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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

DAYTON

I felt deliciously satiated in more ways than one.

Waking up with Tameron in my arms was not only amazing, but it was rare.

Most of the time when we dozed off together, he slipped out of bed and either went home, or I found him sitting on the couch, curled up in the curve of the L with Knives purring on his chest.

I understood insomnia. We were old friends, and she often visited me when I was particularly stressed. But I hated that Tameron had to go through it.

The nights he did fall asleep in my bed, he often woke startled and disoriented and didn’t always like to be touched. So that morning, when he rolled over with a slight groan and nuzzled into my neck, I basked.

I savored.

I allowed myself long, lush, glorious minutes with him gently rubbing against me.

“Morning,” he finally said, his voice a thick rasp in the back of his throat.

I waited until his eyes were clear enough, then lifted my hand. ‘Morning.’

‘Signing is great,’ he answered as he rolled back. ‘No need to open your mouth and smell morning breath.’

Bursting into laughter, I pinned him and kissed him. ‘How about now?’

He grimaced and shoved me off. ‘Gross. Bad.’

Grinning, I kissed his neck one more time, then stretched my arms above my head.

I could feel the weight of his gaze on me, slightly hungry, slightly curious.

He lifted a hand and traced one of my more vicious scars, the one on my stomach.

We’d already talked about them a little, and he didn’t seem eager to ask for more details, which I appreciated.

There was no big story about them—not really. A bad call and a stint in the hospital to combat the infections, which was the worst part of it. But I didn’t mind the way they made me look. The scars gave me character—a tactile map of the life I’d lived for so many years.

“Can I use your shower?”

It was clear by the look on his face that he wanted some time alone, so I nodded and kissed his jaw. ‘Yes. I’ll make breakfast. Hungry?’

He made a C and ran it up and down his throat three times. My stomach warmed.

‘Mistake?’

He grinned and shook his head.

I was horny for him too—and the feeling never went away. It was starting to become a problem. He was a drug, and while I’d never dealt with addiction, I was starting to see how people did. I wanted him all the time.

‘Later,’ I signed.

He nodded and sat up, grabbing my wrist and pressing a kiss to my palm. “Thank you,” he rumbled against my skin.

I wanted to ask him for what, but I knew it was probably a bigger answer than he wanted to give me right then. He had so much to deal with, and I wouldn’t be the complex thing in his life he had to work out.

I would just be…here. Whenever he wanted me. Whenever he needed me.

Simple as that.

I felt his gaze on me again as I dressed, and I tossed him a wink before heading into the kitchen. I was grateful I’d put on my boxers because Dax was lounging on the sofa on a video call with one of his oldest friends. Jamie and Dax had become pen pals years back through a school program.

He’d grown up in Kauai and Dax had gone to visit a couple of times before Jamie moved to the mainland.

He lived in SoCal now and worked as his station’s only Deaf firefighter.

We didn’t see him enough, especially now that he and his husband Danny were married and had two ankle-biters running around.

‘Morning,’ I signed, leaning over Dax’s shoulder.

Jamie waggled his brows at me. ‘Busy night?’

I shrugged and grinned. ‘Something like that. How are you?’

He nodded his head. ‘Good. Exhausted. Kids are a lot.’

‘True-biz,’ Dax signed with a grimace. ‘No, thank you.’

I bumped him on the back of the head and signed a quick goodbye to Jamie before heading into the kitchen to see what I could semi-impress Tameron with. I was no chef, but I could do breakfast.

We had frozen biscuits and chicken tenders in the freezer.

I could make breakfast sandwiches. Not the healthiest thing, but some warm comfort food sounded good right about now.

I had no idea how Tameron would feel once he had some alone time, and I was a little worried his bi-panic was going to set in.

So far, he’d been amazing, but there was always a chance he could realize this wasn’t for him. Or, at the very worst, that I wasn’t for him.

I chased off that anxiety with my first sip of coffee from the half-full pot, then tossed the chicken tenders in the air fryer and the biscuits in the oven. I set the timers and took my coffee back into the living room, where Dax was closing his laptop.

‘Is he here?’

I nodded as I sat in the recliner and kicked a foot up on the edge of the coffee table. ‘We kind of had a moment last night.’

Dax cocked his head to the side. ‘Finally realized he’s in love with you?’

My ears burned so hot it felt like they were going to catch fire. ‘No. He doesn’t feel that way. This is no strings.’

Dax burst into loud laughter, which startled Knives off her window perch. She darted over to him and jumped on his shoulder like she thought maybe he was in distress and needed to pet her for comfort.

He scratched her with his partially wrapped fingers. ‘Do you ever get tired of lying to yourself?’

I flipped him off, and he snorted. ‘How I feel isn’t the same as how he feels.’

‘I might not be an expert in love, but I can see it when he looks at you. But he’s stubborn.’

I couldn’t fault him for that. I could be too, even at the best of times. ‘I don’t really know what to do. I don’t want to push him.’

Dax sighed and eased Knives off his shoulder before leaning forward. ‘You don’t have to push him. Just be patient. Wait. Trust.’

I could easily do all those things. ‘And what if he decides it’s not me?’

‘You heal,’ he signed. ‘Hurts, then you feel better. That’s life.’

It was, I supposed. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I would completely fall apart after one man. But losing Tameron would gut me in ways losing other lovers never had. The scars would be deep and painful, and I didn’t think they’d ever fully heal.

‘Don’t worry,’ Dax said as he slapped his hand on his thigh and stood up with a loud grunt. ‘That won’t happen.’

I wanted to trust him. I really did. But like he said, he wasn’t an expert in love.

I wasn’t sure anyone was.

Tameron left after breakfast. We had a nice, long, slow kiss before he had to go, and he left me with a promise that he would stay in touch. He wanted to see me again. He couldn’t wait.

It was everything I wanted to hear.

I took those words with me as I headed to my parents’. My dad wanted help putting up the new fence around the chicken coop, and I had time before my long shift. I was doing a twenty-four, which wouldn’t start until six, but I knew that even if I tried to sleep, I wouldn’t be able to.

Dax’s car wasn’t in the driveway, so I figured my parents were done babying him. He was probably at the shop, which was also likely where Tameron had gone. I fought the urge to text him to find out and instead let myself into the side gate, where I could hear incredibly loud music playing.

I found my dad dancing some sort of abomination that kind of looked like an Irish jig near the pile of chain link fencing that needed to be attached to poles. He was dressed in his usual gardening clothes, except he had a black vest covered in LED lights wrapped around his torso.

I waved at him until he spotted me, and he stopped, pointing with a huge grin. ‘See-see!’ He waved his hand up and down his torso, asking me to check it out.

‘What is that?’ I grimaced at the music and pointed at the radio. ‘Loud!’

He waved me off but leaned over to hit the power button. My ears rang a bit, and I was grateful he had Deaf neighbors. ‘Gift from this new company. For club nights. Deaf raves.’

I frowned. The LED lights were neat, but it was thick and looked heavy. I didn’t see mesh-wearing, fur-booted ravers strapping that on their bodies, Deaf or not.

‘Cool.’

He puffed out his chest and nodded. ‘Might go party with the kids.’

Rolling my eyes, I walked over and helped him out of it, draping it over the table next to the radio. ‘Good luck with that. Mom will kill you.’

He scoffed. ‘She’ll come. She got one of her own.’

God, I did not want to picture my parents trying to Irish jig at a rave. Lord help everyone in the vicinity. ‘Want to get started?’

My dad eyed me. ‘You in a rush? Have someone to see?’ He stepped closer and said aloud, “Boyfriend?”

I shoved him back. ‘Stop. Not my boyfriend. We’re just friends.’

‘S-E-X friends.’

I grabbed his wrists and shook my head. ‘Never again.’

He burst into laughter and gave me a pat on the shoulder. ‘You boys thought you were so clever, jerking off to porn we can’t hear. But I always knew. I know you have sex. Don’t be embarrassed.’

It didn’t matter how old I was. Talking about sex with my dad would always be mortifying. ‘Enough. Fence work now, please.’

He sighed and walked over, unrolling the first piece of chain link. It didn’t take long to get it set up, but by the time we were done with all four sides, I’d worked up a heavy sweat. Christ, I needed to run more often.

‘That was my workout for the month,’ he said as he grabbed two water bottles from his cooler.

I took one down in a handful of deep swallows. ‘Come to my gym. I’ll hook you up with the best trainer.’

He pulled a face. ‘No, thank you. I don’t want to do burpees.’ He fingerspelled the last word with heavy disdain. ‘How is Tameron?’

Lord. He really wasn’t going to let this go. ‘He’s fine. I think he went to the shop with Dax.’

My dad grinned. ‘Already fitting in. Part of the family now.’

‘He has a family.’ He had more than one family—his own and Nash’s. He was always welcome in ours, but I didn’t want to put that pressure on him.

My dad’s expression fell. ‘He didn’t like dinner?’

‘No, no. He had a good time. He got some good ideas of things he can use at home to make it easier when he takes off his hearing aids. But he feels lost.’

My dad nodded. ‘I understand. I told him what it was like.’

The two of us walked over to his Adirondack chairs, which he’d set up under the bigger magnolia tree, and we sat, feet kicked out toward each other. I enjoyed the silence for a bit. It was windy and a hint of fog was in the air, but it was warm enough to be pleasant.

Then my dad kicked my foot. ‘Are you okay?’

I sighed. ‘You and mom struggled to be together at first, right?’

He shrugged. ‘It took me a while to really understand what it meant to be Deaf. I didn’t grow up that way, so I didn’t know a lot.

I was disrespectful when I didn’t mean to be.

I favored my voice. I wanted to do what was easier at the time, and I wanted her to meet me more than halfway. She didn’t like that.’

No. I couldn’t imagine she did.

‘Would you be angry if I end up with a man who never wants to be fully part of it?’

He tilted his head to the side, then leaned forward over his thighs. ‘When you were born, I cried three times. You didn’t breathe right away, and I was scared. Then I held you, and you were so perfect. And then they told me you could hear.’

My gut clenched. It wasn’t the first time I’d sat through the story of my parents grieving not having a Deaf child. And it was never malicious. It was never cruel.

But it always hurt. I imagined it was the same way every Deaf child born to hearing parents felt when they had to sit through their parents’ grieving process.

‘I know.’

He shook his head. ‘No. You don’t understand. I wasn’t upset you could hear. I think hearing is as beautiful as Deaf, Dayton.’ He used my childhood name sign—a D tapped over his heart. ‘You could hear music and laughter and the ocean with your ears. I think there’s joy in that.’

There was. There was joy in experiencing the world the way he did too.

‘But I was afraid again. I was afraid I would fail you. That I would be a terrible dad because I was just learning to love myself as I was. How could I teach you? But I always made you smile. You liked my voice. You liked when I hummed to you.’

I remembered that. There was little tonal inflection, but it was soothing. Every time I was sick, I would lie on his chest. He would hum and I would sleep.

‘I also knew you would always feel like an outsider. Your mom and I talked about this a lot. We never had to worry about Dax or Dahlia. No one in our circle of family or friends would ever look at them like they didn’t belong.

No one would ever tell them—’ His fingers shook, and I knew what he was remembering. I remembered it too.

You will never belong . You will always be a guest .

I didn’t want to be a guest in my own home—in my parents’ lives. I didn’t want to be the outsider at every single gathering.

And I wasn’t always—but sometimes, I was.

‘I used to pray to go Deaf,’ I told him.

He bowed his head. ‘I know. I would love you any way you were, Dayton. I love you like this. And I want you to fall in love with the person who makes you feel like your mom makes me feel. I don’t care how they navigate the world. Just…be happy.’

I could do that. With Tameron, it would be easy, so long as he let me in. So long as he wanted to keep me. But I had never really done relationships before. Whether it was me or them, no one had stuck around long enough for me to really call it love.

So maybe I was a little bit broken. And maybe Tameron would eventually see that.

My dad tapped my ankle with his foot. ‘Talk to me.’

‘I’m in love with him, but I don’t know how he feels about me. He has a lot to deal with, and it feels unfair to drop that on him.’

‘I understand.’

‘Do I keep quiet? Keep it to myself?’

His brows furrowed in thought, then his face relaxed, and he shrugged. ‘Be patient with him.’

I was tired of hearing that. I was being patient. That wasn’t the problem. I just wanted to know how long to hold on for. How long did I keep myself on this string, waiting for Tameron to know if this was something he wanted to keep?

“Dayton,” my dad said aloud.

I looked up at him. ‘Sorry. A lot in my head.’

He stood and offered me a hand, yanking me to my feet. ‘Be patient with yourself. Fall in love slowly. Savor it. Understand what forever feels like before you commit.’

I bit my lip. It sounded so…easy. So simple. Yet maybe the most complicated thing I would ever do with my life.

‘How long?’

He smiled at me, then gave my cheek a pat. ‘As long as it takes.’

I suppose I could do that too. After all, if anyone was worth it, it would be my Tameron.