Slowly We Trust (15 page)

Lottie was in my room with Will when I got back to the dorm. I’d had a feeling she would show up sooner or later and want to know what was going on between her brother and me.

Will was still in his towel, and it made me swallow hard a few times and blush a little. He grabbed the backpack and went to go change and I sat down with Lottie, feeling very much like I was about to get the third degree.

“So you’re not a virgin?” That was her first question.

“Uh, no. I’m not. I was with a few other people before Will.” Just three.

“But you said you were with this guy and he wouldn’t kiss you,” Lottie said, blinking at me.

“That was true. But he was only one guy. I was with someone else before him, and then after.” Lottie’s mouth dropped open.

“Oh. Wow. I guess I just assumed.”

“I wanted you to assume,” I said, looking down.

“Um, why? Most people want people to assume the opposite.” Most people hadn’t been through what I had. We were getting very close to dangerous territory. In my head I was pleading with Will to come back and end this conversation.

I fumbled with a response to Lottie and the door finally opened and Will entered, fully-clothed. I was momentarily distracted by how good he looked. I’d always thought he was sexy, but now that I’d been with him, he’d moved to a whole other level.

“If you don’t mind, Lot, I’m going to take my girlfriend out to breakfast.” Lottie made a little squeaking noise at the word “girlfriend.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for that,” she directed her question at me.

“I think so,” I said. Honestly, I didn’t know. But I was going to try it out. See how it fit for a little while.

“Well, I’m really happy for you, Aud. I just hope-hope it works out.” Will gave her a dark look. “What? I’m sorry. It’s just going to suck if you break up. Not that I’m saying you will. I’m just worried. Can’t I be worried?” She twisted her hands.

“I understand,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. Will was still glaring.

“I'm not trying to rain on your relationship parade. I’m just scared.”

So was I.

Lottie left because she had to go to class, and I was alone with Will again.

“Sooo, breakfast?” He ran his hand through his still-damp hair.

“Yeah, I’m definitely hungry.”

“Because I wore you out last night,” he said with a smirk, putting his arms around my waist and giving me a minty kiss. I’d remembered to put a toothbrush and toothpaste in his bag.

“You did wear me out. I’m still having a hard time believing it was real.”

“Oh, it was definitely real. I’m also planning a reenactment tonight, and every night for the foreseeable future. We should stop going to class right now and just major in sex.” I rolled my eyes at him. He could be so sweet and then he flipped a switch and turned into a dude.

“That’s not a thing, and I don’t think I can get a job in sex,” I said.

“Hooker. Porn star. Nah, neither of those. I’m terrible at sharing. I want you all to myself.”

He pushed closer to me, and I wondered if we were actually going to make it to breakfast. I was starving.

“Well, you’re lucky I don’t want to be a hooker or a porn star. And can we please go eat? I’m famished.” My stomach chose that moment to growl.

Will rolled his eyes as if I was being difficult.

“I guess I should feed my girlfriend. But we’re going out. No dining hall food today.”

He backed up, but grabbed my hand and started dragging me out of the room.

“Hold on! I need a coat and my purse.” I reached for both and he waited impatiently for me. “Okay, I’m good.”

“Let’s go.” Will took my hand again and took off, like we were running from something.

“What’s the hurry?” I panted.

“Sometimes I pretend that someone is trying to kill me, and I have to get to my car as fast as possible, or I’m going to die,” he said with a smile.

“You’re insane.”

“You signed up for the Will Anders Experience, so I’m going to give it to you. Run faster!” I laughed and tried to keep up with him. He was an athletic guy, and I wasn’t much of a runner, so it was a task, but we burst out of the front door and headed to the parking lot, me laughing and trying not to die and Will urging me on because he loved me and he didn’t want me to die by the hand of the imaginary murderer that chased us.

It was ridiculous.

Will unlocked the door of his truck, shoved me in and then went to get in on his side. As soon as he had the doors shut, he screamed at me to lock my side.

“We’re safe,” he said, holding his hand up for a high five. “Congratulations, you get to live. This time.” He used an ominous voice to say the last part as he turned the truck on.

“Dun dun dunnnnn,” I said, making him laugh.

“And now, it’s time to reward ourselves for surviving our trip to the car.”

I took her to this little diner about thirty miles from campus that I’d randomly found one day when my truck died. I’d pulled over and fiddled with the engine and the owner, Bea, had come out and brought me a slice of the best coconut cream pie I’d ever had in my life and offered to walk to her house across the street and get me any of her husband’s tools I might need.

People always talked about Southern Hospitality, but no one ever talked about Northern Hospitality. From my limited experience, people in Maine would give you the shirt off their back, and wouldn’t even accept a thank you in return. It was just how we lived. Taking care of one another.

“This is so sweet,” Aud said when we pulled in. There were only about ten parking spots, and luckily there was one open for me. I made her wait so I could open the door for her like a proper boyfriend.

A bell tinkled over the door, announcing our arrival.

“Hi, Bea,” I said, waving to her as she cut a slice of pie and put it on a plate. I’d been back here a few . . . hundred times since I’d had my truck issues. Bea was like the sassy Maine grandmother I wished I’d had.

“Will! Nice to see you again. And you brought a friend.”

“Hi,” Audrey said, also waving.

“Welcome, welcome, lovely lady. If you’ll just follow me over here,” Bea said, grabbing two menus and leading us to the back of the tiny restaurant. We had to squeeze in between the aisles and be careful not to knock into the other people eating here. For a tiny ass place, it was almost always packed.

“Can I get you kids something to drink?” Bea never wrote her orders down and from my experience, she never got them wrong.

“Um, I’ll have orange juice,” Aud said.

“The same,” I said. Bea smiled at us and then gave me a wink before heading to get our drinks.

“You come here a lot?”

I shrugged.

“Not too much.”

“Does Lottie know about this?”

I shook my head.

“Well, she probably does, but she doesn’t say anything about it. We share everything and I don’t know. This felt like
my
kind of place.” I felt my face heat with a blush. It sounded even more stupid when I said it out loud.

“No, I get it. I mean, I don’t have a twin, but I get it. Sometimes I go to the movies or dinner by myself. People always give me weird looks, but I don’t care. Sometimes you just want to be by yourself.”

“Yeah. But today I want to be by myself with you.” I reached under the table and took her hand.

“Me too.”

She studied her menu, but I already knew what I wanted.

“Wow, everything looks good. I don’t know what to get.”

“Everything is good. You can’t go wrong. Seriously.” Bea came back with our drinks, and I ordered a Denver omelet and a piece of Boston Crème pie. Aud took her time deciding and finally picked the fruit and cheese crepes and hash browns.

“Are you really going to eat an omelet and pie?”

“Yes. Yes I am. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.” She sipped her orange juice and shook her head at me.

“What?”

“You,” she said.

“What about me?”

“You’re adorable.” That was not exactly what I was going for.

“Can we just clarify what kind of adorable we’re talking about? Like adorable in a platonic, cuddly puppy way? Or adorable as in a guy you’d want to have sex with?” I hoped it was the second.

She gave me a wicked smile, which I wasn’t used to seeing on her face, but wanted to see much more of in the future. “Definitely the second. Haven’t I proven that already?”

“I was just checking.”

She giggled and looked down into her drink. How did I get so damn lucky?

The food was spectacular, as always, and I kept getting distracted from my own food by Aud’s exclamations of delight over her own. She moaned a few times, and it made me instantly hard, remembering how she’d moaned last night.

I was still congratulating myself on actually getting her to make those sounds. Kandy wasn’t very adventurous when it came to sex, and near the end of our relationship, she’d suggested that we “take a break” from having sex. Or she’d have a headache, or be on her period, or had just gotten her nails done, or hadn’t taken a shower, or a thousand other excuses that meant it was another night for me to have sex with my own hand.

But with Aud, it was like I could sense what she’d want. Where she’d like to be kissed, how she’d like to be touched. But there were still secrets of her body that I had yet to learn, and, as good as the pie was, I was ready to get started.

“This feels so forbidden. Skipping class and having crepes.”

“I think you need to work on your definition of forbidden, Aud.”

She nodded.

“Probably. But that’s why you’re here.”

“Exactly. I’m here to corrupt you.”

The smile faded from her face and she looked down. The flirty sexy energy was gone. I’d touched on her secret. Damn. It would be so much easier to not bring it up if I knew what it was. But I wouldn’t push her to tell me if she didn’t want to. I’d just gotten her to agree to be my girlfriend. No way I was going to screw things up this early by making her run.

I finished my piece of pie.

“Do you, um, want to get something to go?” I said tentatively. She finally looked up and I watched as her eyes came back into focus and she gave me a smile.

“Yeah, definitely.” I thanked Bea, who told us to come back soon, and gave Aud a piece of four berry pie, on the house. I also got another slice of Boston Crème, fantasies of eating it off Aud’s naked stomach flitting through my head.

“So what’s next in the Will Anders Experience?” I hadn’t, uh, planned that far beyond breakfast. I just assumed we’d go back to her place and be naked all day. My only plans had been for positions to try.

“Would you think I was an asshole if I said all I want is to get you naked again and hear you say my name a million times in that sexy voice?”

I slipped my hand up her leg, hoping she wouldn’t slap it away.

“Actually, that sounds . . . nice. Really nice.” Thank God.

If skipping class and going out for breakfast had felt forbidden, lying in bed with Will felt decadent. I was also tired from the non-sleep I’d gotten the night before.

We put the pie in my small refrigerator before Will pushed me toward the bed and started undressing me slowly, kissing every scrap of skin he revealed, plus everything in between.

“I want to know what you taste like everywhere,” he said as he pulled my shirt over my head. My breath caught as he pulled my bra straps over my shoulders and then kneeled down to kiss my stomach. It had been flat once, but it wasn’t so much anymore. At least, other than my scar, there weren’t any other outward signs on my body.

Will kissed right above the line where my jeans ended and then flicked the button and slowly, painfully unzipped them.

“I never understood why my sister liked to take the clothes off her dolls, but now I’m seeing the appeal.” He licked my belly button, causing me to shiver and heat to pool in strategic areas in my body. I was almost past the point where I could speak and I wasn’t even naked yet.

I put both hands on the sides of his head and he tipped his face up to look at me.

“I love you so much, Will Anders.”

“I love you, Aud. So much that it consumes me.” All my breath left my body and I leaned down to kiss his upturned lips. He didn’t often say things like that, but when he did, they almost stopped my heart.

He stood and pushed me back until I was sitting on the bed.

“Lie back.” He moved to my feet, removed my boots and my socks before grabbing the bottoms of my jeans and tugging. The problem was that they were skinny jeans and a little tight in the hip area, so all he did was pull me off the bed.

I landed on top of him on the floor.

“Shit!” I said and he also cursed. I scrambled to get off him, hoping I hadn’t injured him in any way.

“Are you okay?” I crouched next to him and he squinted at me.

“Yeah, fine. Only my pride has been kicked in the balls. That did not work out how it was supposed to. I guess I need more practice undressing girls. Why are your pants so tight?”

I started laughing at the look on his face.

“Because I had this delusion that I was a smaller size than I actually am.” I stood up and gave him my hand, but he just used it to pull me back down on the floor with him.

“Hey!”

“Did you swear when you fell on me?” he asked.

“I might have.”

“I like hearing you curse. I mean, you never do, so it’s kind of awesome when you do.”

He lay on his side with me. The floor wasn’t the most comfortable place, but at least I had a rug on this particular spot.

“Do you want to give the pants a shot again?” I asked as he stroked my hair away from my face.

“Yeah, but how about this time we go from the top?” He got up and this time he picked me straight up off the floor. Those athletic muscles came in handy.

He set me down on the bed and scooted down until he was level with the top of my jeans.

“Wait a second. Why do you still have your clothes on?” I’d been so busy anticipating where his mouth was going to go next that I’d completely forgotten that he still had his shirt and pants on.

His answer was to sit up and pull his shirt over his head.

“Better?” I wanted to take it off, but it didn’t really matter, now that it was off. I ran my hands up and down his skin. He was still a little tan from the summer and being outside.

“Much better.” He grinned at me and then went back to work on my pants.

My phone chose that moment to ring. The shrill sound cut through the sweet moment with Will.

We both glanced toward my purse where my phone was screaming. I thought about ignoring it, but the person might leave a voicemail, and then it would beep and I couldn’t deal with that.

“I’m sorry. I’ll just shut it off.”

“Aren’t you going to answer it?”

I picked up my phone to check and see who was calling.

Maria.

Like it had with Will, all the oxygen left my body, but this time, it was for a different reason.

“Aud?” The phone kept going off and I just kept staring at it as Will kept saying my name.