“I like this,” I say, making a move like she’s a prize on The Price is Right. “I like it a lot.” I look at her TV. “We could rent a movie.”
Her brow furrows. “You enjoy movies?”
“With closed captioning, yes.” I smile at her. “You’ve never spent much time with deaf people, have you?”
“Just Logan Reed…” She winces.
“Where did you learn to sign?”
“We all learned when we were small,” she says. “Peck had a really bad stutter, so it was the only way she could communicate. Then when Peck married into the Reed family, we realized that the whole family used it to communicate, and we felt like it was rude not to know the language, so we took a few refresher classes on the weekends.”
“Really?” I ask as I brush a lock of damp hair from her forehead. “That was a wonderful thing to do.”
“It was nothing.”
“It’s everything,” I tell her. My belly does a little dance.
“Logan didn’t lose his hearing until he was twelve, so he could speak really well, but even he couldn’t catch everything we said by reading our lips.” She gets quiet for a minute. “You don’t speak much, do you?”
I shake my head.
“Okay.” She picks up a remote and hands it to me. “You pick a movie while I go wipe some of the crap off my face, will you?”
I nod and take the remote from her.
“Help yourself to dinner, if you want it.”
“Okay.”
I turn on the TV as she disappears around the corner. I find the pay channels and look through what’s available. There’s a horror flick that’s new, and it’s supposed to be really scary. I buy that one. I’ll have to pay her for it later, since I’m using her account. I get it queued up and go to the kitchen. She has all the food still in bags, so I unpack it and get out two plates.
She comes out a few minutes later and she’s wearing black yoga pants that hug her ass, and a sheer t-shirt. Her face is wiped clean and it’s shiny, and she has pulled her hair back in a ponytail.
“Do I look acceptable?” she asks. She halts in the entry to the kitchen.
“Beautiful,” I tell her.
Her cheeks flush. “Thank you.”
“I like this look on you.”
She blows out a breath. “I live for days I can be normal. You have no idea.”
“Define normal.”
“We travel a lot,” she says. “When we’re playing, we have to dress the part, and there’s always a press tour. Sometimes my soul just craves quiet times, times when I can wipe off the makeup, take off the gloves, and just be me.” She makes a little pose. “This is me,” she says. “Take it or leave it.”
“Take it,” I rush to say. “I’m taking it.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Are you sure you want it?”
I walk to her and cup her cheek with my palm. “More sure than I have ever been about anything.”
She smiles at me and my heart trips in my chest. “What movie did you get?”
“A scary one,” I tell her.
“Oh, I hate scary movies.”
“Oh,” I say. “I can get a different one.”
“No, I mean I love scary movies, but they really scare me. You might have to spend the night to keep me from freaking out.”
Spend the night? “I’ll buy you a scary movie every night, if that’s the case. Every. Single. Night.” I grin at her, and she rolls her eyes.
“I’ll sleep with the lights on.”
“Did you just take back my invitation?”
“For now,” she says, ducking her head.
I follow her to the couch, where she waits for me to take a seat. Then she sits down with her thigh pressed alongside mine. I lift my arm to rest on the back of the sofa, and she draws her legs up so that she’s leaning on me. “You can start it.”
I turn on the captions on her TV, and then start the movie. She’s tense beside me, and I love having her this close. She picks up a different remote and the lights in the room go dim. “Is this okay?” she asks. I can see her sign in the light the TV casts. She leans into me a little closer.