Slowly We Trust

  “I guess so. Hurry up.” She grabbed her bathroom kit from the top of her dresser and dashed out of the room. I had my own stuff at her place, so I did the same, even running a brush through the ends of my hair. I’d learned from my sister that you should never brush curly hair. In my case, I ended up with a ‘fro and that wasn’t good for anyone.

  Aud took far too long in the bathroom and I was sitting on her bed with my knees bouncing up and down when she finally came back.

  “I thought you fell in. I was going to be all heroic and rescue you.” She just let out an exasperated sigh and started putting her coat on.

  “Well, reading Harry Potter has taught me that going to the bathroom alone is dangerous. Bad things always happen to girls when they go to the bathroom alone.” She proceeded to list all the things as I got my coat and started shoving her out the door.

  “Are there murderers chasing us?” she asked.

  “No, we just have to get going. The Day of Romance needs to start.”

  She snorted. “The Day of Romance?”

  “What, you have a better name for it?”

  We spent the next twenty minutes (while I drove) trying to come up with a better name, but we had nothing.

  “What about Sex Partner Appreciation Day?” Aud said.

  “Okay, that’s kind of awesome. Good thinking, Sex Partner.” I held my fist up and she bumped it with hers.

  “Thank you, Sex Partner.”

  “This isn’t some sort of way to introduce me to BDSM, is it?” Aud said, as I tied the blindfold in the back of her head.

  “No but if you want to try that, I’m absolutely game. For right now, I just want to make it so you can’t see.” I waved my hand in front of her face and then gave her the middle finger, but she didn’t respond.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” I held up three.

  “Three?”

  “Okay, how about now?” I held up three again.

  “Five?”

  “Good.” The second phase of Valentine’s Day (or as I would be calling it from now on, Sex Partner Appreciation Day) was in motion. I’d taken her out for breakfast and now we were on our way to the roller rink. She said that my surprise could wait until we were done with her surprises. I didn’t even care what she had planned because I was so focused on what I’d planned for her. I could barely contain myself.

  “You’d better not hate this because it’s non-returnable.”

  “Can I re-gift it?” She tugged on the blindfold and I tried to smack her hand away as I started the car again. I was going to drive us around for a while so that even if she had an idea where we started, she’d get quickly confused by my change of direction. I was like a Sex Partner Appreciation Day ninja.

  “No refunds, no exchanges. So there.” I pulled into a random driveway and backed up to turn around and go in the opposite direction for a little while.

  “You’re trying to confuse me, aren’t you?” she said, crossing her arms.

  “Maybe. I want you to be completely and utterly surprised. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” she said, a little smile on her face. “I kind of love how serious you’re taking this. It makes my heart feel all warm and melty.”

  “Um, do we need to take you to the hospital? That sounds like something a doctor should check out.” She smacked me on the arm.

  “It’s a good thing I love you.”

  “I love you too, Sex Partner.”

  If it was anyone other than Will, I would have been very suspicious of his motives, but he was practically vibrating with excitement in the driver’s seat next to me. I also knew that he was driving around in circles to throw me off. As if I had the town somehow mapped out in my head.

  He was really taking this surprise thing to the extreme. I’d thought Christmas had been intense, but this was in a whole new ballpark. If this was how he was with holidays now, I had no idea what he was going to be like in a few years. Would the presents just get more outrageous? Elephants and helicopters and diamond jewelry danced through my mind.

  First, we had to survive today. And tonight. I had Will’s surprise all ready to go. I’d had to recruit Zan to help me hide Will’s presents because, apparently, Lottie couldn’t keep anything at all from Will. So I just put everything into the most non-descript cardboard box I could find and told Zan not to tell Lottie where it was so she couldn’t tell Will. Zan just smiled and said he’d take care of it.

  The car finally came to a halt and Will turned off the engine.

  “Here we are,” he said, and got out. I waited for him to open my door.

  “Can I take the blindfold off yet?” I said as he took both my hands and helped me stand.

  “Nope. Not until we get inside.” Great. He was going to parade me around wherever we were. I could hear music and voices of people walking by, so there were at least a few people who saw me.

  “Humiliating me isn’t part of the surprise, is it?” The only upside of being blindfolded was that I couldn’t see the people staring.

  “Don’t let me trip,” I said as we walked slowly forward.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, baby.” He’d never called me that before. I’d always found it a little condescending, but from his mouth, it made me feel tingly and like I wanted to smile and giggle at the same time.

  “Okay, stay right here. I’m going to get the door.” He walked me through the door and I hoped he was going to take the blindfold off. But no.

  Will made me walk a little bit further. The music was louder now, and voices of kids swirled around me. Flashes of light kept trying to get under the fabric of the blindfold and I was starting to have an idea about where we were.

  “Sit down. Slow.” I sat and Will took off my shoes and then shoved something heavy on my feet. He set each foot down with a clunk and I did a little test.

  Roller skates.

  Will removed the blindfold and I looked down at my feet.

  “You didn’t,” I said.

  “Clearly, I did.” I looked up from the skates to Will’s grinning face and I started to cry.

  “Oh, Aud. Don’t cry.” Will leaned down and clasped my face between his hands.

  “I can’t help it. You’re ridiculous.”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  Ten minutes later Will was holding my hand and leading me slowly around the floor of the roller rink in my sparkly pink and purple skates. I had no idea how or where he’d found them, let alone in my size, but he’d done it. He’d even donned a pair of black skates, despite being a rollerblade fan.

  The disco ball threw light around the room and made the dingy space look magical. This was small-town Maine so the rink was small, but there was a tiny arcade attached, and a snack bar. We had to keep veering away from the kids that kept tearing around the rink so we didn’t fall.

  “Is this everything you thought it would be?” Will said, squeezing my hand as the song changed to “MMMBop” by Hanson.

  “And more. So much more.”

  We did another few laps to finish out the song and then Will steered me over toward the arcade where there were a few benches.

  “Wait here.” He zoomed away and left me there. Um, what? I sat and spun the wheels on my skates and watched a little girl with plastic strap-on skates toddle around while her dad held her hand and told her she was doing a great job.

  That would be Emily someday, only Leo would be doing the hand-holding and encouraging. Now that I knew him better, I had no doubt that Eddie would make a good father some day. Apparently, my drunken decision to choose him to be Emily’s biological father was a sound one.

  I was so distracted thinking about Emily that I almost didn’t see Will skating up to me with a huge cluster of balloons and two presents in pink boxes with enormous bows on them.

  “Happy Sex Partner Appreciation Day!” He whispered the word “sex” so the kids didn’t hear.

  I wanted to cry again, but this time I was able to suppr
ess it.

  “Open them,” he commanded, handing me the presents and sitting down next to me with the balloons.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” I said, taking the first present and tearing open the paper. I hoped it wasn’t anything too big. He’d already outdone himself.

  “Okay, so this is sort of a future present,” he said before I lifted the top off the box. “Like, you probably won’t use it now, but I thought of you when I saw it and I knew I wanted to get it for you. But you can take it back if you hate it.” Sweet rambling Will. I put my hand on his mouth to stop him from making excuses for the present that I knew that I was going to love no matter what.

  “Hush. I love it already.” I pulled the top off the box and found a black leather briefcase. It was thin and light, but had a sturdy handle and clasps.

  “It’s for your future legal career,” Will said softly as I brushed my hand on the soft leather.

  “Thank you so much, Will. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Well, you could say ‘give me the next present, asshole.’” I set the briefcase aside and went for the next present. I opened that one a little slowly and found another box. And then I opened that box and found another box. I gave Will a look, but he just had a smug smile on his face. He was messing with me.

  I finally got down to a fairly small box and opened that to find a necklace. A gold lightning-bolt necklace.

  “I had to get a little something Harry in there. But this doesn’t scream I’M A HARRY POTTER FAN. It’s sweet and pretty and sexy. Like you.” He motioned for me to turn around and I had that classic moment when I held my hair off my neck and he clasped the necklace for me. I happened to settle right between my breasts. I looked down at it and wondered if the length of the necklace was intentional, or just a coincidence.

  The former was confirmed when I turned back to Will and his eyes went right to that area and lit up.

  “Perfect,” he said softly.

  “You have a one-track mind, Will Anders.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He stood up and took my hands again as “Hungry Eyes” started to play.

  “I’m pretty sure that they won’t let you skate around with this many balloons, so let’s find a place to put them.” We were able to store the balloons in one of the back rooms and Will and I went back out to skate.

  I had the world’s greatest sex partner.

  Will and skated for a while longer, including doing the Chicken Dance with all the kids, played a few games of pinball and air hockey (which he won all rounds of, despite him trying to let me win) and devoured pizza, fries, shakes and frosted brownies.

  “I don’t think I can move,” I said, putting my hand on my stomach. I really shouldn’t have eaten that much, knowing I was going to the batting cages later. How was I ever going to manage that?

  “Agreed. Why didn’t you stop me from eating that fourth slice of pizza after I already finished my shake and a brownie? Why is unlimited pizza a thing?” Will moaned.

  “Hey, I’m not going to stop you from doing what you want to do. This is your show. And why didn’t you stop me from getting extra fries? Are you trying to make my ass bigger?”

  He gasped.

  “No, that thought has never crossed my mind. Never ever. Nope.” He shook his head slowly back and forth. “I like your butt just as it is. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  “Suuuurrrrreeeee.” I somehow got myself upright and shuffled with my skates to where Will had put our shoes.

  Getting the balloons into the truck’s cab proved to be a bit of a challenge, and he couldn’t see out the back window, but we both managed to get ourselves in.

  “The upside is, if we get in an accident, we don’t even need airbags. The balloons will cushion the crash,” Will said, punching one of the balloons in front of his face.

  “True,” I said, moving one as well.

  “So, best surprise ever?” he said as he struggled to back out of his parking space.

  “Best surprise ever.” It really was. Now I was feeling lame about my surprise. “I don’t know how I’m going to top that.”

  “I know. I’m really good at this surprise thing. Who knew? I never did anything this romantic for any girl before. I never wanted to. But now I’m already planning your birthday. I hope you’re prepared, because there might be actual fireworks.” They were legal in Maine now for consumers to buy. There was even a new store selling them right off campus, which sounded like a bad idea all around.

  “You know by making your surprises so awesome, it means that I feel obligated to try and outdo you and I don’t know if I’m up to the challenge. It’s a lot of pressure,” I said.

  “You could always give me, you know.”

  I kept my eyes straight ahead. “No, I’m not familiar with what you’re referring to, could you be more specific?”

  “Oh, you know what I mean. Especially when you do that thing with your tongue and then you put your finger –”

  “Okay, I got it. Loud and clear.” For some reason, hearing about the sexy things I did with Will when we were in bed made me blush outside the confines of the bedroom.

  “So where are we headed?” he said, pulling out of the parking lot and turning toward campus.

  “Well, you’ll need to pull over first.” He gave me a look, but pulled the truck over. “And now you need to get out and switch seats with me.”

  “That’s not going to be easy, Aud. But I’ll do it for you.”

  We switched seats, battling the balloons the whole time. Once he was in his seat, I made him turn around and I put the blindfold on him.

  “Yes, I’m totally stealing your thunder and using the blindfold. This is also payback for earlier.”

  He whined, but I got the blindfold on him and then it was time to actually drive the truck. It took me a few tries to get the finicky gearshift in the right spot. This could be an interesting trip.

  “I can hear you hurting my truck,” Will said as the truck made a really horrible sound.

  “Please work with me,” I whispered to the steering wheel. “You want to make Will happy, don’t you?”

  “I can hear you talking to her,” he said, fiddling with the blindfold.

  “Stop that. She and I are going to get along fine.” The truck made a protesting noise as if to add a “hell” to the “no.”

  I freaked out the entire time Audrey drove my truck. Not that I didn’t trust her, because I definitely did. I’d trust her with my life. My truck, however, was another story.

  “Please don’t hurt her,” I prayed under my breath.

  “I heard that. And it’s fine because we’re here.” With a horrible sound that was like my truck’s heart getting ripped out, she turned the engine off.

  “Wait there.” I waited and she got out and did the same routine with me that I’d done earlier with her.

  “I feel like a total dork.” She laughed as I stumbled my way toward what I hoped wouldn’t be the edge of a cliff.

  “That’s exactly how I felt a little while ago. Payback is a bitch.” I’d asked for this. I really had.

  As soon as we got through the door I heard clanging. It sounded familiar and it only took me a second to realize she’d brought me to the batting cages just off campus.

  “I fucking love you, Audrey.” It wasn’t the classiest way to say it, but I didn’t think she’d care.

  “I fucking love you back, William.” With that, she whipped off the blindfold and revealed the indoor batting cages.

  “Now if I suck, you can’t make fun of me. That’s my only rule,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “You’re not going to suck. Not with me teaching you. Come on.”

  “Okay, you need to lean a little this way and put your shoulder like this,” I said, standing behind Audrey and moving her body into the proper batting position. It gave me an excuse to put my hands all over her in public. She was definitely enjoying it because she kept leaning into me and p
urposely not posing the way I instructed, so I had to move her.

  “I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am,” I said in her ear, before kissing the side of her neck and causing her to inhale sharply.

  “No, I’m hating this. I never, ever want to do this again. Ever.” She backed up into me and wiggled her hips back and forth. Shit, if she did that much longer, I could give her another bat to hold.

  “Okay, I’m going to go and start it. You ready?”

  She nodded and bit her lip.

  “Sure. Yeah. I’m ready. I let hard objects fly at my face all the time. It’s cool.” She had a helmet on (which she looked adorable in), but she was definitely still freaking out.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.” I stood back and waited. The first ball came and she swung and missed.

  “It’s okay. Just focus.” She swung and missed again, but she was getting closer. The third ball made contact with the bat with a satisfying clang. She turned around and threw a grin over her shoulder at me.

  “Don’t get too cocky, slugger.”

  “I’ll get as cocky as I want.” God, I loved it when she said that word.

  She hit a few more balls and then it was my turn.

  Her ringtone blasted from her purse, which she’d set on the bench where I’d been watching her.

  “Hold up, let me see who that is.” I put my own helmet on and took the bat from her as she dashed to catch the call before it ended.

  Her eyes went wide with shock as she looked at the screen. Wow. I turned and waited. Her eyes flashed toward me and she turned her back and put her finger in her ear so she could hear whoever it was.

  I couldn’t see or hear her voice, and clearly she wanted privacy, but I was dying to know who it was. Probably her mother.

  She shook her head and then she put the phone down. I could see her shaking from several feet away. Shit.

  I dropped the bat and jogged over to her.

  “Aud?”

  Eddie had the results, but he didn’t want to tell me over the phone. He wanted to do it in person and I couldn’t talk him out of coming to where I was. I gave him the address of the batting cages and he said he’d be over soon.