He runs around, and Sam and Pete chase us. Pete -- or Sam – I still can’t tell them apart – slaps my butt. I flail around, trying to reach out and grab him, but Logan is running with me over his shoulder. He spins, holding tightly to my legs. I cover my eyes and squeal, but I know he can’t hear me.
I hit Logan on the butt, but he pays me no mind. Suddenly, he stops and starts to lower me down his body. I slide down him slowly, my body contours rubbing against his until my feet hit the ground. “Hi,” he says quietly. He signs it, too, but his free arm is around me holding me against him.
“Hi,” I say, and I sign it just like he did. Then I smack his chest. “I can’t believe you did that.” I turn and motion toward Sam. “Throw me the ball,” I say. Sam looks at me like I’m nuts, so I say, “What? Are you afraid to play with a girl?”
He smiles and hurls the ball at me. I take off running with it cradled in my arm. Logan runs after me, but I’m faster than any of them expected. Just before I reach the bench Matt’s sitting on, Logan snakes an arm around my waist, swinging me around. While he holds me tightly, Sam wrestles the ball from me. “That’s cheating!” I scream.
“Cheating is allowed!” Sam yells back.
“In whose rule book?” I ask, stamping my foot.
“What rule book?” Matt says with a chuckle. He hefts himself to his feet. “Me and you against them?” he says. He grins at me.
“We can take them any day,” I say, throwing my arms around him. He squeezes me gently and sets me away from him. He rubs my head, messing my hair all up.
Logan runs down the field, and I chase him. He turns to catch the ball Sam throws, and as soon as he has it, I tackle him. I hit him as hard as I can. He stumbles with me holding on to his shirt, until I can wrap around his legs. He goes down like a big oak tree falling. He lies on his stomach, but he’s smiling at me. I climb on his back and sit on him, plucking the ball from his grip. I hold it in the air and cheer, flailing my feet wildly. He lets me sit there on top of him for a minute as his breath heaves in and out under me. But then he upends me. He rolls me under him. “You cheated.” He says. His hands hold my wrists in a strong grip.
“There’s no rule book, remember?” I giggle when he tickles beneath my ribs. “Stop!” I cry.
He looks into my eyes. “I think I might be falling in love with you,” he says softly.
My breath catches. “Yeah, me too,” I say.
He smiles and gets to his feet, tugging me up beside him. His face is flushed, and he’s grinning.
“If you two are done playing lovey dovey,” Matt yells, “we have a game to win.” He waggles his brows at me. Suck every moment from life. We should all do more of that.
Logan
It has been almost two weeks since her declaration in the park. She hasn’t said it again, and neither have I. But I know she loves me. There’s no doubt in my mind. She sleeps in my bed every night, and we spend every waking moment together when we’re not working. I’m so used to having her at my side, I’m not sure I’ll survive it at this point if she leaves me. I’m hopeful that she’ll be ready for what I want soon. Because I want all of her. I want her past, her present and her future. I want to ask her to marry me, but I can’t. Not yet.
Sometimes, there’s a look in her eye that I don’t fully understand. She’s longing for something she doesn’t have. I’m not sure if it’s home or something else.
She’s learned to sign in the past two weeks, and she can carry on conversations. She’s actually really good at it, and she’s found that spelling isn’t as hard for her when she’s fingerspelling as it is on paper. Something about the spacing of the letters, she says.
She’s sitting on the couch now with Hayley in her arms. She’s holding a book upside down, and telling a story she has made up. The corners of my lips tip up and I can’t bite back my grin. She fits so well into my family.
She still busks in the subway every day while I work at the tattoo shop. And last Friday night, the band encouraged her up on the stage when the crowd started chanting for her. They passed a hat through the audience and she got to keep the money they put in it. It was just over one hundred dollars and she only played one or two songs.
She saves every dime of the money she has made. We won’t let her pay rent. My brothers and I had a frank discussion about it and we all agreed. She does too much for us to charge her rent. She cooks often. And she can’t seem to keep from cleaning, even though we tell her not to.
Pete’s on the couch across from Kit with a girl he met a couple of weeks ago. They’ve been necking for about ten minutes. I’m standing in the kitchen with Paul. I jerk my thumb toward them and Paul scowls. He says something to Pete, who looks up sheepishly. He adjusts his junk and lifts the girl up, taking her down the hallway toward his room. Paul yells at him, and he comes back and takes a few condoms from the drawer, grins and goes to his room.
“Great,” Sam grouses. “I’ll have to sleep on the couch.”
Paul smiles. “There are two beds in there.”
“Yuck,” Sam says. “I don’t want to have to hear them.”