Page 48 of Sully

“I got it!” Dezi declared, rushing in holding a plastic container full of gooey sourdough starter above his head like a trophy. “I got it.”

“Well, she just finished making breakfast, so maybe we can give her a chance to eat before we demand more cooking from her?” Sully suggested.

“I guess… are those pancakes?” Dezi said, going from mopey to delighted in a blink.

“Easily distracted,” Sully said with a smile as he pulled me out to the common room, then over to the poker table. “Want to play?”

“I don’t know how,” I admitted. “So, we’ll play in a team,” he suggested, waving over a few of the guys as they came out with their plates.

Then we spent the next two hours playing poker, talking, laughing.

And it was so surprisingly… easy.

There was none of the usual awkwardness I felt in social interactions. Because, unlike in those past situations, for some reason, I didn’t feel like an outsider here. Even if, objectively, I was far more out of place in their clubhouse than I had ever been anywhere else in my life.

“Four of a kind,” Rune said, laying down his cards on the table next to an alarmingly large pot.

“Wait, so… you’re sure?” I whispered in Sully’s ear as I looked down at the cards in my hands.

“Positive,” he said. “And do me a favor and gloat about it,” he added. “Rune has kicked my ass the last four times we played.”

Taking a deep breath, I lowered my hand to the table dramatically. “I might be mistaken, but I think this is a royal flush,” I said, beaming at the look of shock on Rune’s face.

Then I leaned forward, gathering the pot, and scooping it toward me.

“You won’t be needing this.”

“You gotta play Layna next,” Croft said.

“Why Layna?” I asked, looking at Sully.

“Layna is a professional poker player,” he told me.

“That’s a job?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, yeah. There are big matches all around the world. With the kind of pots that could change lives.”

“Wow. That’s really cool. But I don’t think I will be playing Layna anytime soon, then.”

It was right about then that the club’s president came in, zeroing in on Sully.

“I should go get dressed,” I said, even if my day clothes and sleep clothes were practically identical. Fallon clearly wanted to talk to Sully. So I needed to excuse myself.

“And then… bread?” Dezi asked.

“Yes, then bread. But, remember, it’s going to have to rise for a while before I can bake it.”

Sully reached to give my hand a squeeze. Was it thanks for knowing to excuse myself? Or reassurance that everything was okay, even if Fallon looked particularly tense?

I had no idea.

But I moved off down the hallway, dropping down onto Sully’s bed, suddenly in desperate need of a nap on a bed after sleeping in a cramped position on the couch for only a few stolen hours that morning.

Dezi was just going to have to wait a couple more hours for his bread.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sully

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