Slowly We Trust (18 page)

Will was quiet on the walk down to the library and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the issue with my family, or if he was thinking about something else.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I said.

“Hm?” I repeated my question.

“What does that even mean? Like, did people in the olden days actually give people pennies for their thoughts? I mean, pennies were worth a lot back then, so that was kind of a big deal. And weren’t there people who would tell you what they were thinking for free?” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

“Sorry. That was weird.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re ridiculous sometimes, but I love you anyway,” I said.

“You do?” Was that in doubt? I’d said it what felt like hundreds of times in less than three days. Once I said it the first time, it was as if I’d opened the floodgates and I couldn’t stop.

“Would you still love me if I had a deep, dark secret?” he asked.

“Of course.” The words were out before I could think where we were going with this.

“Good to know, good to know.” His hand tightened on mine.

“Was that what you were thinking about?”

“No, I was just wondering.” We crossed the street and I didn’t know what else to say.

“Have a lot of homework for tennis? Need to polish your racket?” I tried for a lighter tone. It took him a moment to answer.

“No, I think I’ll need you to do that for me later, if you know what I mean.” He raised his eyebrows up and down.

“You’re terrible,” I said, bumping him in the shoulder as he reached to open the door of the library.

“But you love me anyway.”

Yes, I loved him anyway.

Studying with Will wasn’t easy. We were near a window and the sun kept catching the gold in his hair and making me glance up from my book or computer. He also made the cutest serious face when he was reading, and the way he rested his head on his closed fist made him look like he was posing. I wanted to photograph him like that, but I kept my mouth shut and tried to keep reading.

I wasn’t the only one who had an issue, though. I could feel it when he looked at me as I was trying to read or type.

There was one moment when he had definitely been staring at me for quite a while and I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

“You’re staring,” I said, not looking up from my textbook.

“You’re gorgeous. I can’t help it.” That made me look up. “Hold still.” I did and he leaned over the table and kissed me on the cheek. “There. I just had to do that.”

I shook my head and felt a blush color my cheeks.

“I don’t deserve you,” I said.

“Sure you do.” He winked and went back to his book, but I had a much harder time going back to mine.

This thing was going to catch up with me, sooner or later. I’d thought that I could outrun it, but it was true, what they said. You couldn’t outrun your problems. They would always find you, just when you thought that you’d gotten free of them.

I’d considered telling Will a hundred thousand times. But I just wanted us to stay as we were and telling him would change us, one way or another.

We worked for most of the day, and I barely got anything accomplished. I’d have to find Will-free time to finish everything I needed to get done. Before him, my studies had been the only thing I’d filled my time and my brain space with. But now he’d crowded all that out and I didn’t know if I even wanted to go back to the person I was before.

I’d had more laughter and more joy with Will in a few months than I’d had in a long time. Even before everything had fallen apart in my life. Maybe I’d always been falling apart, and I’d only just realized it. I’d been born with cracks that had only gotten wider, increased in size. And now I was finally starting to fill them in with something.

Will made me see so many things that I’d never noticed before, and he had no idea he was even doing it.

“I’m starving,” he said, slamming his book shut and earning glares from some of the other people around us. He definitely didn’t belong in this quiet corner of the library. He had a hard time being still and a hard time being quiet. Not that I minded.

“Do you want to eat here, or go somewhere else?”

“Here is fine.” We were packing up our things when a familiar voice said, “Fancy meeting you two here.”

“Lottie,” Will said, sighing. “One of these days, I’m going to revoke your twindar privileges.” She stuck her tongue out at him as Zan nodded to both of us, trying to fight an amused smile. I was fighting one myself. Will and Lottie were too entertaining for their own good.

“Good luck with that, William. So, we were wondering if you’d like to have dinner? Everyone else is indisposed tonight.” Lottie said.

“What are you doing on campus on a Saturday?” Will said, ignoring her question.

“I’m following you, dumbass,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “We also have homework to do, you know. Zan had a study session and I decided that this establishment was more conducive to me getting work done than the apartment. And it’s none of your business what I do and where I go, anyway.”

Will moved to make some sort of retort, but I stepped between them.

“No fighting or bloodshed in the library. This is a sacred place. Respect the books.”

“Yeah, Will. Respect the books. What would Mom say?” she said. He gave her quite a glare, but I pushed on his chest and he looked at me instead.

“Respect the books,” I said. Not that Will and Lottie would ever get violent, but they might disturb the other library patrons with their fun.

“Fine. But this isn’t over. I’m watching you.” He used two fingers to point at his eyes and then at Lottie. She did the same.

“Are you done, L?” Zan said, putting his hand on Lottie’s shoulder.

“For now.” She grinned up at him and pushed some of his hair out of his face.

The four of us walked the short distance to the Union, Will and Lottie still trading jabs. I shared a look with Zan.

“I’m worried that one of these days they’re going to kill each other,” he said in a low voice as the other two argued.

“They love each other too much. And one would miss the other.”

He nodded.

“True. I don’t think they can exist separately.”

“Agreed.”

“Stop talking about us!” Will and Lottie said at the same time.

Simon had a rare night when he could stay with Brady, so Will and I decided to stay in his room. I would have rather stayed in mine, honestly, and not just because all my stuff was there.

“If I would have known this was happening, I might have thought about cleaning a bit. Sorry.” He waded through the clothes on the floor. “Simon bought me a hamper, but it takes up space, and then it’s a pain in the ass to carry it to the laundry room, so, I just . . . Yeah.”

“It’s fine,” I said, flopping down on his bed. At least that was made, and judging by how well it was made, Simon was the culprit. It was actually shocking that Simon hadn’t cleaned Will’s side of the room while he was staying with me. Would have been the perfect opportunity to organize everything to his exacting standards.

“May I offer you a drink?” He opened the mini fridge and gestured to the cans and bottles inside.

“Um, Coke is fine.”

“We also have a wide variety of tea, thanks to the sister-who-shall-not-be-named.” I snorted as he handed me the can. He wasn’t aware of his subtle Harry Potter reference, but I was.

“The soda’s fine.” He kept tripping on things and his hands almost looked like they were shaking.

“Are you okay?” Was he nervous? Whatever for?

“Yeah, fine. It’s just that this is the first time you’ve stayed over at my place and it’s not as clean as yours and I’m sorry.” His rambles were getting more frequent lately.

“Will, a dirty room isn’t going to send me packing. Now, if you had a collection of human heads under your bed, then I might have a few questions, but I don’t care about a few dirty clothes, or a little bit of mess. It’s fine, honestly.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him down on the bed next to me.

“You know, the clothes on the floor look lonely,” I said, climbing into his lap and straddling his hips with my legs.

“Do they?” he said, looking up at me and pushing my hair back with both of his hands.

“Yeah, I think they might need some friends.” I gathered the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head, tossing it on the floor with the rest of his clothes.

“That’s definitely better,” Will said, his voice cracking a little. I laughed and started dragging his shirt over his head.

I was using sex to avoid thinking about the things I didn’t want to think about. Just because I knew I was doing it, and that it was wrong, didn’t mean I was going to stop anytime soon. Sex with Will was sweet and raw and made me feel like I could do anything. It felt so
good
.

Will and I took it slow in his bed, trying to be quiet because his neighbors kept banging on the wall when we were too vocal.

“They’re just jealous,” he said as we lay panting after he’d given me three unbelievable orgasms. My body was heavy, my joints unscrewed and my head quiet, for the moment.

“I thought Lottie was crazy for moving in with Zan so quick, but now I’m seeing the appeal of having your own place,” I said. Will made a choking noise and sat up.

“You okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, wiping his watering eyes. “It’s just that that’s the second time you’ve mentioned living together and I’m beginning to think that you’re giving me heavy hints and I’m too stupid to see it.”

“I’m not giving you hints. We haven’t even been dating a week. Moving in together would be crazy. Totally crazy. And where would we even get the money for a place? And I’m sure it’s impossible to get an apartment at this time of year. And I don’t have a car, so how would I get to class? No, it’s totally crazy.” Will stared at me as if I’d just spoken in tongues.

“I am not going to point out how much you just sounded like my sister. Nope, I’m not going to do it.”

“You just did,” I said, smacking him in the chest. “It would be crazy. Absolutely crazy.” Beyond the crazy, it would be next to impossible to keep Will in the dark when he was with me all the time. What if my parents called and he picked up? I didn’t think they’d have any qualms about filling Will in on what a disgraceful daughter I was.

“Right. Crazy,” he said, getting a shirt from the floor and a pair of boxers. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” He kissed me quickly on the lips and I almost tore the clothes off him again.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, grabbing another one of his shirts and putting it on as he left the room. I stuck my thumb through one of the holes in his shirt and breathed in his scent. I loved that most of his clothing was so worn that it was soft and nearly threadbare.

I rolled onto my stomach and sighed. I was going to have to get a phone. I hadn’t lied to Will when I told him that my parents wouldn’t worry if they couldn’t get in touch with me. They wouldn’t worry, because they’d stopped caring much about what I did. But Maria was persistent. That much I knew. If she wanted to get in touch with me, then she was going to do it.

Even thinking about that blocked out all the afterglow of being with Will, and made my stomach twist itself into knots. I needed to have a phone for a lot of reasons, so I was going to have to get one. But I couldn’t do it with Will. I picked his phone off the desk and sent a quick text to Trish, asking if she would go phone shopping with me the next day.

She messaged back right away that she would, and we planned when and where she’d pick me up. As soon as the details were set, I deleted the messages. I’d just tell Will that we were going shopping and he couldn’t know why because it was a surprise. I’d also pick out some lingerie, in case he got suspicious.

I hated, hated, hated lying to him, but for now, this was all I knew how to do.

The next day Aud said she was going shopping with Trish, which sent up all kinds of red flags. Most of all because Trish hated shopping, but Aud assured me that she was picking out something that she would surprise me with later, and that made my pants a little tight and I got dickstracted from my original suspicions.

After she left for whatever she was doing with Trish, I sent Simon a message asking if he was up for tennis. I felt the need to hit things, and maybe bounce some of my ideas and suspicions off him. I hadn’t talked to anyone about the situation with Aud and I needed a second opinion.

“So you finally won her over, did you? Dropped some of that Will Anders charm and she just swooned in your arms?” Simon smacked me with his racket and I was beginning to regret asking him to do this with me.

“Something like that. But she’s still so secretive. She’s got this big, thing, I guess and it’s driving me crazy. I mean, I wouldn’t care if she wasn’t so torn up about it. I can see her struggling with it and it just wrecks me that I can’t do anything to help.”

Simon shook his head.

“You are so gone on her. Do you remember when Kandy freaked out on you for not forgetting all your anniversaries?”

I didn’t want to talk about my ex.

“Well if she didn’t have so damn many of them. I mean, am I seriously required to remember the first time we went to second base? Or went to the movies together, or all that shit?”

“Depends on the person. I bet you could remember when you did all that stuff with Audrey, couldn’t you?”

“Not all of them.” All of them. Definitely. Probably down to the hour. Everything about my time with her was burned into my memory. I couldn’t forget it if I tried.

“My point is that Audrey is your one-and-only. Either the two of you will end up married, or you’ll end up alone and never be able to love anyone else again.”

“Wow, thanks for the pep talk, Coach. Really inspiring.” I punched him in the shoulder. He deserved it.

“You’re still not getting my point. Some people fall in love a lot. Some people have a lot of “the one”s. But you, William, you’re a one and only kind of guy. You’ll only ever give your heart to one person, and you’ve been lucky enough to find her. So stop worrying about her secret and enjoy being in love. I’m enjoying watching you be in love. You look happy and it’s good to see.” We stopped walking and he gave me a quick pat on the back.

“Thanks, I think. But I do need your advice.”

“Lover, you
always
need my advice,” he said, giving me a look as two girls walked by, staring at us.

“That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had, and I’ve been present for a lot of your bad decision-making,” Simon said as I told him about my plan to figure out Aud’s secret and then surprise her with not caring.

“But it would save her telling me and that would just make everything better. I can’t believe you think this is a bad idea,” I said, serving the ball. Simon was on his game today, and was beating me soundly.

He volleyed back and I missed.

“No, no, no. I might be of the gay persuasion, but I know women don’t think that way.”

“That’s such a sexist thing to say, that women are just a bunch of people who all think the same way.” Simon snorted and took a swig from his water bottle. I’d had plenty of lectures on feminism from my sister, and even if I hadn’t, I hated it when people acted like women had some sort of herd mentality. Men, on the other hand . . .

“Whatever you say, but I can tell you that our girl Audrey will
not
see it that way. So I’d just stop with that little plan right now and get out with your testicles intact.” That was a bit dramatic. Right?

“So what the hell do I do?” He shrugged.

“Don’t know, bro. That’s a tough one. I don’t feel qualified to give advice on this one.” Now it was my turn to snort.

“Are you kidding? You live for giving advice. And organizing things.”

“Be that as it may, or may not, I’m not telling you what to do. But I will be here to say ‘I told you so’ when this plan blows up in your face.” He tossed a ball at me. “Your serve.”

“You are so unhelpful,” I said, slamming my racket down on the ball to give it some topspin. Simon volleyed it back with ease. I was barely able to return it and then he slammed his racket on the ball, making it hit just inside the line.

“I win.”