Gifted Connections 1

Will and Jemmy looked at each other and smiled.

“Now, cut the cake!” Jax exclaimed.

I giggled and took the knife Drake gave me, cutting the decadent looking chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I handed pieces to Ben, who started to pass them down to the end of the table.

Jax wolfed down his cake and came back with a little gift bag. “First birthday gift,” he said excitedly.

I opened it up and found three Alex and Ani bracelets. One had a charm with a music note on it. The other one had a circular charm with November written on it and a topaz birthstone in it. The third one looked custom made with a ? on it.

“Thank you, Jax,” I said and stood up and gave him a huge hug.

He kissed my temple. “I know you don’t have any of your own jewelry, so I figured you need some of your own.”

“My turn,” Troy stated as he handed me an appointment card with a name of a martial arts studio on it for next Saturday. “Next semester, you will be starting your self-defense classes in PE, so I figured you can get a head start.”

After seeing him practice, I was truly intrigued with martial arts, so this was a great gift too. At this rate, I would be crying once more.

I gave him a hug and let him rub my back for a few moments.

“You already saw my gift,” Remy stated.

I looked at him inquiringly.

He pointed at the baby grand piano. “It’s yours. If you ever find a spot that you want to call your own, I’ll have it moved. If not, you can always leave it here.”

I did start crying then. I never thought I could ever own anything so nice.

Remy picked me up and whispered in my ear, “I didn’t want to make you cry.” He sounded so uncomfortable.

I laughed and buried my head in his shoulder. “I’m just really, really happy and for some reason I’m hypersensitive today.” I sat back and looked at him. “Thank you, I never thought I could ever have anything so nice.”

“Well, you do,” he kissed my forehead.

“Our turn,” Jemmy exclaimed with Rachel by her side. They handed me a scrapbook and I opened it.

I smiled at her as I flipped through the pages. There were so many photos of me and the people that started to mean so much to me and Ella. There were photos of me with the guys individually and together, me and the band, me and Ella, me and Rachel, and me and Jemmy. “Thank you,” I hugged them. “I love them.”

Drake handed me a gift bag and there was an iPod and a one hundred dollar Apple iTunes gift card in it. “Since you’ve been running a lot lately, I figured you might like to have your own tunes to listen to.”

“Did you get tired of me borrowing your iPod?” I teased him.

He turned red. “No, I didn’t mind you borrowing it. If you want, you can take it back and I’ll let you keep borrowing mine.”

“You know,” I teased as I hugged him as I whispered in his ear, “I’ve been making decent money lately and I looked at the iPods, but I kind of liked the fact you created my own running playlist on your iPod.”

He chuckled. “Well, by all means, continue using mine.”

“No,” I sighed with a laugh. “But can you show me how this all works? I don’t know much about technology.”

“You can download your music onto here,” Noah handed me a wrapped package and I gasped as I opened it.

Inside was a new laptop. I had been going to the library at the college to write all my papers. I didn’t think anyone had noticed.

“Thank you, Noah,” I went to kiss his cheek, but saw Stacey glaring at me, so I awkwardly hugged him.

Once again, I wish he hadn’t invited her along and I noticed the smell of beer was heavy on him. I frowned and felt a sadness settle in my chest. I didn’t know how I could help him, or if he even wanted help. Every time I tried to talk to him, he brushed me off, laughed, and acted like I was overreacting.

Jace came over and handed me a large square box. I opened the box and stared in wonder at the violin with a hard case. “Dr. Allen informed me that you are picking it up quite quickly. He’s really impressed with you.”