I was taken aback by her honesty. I also respected the hell out of her for it.
And for that alone, I answered, “I’ve always been in love with Flint. It’s present tense for me.”
“Good,” she drawled on a breath.
I dropped my head and watched her from the corner of my eye as I said, “Which is exactly why I’m not sure I can stay.”
“I’m gonna do a quick time-out on you hating me.” She threw her arms around me in an awkward side hug. “I know Flint and it’s present tense for him too.” She squeezed me tight for several seconds then released me and reclined in her chair. “Time in,” she whispered.
Crossing her legs, she retrieved a sketchpad and pencil from her purse. She didn’t attempt to engage me in any further conversation as we waited for the fights to start. Instead, she silently drew an elaborate pair of eyes. I watched in awe as Flint’s long, black lashes came to life through the lines on her page. When she finished, she didn’t even lift her head to acknowledge me. She just tore the paper out and passed it over to me.
I eagerly took it. Those were Flint’s eyes, and they belonged to me—even if it was her hand that had drawn them.
Her kind, sweet, and saintly hand, which I couldn’t even hate anymore.
Damn it!
“WELL WELL WELL! LOOK WHAT the gimp dragged in.” Quarry spoke and signed when we walked into the locker room after the fight—a fight he had easily won with a knockout in the third round.
“Oh my God, you’re huge!” I squealed as he lifted me off my feet in a bear hug. “Look at you, all grown up.” I stepped away and teasingly raked my eyes up and down his body as he proudly flexed and struck different poses. “Damn, Q. if I had known you were gonna look like this, I might have let you feel my boobs all those times you tried.”
He busted out laughing. “Who says I didn’t? You’re a pretty deep sleeper.” Smirking, he dodged the punch I halfheartedly threw at his shoulder.
“You little perv.”
“Dude, where the hell have you been?” He fluidly signed every word as he spoke.
I hated every single second of it.
While we’d waited for Q to shower and change, Flint had filled me in on Quarry’s hearing loss. He’d told me that it had started really going downhill around his sixteenth birthday. Thankfully, because of Till, they were all already fluent in sign language, and Quarry was already attending a private school for the deaf, so it hadn’t been a drastic change for him. To hear Flint tell it, though, it was “no big deal.” I had a sneaking suspicion that Quarry probably didn’t feel the same way.
“Well, I’ve spent the last three years in various mental health facilities trying to get over the horrifying images I saw of you getting out of the shower the night I left.”
“Shut the hell up.” He laughed.
“I’m serious, Quarry. I hear penile implants are all the rage these days. You should look into it.”
“You got jokes, huh?” he said without signing, but only because his hands were busy scooping me up off the ground and tossing me over his shoulder.
I was howling with laughter as he spun in a circle.
“No,” Flint suddenly barked when one of Quarry’s hands disappeared. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he growled.
Q’s shoulders began shaking with laughter beneath me before he placed me back on my feet. He looked at Flint, but his words were directed at me out of the corner of his mouth. “Apparently, I’m not allowed to slap your ass anymore.”
“Anymore?” I asked, also staring at Flint, who didn’t appear to be even remotely amused.
“Okay, so you’re a really deep sleeper.”
I punched him in the shoulder, hurting my hand because he’d flexed just before it had landed. “Son of a bitch.” I shook it out as Quarry laughed.
His laughing stopped as the door creaked open behind me. I was more focused on my poor knuckles than anything else though. It wasn’t until I saw the way the sound had transformed Quarry’s bright-hazel eyes into a deep, sexy smolder that I decided to spin to see who had joined us.
An obviously excited girl came barreling into the room.
“Ash, move,” Flint urged, but my eyes were glued to her as she all but flew toward us. Her jet-black hair was cut into an adorable pixie cut, with a large chunk of pink covering her sweeping bang. Her jeans had holes that had no doubt been there when she’d bought them in the knees, and she was rocking skull-patterned Converse I was jealous of.
“Ash, move,” Flint repeated roughly.