British Bird - Complete

British Bird - Chapter Forty Eight

British Bird
Chapter Forty Eight
Sang

Gabriel: Have you finished your Christmas shopping, Trouble?
Sang: Not yet. Evie, Cara and I are going shopping tomorrow.
Nathan: Fuck. I forgot to get Evie a present. What does she like?
Silas: I still have to get Ruby one. Little ones are hard to buy for.
Luke: Dude, go to the toy store. Better yet, I'll come with you. They have pink nerf guns.
Sang: She's two, Luke. She doesn't need a nerf gun.
Luke: Raven got her one last week. She's a pro already.
North: Not surprising.
Sean: I got Ruby a baby doll with everything to go with it.
Sang: You're spoiling her.
Gabriel: She's cute.

I shake my head, pressing the button on the side of my phone to lock it. I finally went out with Victor and Kota a few days after my arrival back to Charleston and purchased myself the latest iPhone. Turns out, I couldn't group chat on my old one, which I actually found made it harder when talking to the guys, especially if we were all talking about something similar. Now, we have the group chat, which makes talking about something like Christmas that much easier. If we want to talk privately, then we do so. It works for us, which is all that matters.

Over the last week or so, I've gone on a couple of dates with some of the guys. Kota took me to a science museum on Sunday afternoon, which was followed by a meal of burger and chips from a grill restaurant. Sean took me out for an early breakfast Tuesday morning after he had finished his shift at the hospital and North picked me up Thursday straight from work and took me to the beach on the back of his bike.

Sometimes they will just pop over to Cara and Johnny's house randomly, just to say hi or so we can hang out. A couple of times I've pushed them straight out the door and we've gone to one of their places instead, just for a change of scenery. Whatever we're doing here though, it seems to be working. I make sure communication is key, I want to regularly know that they're okay with this, happy with how it's going, and honestly, I think I just want to reassure myself that we are trying, every single day.

Christmas is in a few days and I can hardly believe I've been here almost a month already. Evie and I started working at the diner two weeks ago. She works throughout the day, and I work afternoons going into evenings. Evie even took Brandon up on his offer to teach her to drive the other day. Brandon had said that it should be easy for us as we've never driven a car before; obviously Evie took him up on the offer and I politely declined.

Everything seems to be going smoothly and just settling into place perfectly. I find I often pinch myself, just to make sure that I'm not stuck in the most wonderful dream.

"What are you looking at?" Cara's voice brings me out of my thoughts. I'm sitting at the breakfast bar, my laptop in front of me. The screensaver is flashing so I must have been lost in my own head for a while.

I close the laptop down. "College. School. Whatever you'd like to call it."

"University." Cara is dressed in a pair of jeans and a mint green knitted jumper that hangs off one shoulder, hair pulled back into a ponytail, simple gold studs on her ears, no make up, just some lip gloss. She looks beautiful. She was thirty one when she fostered me, and even then I thought she was stunning. You wouldn't believe that in another couple years she'll be forty. "Do you want to go back?" She asks, placing her hands on the counter in front of me.

"I think so. I mean, yes I do. I want to help children the way Anne helped me. If it weren't for her, or even you, I'd hate to know how messed up my head would be," I whisper. "I just, now I don't know if I want to be sitting in a classroom."

"What about online?"

"I've thought about it," I sigh. "I've spoke to the guys about it too, and they've made it clear they'd be supportive, whichever way I decide to go about it."