“Sure. I could eat.” That sounded less excited and more like me.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let me text her so she doesn’t crawl in bed and hide before then.”

CHAPTER FORTY

VALE

MY ROOMMATE’S NAME was Jude. I’d never heard of a girl called Jude, but I thought that was cool. Very unique. She was also incredibly shy. I was okay with that. I would definitely get quiet time, and for that, I considered myself lucky.

When my parents finally left, my brother texted that he was taking me to dinner. He didn’t ask. He told me. I would rather unpack my room and read a book, but I agreed to go. I would unpack tomorrow. Jude was busy unpacking her many, many stuffed animals and placing them on her bed.

She had a soft blue bunny in her hands that she was being more gentle with than the others. My curiosity and the silence in the room got the best of me, so I decided to ask.

“You collect those?”

She stopped debating where to put the bunny and turned to look at me. She had big brown eyes and a chubby face with freckles. Her dark blond hair was cut short and she looked younger than a college freshman. But who was I to judge? Maybe I did, too.

“Not exactly,” she said in a soft voice. I wondered if she ever talked louder.

I gave her a moment to respond, wondering if “not exactly” was all the answer I was going to get.

Finally, as I was about to ask more, she put the blue bunny on her bed and picked up a very old yellow bear and showed me. “This was the first one. My birth mother sent it to me on my first birthday. Then every year after, she sent me a stuffed animal on my birthday. My mom said it was my birth mother’s way of letting me know she thought of me and was glad I had a good home. So I kept them with me at night. To remind me I had two mothers who cared about me and that was … special.”

I had not been expecting that explanation.

“That’s beautiful,” I replied honestly.

She smiled then, and her face was really pretty when she smiled. “It is, isn’t it?”

I was going to like Jude.

“How old were you when you were adopted?” I asked, without wondering if that was appropriate to ask.

“My parents brought me home from the hospital after I was born. My birth mother was only fifteen. She wasn’t ready to raise a child.”

I had gone to high school with a fifteen-year-old mom. It had been hard on her. I remember her coming in to school late, looking exhausted, after the baby was born. She had late nights with her newborn and still managed to get to school that first year. By the time the baby was a year old, though, she had dropped out and ended up getting her GED. I couldn’t really blame her.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Oklahoma City,” she said. “A long way from home.”

I was only a little over an hour away. I couldn’t imagine being that far from my parents. “Yeah, it is.”

She sighed and pulled out one more stuffed animal from the box. It was a pink elephant that she placed in front. “That’s my newest one,” she said. “My birthday was last week.”

I wanted to know if she had ever met her birth mother, but I figured I’d pried enough at this point. So I didn’t ask any more. “All eighteen of them,” I replied with a smile.

“Guess I should unpack some,” I said, standing up and going for a box. I still had an hour before Knox would be picking me up for dinner.

“There are two shelves in the bathroom. Which one do you want?” Jude asked.

I shrugged. “You go ahead and unpack. I’ll take whatever you don’t use. I’m not picky.”

“Okay. I’ll take the higher shelf since I’m taller, if that’s okay.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Things in this part of my new life were going to be easy enough. I just wasn’t sure about the rest of it.

* * *

KNOX TEXTED ME that he was outside a little over an hour later, so I told Jude good-bye and grabbed my purse to go down and meet him. What he hadn’t told me was that he was bringing a friend.

I stepped outside and smiled at Slate Allen. I hadn’t seen him since the night he came to our house to eat. My dream about him that night hadn’t been the only one. I had dreamed of him several nights a week since then. The dreams were vivid … and sometimes explicit. I hadn’t wanted to face him.

However, I did think about him and his uncle a lot. He had read to me when I was in my coma, and I wanted to do something for him. So I’d visited his uncle twice. Mom had made him some pound cake once, and another time she sent him meat loaf. She made the best meat loaf. I liked his uncle, who insisted that I call him Uncle D. He had known exactly who I was and seemed happy for me to visit. I just wish I’d been able to go visit him again before he was sent back home to Huntsville.

“Hello, Slate. It’s nice to see you again,” I said, sounding a little too proper, but I didn’t know what else to say. I had dreamed of him with a lot less clothing on and I was afraid my cheeks would heat.

“You settling in okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yes, thank you. I hear you’re stuck with him all year,” I said, nudging my brother as we began to walk out to his truck. Anything to make this seem less awkward. It was only so for me, though. I was the one having wild naughty dreams about him.

“Or he’s stuck with me,” Slate replied.

“More like I’m stuck with him,” Knox said, making Slate chuckle.

I wasn’t going to ask about their frat house life. Some things a sister did not need to know.

“How’s your uncle?” I asked Slate, changing the subject to something I was actually concerned about.

“Hanging in there. He’s in pain, though,” Slate said.

“Tell him hello for me. Or maybe you could give me his mailing address and I could send him a letter. I had hoped I’d get by to see him at least one more time before he went back home. I had promised him some of Momma’s apple pie my next visit.”

Glancing over at Slate, I noticed he had a confused frown on his face. Was I not supposed to tell him I took his uncle food?

“You visited Uncle D?” he asked, slowing down.

I had assumed his uncle would have told him. I hoped I wasn’t telling him something Uncle D didn’t want him to know. “Yes,” I finally replied with caution.

Knox began to laugh, and Slate looked at him, then back at me.

“The sneaky bastard. That’s where the lemon pound cake came from.”

Knox continued to laugh.

“I took him some pound cake that Momma sent and went to visit him two days after the dinner you came to. You’d mentioned him and I figured he could use some company and something good to eat. I hope that’s okay.”

I wasn’t sure why it wouldn’t be okay. Slate had read to me and brought my family coffee and muffins often. I appreciated him doing that and wanted to do something in return.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

SLATE

THE OLD MAN had spent time with Vale. No wonder he was so curious about her and concerned about how she was doing. But he didn’t tell me. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to keep that a secret, but I’d call him out on it at the next visit. Might even take him a lemon pound cake to do it.

“I’m sure you made his day with your visits. He just didn’t tell me about them, so I was surprised. Guess he wanted to keep you to himself.”