Saving You (Words We Never Said #6)

12. Oz

CHAPTER TWELVE

OZ

He felt changed and yet entirely the same. He supposed it was the same way as when he’d lost his virginity. He’d had the experience—a first that could never be replicated, and yet, nothing about it was special.

Except this time, it did feel special.

It hadn’t taken long for Oz to realize that Ridge was paying attention to him—not just to his words or his expression but to the subtle shifts in his body. When Oz twitched with pleasure, Ridge dove deep into what made him feel good until he felt like he was going to lose his mind from it. When he shied away, Ridge stayed away from whatever spot had made him cringe.

And when it was all over, when he expected Ridge to leave full of regrets, the man had climbed beside him in bed and held him instead. Simple as that. They didn’t really talk about it, but they didn’t avoid the whole thing either.

Ridge made it clear he was up for doing it again—for doing more next time—and while Oz knew he was going to be hurting himself the longer he let this go on, at least he was only hurting himself. Ridge’s heart was clearly protected by his desire to never date, and Oz didn’t blame him.

Still, the man would make an amazing partner, and it was still wild that he was single. He understood Ridge’s explanations for it all, but he didn’t buy it. He couldn’t. How could a messy work schedule and a Deaf daughter chase people away?

Of course, Oz couldn’t pretend to understand the queer community. He existed alongside it, but in spite of the fact that he was bisexual and had been since he discovered he wanted to bone both Rick and Evie in The Mummy , he was too afraid of exploring what that might mean for real.

So maybe he was missing big parts of that culture the way he’d been missing all the subtle, inherent things in the Deaf community. Christ, had his family really gotten in the way of two worlds that should have been his to explore? He wasn’t sure if it was fair to blame them entirely for the second one, though his parents had made it very clear how they felt about “the gays,” as they always called them.

They were fine to exist, but in their family? Absolutely not.

Well, he was done playing by their rules and living up to their expectations. School had opened up a new universe for him to exist in as a Deaf man, and now Ridge was offering him a hand into something he’d been craving for longer than he wanted to admit. Maybe this wasn’t a forever thing, but Ridge was giving him something that would last for the rest of Oz’s life.

He would always be in debt to him, and he hoped that they could at least stay friends so he could attempt to repay him for the gift he was currently giving.

It was hard to go to work the next day. He remembered the first time he’d slept with his girlfriend and how strange he felt. Three hours after he’d spasmed three pumps inside her and filled a condom with gobs of pent-up spunk, they’d walked to the 7-Eleven for Slurpees, and he swore the cashier looked at him like he knew that Oz had not waited until marriage to give it up.

His girlfriend thought he was nuts and was not quiet about telling him so. He was weird about it in school the next day, and he kind of felt like that now.

He passed Myles in the hall, and shit, was his smile different? Could he tell?

Was there some kind of gay-sex-dar that they all had that he was still missing?

No, he was being absolutely fucking ridiculous. If anything, the face journey he couldn’t stop going on was telling everyone he was dealing with something, but they were all too caught up in their own busy schedules to ask.

It was his one relief. The Deaf community thrived off gossip, but if he could pull himself together before he set foot in the teacher’s lounge that afternoon, he could avoid anyone figuring him out. He wasn’t ashamed of what he’d done, or with whom, but he wasn’t ready to broadcast it.

Telling Myles had been a big enough step. He wasn’t sure he was ready for a flag pin or a pride parade. Someday, maybe, when he wasn’t such an internal mess and making up fake boyfriends to piss off his family.

When he was stable and ready to think like a goddamn grown-up.

Glancing at his phone, Oz realized he had fifteen minutes, so he swung by the lounge for coffee. The stuff in the pot was garbage, but two years back, the school had extra funds from a charity event, so the board sprang for one of those shitty latte machines they had in gas stations.

It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the burnt swill that came from the 1980s percolator that sat in the corner and sparked every time someone plugged it in.

Reaching into the cabinet for his cup, he jumped half a foot when someone smacked him on the arm, and he turned to see Anish smirking at him. He was wearing gym shorts and a polo with tall socks and his hair pushed back with shades, looking like every stereotypical gym teacher in movies and on TV.

Anish gave him a nod in greeting.

‘Hi,’ he signed with one hand as he walked to the machine. He knew what was coming. Myles wouldn’t tell anyone else, but he would definitely tell his husband.

Anish followed him and leaned against the counter, holding his water bottle between his thighs so he could have both hands to talk. ‘Myles told me.’

Oz rolled his eyes. ‘Not surprised.’

‘You’re okay with me knowing?’

He wasn’t actually sure about that. He knew Myles, but he hadn’t had more than a couple of conversations with Anish. ‘You won’t say anything, right?’

Anish quickly held up his hands in surrender, shaking his head. ‘Never. I know how it feels.’

‘Your parents?’

Anish grimaced in apology. ‘No, my parents were great, but some of my other family was not. I had to pretend a lot when I was in high school.’

‘Deaf family?’

Anish’s shoulders slumped. ‘Hearing. Oral,’ he added, and Oz knew exactly what he meant by that. ‘My parents couldn’t afford implant surgery, so they put me in speech therapy five days a week for ten years.’

Oz had been there, and his stomach twisted. Most of his speech therapists were kind, but one had been impatient and angry when no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake his accent. Her punishments were…creative, and there were mornings he woke up sweating after nightmares of her shouting into his processors, of her digging her thumbs into the underside of his jaw and forcing him to repeat a word over and over and over until he wanted to cut out his own tongue so she couldn’t make him do it anymore.

He hated thinking about that and quickly shoved it aside. There were many, many years between him and those memories, and they were not part of his life now.

‘My parents are religious,’ he told Anish. ‘Not a big fan of the Deaf thing or the bisexual thing.’

Anish nodded and tapped his Y hand twice: that-that.

Oz watched his cup fill, then grabbed it and took it over to the counter so he could free his hands. Maybe it was okay that Anish knew. Maybe it was okay that other people knew too. It was nice to be able to just…talk. To say what was on his mind. And, at least with Myles and Anish, know he was in safe company.

‘Do you know who I shouldn’t tell?’ he asked.

Anish’s brow furrowed. ‘Here?’

‘Yeah.’

He sat back, his chest heaving with his sigh. ‘Don,’ he spelled. Don was the algebra teacher. ‘And biology Jared,’ he added.

Neither one of those was a surprise. Oz had gotten a glimpse of the bumper stickers on their cars, and he immediately categorized them into people he had no desire to get to know.

‘Cara,’ Anish added. She was in the art department with Myles, teaching calligraphy and sculpture. ‘She seems nice, but she’s said a few things that put Myles on edge.’

‘Do they all know you’re married?’

Anish laughed. ‘We don’t hide it. We also don’t advertise.’

So it was mostly that Oz hadn’t been paying attention. He couldn’t really blame himself, as much as he wanted to. Things had been a lot, and he was busy trying to make it work as a first-year teacher, on top of maintaining his job as a mentor. And Oz wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to get in other people’s business either.

‘I think you’ll be fine if other people find out. They won’t fire you. Myles was engaged to another man when he got hired here.’

Oz lifted a brow. ‘And then he saw you and fell in love?’

Anish rolled his eyes. ‘His ex cheated and kicked him out. He slept on my couch, and I waited a respectable six weeks before making my move.’

Oz burst into laughter. ‘A real hero.’

Anish shrugged, grinning widely, and he pinched his shirt and fanned himself with it. ‘What can I say? He couldn’t resist. But true-biz, I fell in love with him the first time he smiled at me.’

Oz’s chest ached. He wanted that. In all honesty, he might have actually had that. But it was entirely one-sided, and he didn’t think that there was going to be some heroic moment where Ridge was saved and realized that Oz was the one for him.

And even if he did, Oz wasn’t sure he could be good for the man. He was learning to stand up for himself and what he wanted, but could he condemn Ridge and Ina to family like his own? He wished he could trust himself to cut them off and be done with it, but every time he thought about making the silence permanent, he felt like his skin was trying to peel itself off.

‘You okay?’ Anish asked after waving a hand in his periphery.

Oz tried to nod, but his head wouldn’t obey. He was tired of lying to himself and everyone else. ‘No. My family is making my life miserable, and I met a great guy, but I’m scared everything I went through would make me a crappy boyfriend.’

‘Is he Deaf?’

Oz shook his head and pinched two fingers to his thumb. ‘No. Hearing, but he has a Deaf daughter and is an ASL-first home.’

Anish’s eyes widened. ‘Not usual.’

‘Nope. He’s different. And wonderful. But I don’t know how to be wonderful too.’

‘Does he know you like him?’

Before Sunday, Oz would have said no. But after their night in bed? ‘Maybe. But if he does, he didn’t say anything.’

‘Sounds like you two need to talk.’

Yeah, they probably did. But that was part of the problem. Oz was a coward, and his fear made him ready and willing to accept what Ridge was offering and never, ever ask for more.