Seeing You - Boys of Tommen

Nightmares, Poker, and Goodnights

December 17th, 2004

Patrick:

"I need Claire." I wake up to Gibsie scratching at the door trying to get out, after sleeping for about thirty minutes. 

I walk towards him and realize that he's sleep walking, I try to guide him back to bed without waking him but the bastard keeps hitting me and demanding I bring him to Claire. When I finally push him onto his bed, he abruptly wakes up and is terrified as he takes in his surroundings, until finally meeting my eyes.

When he looks at me he relaxes, "It's you."

"Yeah, Gibs it's me, you alright?" I ask.

"Yeah, of course. I'm just going to call Claire... Could you maybe?"

This man wanted me to leave our room in the middle of the night, so he could call his girl who he was too scared to actually make his girl. But the way his eyes were looking at me, kind of threw me off, so I just nodded and made my way to the kitchen.

There was a small table, probably for the staff in the corner of the kitchen, so I stole some of the bakery that had been set out for tomorrow's breakfast and sat down. 

I thought I was busted, when I heard the door open but to my surprise it was Katie. Even in her pajamas and messy hair she was a vision.

She walked over to me, "what are you doing here Patrick?"

"Gibsie kicked me out to talk to Claire, you?" 

Katie laughed, "Bella kicked me out."

"And you left?"

"Well Cormac actually said I could stay, if I wanted." She said laughing, and I made a mental note to 'accidentally' injure him on the field. 

"I guess, we can be homeless together." I say and she smiled. "Do you want some?" I ask handing her my stolen plate of pastries. 

"Did you steal these?"

"Brought them from home." She gives me a look, "live a little, Katie Kat."

Katie starts eating, and it makes me feel better. We had this unspoken arrangement where I gave her a granola bar every day and it gave me peace of mind to know she had eaten. 

"Wanna play?" She asks, as she pulls the deck of cards we had been playing with earlier from her sweater pocket.

I nod, and take the cards to shuffle them and deal. We play poker and, she's a formidable opponent. I was used to easily winning with the others, with my expert poker face, but hers was somehow better than mine. She would even smile or frown at random times just to throw me off. Usually, she wore her emotions right on her sleeve but poker brought out a competitive streak in her.

After about an hour of playing, we're at a stand still. We've both won nine games and we're playing for the win. My three jacks are staring back at me, and I know I have her, but I can't let her know, so I school my features as best I can. 

She looks between me and her cards, and places two napkin rings in the centre of the table. There had been a box of fancy napkin rings in a box on one of the chairs and we substituted them as poker chips. 

"I'll see your two, and raise you three." I say responding to her previous bet and her face doesn't display any reaction. 

"I'll match your three, and I call." She replies. 

I grin and lay my impressive hand out for her to see and admit defeat. And for the first time since we started playing she gives me a genuine smile as she places down her hand consisting of three kings and two sixes.

"Looks like you can't beat a full house."

"What the hell? How...."

Her beaming smile is contagious, "Don't hate the player, hate the game, Feely" She says, collecting her winnings, and I love seeing this competitive side of her.

"Really? That's how it's gonna be Katie Kat?" I ask in amusement. 

At the same time, our heads turn towards the sound of footsteps, so we hastily clean up our mess and run out of the kitchen.

As we make our way into the hallway with all the rooms, we see Cormac slipping out of Bella and Katie's room.

"Thanks for tonight" Katie looks at me to say, and I want nothing more than to be closer to her.

Enough Patrick, enough. "Goodnight Katie Kat."

"Goodnight Patrick."

Thanks for reading! - H <3