Page 65 of ILY
For a moment, my heart skips around my chest. Is it Michael? Am I going to be the one to take the creature out for the man of my dreams?
But that hope is dashed. It’s only Leaf pulling into the driveway.
I let my curiosity go as I watch him get out of his car, stretching his back into a deep arch and making my mouth water. I want to bend him into a lot of shapes. A square, a circle. A yoga triangle.
He makes a face and winces, and I can’t help but smile. The ab class must have kicked his ass. He reaches into the back seat and grabs a white plastic bag before shuffling toward the front door, so I move to meet him.
“Oh…fuck!” He jumps back with his shout and presses a hand to his chest. “…you…doing!”
I feel a rise in frustration as I miss almost all of what he says. I still can’t hear for shit, and I feel a slight rise in panic because it’s taking a long time for sound to come back. Could this be it? Could it happen this fast?
I swallow thickly, and something in my ear clicks. A few more decibels of hearing return on my left side. “I didn’t catch that,” I tell him.
He looks apologetic. ‘You scared the shit out of me,’ he signs quickly, though not too fast I can’t follow. ‘What are you doing?’
“I was snooping around your house.” I sign along—most of it, anyway. I don’t know what sign to use for snooping. Four semesters under Denver and then some private tutoring have helped a lot, but it’s a living language, so I’m always playing catch-up.
Leaf just smiles. He’s clearly not annoyed by my nosiness. It’s one more reason I probably should have doubted that hewas some kind of murderous criminal. No serial killer would let a stalker-stranger into their home without real supervision, and he’d done that several times. I had access to so much, and he’s never been bothered.
“Any leads on Michael?” I ask as he breezes past me.
He sets the bag down and turns, shaking his head. ‘He’s MIA. I wasn’t paying attention to my phone during…’ I don’t know what the last two signs are, and I frown, so he spells, ‘ABS class.’
I grimace and step forward. I swallow again, and my ears click, revealing more sound. “That’s better.”
‘Better?’ he signs.
“My hearing wasn’t coming back as fast this time. It was making me feel a little…panicky.”
He doesn’t look at me with any judgment when he signs, ‘Sorry.’
I touch his lips, then drag my fingers down the front of his throat. “Can you say something? I want to hear you.”
He grins. “How about we go to the bedroom and you can put your hearing aids on, then I can show you how talented I am with my mouthandmy hands.”
That sounds like the perfect way to start the late afternoon.
We end up getting slightly distracted, mainly because as we move through the hallway, kissing frantically, we knock into a box, and it falls to the ground, revealing a bunch of random Tupperware lids.
“God, is this where they go to die?” Leaf asks, bending down to scoop them up. He must feel my eyes on his ass because he wiggles it slightly.
“Tease,” I murmur, and Leaf cranes his neck to grin at me.
“I am, but also, I’m intrigued by the level of commitment my aunt had. What else was she hoarding? A box of socks or maybe old fruitcakes?”
I can’t help but meet his smile and bend down next to him, helping him scoop up the lids and stuff them back in the box. “We need a large trash bin.”
“We do. Or a gigantic bonfire.”
My smile slips. “That’s illegal.”
Leaf’s eyes roll, and he shoves at me slightly. “I know that, you goober.”
My brows meet in confusion. “Did you just call me a booger?”
Leaf laughs and then begins to laugh. “No. I didn’t say that. Goober.” He fingerspells it slowly so I can pick up on what he’s trying to convey. When I finally get it, I grin.
Well, that’s enough of that. I stuff the lid back on the box and pull Leaf into me. “Come on. Let’s go. I want to fuck that ass again.”
