Page 60 of Saving You

He wrapped his arms around his middle as he sat, feeling a little like the dark edges in his head were trying to engulf him.

“Do you want me to talk, or should I keep signing?” Ridge asked.

“I’d like to hear your voice right now,” Oz told him. He leaned his head back against the headboard and reached out, tracing a touch around Ridge’s lips. “Is that okay?”

“Always. Whatever you want,” Ridge told him, his lips moving against the pad of Oz’s finger. He kissed it, then drew his arm down so Oz was touching the side of his neck. “Do you want to talk about tonight?”

“The sex?” Oz asked, loving the way Ridge’s ears went red. “Or the other stuff.”

“Either. I came over so you’d have an ear. I could tell Grady upset you.”

“He didn’t upset me,” Oz said. “He’s kind of…a conduit of that pain, which isn’t really fair to him. He said he didn’t know anything about my childhood.”

“Do you believe him?” Ridge asked. “I mean, he’s been with your sister for what?”

“Over a decade,” Oz said. “They met when I was sixteen. She was in her sophomore year of college. He came to a few family get-togethers, and we spoke—obviously, I didn’t know ASL at that point. He never asked me about it, but she probably told him I was sensitive or some bullshit like that.”

Ridge frowned. “What do you mean?”

Oz closed his eyes with his deep breath. He’d forgotten that while Ridge knew Grady had been lied to, he didn’t know theextent. “My sister told him she would only marry a man who could sign because she cared about me. He didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to learn.”

“Christ,” Ridge said.

Oz let out a rough laugh as he opened his eyes again. “I wonder how often she used me for pity, you know? For some inspirational bullshit trying to make it seem like she’s been taking care of her poor little Deaf brother all these years. God, she’s probably lied so many times she started to believe her own bullshit.”

“She’s not that delusional yet,” Ridge said. “I saw the way she was smiling at the party. She knew what she was doing. She was enjoying it. That’s why Grady started sleeping in the guest room.”

Oz’s stomach hurt. He curled into himself a little more. “I don’t know how it got so bad. I don’t know why I let it. My friends have been telling me for years, you know? Like, even the people who didn’t grow up with sign didn’t grow up like this. They had parents who took bad advice.”

But not his. No. It was like they were punishing him for being born different than they were.

He startled when he felt Ridge touch the side of his neck, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he went loose and let Ridge tug him into an embrace. It felt nice to settle against his chest again, to feel his strong, rough fingers draw lines up and down his arms. He was still naked, but he didn’t feel vulnerable.

“I can find a different place for him to stay if you want me to,” Ridge said after a long while.

Oz tilted his head up and frowned. “What? Why? He didn’t do anything wrong.” Grady was the only one who’d done anything right.

“I know he didn’t, and it’s not to punish him. But you’re my friend and my fake boyfriend,” Ridge added. It made Oz smile asmuch as it hurt because fuck, he wanted this to be real so badly. “My job is to take care of you, and if seeing him opens all those wounds, I can arrange for him to be elsewhere for a while.”

Something about the way he said that told him there was more to what Ridge was saying. He was hiding something. He pulled back and stared at him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Ridge bit his lip and looked down. Guilt was written all over him.

“Ridge.”

“If it’s all the same, I’d rather not right now.”

Oz couldn’t take this shit anymore. He couldn’t take more lies and more secrets. He couldn’t take being dicked around and treated like a child. He jumped off the bed and took a single step away before Ridge caught his wrist and held tight.

“Wait.”

He froze. Fuck, it was too easy to obey his commands.

“I didn’t want to tell you because you’ve already been through enough, and I didn’t want to add to your overflowing plate.”

Ah. Right. The breakup. It had to be that because what the fuck else could Ridge possibly have to say. Okay. He could do it. He could take it. He’d been given this time as a gift, and he wasn’t going to spit in Ridge’s face for it.

He could give Ridge the grace he was currently denying himself.

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