Two hours later, he left just over five hundred dollars ahead and far more confident of his abilities. He was also mentally drained and had trouble keeping his eyes open during the drive home. Fortunately, he was back relatively early, and his parents didn’t give him the third degree over where he had been or why he had been out so late or anything. A quick hey and yeah, I had dinner, was enough to let him get to his room, where he collapsed on the bed and woke up the next morning still dressed in the clothes he had been wearing the previous evening! Magic sure was draining! He practiced more during the week, trying different things without much success. He returned to the casino the following Friday night and made a thousand dollars before quitting, and then he worried about being too obvious in the small local casino room.

Over the next week, he checked out all the casinos in San Diego and played all the roulette tables that were available very carefully, even the ones with double zero. He worked hard at making sure he was hiding his ‘good luck’ by not winning much in any single session and appearing to lose bets frequently. He camouflaged it well enough that none of the suits in the pits paid him the least heed. By the end of the week, he was up nearly five thousand and having trouble containing the excitement he was feeling! The hardest thing was not showing off! Man, that was hard. He had to be so careful of his own actions and reactions. He was worried that they’d ban him or something if the casino staff twigged. He tried to keep a serious, calm demeanor throughout, but it was hard to resist jumping around and ensuring everyone knew he was winning!

Realizing he would do something stupid if he kept going, he took the next week off. He told his parents he had been playing poker and had made a few bucks to explain the extra money he clearly had. His dad gave him a quick lecture on gambling, about not getting in too deep and quitting while he was ahead, while his mum voiced her general disapproval of gambling as well, but neither asked him to stop. He suddenly realized that, somewhere along the line, they had started to see him as an adult. Instead of telling him what to do, now it appeared that they would advise him when they thought he needed advice but would no longer forbid him from undertaking things they didn’t want him to do. Hmm. Interesting. One benefit of his Doctorate, he supposed.

He used the week to catch up with friends, went into the university, and caught up with his former fellow students, those that were there anyway. On the next Friday, he received an email from Franny telling him about a new site in Britain on Hadrian’s wall she was going to join the dig on the following year. She had apparently been invited by the head of the research team as a welcome to the faculty thing even though she was just a junior lecturer. The fellow was head of Classical Studies at the university where she had managed to obtain a limited teaching gig. Good for her. Oh. There were still numerous spots for volunteer workers, but why invite me? He puzzled over this for a bit as his field was Minoan and Mycenean studies, not Roman. Ah. He twigged when he reread the cryptic middle part. Someone wanted to meet him, probably that girl he had seen in the video call. She was going to be on the dig, he guessed. Hmm.