to my every word. "Okay so the point of the game is to beat the dealer. You know the value of your two cards" I said, looking at them to see that she had a 10 and a 9.

"19" she said looking at the two of them. I nodded my head at her a shy smile coming on my face as I saw her eyes drifting towards the other card face up on the table. "and you only have a 3" she said rolling her eyes.

I laughed at her actions, my fingers rubbing at the sides of my chin as I took a minute to think. "Yes I do. But my other card can make this anything. So now you, my little angel, need to decide if you want the dealer to give you another card, or if you want to stay with what you have" I said looking at her as she started to crunch up her brow in concentration.

"Well do you even have a chance of getting black jack?" she asked me. I looked down at my cards thinking, technically she had beat me already because the highest I could get was fourteen.

"So if this was me playing, I'd stay. The highest the dealer could have is fourteen so you would at least beat the dealer" I said looking at her. She nodded her head as she looked up at me beaming. I flipped my card over to reveal a six making my hand worth nine. I saw her eyes float down to my two cards as she lifted her head to look at me.