Chapter 27: Redemption
It was strange to be at Rupert’s unpacking her luggage, waiting for William to make room in his closet and drawers for her clothes. Strange…because things hadn’t quite clicked into place yet, hadn’t quite registered that this is where she would be staying. How long, though? Was it temporary? It didn’t feel that way, not when William shoved his suitcase on the top shelf in his closet, well out of sight.
Buffy sat on his bed and watched him. It was the same bed she’d laid on to look at his yearbook before he tried to end things between them. That seemed so far away now, as if they were different people then.
Because things felt different now. She didn’t know yet if it was good or if it was bad. They’d talked a little bit about it that morning when they left the hotel but she was still unsure, still feeling out of sorts.
“Right, so…you can take the left side,” William said with his hands on his hips as he stood in front of the closet. “Top two drawers are mine and the rest are yours.” He smiled at her.
“Ok.” She returned his smile and set to work putting her things away.
He had wire hangers and a couple of bright blue plastic ones. She preferred wood, but these would have to do. Her sweaters would need to be folded, and her pants and skirts would suffer from not having proper clip hangers. She looked at his clothes and noticed how he folded his pants over the hanger in the middle. With a sideways frown, she did the same, making a mental note to ask if they could get some better hangers later.
There was enough room for her stuff in the large closet, which she was grateful for, but his clothes were arranged all wrong. Pants and tops mixed together in no particular order, colors all over the place, and…did he fold his damn jacket on a hanger? Oh God, she’d have to go through this at some point and straighten it out. He’d probably be grateful for the organization that would surely make his life easier.
In the hotel room they’d shared so many months ago, once they’d gone shopping for William’s new wardrobe, she had put his clothes away for him. He’d kept up with her system easily in the short time they stayed there. Maybe living out of suitcase for a couple of months knocked him out of the routine.
It was just so weird. She’d been anxious to see him for so long, desperate to in fact, and now that he was here it was just…well…
“Hungry?”
“Hm?” She turned around quickly, holding a pleated skirt in her hands, unsure of the best way to hang it up without clips.
“I asked if you were hungry.” He walked over to her slowly, had that look in his eye that made her shiver, and she smiled demurely, turning back around to finish putting her clothes away, trying to fit her things into his personal space.
“I’m good for now. Might get hungry in an hour or so.” She felt his hands slide around her waist and he kissed the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and her arms sagged, her skirt dangling from her hand. He was making a habit out of distracting her while she was in a closet. That was twice in one day now.
“An hour, huh?” His fingers teased the waistband of her pants and she heard him inhaling slowly, probably smelling her hair. He hummed his approval and pressed against her backside.
“Maybe.” She opened her eyes and shrugged him off. “Let me put my stuff away.” She could practically feel his pout.
“But you’re so cute.” His hands swept up to her breasts and she moaned when he pinched her nipples. “And you like it.”
She smiled and shook her head, trying to distract him as she started hanging her clothes again but her raised arms only gave him more ammo. His hands slid beneath her top and he was breathing heavily now. “Come on,” he said softly.
“Will you please let me put my stuff away?” She didn’t mean to say it as curtly as she did, but he dropped his hands and backed up a bit. She looked at him over her shoulder.
“Fine.” He folded his arms and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. She almost gave in, but after she quickly turned around, she was able to regain her focus. “Meanie.”
She bit her lip to keep from giggling when she heard him collapse on his back on the bed with an angry huff. They’d already had sex twice that morning so he could get over it.
Things were just…off. Like someone had picked them up and turned to the left and set them down sideways. All the original components were still there, still buzzing beneath the surface, but out of sync, out of place. Maybe it was just her.
“Gonna call up Dad, let him know we’re here,” William said, yawning as he stretched out on the bed and reached for his phone on the nightstand.
“Ok.” She listened to him as she shoved her panties and socks and things into drawers, smiling at how easily he conversed with Rupert. Maybe they’d patched things up while he was gone. He hadn’t mentioned it in his letters.
“No, I’m quite clean, thank you,” she heard him say with a playful tone. “Yes, I shaved. No!” He laughed and she turned to look at him. He was smiling, his feet rubbing together and his eyes were twinkling as he listened to the person on the other line. He laughed again. “That’s because he’s stoned, love.”
Her eyes widened at that and he had her full attention now, though he didn’t seem to be aware that Buffy was listening and watching.
He covered his eyes as he laughed once more. “I’m sorry. Aww, poor thing. All alone with Rupes and Vijay.”
Buffy knew exactly who he was talking to. And he was smiling and laughing, and rubbing his feet, and not realizing that she was standing at the foot of the bed and he’d called her love and why the hell was he talking to her?
She folded her arms with a pair of lacy panties hanging from one hand and glared at him.
“Yes, very happy.” His warm smile faltered when he finally spotted Buffy only a few feet away. He gave her a questioning look and Buffy raised an eyebrow as if he should know why she was standing there.
“Listen, I need to go. Just…yes, Miranda. Yes, Miranda. Yes, Miranda, got it! Jesus Christ, woman. Ok. Tell Rupert I called.” He chuckled again. “Take care. Bye.” He hung up the phone and folded his arms over his chest and smiled at her innocently.
Buffy pursed her lips and turned back around to finish putting her clothes away. She heard him sigh.
“Buffy.”
“Nothing.”
“I didn’t ask you anything.”
“Yeah, well…” She slammed the bottom drawer closed.
“Miranda says hello.”
“Miranda can kiss my ass,” she said quietly to herself.
“What?”
“I said…that’s nice of her.” Her voice sounded fake to her as well.
“Buffy.”
“William.” She opened a drawer she’d already filled to double check that her tees were folded properly.
“Will you look at me?”
She sighed and turned around. “I’m looking now.”
He clicked his tongue and looked at her knowingly with a tilted head. “Are you serious?”
She inhaled and switched her weight to the other foot and folded her arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right.” He looked annoyed as he got off the bed and walked past her to the door. “I’m going out for a smoke.”
She heard the door shut and she sighed.
* * *
They were sitting at an enormous dining table that Marta had thankfully dusted before she left that evening, playing a game of go fish. William told Marta that she wouldn’t be needed while he and Buffy stayed there. She’d insisted that Rupert was a cheap bastard and she wasn’t going anywhere. He’d laughed and shrugged his shoulders, not really caring one way or the other. Marta wasn’t the best maid but she was one hell of a cook. He had a feeling Buffy’s boredom would catch up with her eventually and she’d be OCDing the house clean in no time. He’d seen her taking little mental notes of things that weren’t properly cleaned when she thought he wasn’t looking, using the same scrutiny she had the first time they’d come here.
She’d swipe her finger down the surface of a table and rub it with her thumb and frown. She’d smell closets. Her eyes would widen at any sort of disarray. He loved her little quirks. When he graded papers in the days he was a priest and teacher, he wouldn’t even have to look at the name on the top to know that he was staring at Buffy’s work. Her handwriting was impeccable, every letter spaced perfectly and neatly. If she made a mistake, she scratched it out with one solid line that rarely, if ever, slanted up or down. Straight across and hard and neat. When they started…well, dating wasn’t really the right word to use. But when their relationship began, she started writing in cursive. He wondered why the abrupt change but shrugged it off. Once, and he had to double check, but once, she’d turned in a book report with spirals that she’d drawn in one corner.
“Have you got any queens?”
“Nope. Go fish.” Buffy made sure that her cards all met at one point on the bottom and fanned out prettily at the top, all numbers in sequential order. “Do you have any fives?”
He knew she was pissed earlier about the phone call but it wasn’t his fault that Miranda answered. Besides, he was in a really good mood and didn’t want to spoil it with what he considered a lose/lose conversation. Buffy was going to think what she wanted anyway, no matter how much he would have reassured her that there was nothing to worry over.
He slammed two fives on the table and pursed his lips. “Cheater.”
“I’m not cheating,” she said, grinning as she stuffed his fives in her hand. “I’m just good. Now give me that seven you have in your hand.” She arranged her cards and cocked one eyebrow.
To that, he smiled. “Don’t have one.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You asked me for sevens earlier.”
“I asked, doesn’t mean I have any.”
She glared at him. “Now who’s the cheater?”
“Not cheating, love. Got skills, that’s all. I ask for a random card and if you don’t have it, I’ll know the minute you do because you’ll ask me for it, assuming I’m holding it. I’m brilliant, not a cheater. That’s what you wanted to say.”
She’d zoned out when he said love. When he asked her for threes, she just shook her head and stared at her cards. He set his cards down. Folded his hands on the table. Leaned forward. “What is it?”
She chewed on her lip and started bouncing and he figured that tiny foot of hers was wiggling beneath the table. “Do you have any queens?”
He put his hand on her arm and pulled her hands down to the table. “I love you.”
She stared at him for a minute. A corner of her mouth twitched. Then she looked back at her cards. “I want to be an actress.”
His eyebrows strained to meet in the middle and he sat back in his chair. She looked up at him then and he saw the worry in her eyes. “You want to be an actress?”
She set her cards down, turned over of course because he was totally cheating, and then tucked her hands between her legs. “Sister Margaret helped get me into theater this semester. I got one of the lead roles in The Crucible.”
He smiled proudly. “Abigail?”
She nodded, smiling a little. “Yeah. I don’t know. I like acting, playing different people.”
“Well, I’m sure you were amazing. Wish I could have seen the play.”
She started to drift away again, staring at the table and looking pensive. “They probably had Stephanie fill my place.” She picked up her cards. “She was my understudy.”
William exhaled with harsh realization. “You never got to perform it?”
“Nope. Got kicked out of school.” She tried to laugh but it came out weird so she cleared her throat.
“I’m sorry, Buffy.”
She shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”
He closed his eyes. Because it was his fault. She wouldn’t have been expelled if it weren’t for him. She twisted the knife, completely unaware of what she was saying. She really was just sharing with him, but William’s guilt rushed to the surface with every word she said next.
“It just figures. I spend most of my life not really knowing what I want to do or having really any friends and then I finally figure it out and even started hanging out with a few girls and…it just sucks. They had posters with my name on it by the cafeteria. I wonder if they took them down.”
He was silent for a long time and he really didn’t want to play cards any more. She didn’t continue the game, she just sat there rearranging her cards over and over, straightening the sets on the table that she’d won in a perfect row.
“I was going to visit St. Mary’s tomorrow,” he finally said, “to figure out what we can do about your situation. Maybe I can—”
“No,” she said, squeezing his hand. “It’s ok. Really, I was just talking. I’m ok.”
She smiled at him and he pulled her chair around the corner of the table so she was sitting beside him and he kissed her, long and sweet, pulling back to press his forehead against hers. “I love you, Buffy. I’m so sorry that…” She shrugged again and he tilted her head up to look him in the eyes. “No. Don’t brush me off. I’m sorry.”
Her lip trembled and she nodded. Then she wiped her eyes and leaned against his shoulder, exhaling a shaky breath when he rubbed her arm and kissed her forehead. “I don’t know what to do now. Everything is so weird and I don’t even feel…I’m being dumb.”
“No you aren’t. What were you going to say?”
“I hate Miranda.”
He laughed so hard she vibrated against him and it managed to make her smile. He squeezed her shoulder and kissed her temple. “Now there’s a curveball.”
“Making you laugh and say love and rubbing your feet together.” She frowned and picked at the edge of the table.
“Rubbing my feet together?”
“Yes! You do that when you’re excited and it’s maybe one of my favorite things.”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying not to laugh at her adorable fretting. He ran his hand through her hair. “Ever occur to you that I was rubbing my feet because I was talking about you?”
She looked at him bashfully. “No.”
“She asked me if I’d managed to shave and clean up nice for you, if I got laid immediately and if I was done sulking like a pussy.” She let out a little snort of a laugh and then he said sarcastically, “Then she asked me to meet her at the smoke stacks at 3 a.m. so we could have secret sex.”
“Shut up,” she said, laughing, realizing how silly she’d been for doubting him.
“If you think for a minute that you’re not the only woman for me, you’re insane.”
She smiled at him, her eyes shining, and then she kissed him. “I might be a little insane.”
He grinned, his hand still idly stroking her hair. “Tell you what. I’ll go to the school tomorrow and settle matters with that bastard Caleb, we’ll grab a late lunch and then we’ll go buy you some wooden hangers.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “How did you—
“Don’t think I didn’t see the disdain in that brow of yours earlier. Know you better than you think.”
She sighed sweetly at him as he picked up his cards, which he held in no particular order, grinning at her triumphantly like the handsome devil he was. Suddenly, things were starting to click into place.
* * *
She made a vow to herself that she would never step foot in that school again and she was going to keep it.
“You won’t come in?” William asked her, clutching the steering wheel as they sat in the parking lot of St. Mary’s. She knew he was probably just as nervous but she couldn’t go in there. She wouldn’t.
“I’ll sit right here,” she said, opening the book she’d stolen from her ex-roommate called Wicked Lovely, “and read this book.” She snuggled up in the front seat and William sighed.
“Can I stay?”
She looked up at his sad face and giggled, kissing him chastely. “What’s the matter, are you scared?”
“No.” He groaned. “Just…I know he’s a priest and having been one myself for a decade, I understand partly where he’s coming from. But he really deserves an ass kicking.”
“You are not going to hit a priest!”
“I know.” His lips wrinkled as he grimaced. “Want to, though. Stupid todger.”
“Hey.” She wiggled down the bench seat towards him, biting her lip with a tiny grin. “I love you.”
He smiled as he looked at his knees. “All right. I’m going in.”
“Good luck, soldier.” She kissed him on the cheek and watched him get out of the car and walk towards the front entrance. Buffy crouched down in her seat when Sister Margaret came outside and she peeked over her book to watch them so she wouldn’t be seen.
Sister Margaret looked shocked, then William put his hand on her arm and she started to cry. William looked down at her with concern and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they walked inside. Buffy exhaled when the school doors closed behind them.
She could not get into this book. She’d been trying to read it for a week now and every time she picked it up, she just wanted to sigh. Kings and fairies and seduction and whatever! But everyone told her how good it was so she pressed on, wishing she could somehow relate to the plot. It had been an hour.
An hour! What was he doing in there?
God, what if he’d lost his temper and hit Father Caleb? Sure, he deserved it, but Buffy didn’t fancy herself to be the type of girl that dated men in jail. Just when her nerves could barely take it any longer, she saw the double doors swing wide and William emerged. Though he was several yards away, she could see his sparkling teeth and she smiled, too. He was holding something in his hand but she couldn’t tell what it was.
He strutted towards her like John Travolta and she started laughing, anxious to hear the tale. Then he finally got in the car, dimples in his cheeks and his teeth pinching his bottom lip as he started up the engine.
“Well?”
He put his arm on the back of her seat, looked over his shoulder as he pulled out and tossed something in her lap. “Looks like Willie’s still got friends in high places.”
“What are you talking about?” Her hands went to the rolled up piece of paper he’d tossed her way but she couldn’t peel her eyes away from him.
“Called up a friend this morning to push things along. Father Wesley. You don’t know him. Anyway, Caleb’s up for a trial with the Diocese this weekend.” Buffy frowned and when he’d pulled to a stop at a red light he said, “You’re not alone in this.” He grabbed her hand and smiled. “Sister Margaret’s seen to that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Caleb’s been suspended and Father Wesley is filling in for him until the trial is over. Can’t believe how fast they get things rolling. Anyway, as far as that wanker’s concerned, he won’t be seeing another school again and he’ll be lucky if he’s still got the priesthood by the end of it.”
Buffy didn’t know what was happening. “So, what does this mean?”
“Well, you’re still expelled. Sorry ‘bout that. But he’s got what’s coming to him and that’s what’s most important. We’ll see about your records but in the meantime, we need to figure out what you want to do. If you want to enroll in a public school or get your G.E.D. Make a decision by this weekend. Not many weeks left in the school year.”
“Ok.” She frowned. “What do you think I should do?”
William turned the car into a parking lot when he spotted the restaurant where they were going to eat lunch and put it in park. “It’s not up to me. You make the call and I’ll follow suit.” He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “Are you gonna look at that or not?”
“Huh?” At his tilted head, her mouth dropped open with realization, remembering the item in her lap. “Oh! Sorry.”
She laughed a bit and unrolled the tube of paper, smiling at him before she turned to look. She gasped, and felt tears brimming in her eyes. He’d snagged a poster by the cafeteria for her. Her picture was displayed proudly, right in the center, wearing the costume for the play. Her name was to the side, right on the top of the rest of the cast. A corner was torn away from where he’d pulled the tape off, but that was ok. It was perfect.
“You look pretty in a bonnet,” he said softly, not wanting to jar her out of the moment.
She broke out in watery giggles. “Thank you.” She set it down carefully and hugged him, murmuring against his ear as he caressed her back. “Thank you.”