Holding Her Hand (Reed Brothers Book 15) (9 page)

Me:
A likely story
.

Lark McCapSnatcher:
Then I’m going to shave my legs. I’ll be busy all night. I might even put on an avocado mask, and you definitely don’t want to see that.

Me:
I want to see whatever you’ve got
.

Lark McCapSnatcher:
But not when you’re around your friends and family.

I jam my phone back in my pocket,
clean up my station really quickly, and leave the tattoo shop. I walk on foot to her apartment building where I get stopped by building security.

He says something to me, but I’m not sure what it is. No matter what some people lead you to believe, reading lips is difficult. I can’t catch but about forty percent of what I see on someone’s lips, and that leaves a lot of holes.

“What?” I ask.

He picks up a pen and a pad of paper.
Do you have an appointment?
he writes.
You’re not on the list
.

I texted her and she told me to come over
, I write for him.

He narrows his eyes and motions for me to show him my phone. He takes it and reads what I wrote.

“You poor bastard,” I think he says, but he says it out loud, so I can read his lips. I could be wrong. He motions for me to go ahead.

The text didn’t really say she wanted me to come over, but it does imply her knowledge that I would be arriving.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Good luck,” I think he replies.

I take the elevator up and stop in front of her door. I take off my cap and run my hand through my hair, trying to improve my appearance.

I knock and the door opens.

And that is where my heart fucking stops.

Lark is standing
in the doorway with a towel wrapped turban-style around her wet hair. Damp tendrils of it are hanging around her neck, and the collar of her Tweety Bird pajamas is damp. Her face is coated with a sticky green substance, so that only her brown eyes and lips are exposed. On her feet she’s wearing fluffy house shoes with cartoon characters on the toes. Tweety and Sylvester, I think.

She takes a
bite of a piece of pizza that was in her hand and talks around it.

I have no idea what she said, since her hands and her mouth are both full. “
You are so damn pretty
,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes and walks into the living room, leaving the door open behind her. I close it and follow her into the room. Her pajama bottoms are tiny and they hug her ass. She pulls her shirt down to cover them,
which is probably good because I think I can see the line where her butt meets her thigh. And it’s as pretty and curvy as the rest of her.

I close the door behind me and follow her to the kitchen.

She heaves out a heavy sigh. “
What do you want
?”

“
I want to apologize
.”

She shrugs. “
So do it
,
so I can finish shaving my legs
.”

I look down, just because I’m nosy. She did tell me that’s what she
would be doing, but I didn’t believe her.

Then I realize she’s not wearing her gloves, either. She just let me in the door and she doesn’t have her arms covered. “
Where are your gloves
?” I ask.

“
I was in the bath ten minutes ago
,” she tells me, glaring at me.

“
But you opened the door with no gloves on
.”

She rolls her eyes. “
You
’
ve already seen my scars
.”

“
What if it wasn
’
t me
?”

“
The doorman
called and described you. I knew it was you
.” She gets a bottle of water from the fridge and takes a sip. She doesn’t offer me one.

But I realize that she just opened the door to me with her gloves off, and that means she trusts me. It makes my heart start tripping.

“
What do you want
?” she asks again. She looks everywhere but at me.

“
I want to kiss you
,” I blurt out.

“
Why
?” She stares hard
at me.

“
Because you
’
re so damn pretty
.”

She laughs, her mouth opening wide. “
I look really beautiful right now, I
’
m sure
.”

“
You could be wearing a sack and you
’
d still be beautiful
.”

She points to her ear. “
Yet I
’
m hearing, so I
’
ll never be quite good enough for you
.”

She goes to the couch and flops down on it, lifting her bird and cat slippers to rest on the edge of the coffee table.

I
sit down next to her. “
I
’
m sorry
,” I say. “
I should have asked you if you wanted to go with them, and then let you decide if you wanted to spend time with me and with them. I was being selfish. I wasn
’
t really trying to keep you away from them. I just wanted to have you all to myself
.” Heat creeps up my cheeks. “
I know it seems different, like I didn
’
t want you to hang out with my friends, but
that
’
s not the case
.”

She stares at me without saying a word. She has no emotion whatsoever on her face. Well, not that I can see her face under the green goop, but still.

“
I wanted to have lunch with you alone so I could get to know you a little better
.” I feel the need to fan my hot face, but I try to refrain.

“
You don
’
t have to lie to me.
”

“
When you sent my cap back to me, I knew I fucked
up
.”

She arches her brows.

I hold my cap out between us. “
This is my most prized possession in the whole world. My grandfather bought it for me at a Skyscrapers game and then he died the next week. So I was really worried you would lose it. But then I realized that it was a risk I was willing to take if you would keep holding it hostage, because that meant you would talk to me
.”

She still doesn’t
reply.

“
I think you
’
re funny
,
and you
’
re smart, and if you don
’
t care that I
’
m deaf, I won
’
t hold it against you that you can hear
.” She wiggles her toes and the slippers start flopping, so I let my eyes travel up the length of her legs. Half of her leg has been shaved and the other half is stubbly, but she doesn’t seem to care.

Honestly, even with her looking like she does right now, she’s
the hottest woman I have ever seen. I want more days like this, where she’s vulnerable and normal. But I’d also like for her to be happy.

I reach out to dab a little of the green goop with my finger and then I rub it between my thumb and forefinger. “
What the fuck is this stuff
?”

“
Avocado mask
,” she says. She lifts the tail of her shirt and wipes my finger clean.

“
Now your shirt
’
s dirty
,” I
tell her.

She finally smiles. She motions to her body. “
Have you seen me today? A dirty shirt is the least of my problems
.”

“
I think you look hot
.” I grin. I can’t help it. “
Really hot
.”

She blows out a raspberry, her lips vibrating as she does it. “
You
’
re a terrible liar
.”

“
Thank you for letting me plead my case
.” I rub my sweaty palms up and down the thighs of my jeans. “
I guess I should
go so you can go back to
…” I raise and lower my hand up and down the length of her body.
“…whatever this is you
’
re doing
.”

“
It
’
s called wallowing
.” She stares at the TV, which isn’t even turned on.

“
What does wallowing consist of
?”

“
Beauty rituals
.” She points to her face. “
Lots of unhealthy food
.” She points to the kitchen counter where there are several bags of takeout waiting. “
I couldn
’
t decide what I wanted
.”

“
What did you get
?” At least she’s talking to me.

“
Pizza. Chinese. Chicken parmesan from the Italian restaurant. Donuts from the bakery on the corner
.” She pinches her lips closed. “
Four flavors of ice cream
.” She throws up her hands. “
That
’
s how I wallow
.”

“
You went out and got all that
?”

She shakes her head. “
I sent someone. One of the benefits of always having security
hanging around. They
’
re willing to go get food. I
’
m kind of glad you showed up, because now they won
’
t think I ate it all by myself
.” She jerks a thumb toward the kitchen. “
Are you hungry? There
’
s a lot of food
.”

“
I could eat
.” I shrug. “
Do you have plans tonight
?”

She laughs. “
You
’
re looking at them
.”

“
Can I hang out with you
?” I hold my breath while I wait for her reply.

“
You want to hang
out with this
?” She motions to herself again.

“
I like this
,” I say, making a move like she’s a prize on
The Price is Right
. “
I like it a lot
.” I look at her TV. “
We could rent a movie
.”

Her brow furrows. “
You enjoy movies
?”

“
With closed captioning, yes
.” I smile at her. “
You
’
ve never spent much time with deaf people, have you
?”

“
Just Logan Reed
…” She winces.

“
Where did you learn to sign
?”

“
We all learned when we were small
,” she says. “
Peck had a really bad stutter, so it was the only way she could communicate. Then when Peck married into the Reed family, we realized that the whole family used it to communicate, and we felt like it was rude not to know the language, so we took a few refresher classes on the weekends.
”

“
Really
?” I ask as I brush a lock of damp hair from her forehead.
“
That was a wonderful thing to do
.”

“
It was nothing
.”

“
It
’
s everything
,” I tell her. My belly does a little dance.

“
Logan didn
’
t lose his hearing until he was twelve, so he could speak really well, but even he couldn
’
t catch everything we said
by reading our lips
.” She gets quiet for a minute. “
You don
’
t speak much, do you
?”

I shake my head.

“
Okay
.” She picks up a remote and hands it to me.
“
You pick a movie while I go wipe some of the crap off my face, will you
?”

I nod and take the remote from her.

“
Help yourself to dinner, if you want it
.”

“
Okay
.”

I turn on the TV as she disappears around the corner. I find the pay channels and look through what’s available. There’s a horror flick that’s new, and it’s supposed to be really scary. I buy that one. I’ll have to pay her for it
later, since I’m using her account. I get it queued up and go to the kitchen. She has all the food still in bags, so I unpack it and get out two plates.