Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ROME
I wake up with an inability to breathe. There’s something heavy on my chest. For a moment, I think maybe Dex is waking me up by sitting on my face, but then I feel something sharp against my pec as I move.
As I peel a single eye open, orange fur encompasses my entire vision.
Then I feel the rumble of a cat purring, and I realize it’s Dennis.
I shift again, and he sinks his claws deeper into me. It is not pleasant. His paws are like tiny knives burrowing into my flesh, and I have no idea how I’m going to get out of this without getting scratched to hell and back.
I take a deep breath, then open my eyes fully. Dennis’s one eye is staring at me.
‘Hello,’ I sign.
He blinks slowly. I swear I remember reading somewhere that a cat’s slow blink is a sign of affection. Or maybe it’s a sign they’re about to murder and eat you. I’m not really sure. This is my first experience with a pet.
‘Can you move, please?’ I ask, trying to rub my hand on my chest, but his butt is in the way.
Dennis opens his mouth and yawns directly into my face. His breath smells like fish and ass. Wonderful. He licks his chops, and I can see then he’s missing his left fang. He sure has a sharp fucking bite for a creature without most of its teeth.
Sucking in a breath, I lift my hand and hover it over him. He stares at my face, then glances up at my fingers. His claws sink a bit deeper again, and I suck in a breath, trying not to make a sound.
He won’t hear it, but I know he’ll feel the rumble in my chest.
After a short forever, Dennis’s claws retract, and he lifts his head, bumping his nose against my fingers. I start to pet him between his ears, but I feel the rumble of a growl, so I pull back.
He meets my gaze as he stands on my chest, arches his back, turns to flash his butthole at me, then uses as many claws as possible before he springs from my body to the floor.
Rolling over, I soothe the sting of his so-called affection with the coolness of Dex’s sheets. They’re very silky and soft, and they smell like us, which I love.
Fuck, what a concept, I think as I head for the bathroom.
Us.
Him and me.
Boyfriends, but with the promise of more.
Of a future. Of something bright on the horizon that is now eclipsing the melancholy fog I’d been walking through before.
I feel odd. Different, in a way. I look at myself in the mirror as I wait for the shower to warm up, but I look exactly the same.
Only I know I’m not. It feels like Dex has fundamentally changed who I am as a person, and as much as that should probably piss me off, it doesn’t.
Maybe because he’s the exception to all of my rules. He’s proven to be everything I assumed he wasn’t.
Proof of that is sitting on the kitchen table in boxes because he paid a fuckload of money for doorstep delivery service simply so he could install things in his home that will make me feel safe here.
All of it will remind me I belong. That I don’t have to compromise on everything. That sometimes meeting halfway is good enough.
My throat feels a little tight with emotion, so I hop in the shower and try to scrub it off my skin. I fail miserably as I think about the way he felt last night. The moans he ripped from my chest, the way he made me come so hard I saw double.
My cock is half-hard by the time I’m done soaping up, and while it feels like a shame to wash the scent of him off my skin, his soap clings to me. It’s an odd comfort as I dry off and get dressed.
I have no idea where Dex is, but him not coming in after I got in the shower tells me he’s not here.
Normally, after a night like this, I bolt.
I did this several times at Robbie’s when he and I were fooling around.
I had a key to his place, but I rarely used it.
I was gone long before I could feel at home.
Now, there’s no sense of urgency.
Padding into the kitchen to start the coffeepot, I notice a note on the counter in Dex’s neat but scrawling handwriting:
Had an early morning class and a couple of private sessions this afternoon. Stop by if you want, otherwise we can do dinner when I get back after class. Text me when you’re free.
At the end, he attempted a little scribbled ILY sign, and my heart leaps. We haven’t said it yet, and that sign doesn’t always mean the big I Love You.
Even so, those three words are so profound.
A part of me hopes that little scrawl is not his way of saying it for the first time. I want to see the words on his lips, feel the rumble of them in his throat, see the way it falls on his fingers.
And I want to give it back to him in the same way.
I turn to get coffee, then go in search of my phone, which is sitting on the table next to the packages. There are a few texts—none from Dex, but that’s not a surprise since he’ll be busy for a few hours.
One is from my dad though. He and my aunt had gone down to San Francisco for the last two weeks, and I wasn’t expecting him back so soon.
It feels like a lifetime has changed since the last time we talked.
Dad: Lunch today?
Me: Free soon. Tell me where.
My dad sends me the website link to some little café that seems to be part Korean and part French bakery. The food looks fine, and the drinks look good, so I shoot him a thumbs-up before setting my phone down and tearing into the first package he had delivered last night.
It’s the doorbell. He bought the wireless kind with a flashing light and a loud chime that’ll stick on the wall beside the door.
The next is the alarm clock, which will take two seconds for me to install in his room.
He’s probably going to regret that one, but the fact that he did it at all is enough.
No. It’s more than enough. Yes, he might have done this for anyone who needed it, but he was choosing me specifically.
Me, who was an asshole most of the time.
Me, who was not kind when we first met.
Me, who hadn’t given him a reason in the beginning to have faith that this could be something.
I swallow that feeling down and pull the last package out of the box. It’s two smoke alarms that flash, but those will take some work beyond just peel-and-stick adhesive, so I set those aside and reach for the alarm.
My phone screen flashes, and I see it’s a FaceTime from Quinn. I haven’t heard from him since he left, so my heart leaps in excitement. I have a lot to tell him.
‘So you didn’t get murdered?’ I ask when his face appears.
He rolls his eyes. ‘You wish.’
‘Never. How’s work?’ I move into the bedroom so I can talk to him and install the alarm.
‘Weird. The job is almost done, but I’ve been getting strange emails.’
My hackles rise, especially thinking about Denver and his stalker. This small town is changing. Maybe not for the worst, but I’m not sure if it’s for the best either. ‘What kind of emails?’
‘The last one was coordinates to my house,’ Quinn tells me as I balance the phone on the nightstand so I can plug in the alarm.
It takes me a second to process what he told me, and then I sit up straight. ‘Are you serious?’
He shrugs. ‘I didn’t know what they were at first. I don’t know how to read those. I sent them to Thorne, and he told me.’
My heart pounds, and I take a breath and distract myself by sliding the buzzer under the sheets below my pillow. Which feels weird to say that I have a pillow at Dex’s.
But I do.
And apparently, that’s what Quinn notices. He makes a noise loud enough for me to hear it, and I look back at him.
‘Where are you?’
I feel my ears heat. ‘Somewhere.’
He gives me a flat look and a quirked brow.
With a huff, I turn and sit on the floor, snatching my phone back up from the nightstand. ‘I’m at Dex’s house, installing an alarm under the pillow for me in the mornings.’
He blinks, then lifts one hand, pointing his finger to his mouth and flicking it away. ‘You and Dex? PAH!’
‘Fuck you.’
He bursts into laughter. ‘True-biz? More than fucking?’
I shrug. ‘I called him boyfriend. He accepted.’
Quinn shakes his head, but he doesn’t look upset or disappointed. He’s certainly not judging me how I judged Robbie with Thom. I don’t deserve how supportive he seems.
But I do appreciate it. I’ve been opening up with Dex lately, and it’s making me feel more fragile than normal. I’m not sure I can take eating crow right now.
‘Are you happy?’ he asks when he has my full attention again.
I nod. I want to say that I’m more than happy. That I’m feeling things I didn’t know I could feel. But I don’t want to. Part of me is afraid that if I put it out there in the world, something will go wrong.
Disaster will strike.
Dex will wake up and realize that I’m kind of a loser who doesn’t deserve his time.
‘I’m happy.’
Quinn softens. ‘Great. Can’t wait to hang out with everyone when I get home.’
‘When?’
He shrugs. ‘Soon. Not sure yet.’
I’ll ask Thorne, I think to myself, if he’s gone for too long. But despite whatever’s going on with Quinn, he doesn’t look scared or bothered. He seems happier than I’ve seen him in a while.
Or, if not happier, more relaxed, and that’s all that matters.
‘I have to go,’ I tell him. No time for a real Deaf goodbye today. ‘I have to meet my dad.’
Quinn nods. ‘Me too. I have to go out and spy.’
I have no idea if he’s telling the truth or not, but I don’t get the chance to ask. He promises to text soon—probably a lie—and then the screen goes dark as the call ends.
I sit for a moment with my feelings. I’m worried about Quinn, but more than that, I’m coming to terms with the fact that I have to tell Dex how I feel.
The big feelings. The all-encompassing, important ones. The words I’ve never said or signed to anyone I’ve ever been with before.
I’m glad I’m about to meet my dad because I realize I suck at this. I have no idea what I’m doing, and I really, really need some advice.