I bit down on a smile. Sometimes I wondered if he’d noticed she was growing up.
“She’s sixteen,” I said gently.
“That’s what scares me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “What do I know about handling a sixteen-year-old who’s interested in boys?”
“Billie was sixteen when you were granted guardianship of her,” I pointed out.
“But she’d had our mother up until then. She knew about the birds and the bees, had already had a woman help to guide her through the milestones. My main role in Billie’s life was to keep her from going off the rails. That didn’t scare me half as much as what’s going on now.”
“Finn, Amelia is great. What you’ve been doing so far is working.”
He grimaced. “A lot of that has been luck and help from people like you.”
“I haven’t done much.”
“Remember the time you took her out for ice cream and it cost me over a hundred dollars?”
I grinned. Amelia had been home for the holidays a few years ago and I’d realized she needed to start wearing bras. So I’d told Finn and Amelia both that I was taking her for ice cream, but bought her five new bras. I’d handed Finn the receipt when I dropped her home, and he’d balked at the amount. “Did you get the ice cream flown in from Norway?” he’d said. I’d just smiled and said, “You can thank me later.” His gaze had skimmed down the receipt and the moment when it landed on the itemized list of what we’d bought, his face had reddened and he’d mumbled, “Er, thank you. I really appreciate that.”
He stopped walking and his dark blue gaze locked on me. “You have to do me a favor.”
“Sure,” I said without hesitation.
“You have to talk to Amelia about the birds and the bees. If she’s had a boy in her room, who knows what she’s been doing? What she knows or doesn’t know. Someone needs to check and make sure she has enough information to make good decisions.”
“She’s sixteen and she has access to the internet,” I said, laughing. “I’m pretty sure she knows all there is to know.”
His gaze was unwavering. “But that’s just the point. She needs an adult she can trust to talk to or she’ll believe everything she reads. Have you seen some of the crap on the internet about sex?”
I sighed. He had a point. “Wouldn’t it be better coming from you?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “You know what I’m like during conversations about your sex life. Imagine how badly I’d handle a conversation with Amelia.”
I winced. There was no arguing with that. “Billie?”
“If Billie was home, I’d ask her to do it, but I don’t want to wait. And we don’t spend enough time with extended family for Amelia to feel comfortable having an intimate conversation with any of them. I know she’d rather it was you. Besides,” he said, with an attempt at an encouraging smile, “you’ll be great.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to her. But she really wants to connect with you. You have to reach out to her.”
“I will, I promise.” He nodded and we started walking back to the house.
Chapter Six
Finn
Two days later, I was in the university office I shared with three other PhD candidates, going over the extra research I’d gathered on ancient flutes. I’d spent most of the time since Amelia had arrived back enrolling her in a local school, organizing uniforms and textbooks, and getting her settled back home. Today she was beginning at her new school, and I had a pile of work to catch up on, so I was less than enthused when there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I called, hoping it wasn’t another student asking for an extension.
Rakesh, one of the lecturers, popped his head around the corner. “Is this a bad time?”
“Nope, it’s fine.”
If I could, I always made time for Rakesh. I’d been a first year taking his class, Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamia, when my parents died. With no way to make my deadlines, I’d nervously gone to him to ask for an extension. Once he knew the reason, he not only gave me the time I’d asked for, but took me under his academic wing and made sure I had enough support to keep studying while juggling my sisters’ needs. After that, I’d gravitated to his specialty—Mesopotamia—mainly because his enthusiasm for the civilization was infectious. It had also been Rakesh who’d suggested my PhD be in archeomusicology when he’d seen how fascinated I was by the ancient instruments, so I owed him big on a few levels.
Today, however, it was an effort to summon much more than a half-hearted smile for him.
Sighing, I dropped my pen on the pile of papers in front of me. “I’ve had a run of requests for an extension this afternoon.”
“You, too?” He sat on the corner of my desk. “Is it just me or are the excuses getting lamer?”
I pushed my chair back and stretched my arms over my head, trying to get the kinks out after spending a couple of hours in the same position. “It’s not just you. I’ve had three students today tell me their computers crashed and they hadn’t backed up their assignments.”
Rakesh shook his head, as if disappointed. “When I was a student, there was creativity in our bad luck stories. A vengeful girlfriend deleted all copies of the file after being dumped on Valentine’s Day. Or my dog ate the USB.”
“Or, there was a power surge that wiped out all the technology in the house,” I added.
Rakesh tapped a pen against the table then flicked it in the air. “You know I’m organizing that departmental fundraiser on in a couple of weeks. You haven’t RSVP’d yet. Should I put you down with a plus one?”
I scrubbed my hands through my hair. “Yeah, but I’m not seeing anyone. I’ll need to find a date.” Perhaps I could take Amelia? I imagined Amelia—the girl who’d been kicked out of her boarding school for having a boy in her room—surrounded by a roomful of university guys, and winced. Maybe not Amelia.
“Bring Scarlett. Everybody loves it when you bring her. She’s fun.”
Scarlett and I were often each other’s plus one, like a backup date, but I really didn’t want to take her this time—I desperately wanted things back to normal with Scarlett, back to where she was my friend and nothing more. Where I wouldn’t lose her. Having her support during the problems with Amelia had shown me more than ever how vital her friendship was to me.
So I needed to find a date.
I looked down at the notes I’d been studying before Rakesh had arrived. I also needed to find some more information on the exact placement of the finger holes on this flute.
“I have to head over to the music department,” I said, standing. “I’ll catch you later, Rakesh.”
As I walked through the grounds of the old university, I smiled. I loved it here—there was a sense of history, of generations of people who loved to learn walking these paths, sitting in these buildings, and dedicating themselves to knowledge for a period of time. In many ways, I never wanted it to end. Which was probably obvious, since doing a PhD meant I hadn’t left yet.
Three floors up, in one of the oldest buildings, I found the office of Marnie and Andrew, a couple of the advanced students who did some tutoring in the music department. They’d offered help in tracking down a hard to get book on reed flutes. When I knocked on the door, Marnie opened it.
“Hey, Finn,” she said brightly. “We were talking about you this morning.”
“In a good way, I assume.”
Andrew pointed to a chair in a corner of their tiny office. “We had some luck finding that book.”
“You have it?” I asked, my mood lifting.
“Not yet,” Marnie said. “But we’ve put in a request for an interlibrary loan, and it should be here in a couple of weeks.”
“I really appreciate this.” Sometimes I thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew by doing a PhD across two departments, so help like this from my colleagues was invaluable.