Slowly We Trust (32 page)

“So do you want to do it before we eat, or after?” Will said as we pulled up at Bea’s. We’d all decided to take our own cars, since we were all coming from different places.

“I don’t know. I can’t think about it right now.” I kept twisting and untwisting my hands and I knew I was playing with my hair as well. I didn’t know why I was so nervous about my friends finding out about Emily. They’d be just as cool about it as Will had been, but it still freaked me out.

It wasn’t every day that you told your friends you had a secret daughter they didn’t know about.

“It’s going to be fine. I swear.” Will gave me a kiss on the cheek and then came to open my door. I was wearing the necklace he gave me, and I’d thought about wearing the roller skates, but Will had shot down that idea.

“It’s going to be good. We’ll have pie, you’ll tell them, they’ll be fine with it, we’ll have more pie. News always goes better with pie,” Will said.

“Everything goes better with pie.”

“Truth.”

We were the first to arrive at Bea’s and she had already pushed several of her tables together to accommodate our group. At least it wasn’t busy, with only two other people, each at their own table.

“Well, hello there Will. Nice to see you again. And Audrey. I’m so glad you’re back.” She showed us to our table and we sat down and waited for the rest of the gang. Stryker and Katie were next, followed by Lottie and Zan, Trish and Max and finally Simon and Brady, who both looked disheveled. Again.

Everyone definitely had a good sex glow going on, and I wondered if I did too. Smiles were on every face, including Trish’s, which was something.

“So how did everyone’s day go?” Lottie said, practically sitting in Zan’s lap.

We all mumbled and then laughed in unison.

“So everyone got some?” Lottie said again.

“Yes” and “hell yes!” sounded around the table.

“Good. Then a Happy Valentine’s Day was had by all.” Bea came over then and handed out menus. I already knew what I wanted, but I looked anyway.

“And today we have a special after Valentine’s Day deal of buy one piece of pie and get a second for your lover for free.” She winked when she said “lover.” There was a ring on Bea’s finger, and she’d talked about her husband before, so I hoped her Valentine’s Day had been good as well, even though she’d been working.

“Free pie is the best kind of pie,” Will said. “Isn’t it?” He reached his hand under the table and squeezed my leg. “Do you want to do it now?” he said in my ear.

“I don’t know. Is it a good time?”

“What are you whispering about?” Katie called across the table at normal volume.

Great.

“We were just talking about the amazing sex we had this morning,” Will said, making Lottie stick her hands over her ears and start singing.

“No, we weren’t. I, um, I have something to tell . . . everyone. As you might know, I’ve had a little bit of a secret and I finally told Will, and I’m ready to tell you now. Okay. This is the third time I’ve told this and it hasn’t gotten any easier.”

Will put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder.

“You can do it. They won’t care.”

I wasn’t sure about that, but I was going to do this anyway.

“Okay, so I guess I should start at the beginning. Remember that guy I ran into at the frat party a few weeks ago? Eddie? And how I didn’t seem to want to talk to him? Well, that’s because in high school we had one drunken night which led to me getting pregnant. I ended up having the baby, a girl named Emily, and my aunt took custody of her. She needs a bone marrow transplant and I had to tell Eddie about her because no one in my family was a match. But he is a match and everything’s going to be okay.” It was a little more smooth than when I’d told Will, but I definitely still needed to work on my delivery.

Silence greeted the end of my speech. I risked a look around and all I saw were open mouths and shocked expressions.

You could have heard a mouse thinking. Bea came back over.

“Is everyone ready to order?”

I’d thought Aud would work on a better way to say it, but there didn’t seem to be one except getting it all out at once. I knew a little about that.

“Okay, I’m no mind reader, but it seems like you’re going to need a minute. I’ll be back,” Bea said, smiling and then going back to the kitchen.

“Sooo, yeah. Happy Valentine’s Hangover Day,” Audrey said, smiling.

“Wait. Hold on a second,” Lottie said. Of course she was the first one to break the silence. “You have a daughter? Like, as in a baby? A human that you gave birth to?”

“Yes. But she lives with my aunt. I don’t have custody. Her name’s Emily. She’s sixteen months old. I have a picture if anyone wants to see.”

“Show me, show me!” Lottie clapped her hands together and Audrey got the picture of Emily out of her wallet, where it now lived.

The picture was passed around and everyone else thawed from their frozen shock.

“That was not what I was expecting,” Simon said. “Not even close.”

“That is some impressive secret-keeping, Aud,” Stryker said, passing the picture of Emily to Katie, who squealed over it.

“I guess,” Audrey said, her face turning red. “I’m sorry for lying to you. You’re not mad at me, are you?” Of course she would think that. She tended to see the worst in people as a result of her shitty parents. Man, what I wouldn’t do if I met them. They’d get a piece of my mind and then some.

“Why would we be mad at you?” Lottie said. Exactly.

“Because I kept this huge secret from all of you.”

“Well, it’s not like you killed someone and then didn’t tell us. You didn’t kill someone, did you?” Lottie said with mock seriousness.

“No, I didn’t kill anyone. That I know of,” Aud said, going for humor.

“Well, I know some people. If you need to hide a body,” Stryker said. I wasn’t sure if that was a lie or not. Stryker definitely knew some strange people.

The picture made its way back around the table and Audrey carefully put it back in her wallet.

“So there. That’s my big secret.”

“Well, we knew you had one,” Trish said. “You had it written all over you. But not anymore.”

“What? Do I look different?” Now that I thought about it, she did look different. Lighter. Happier. Her smile was more easy. How had I not noticed it yet?

“Yeah, you do. Lighter. Happier,” Lottie said, as if she’d been reading my mind. That happened a lot with us.

“Oh. Do I?” she said to me.

“Yeah. You do.”

“So who else has skeletons in their closet?” Lottie said as we all consumed our pieces of pie, trading and stealing bites from each other.

“Um, well my skeleton is that I’m gay,” Simon said.

“Me too,” Brady said.

We all mock-gasped.

“NO! How could you not have told me?!” I yelled at Simon. It was just us in the place now, so we could go back to our normal volume. Loud.

Bea kept poking her head out from the kitchen and shaking her head at us.

“Stryker isn’t really my name,” Stryker said.

“That’s bullshit, I’ve seen your birth certificate,” Trish said.

“Okay, that’s true. But it sounds like my name is fake.” When I’d first met him I’d thought that either it was a fake name, or there was something wrong with his parents. I didn’t know how right I’d be.

“I kissed a girl once,” Katie said. “I was drunk.”

“I thought that evening meant more to you,” Lottie said, pretending to be hurt. “We shared a beautiful moment together and this is how you treat me?”

“I’m sorry, my love,” Katie said, reaching across the table to grasp Lottie’s hand.

“Yeah, I could be okay with this situation,” Stryker said, nodding. I shot him a glare.

“Yeah, I’d like to keep my girl to myself. If you don’t mind,” Zan said, taking Lottie’s other hand and kissing her knuckles. I should freaking hope so.

“Seriously, though, does anyone have any other secrets they want to get off their chest?” I said. “No one will judge you. The pie doesn’t judge.”

“I see how it is. I tell you my secret, but no one else wants to tell theirs,” Aud said, crossing her arms and glaring at everyone. I could see her looking at her daughter like that someday when she did something wrong.

“Well, you stole the secret-telling thunder,” Stryker said. “Anything else we might say, your secret trumps that.”

“Okay, fine. You have a point,” Audrey said. “So what now?”

“Picnic game!” Simon said. We hadn’t played in a long time. We seemed to reserve it for times when we needed something to distract us, like when we’d all showed up at Katie’s house for her Dad’s funeral.

“I’ll start then,” Aud said. “I’m bringing anchovies.” She turned to me.

“I’m bringing anchovies, ew, and boobs.” I purposefully looked down at hers.

“I’m bringing anchovies and boobs and cupcakes,” Lottie said and then it moved to Zan. We played until we were ready for more pie, which Bea brought us, on the house. I had the feeling that even though we’d all given her our debit cards for the rest of the pie that she would never run them through. She was that kind of woman.

“What a perfect Valentine’s Hangover Day,” Stryker said. “I had a really good idea on that one.”

“Don’t get too big of a head now, genius,” Katie said. “I don’t want to have sex with someone with a giant head.”

“So I should probably do something stupid now to even things out?” She just glared at him from behind the rims of her glasses.

“By the way, nice job on the present, Aud. I highly approve,” Lottie said.

“What did she get him?” Brady said.

Lottie stared at me as if she was trying to see into my mind. She rubbed her temples for dramatic effect. She already knew what I’d gotten. The same way I knew Zan had played her a song he’d written with Stryker along with a circle scarf with pages from Pride and Prejudice printed on it.

“She took him to the batting cages and bought him a lightsaber and . . . ooohhh a cake shaped like Darth Vader’s helmet. Very nice.” She gave Aud a slow clap of applause. We all joined in and Aud blushed and begged them to stop.

“It was pretty much perfect,” I said. “You’re pretty much perfect.” I turned to her and kissed her on the nose and everyone made “aw-ing” noises. Being around them was like always having a live audience around.

“No, you are.”

We somehow recovered from the insanity of Sex Partner Appreciation Day and Will and I moved to a new level of our relationship. That secret had been a barrier between us, impeding us being close.

Even the sex was better, if that was possible.

“Holy shit. That was amazing. I don’t think I can move,” Will said on Monday night after a particularly intense session. I’d suggested we try something I’d been hesitant about and it had turned out . . . pretty well.

“I don’t think I’ll ever move,” I said. He rolled toward me and put his hand on my stomach. My skin still tingled in the aftermath, and soon the haze of sleep would settle over me, but I loved talking to him in these vulnerable moments.

“Are you happy?” I said, also rolling onto my side after a few tries. My body was heavy and doped up.

“Is that a rhetorical question? Because you have to know the answer. I’m dating a girl who does . . .
that
and who also bought me a lightsaber and who told me her deepest, darkest secret. I’m the happiest guy in the fucking world right now.” He smiled so big and so bright, I was afraid of being blinded.

“You’re my light in the darkness. I didn’t know how bright things could be before I met you.” I stroked his hair and watched as the waves sprung back when I tugged on them and then let go.

“That sounds like something from a really bad poem,” I said when I thought about the words that had just come out of my mouth. “I’m sorry. I guess love does that to you. Makes you sound like a terrible poet.”

“I’m already a terrible poet. Zan wrote a song for Lottie, by the way. I bet it’s awesome. I wish I could think of crap like that. Sorry.”

I poked him in the chest, hard enough to bruise.

“You listen to me, William Robert Anders. You don’t have to write me a song. You don’t have to write me a poem. You don’t have to do anything but keep being yourself and giving me presents like roller skates and briefcases. That’s all I need. Oh, and what you just did to me. I definitely need that. Frequently.”

He laughed softly.

“You have sex hair.”

“So do you.” I rumpled his sex hair even more and he crossed his eyes at me.

“This is nice,” I said after a few minutes.

“Yeah, it is. It’s different now, you know? Now that I know everything. I do know everything, right?”

“Maybe,” I said with mock seriousness. He gave me a look. “Well, you can’t ever know everything about someone. Then life would be pretty boring, right? But yes. You know everything that I was trying to hide from you. For whatever reason. It seemed justified at the time, but now I see how moronic it was. Hindsight, huh?”

Shifting his body, he laid his head on my stomach and looked at me.

“It was really hard not to be mad at you. I mean, I know I seemed all cool with it, but I was definitely freaking the fuck out.”

I looked at him in surprise.

“Really? You’re a good actor then. You seemed to just take it and run with it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone react that well to something like that. I mean, after you sort of froze for a little while, but that was to be expected. But after that you were Mr. Cool.”

Will laughed.

“My head definitely wasn’t. I thought it was going to explode for a while there.”

“It’s a lot to take in. I felt that way when I found out I was pregnant.” I shuddered a little at the memory. It wasn’t such a negative one anymore, but it still brought back memories of my parents’ faces when I’d told them.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone.”

“That was my own fault. I could have told Eddie. Or I could have, you know, not had her.”

Will turned that over in his mind.

“True. But you didn’t. Life isn’t made up of choices we didn’t make. It’s made of the ones that we did. You chose to do what you did because of who you are, and what you wanted for her.”

“How is that you always make me sound like Mother Teresa?”