After such an intense workout, Mark had been generous with dinner, making sure that Patrick got the largest serving of food. Like a couple of nervous parents, Mark seated Patrick across from me, with Sophie on one side of me and Mark on the other like a pair of guardian sentinels. Conversation was light, and avoided both business and politics. In fact, for a lot of it Sophie asked Patrick about his childhood, and how he'd grown up in the city orphanage system.
"Well, Tabby knows most of it, so I'm sure you guys do too," Patrick said after setting his fork down. "But here's a story that you guys don't know yet. I was thirteen, and had just transferred from the Patterson Youth Home to Goldwell Hall, which is where they house the junior high school and high school aged kids. It's a rougher place than Patterson, where there was always the hope for some of the kids of at least getting foster parents. By the time you reached Goldwell, you were pretty much assured of only staying a ward of the state for the next five years. Nine out of ten kids who left Goldwell before eighteen did so because they were doing stints up at Juvenile Corrections."
"Sounds horrible," I said, taking a deep drink of my lemon water. After a large glass of fruit juice to make sure my body had some sugar after my workout, I always shifted to lemon water. "How did you survive?"
"At first I really struggled," Patrick admitted. "A lot of the kids fell into gangs, and as you know I did as well, but never as hard as some of the other guys did. Part of it was because of Leon."
"Who was Leon?" Sophie asked, intrigued. She’d obviously already forgiven him, and I could tell she could see in him the same qualities I did. Twice she'd given me a sideways glance during dinner, smirking around her fork. She liked him, and was giving me her opinion again.
"Leon was the boxing instructor who came by twice a week to pick up guys and take them over to a dingy local place. I tagged along the first time mainly because I had just gotten my ass kicked by a couple of seventeen year olds who were the floor bosses for my area, and I wanted to at least put up a fight. Leon could see a lot of anger and rage in me and felt sorry for me I guess."
"Did he ever put you in the ring?" Mark asked.
Patrick leaned back and laughed, long and hard. "Yeah, but he wasn't happy about it. I may have had a lot of anger back then, but I had the technique of a gorilla. Put my head down and start swinging for the fences,” Patrick said laughing.
We all had a chuckle, and by the end, I was feeling better. Mark and Sophie glanced at the two of us, and Mark put his hands on the table. "Well, I think I'll go ahead and clear the table. Sophie, if you'd help me, I think Tabby can walk our guest to his car?"
Sophie and I nodded, and Patrick thanked Mark before following me out to the front door. We didn't say anything, but there wasn't a need to. Pausing at the open door, Patrick turned to me. "Tabby....."
"It's okay," I replied, putting my arms around his neck. "I know you were just saying what you felt."
"I've been in pain for days, worse than getting shot," he murmured, looking into my eyes. "I kept waking up at night, thinking I'd never have you in my arms again."
"I've missed you too," I told him. His arms went to my waist, pulling me closer, and we kissed, healing the pain in our minds and in our hearts.
There, on the entry to my house, I gave him entry to my heart, saying with my lips and my hands what my voice just couldn’t quite do. Not yet. He held me, and we spoke a silent language to each other that was beyond time, beyond anything except that of the heart.
Chapter 7
Patrick
For the rest of the month, things fell into a good regularity. I would have said comfortable, but the training program that I’ve been on was anything but comfortable. I didn't even have the benefit of using the clearly awesome bathtub that Sophie, Mark and Tabby could use, restricted to only using the shower after my workouts when they invited me to eat with them. I measured time not so much by the calendar, but by the size of Sophie's belly, which went from flat to definitely starting to bulge slightly. I wondered just how big she would get before finally having her baby.
The month was basic training, plain and simple, and I loved it. Sounds weird, but I did. Four days a week, Sophie put me through workouts that left me aching and nearly staggering back out to my car every time. At least once a week, but often twice, either she or Mark would lead me through martial arts practice. I thought I knew a good amount after my years of boxing and the things I'd picked up in the streets. That notion was quickly put to rest after having a woman nearly five months pregnant hand me my ass. Admittedly we weren't going full strength, but still.