Slowly We Trust (17 page)

“Are you thinking about Harry Potter? You always get this sort of expression on your face when you’re thinking about it. Happy. I can’t wait to see your face when we go this summer.” Oh God, I’d completely forgotten about that. Well, now we could actually go.

The thought of standing in front of the Hogwarts castle and taking a picture with Will sounded like absolute heaven.

“I might have been thinking about Harry Potter. And you might be thinking about Star Wars right now. You’ve got that goofy smile on your face.” He totally did.

“We’re nerds. But shhh, that’s just between us,” he said.

“It’ll be our secret.”

“Right. Ours.”

At least I could share one secret with him.

Our day of bliss might have been a little messed up by the phone call, but the next day we had to deal with telling our friends. Aud and I talked about it and decided doing it at dinner was the best idea, but they had other plans.

“They’re all here,” Aud said, looking through her peephole on Saturday morning after someone had knocked. I’d thought I’d covered with Simon, saying I was crashing at a friend’s place to give him some privacy with Brady.

“All of them?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“All of them,” she confirmed, smiling grimly. We were both in various states of undress, having barely left her bed, except to order food and wash her sheets. My dick had gotten a serious workout and was now in hiding.

“Hold up, lemme put a shirt on,” I said, getting up. Audrey also threw a robe on and quickly made the bed as so many fists pounded on the door, it rattled on its hinges and I was afraid Aud was going to have to pay to replace it.

“Why can’t they mind their own business?” I said.

“Because they care, William. Because they care.”

Audrey opened the door, and they all piled in. I didn’t think the tiny room could hold so many people, but the gang was all here, and they had a range of looks on their faces. Lottie was smug, because she already knew, Simon had an accusatory glare in his eyes and the rest ranged from not surprised, to amused, to Trish. No one seemed shocked or pissed, so that was good.

“Yes. We’re together. Not that it is
any
of your business. Not one of you,” I said, pointing an accusatory finger at every person in the room.

“Of course it’s our business, sweet brother,” Lottie said, sitting down next to me and punching my shoulder. “You seemed to think it was your business what I was doing with Zan and now I’m just repaying the favor. Because you deserve it.” Her fingers pinched my shoulder.

“I, for one, was not surprised,” Trish said in a bored voice.

“Well, none of us are,” Simon said, rolling his eyes. Brady was looking at us like we were an adorable pair of bunnies and he just wanted to squeeze us both.

“Is this really necessary?” I said, but everyone ignored me. Aud took my hand and grinned at me though, so I knew she’d heard me.

“Yes, we’re together and we’re going to see how this goes. I don’t want to think about possible scenarios, because it’s pointless to try and plan that kind of thing out. You never really know what’s going to happen in relationships.” She looked down as she said the last part and her voice lowered.

Her tone always changed when she talked about something that was close to her secret. I paid attention to everything she said, but sometimes I got a little distracted by staring into her eyes.

Okay, okay, maybe down her top. Sometimes at her ass. But really, it’s not my fault. I can’t help it.

Still, distractions aside, I was starting to put a few things together. Aud might have said that she wanted to tell me and couldn’t, but maybe I could figure it out for her and save her the trauma. It would work out perfectly. Then I could prove to her that I didn’t care about whatever it was, because I’d already known about it.

I silently congratulated myself on my brilliant plan as the rest of the group talked about Aud and me as if we weren’t there.

Our friends were weird.

“You have a secret pie place and you didn’t tell me?” Lottie screamed as we all sat down to a very late brunch at the Union. Several people around us stared at her, but she didn’t notice or care.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything,” Aud said, as if I’d be mad at her for such a thing.

“It’s okay. It’s not a big deal. I can share.” Not when it came to her, but everything else, sure. Lottie usually just took things without asking anyway. I was used to it.

“I could go for pie,” Stryker said.

“Same. I could always make a few. We could have third Thanksgiving,” Katie said, and giggled as Stryker whispered something in her ear. I would call them out on their disgusting behavior, but I really couldn’t because now I’d be a filthy hypocrite.

Everyone had been bitten by the love bug and it wasn’t even spring. I blamed it on the Maine winters. There wasn’t a whole lot to do, so staying inside and keeping each other warm was the only option.

Speaking of keeping each other warm, I was counting the minutes until Aud and I could be alone again. My cock had rested sufficiently and was ready for action. Just sitting next to her and smelling her hair was making me hard again.

“They’re never going to let us be alone again,” Aud whispered under her breath as Simon told a story in a ridiculous accent that had everyone in stiches.

“Probably not,” I answered, looking up and meeting Lottie’s accusatory eyes. Sure, she could have sex, but I wasn’t allowed to. Ever.

We were right. The second we got up from the table, Lottie attacked me and said something about calling Mom and then studying and Simon joined in and asked if I wanted to play tennis and Stryker was talking about a car and I had to hold my hands up so they’d all shut up. Aud had been similarly attacked by Katie, who was talking makeover nonsense. Again.

“No. We will hang out with you on Sunday. Maybe. But right now, we want it to just be the two of us. Right, Aud?” She put her hand in mine, and I kissed the back of it.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I love you all, I really do. Please don’t be mad. But we just . . .” She couldn’t finish.

“Okay, okay, I guess that’s fair. We had a cabin, didn’t we?” Lottie said, grinning and bumping into Zan. He was so tall that her head didn’t reach his shoulder.

“We did,” he said, grinning down at her.

Stryker cleared his throat.

“Okay, so we’re all going to leave the happy couple alone for at least 24 hours more. Agreed? Emergency contact only.” He was the oldest of our group and sometimes he acted as our leader/father/voice of reason. Ironic, considering how many bad decisions he’d made in his life.

“Agreed,” everyone muttered. Except Trish. She just rolled her eyes and muttered something to Max, who muffled a snort of laughter behind his hand. Shit, even they were aboard the adorable couple train. Never thought I would see that.

“We’re going to go now,” I said, slowly backing away and taking Aud with me. Everyone waved goodbye. I had a brief image in my mind of them somehow stopping us, but they didn’t.

“Should we run?” Aud said as the door closed behind us and we walked down the steps.

“We might want to. Just to be safe.” She grinned at me and we took off.

“I seriously have to do homework. You’re a terrible influence on my grades. Or is this some sort of backwards way to win the New Year’s money?”

We lay in bed again, this time I was reading the first Harry Potter book aloud to him. Or trying to. He kept interrupting me, and finally, I’d shut the book and started beating him with it.

“Whatever, Aud. You could sit and do nothing and you’d still get perfect grades. Some of us actually have to work at it.”

“Some of us aren’t taking classes like tennis.”

“Ouch, burn.”

I grabbed my book and got up to put it back on my bookshelf. I’d try again with him soon. I’d make a Harry fan out of him yet.

“We can do homework, if you want. We might want to leave this room, though. Whenever I look at the bed, all I can think about is getting you in it.” I couldn’t argue with that. I definitely felt the same way.

“Okay, we’ll go to the library. Do you have all your stuff with you?” We’d gone back to Will’s room during our mad dash from the Union and he’d gotten more of his stuff.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trying to move in with me. His stuff was all over my place now. Holy crap, was he moving in with me?

“Whoa, you’ve got a weird look on your face.”

“Are you moving in with me?” He gaped at me for a second and then his face went red.

“Uh, no. That wasn’t what I had planned. I mean, we sort of just started dating. Doesn’t that seem a little fast? Unless you want me to? Because if you wanted to, I think that would be okay. Simon would be happy because he and Brady could be together all the time.” He’d taken off on one of his rambles, and I was trying not to laugh.

“No, you don’t have to move in with me. It’s just that you have a lot of your stuff here and I don’t have a roommate, so I guess I jumped to conclusions.” Will just nodded and started gathering his stuff up and I went to do the same.

“We could go get your phone later, if you want.” My blood went cold at the mention of my phone.

“Why do I need a phone when I can use yours?” Luckily, my back was toward him, so he couldn’t see my face. I had enough time to put on a smile before I turned around and put my books, notebooks and laptop in my bag.

“Do you not want to go and get a new phone? Won’t your parents be worried if they can’t get in touch with you?” I almost smiled at him for real this time. He might be smart in some ways, but he was naïve in others. He couldn’t really understand that there was a giant rift between my parents and me. Granted, I hadn’t told him why, but he still seemed to think that it would just change one day and we would try to be a family again.

“No, they won’t. Ready to go?” I tried to give him my usual smile, but it felt awkward on my face.

“Uh, yeah. Ready.” He smiled back and took my hand. Crisis averted.