Chapter 17 #2
And Shaw, sitting off to the side with a book like he was trying to be invisible.
"Hale!" Reed called out. "Get over here. We need another player."
Hudson grabbed a chair and dropped onto it. "What are we playing?"
"Poker. Texas hold 'em." Fernandez dealt, cards flying across the table. "No buy in. All about el honor."
"I'm out," Novak said immediately. "I'm terrible at poker."
"That's why we want you to play," Reed said, grinning.
Shaw turned a page of his book, not looking up. He sat in the corner chair, the one with the broken armrest that nobody ever used, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.
"Shaw!" Fernandez called out. "Stop being antisocial and get in on this."
"I'm good, thanks."
"Come on, man. Last night. You can read that boring-ass book tomorrow,” Fernandez continued.
"It's Rumi. And no."
"Rumi?" Pine leaned back in her chair. "Isn't that poetry?"
"Yes."
"You read poetry?" Fernandez seemed genuinely shocked.
"Yes. I read poetry.”
"That’s some cultured shit.” Fernandez laughed. "Sounds boring."
"Says the guy who's never read a book," Novak muttered.
Fernandez reached over and shoved the back of his head. Novak yelped. Everyone laughed.
"Shaw, seriously," Pine said. "Come play. We need someone who actually knows what they're doing. Fernandez keeps winning because the rest of us are idiots."
Shaw looked up from his book, expression skeptical.
"One hand," Reed said. "If you hate it, you can go back to your… Rumi."
Shaw stared at him for a long moment. Then he sighed, closed his book, and got up. "One hand."
"Yes!" Fernandez dealt him in without missing a beat. "Okay, Shaw's in."
They played the hand. Shaw won with a straight, which was annoying but also completely predictable, because of course Shaw was good at poker. He had the perfect face for it: neutral, unreadable, deadpan.
"Another hand," Fernandez said, dealing again.
Shaw hesitated. "Fine."
Someone passed Hudson a beer. He took a long drink and watched Shaw instead of his own hand.
"Hale, you in or out?" Reed's voice cut through his distraction.
"In." Hudson called without looking at his cards.
They played three more hands. Shaw won two of them. Hudson won none, mostly because he kept getting distracted by the way Shaw's mouth curved slightly when someone said something funny, or the way his fingers drummed on the table when he was thinking.
"You're terrible at this," Shaw said under his breath, and Hudson realized he was talking to him.
"I'm fine."
"You folded with a full house."
"I did not." Hudson tried to remember his cards. Shit. He had.
Shaw's mouth twitched. "Pay attention, Hale."
Hudson grabbed another beer and tried to focus on the next hand.
"Okay, serious question," Fernandez said, leaning back in his chair. "If you could do anything, regardless of what you got assigned, what would it be?"
"Nothing beats Aviation, so I’m good,” Hudson said.
"Show-off.”
"What about you, Shaw?" Reed asked.
Shaw turned his cards over in his hands. "Civil engineering."
Everyone stared at him.
Hudson saw it on Shaw's face the instant he said it—the realization that he'd let something slip he hadn't meant to.
"Wait, what?" Fernandez said. "You want to build bridges and stuff?"
"Yes."
"But you're doing tactical operations. Special ops. What does that have to do with building bridges?"
Shaw's expression didn’t shift. "Nothing."
The table went quiet. Shaw tensed, walls going back up.
"Civil engineering's cool," Hudson said, breaking the silence. "My mom's friend does that. Designs water systems for developing countries."
Shaw glanced at him, giving him two seconds of something unguarded.
"Yeah, but Shaw's gonna be jumping out of planes and shit. Who cares about bridges?" Fernandez shook his head like he genuinely couldn’t wrap his head around it.
"Bridges are important," Novak said. "Infrastructure is literally what holds society together."
The conversation moved on. Someone started arguing about which branch had the best uniforms, which devolved into trash-talking the Navy. Shaw seemed to relax again.
An hour later, people started filtering out. Early formation tomorrow. Completion ceremony. Goodbyes.
"I'm out," Reed said, standing and stretching. "Fernandez, you're a card shark and I hate you."
"It's called skill, Reed," he shot back.
"It's called cheating."
They scattered, still arguing about it, leaving Hudson and Shaw the last ones left.
Neither of them said anything. Tomorrow they'd both be gone and this would all be over, and Hudson had absolutely no idea what to do with that.
Hudson could count on one hand the number of times Shaw had appeared uncertain about anything, and this was one of them. Hudson recognized the look in his eyes because he was pretty sure it was the same thing currently eating him alive.
"Come here," Hudson said and reached for him.
They were so close their foreheads touched. Hudson felt Shaw’s warm breath on his lips. Their mouths met—not desperate like in the equipment shed, not frantic like that first time in the shelter. Slow and tender, both of them trying to memorize exactly what this felt like.
Shaw's hand cupped the back of Hudson's neck, thumb brushing the skin there, and Hudson leaned into it. Into him.
Moving his hands from Shaw's shirt to his jaw, Hudson felt his pulse jump under his fingers. Shaw moaned and kissed him deeper.