Slow Grind (Men of Mornington)

“He’s gonna be all right, isn’t he?” she asks me as if I have all the answers.

I wish I did.

“You know he is, Aubs. If anyone can pull through this, it’s Max.” I say it for my benefit as much as I do for hers. “Hey, Sam has an idea. Let me show you.” I pull the piece of paper he gave me the day before from my wallet. Aubrey’s probably good at all that research stuff. She’ll be much better at finding out all the details we need to know to get Max on this trial. “Sam thinks Max will be a perfect fit. They’re looking for adult males, between twenty-five and thirty, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, previous cancer survivor. I’m not sure a better experimental treatment could have been created. It has Max’s name written all over it.”

Aubrey reaches down and pulls a laptop from her backpack, as well as a pair of black-rimmed glasses, and fires the computer up. “Do you know the Wi-Fi password here?” she asks. She glances up, waiting for me to answer. It takes me a minute to form words. She was all legs and ass a few moments ago, but now she’s got those sexy frames on her face and hair piled atop her head, giving off some serious, sexy librarian look.

“Yes,” I answer, my face going warm.

“And … it is…?” she presses.

“Assman69,” I state and look away.

“Are you kidding me? That’s my brother’s Wi-Fi password? Assman69?”

“Yes,” I mumble. She throws back her head and laughs, a sound that makes my heart jump. I wince. Since when does a chick make my heart do anything?

“Do boys ever evolve into men? Or is that just a fallacy they teach you in school?”

“I think I’m too biased to answer that honestly.”

She shakes her head and types in the ridiculous password. I don’t have the balls to tell her I was the one who changed the password in an attempt to prank Max a few months ago. I may be twenty-seven years old, but I sure don’t act my age.

Her fingers fly across the keyboard as she searches out any and all information she can find about this program in Europe. Maybe I did something right when I gave her the paper; she’s doing a far better job than I ever would have. The determination in her eyes is powerful as they scan each word on the screen. I can’t stop staring when she starts chewing on her bottom lip as her focus hones further in on whatever it is that she’s found. It almost gives me chills. She’s looking for any bit of hope that Max might beat this.

“This is amazing, Drew,” she breathes, glancing up at me. “Have you looked into this at all?”

“Yeah, Sam and I talked about it yesterday,” I lie, not wanting to admit I’m not great with computers. I can search for porn like an expert. After that, my skills are limited to updating my Facebook status and checking my email.

“Has Max seen it?” she asks, furrowing her brows.

I shake my head. “We didn’t want to get his hopes up until we knew if it was something we could pull off or not. It’s expensive, Aubs, like real expensive. That’s kind of what Sam and I wanted to talk to you about.” I hesitate. “Your trust.”

“You know I can’t touch it until I’m twenty-five. Same as Max.” She frowns with her statement and blows out a puff of air. “I couldn’t even borrow against it to buy an apartment in New York. My dad couldn’t even sign on it with me.”

“Do you think there’s any way around the way it’s set up? For emergencies?”

“No. If there were, I’d do it in a heartbeat. You know I would. Our grandparents were very specific when they left the money to us in their will. They knew our parents were not in the best of places financially and didn’t want either of them to be able to bully us into giving them any of the money left specifically for us to start our lives after college. It was really smart, but right now, it sucks so bad.”

“Fuck. Maybe your parents?” I ask hopefully. Maybe Sam was wrong and good old Frank can swing this.

“How expensive are we talking, Drew?”

“Sam put the numbers around a hundred grand,” I admit.

“Fuck,” she hisses. “That’s more than expensive. That’s out of reach. There’s no way we can get that kind of cash.” She closes the laptop and carefully sets it on the table. Pushing her glasses up her face to rest at the mess of dark blonde hair on her head, she sighs loudly.

“We just need to put our heads and our bank accounts together,” I say reassuringly, refusing to give up. “I know nobody has that much money just lying around, but if we work together, I’m sure we can think of something.”

“Think of what?” Aubrey says, throwing her hands up, frustrated and defeated. “Short of me selling my body, there’s nothing. Do you know the going rate for dick sucking these days? I bet I’d have to swallow a lot of cocks to even put a dent in that number,” she jokes, and I swallow hard.

“You don’t swallow cock, Aubs. You swallow what spurts out of them,” I say with a chuckle, but she doesn’t find it as funny as I do, obviously.

She glares at me and my grin disappears. Unfortunately, the restriction in my pants doesn’t. It wasn’t enough with the legs, the arse, and the glasses; now she’s gotta talk about sucking dick? God help me.

“Aubs, forget it. I highly doubt Max would let you whore yourself out for money to spend on an experimental treatment. Or any treatment for that matter.” I don’t mention that neither will I. There’s no way in hell she’s going to be out there doing any of that.

“Okay, so prostitution isn’t going to do it.” Her eyes gleam, and I groan, wondering what insane idea she’s going to come out with next. “I can dance. That was my major. I may not be the sexiest woman out there, but I’ve got some moves. I am the reigning Kappa Queen of the Dance Floor … two years running.” She appears proud with her silly title, and I’m having a hard time not imagining her sexy hips swirling with the beat to just about any song I can think of.