Page 41 of ILY
Leaf shifts on my lap, his cheeks still flushed, his eyes hooded. Then his eyes widen, and he gasps so hard I can feel the intake of his breath.
‘Shit! Cum. Salt. You okay?’
It takes me a minute to process what he’s saying, but before I can address it, the chair groans beneath us again, and this time, I feel it start to fracture. My arms go around him, and I hold on as the leg gives out and we topple backward into a stack of newspapers that have been left to rot on the porch. They flutter around us, Leaf’s body landing on top of mine with a grunt. I cradle him against me as we just lie there in the rubble, neither of us moving.
Don’t think I want to, to be honest.
This right here is fine by me.
Eventually, he leans up and stares down at me. ‘Sorry about that. This chair was old.’
I blink up at him, his flushed cheeks. “You called me a friend to Clay,” I say aloud. My voice is jarring after signing for so long.
Leaf’s brows furrow in confusion. I know I’m going on a tangent, but still. I have to say it. I reach up and touch the nape of his neck, bringing him closer. “We’re more than just friends…aren’t we?”
CHAPTER TEN
LEAF
I’m standingin the middle of the yard, contemplating what kind of trap would be best to set for Michael that he wouldn’t be able to chew his way out of, when I hear a car rolling up in the distance. I’m not expecting anyone…am I?
I don’t actually know anymore. My days have all started to blend together, punctuated by either Michael taunting me on the video feed or fooling around with my random, not-quite-stalker, who isn’t here for once.
And who made it perfectly clear we were more than friends, so maybe he’s not even a not-quite-stalker.
Either way, when I woke up, he was gone, which made me feel slightly annoyed. I’m currently trying to ignore it, my stomach feeling the weight of the bagel and smoked salmon I’d choked down before moving on to plan…shit, I don’t even know anymore.
H? I? Maybe J?
I drop my shovel next to the galvanized steel fence and walk around the side of the barn, where I spot Mellie’s truck pulling up. Not the food truck, of course, though that might have been nice. I desperately need to go grocery shopping. I’m down to bread I’m lucky hasn’t molded yet, smoked fish, and whateverI can harvest from my garden that doesn’t have fucking rodent bite marks in it.
As Mellie rolls closer, I see a person sitting beside him in the cab. It’s not Rhett, and it takes me a moment to recognize his brother. Otto’s the beekeeper who lives a few miles down the road. He’s a little hesitant around new people, so I’m glad Thorne isn’t here at the moment.
Otto was born Deaf, just like most of Mellie’s family, and Mellie told me he was diagnosed with Usher’s when he was young. He started going blind as a kid, then lost all of his light perception by the time he was a teenager.
He’s been a little isolated since then, which isn’t really a surprise. The Deaf community is so visual, and sometimes they just don’t make space for people who need their communication a little differently.
But I’d done some interpreting in my early days for a couple of Deafblind clients—they had more usable vision than he did, but I was trained in protactile ASL, so it made talking to him easier.
I watch as Mellie signs something into Otto’s hand before they both get out of the car. Otto normally has a guide dog, but today, he’s got his cane, and he uses it to navigate around the front of the truck until he can take Mellie’s hand to feel Mellie sign loudly at me, ‘Hey!’
I nod, dragging my middle finger up my chest. ‘What’s up? What are you doing here?’
Mellie interprets for Otto, and then they head my way. ‘You asked me about chickens. I have chickens.’
Chickens? When had I asked about chickens?
Mellie looks concerned at my expression. ‘Are you doing okay?’
I can’t help a tense laugh. ‘No. Yes, but no.’
Mellie looks like he’s not entirely sure how to interpret what I’m saying to Otto. His brows lift behind his sunglasses, and then he pushes them up into his hair. His big hazel eyes drift slightly outward as he holds a hand out toward me.
I tap him to let him know where I am, and then he pulls back to say, ‘You wanted chickens to help with the bugs in the garden, and Salem said he thought you were ready to start over.’
Oh my god, I almost forgot about Salem.
Salem is my closest neighbor. His situation is a lot like mine. He’s a former interpreter turned chicken farmer after taking over his grandfather’s land. The only difference is he grew up here and knew what the fuck he was doing.
