Slowly We Trust (Fall and Rise #3)(51)
Author: Chelsea M. Cameron

“I can tell. What are you thinking about?” He closed his book and gave me his full attention. Just for now, I wished he wouldn’t do that.

“Oh, just this assignment. I’m trying to figure out how I want to approach it. What I want to say in my paper. How to start.”

“Well, they say the beginning is a good place to start.” He smirked at me and got up from the bed to come and give me a kiss. I quickly clicked out of the blank email and pulled up a paper I’d been working on earlier.

“Will Anders, did you just quote The Sound of Music?”

“No. Absolutely not. I would never do such a thing.” He leaned his chin on my shoulder. “Are you done yet?”

“I told you, I’m having trouble starting.”

He sighed and then kissed the top of my head and went back to his book.

It was another week before I got the results of the cheek swab.

I wasn’t a match.

In the time between taking the test and getting the results, I’d done some research and found that only about 30 percent of family members were a match. You wouldn’t think that, but it was true.

I had to call my mom and tell her I wasn’t a match. She hung up on me.

The draft of the email to Eddie was still blank. I knew time was off the essence and I had to get in contact with him ASAP. For my daughter’s sake.

“Still working on that paper?” Will and I were doing homework at the library again, but this time a few members of the group had joined us. We’d claimed a corner of the third floor of the library and were all spread out, each working on our respective tasks. The only absent members were Trish and Brady, who were both working.

“Yeah. It’s going to kill me,” I said, laughing a little.

“Let me know if you need any help. I’m pretty good at writing papers.” Lottie snorted from across the table.

“Yeah, you’re great at writing papers, as long as you can copy everything from Wikipedia.” He tore a piece of notebook paper, balled it up and threw it at her. Or he tried to. Zan caught it before it hit Lottie in the face.

“Come on. Have some respect for the library,” he said, his face dead serious. Will just rolled his eyes.

“You don’t have to tell me to respect the library. I’ve gotten enough of that from our mother to last a lifetime. She used to lecture us over and over about how much damage human touch did to books, and so on and so forth. I get it.”

“Will you shut up? I’m trying to work here,” Simon said, giving us all a glare that shut everyone up.

We all went back to work for a while and I finally started typing the email to Eddie. I agonized about each word, even though it was one of the shortest emails I’d ever written. I just said that I’d lost his number, but found his email on Facebook and wondered if we could meet somewhere and talk.

I clicked Send before I could change my mind and then went back to my other homework.

Aud was being really weird. She claimed to be working on a paper, but then she’d sit there and stare at her computer for ages, fingers not doing any typing. I caught a glimpse of her screen and it was blank. I’d never seen her struggle so much with anything before, especially not a stupid paper. She never shied away from academics. That was her wheelhouse.

She also seemed to drift off more than usual, but I blamed that on having to see her parents last weekend. They’d really done a number on her. It was probably a good thing that I hadn’t gone to her house, because I might have lost it and given them a piece of my mind.

It made me almost shake with anger every time I thought about it.

Valentine’s Day was coming up. Holy shit. I had to do something amazing for Aud, but I had no idea what. My best idea had been the tickets to Universal and those had nearly bankrupted me.

I asked Lottie one night while she and I cleaned up after dinner and Aud tried to play the banjo with Stryker and Zan. They were working on “Stand By Your Man” followed by “Crazy” by Patsy Cline.

“You’d better do something good. She deserves something awesome,” she said.

“No shit. That’s why I’m asking you,” I said, taking one of the dishes she handed me and putting it in the dishwasher.

“Well, I’m trying to figure out what to do for Zan. I know he’s going to do something amazing, and he’s kind of hard to shop for. He hates most everything except Rumi poetry, me, running, records and that old lighter from his grandfather. And he already has all of those things. I’m screwed.” She sighed and leaned on the counter.

“You could just wrap yourself in a bow.”

She gave me a look.

“Now back to my problem. What do I get Aud?”

Lottie thought about it for a second.

“Well, she loves Harry Potter, so definitely something to do with that. Or something that only you two share or know about. Don’t you dare go to the drugstore and get her a crappy card and box of chocolates.”

“Like I would ever do something like that,” I said, taking another dish from the sink. “Okay, so I might have done it with Kandy, but this is different. You know this is different.”

“Yeah, I do,” she said, smiling at Zan as he placed Aud’s fingers in the right places on the fret of the banjo.

“What about a joint gift? Then we could pool our resources.” I suggested.

“I don’t know. That might work. Let me think about it.” I put the rest of the dishes in the dishwasher, then put in the detergent and turned it on.

“How are the lessons going?” I said, sitting down next to Aud. Who knew the banjo could be a sexy instrument? Not I, until this moment.

“Not very well. I’m apparently the only one in this group with no musical talent,” Aud said, almost pouting. “Of course I’m the odd one out.”

“That’s not true, I’m sure. This is only your first lesson. You’ll get it,” I said, putting my arm around her. I wasn’t a musical prodigy by any means, but I’d picked up a few things on the guitar and banjo. And I could kind of sing.

“I give up and my fingers are sore,” she said, handing the banjo back to Zan, who put the strap around himself and started playing “Get Up Get Down” by Phillip Phillips.

“Your fingers are supposed to be sore. That means you’re learning,” Stryker said. “If you haven’t bled while learning, you will never learn.”

“That sounds awful,” Aud said.