Page 14 of Saving You

Sliding behind his steering wheel, he gave a surreptitious look over his shoulder. Oz was walking toward the store, not looking back. “If he glances at you, you have a shot,” he murmured to himself.

Oz’s pace picked up, and Ridge’s stomach started to sink. And then, for a split second, Oz paused and turned. Their eyes met, and then Oz all but ran for the automatic doors.

“Fuck,” Ridge whispered to himself. He shook his head. He didn’t play ridiculous games with the universe. That meant nothing.

Really. It meant absolutely nothing.

CHAPTER FOUR

OZ

‘I’m goingto be on TV.’

Oz blinked down at Rex, raising a brow. ‘TV?’

Rex puffed out his chest proudly as he bounced from one foot to the other. ‘When I grow up. I’m going to make dresses and have a big fashion show.’

Ah, okay. That made a little more sense. Rex was absolutely convinced that he was going to be a future bridal consultant and dress designer on the reality show he was obsessed with. The first Deaf designer, he’d decided.

Oz wasn’t about to pop his bubble that unless he knew someone who knew someone who had a shitload of money, there was not a chance in hell he’d even set foot into some high-end bridal shop—let alone be asked to design for them. What he really hoped was that Rex would go through a fashion design program in college, settle somewhere with a highly populated Deaf community, and find himself…content.

Or happy, even.

Everything Oz wanted to be and was not. Of course, Rex was already ahead of him by leaps and bounds. He had a tight-knit family of mostly hearing people who all learned ASL for him and loved him beyond reason. Oz knew that Frey would do anything—literally anything, including crime—if it would make his kid happy.

It was why being around those guys was both soothing and painful in equal measure. He wasn’t a dad, he wasn’t part of their little group, but they always went out of their way to make him feel like he belonged.

Even the colossal fuckup at the hospital when Renato first came into Frey’s life hadn’t soured Oz on the guys. He had a feeling they believed he was a grumpy, standoffish dick because of it, and he let them think that way because admitting the truth was harder than the lie.

He was jealous. And he resented them.

None of it was their fault, but the fact remained, being around something he couldn’t have wasn’t easy.

Rex tugged on his hand and frowned. ‘Are you sad?’

Oz forced a smile and shook his head. ‘Not sad. What do you want to do now? We have two hours before your dad’s off work.’

Rex’s brow furrowed, and he tapped his chin, but Oz knew it was all for show. He was going to suggest what he always suggested. ‘Can we go look at dresses?’

Oz rolled his eyes dramatically and flopped forward. ‘Dresses? Again?’

Rex giggled and bounced on his feet. ‘Dresses!’

The bridal shop was less than a hundred feet from where they were standing, and Oz gestured toward it. Luckily, the ladies inside were always sweet and accommodating. None of them knew more than the alphabet and a handful of greeting signs, but Oz didn’t mind playing interpreter for this.

Digging into his bag, he pulled out his CI case and pressed the buttons to turn them on. Taking a breath, he braced himself for a flood of sound, not taking his eye off Rex, who had just reached the shop door.

‘Go inside?’ Rex asked from across the pavement. ‘Go inside! Go inside!’ he signed and bounced.

Oz waved him on. ‘Be right there. Be nice!’

Rex grinned and turned, yanking open the door with all the strength of his scrawny little kid arms, and he hurtled himself inside.

The sound of his own laughter was startling, and Oz allowed himself a moment to adjust to the change. Hearing was becoming less and less natural now that he was allowing himself long stretches of totally deaf days. And he liked it that way.

He never second-guessed it until he was at home and had to face his parents and sister’s questions about why he wanted to live in silence. He didn’t quite have the words to explain, and he’d long since given up trying to make them understand something they never could.

He shouldered their judgment and his mom’s passive-aggressive comments about how she wouldn’t have paid so much for his damn implants if he was never going to use them. Which was a total lie, but he never bothered calling her out on it.

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