Chapter Eight #2
Business. As. Usual.
I watch this from two steps inside the door.
My sister.
Here.
In this room.
It doesn’t feel real yet, in the way enormous things sometimes don’t feel real, like your brain needs a moment to catch up with what your chest already knows.
My eyes find Ghost without me meaning them to. He’s exactly where he usually is, tucked away behind his workstation with enough screens lit up to launch a space shuttle.
Normally, his fingers never stop moving, but tonight they’re still. A toothpick sits between his teeth, shifting once as his jaw tightens. He only chews on one when he’s buried in something that’s got all of his attention.
He’s looking at one of the monitors, not typing, not talking, not doing much of anything really.
I look across the room.
Ghost is already looking back.
He’s got one hand still on the back of his chair as if he’d been about to sit down again.
Instead, he pushes away from the workstation, and something low in my stomach tightens when he walks straight toward us.
Not hurried.
Just certain.
Piper trails off mid-conversation with Marley as Ghost stops in front of her.
She tips her head, waiting. Ghost doesn’t say anything. For a second, neither of them do, but then he lifts his hands.
I blink.
Once.
Twice.
My brain doesn’t catch up straightaway.
And then Ghost signs.
Not one awkward gesture. Not fingerspelling a name he’d memorized five minutes ago.
Actual. Fucking. Sign language.
Proper ASL.
Careful and confident, like he’s practiced it.
His hands move with quiet confidence, careful enough that I can see the concentration in every movement, but smooth enough to tell me this isn’t the first time he’s done it.
‘Welcome to Las Vegas. It’s good to finally meet you.’
Somewhere beside me, Marley makes a tiny sound under her breath.
I don’t look at her.
I can’t.
The room disappears, and I stare at him because this isn’t possible.
Ghost doesn’t know sign language.
Except, he does!
Somewhere over the last few weeks, while I’ve been busy convincing myself I knew exactly who this man was, he’d gone away and learned an entirely new language.
And he’d never said a word.
I don’t think anyone else in the room understands why I can’t stop staring at him.
I barely understand it myself.
The room doesn’t go silent.
It shifts.
One conversation trails off. Someone stops halfway through lifting a beer. Even Deek goes quiet for long enough to notice Ghost’s hands moving.
The entire clubhouse seems to lean in without anyone meaning to, including me.
Piper looks at him.
Then she looks at me.
Then back at Ghost.
Piper looks at me, eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. ‘He learned?’
I nod once. ‘Apparently.’
She glances back at Ghost.
I don’t.
Not yet.
I’ve got a feeling if I look at him right now, every person in this room is going to learn something about me before I do. Piper turns back to Ghost. She slows her signing down, deliberate and clear so that he can follow every word. ‘How long have you been learning ASL?’
Ghost signs the answer without hesitation. ‘Eight weeks.’
Piper’s eyebrows lift.
Mine do too.
Eight weeks? The number lands somewhere deep enough that I actually stop thinking for a second.
Eight weeks ago, I told him, standing in this very clubhouse, coffee in one hand, complaining about airline prices and trying not to sound too excited. I’d told him Piper had finally booked her flight.
Eight fucking weeks.
He started that day.
Not after he met her.
Not after he realized she’d actually be coming.
The same day he found out she mattered to me.
Something presses hard against the back of my ribs, and I don’t know what to do with it.
Piper’s gaze lingers on Ghost, her head tipping slightly to one side. I’ve seen that look my whole life. She’s recalibrating. Whatever she expected when I talked about Ghost, this isn’t it.
Then she smiles and nods once. It’s the sort of nod that doesn’t need words. The kind that says, I see what you did.
The kind that says, thank you.
She turns slightly, signing to him with the beginning of a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. ‘Eight weeks. Did you pass yourself?’
Ghost signs back. ‘Entirely level… I’m still learning.’
‘Progress report?’
He smiles. Ghost actually smiles! ‘Better than yesterday.’
‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?’ Piper teases.
He doesn’t blink. ‘It’s usually the right one.’
Piper looks at him for a long moment, and then she signs, slowly and deliberately so he catches every word. ‘My sister said you were quiet.’
‘I am.’
‘She forgot to mention the part where quiet people communicate volumes.’
Something moves at the corner of his mouth, and she catches it. Points at it. ‘There. That’s what she means. That thing you do.’
He straightens slightly, not to deny it exactly, but in the way of someone readjusting. ‘I don’t know what you’re referring to.’
Piper grins, full and uncontained. ‘Yes, you do.’ She looks back at me, signing fast enough now that he won’t catch all of it. ‘I like him. Don’t tell him yet. It’ll go to his head.’
I press my lips together.
“He can see you signing,” I say out loud.
She shrugs, unbothered. ‘Then he can work on that in week twelve.’
Ghost gives Piper one last nod. With no speech, explanation, or waiting around for someone to tell him he’d done something extraordinary, he slips the toothpick back between his teeth, turns on his heel, and heads back toward the glow of his monitors.
Like learning another language because my sister was coming to Vegas was the most ordinary thing in the world.
I don’t know what to do with that.
Deek chooses that exact moment to wander over, which isn’t a coincidence. He’s been waiting for an audience. “Right,” he says, stopping in front of Piper and making a genuine effort to keep himself where she can see his face. “Settle something for me.”
Piper nods.
“Soup…” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Meal… or warm beverage?”
Piper turns to him with absolute seriousness. She signs while she speaks, “That is a question of profound philosophical importance, and I will not be rushed.”
Deek points at her. “I knew I was gonna like you!”
Bear, somewhere behind him, says, “Soup is a meal, Deek. We do this every damn week!”
“We do this every week because you keep being wrong about it, Dad!”
The room tips back into its natural chaos, and Piper steps into it like she was always meant to be here, which maybe she was, and maybe I should have seen sooner.
Marley appears at her side with a coffee and offers her a tour.
Koa is already setting up a stool at the bar, and for one long, warm, impossible minute, I stand in the middle of it all and let myself feel it.
My sister is here.
And I almost stay in it—almost.
Until my phone buzzes in my pocket.
I don’t look at it. Not yet. I stay present for another breath, watching Piper’s hands moving through the air, watching the room absorb her the way this club absorbs everyone it decides to keep.
Then I excuse myself, quietly, with a smile that costs nothing because I’ve had years of practice.
I slip down the hall and into the bathroom and turn the lock.
I look at my phone.
It’s a number I don’t recognize.
I already know what this is.
The message is short, which makes it worse. Short means whoever it is has narrowed it down to what they need to say. They’re past the stage of making broad warnings.
Unknown Number: You have twelve families on file. We have copies of your documentation. Walk away from the group home inquiry by the end of the month, or those families become unfindable. All of them. Don’t make them pay for your choices.
Tick tock, Sage!
I read it twice, my hands staying steady against the paper. My brain, on the other hand, has decided today is an excellent day to stop cooperating.
The investigation.
The families.
Three years.
I built this one interview, one document, one terrified conversation at a time.
I know every late night and every risk I took to get this far.
Which means somebody else does too.
I delete the preview from the notification bar, lock my phone, and look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror for approximately four seconds, which is about as long as I allow myself.
Then I take one slow breath.
It’s enough.
It has to be.
I unlock the bathroom door and head back out before anybody comes looking for me.
Marley hands me a drink the second I walk into the main room. Deek is still arguing that soup counts as a beverage, Koa is threatening to throw him out, and Bear looks as though he’s reconsidering every decision that’s led him to this conversation.
I laugh because it is easier than explaining, then my eyes find Piper.
She’s at the bar, making Kyle laugh so hard he’s had to put his beer down, and just like that, she looks like she’s belonged here forever.
Ghost is back at his workstation by the time I look over, like nothing happened, and he didn’t just turn my entire afternoon inside out. I stand here for another second anyway while life carries on. It always does, and I wrap both hands around my drink, square my shoulders, and walk back into it.
Nobody looks at me twice.
Nobody asks if I’m okay.
By the time I reach the bar, I’m smiling again.
Somehow, I almost believe it.
The corner of Ghost’s screen catches the light.
He doesn’t turn around, but I find myself walking toward him anyway, stopping behind his chair, saying nothing.
His hands are still on the keyboard. The screens do what they always do, running data in patterns I’ve learned to half read over the past months.
“Thank you,” I say.
He doesn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth moves. And I stand there for one more second, behind him, with the weight of everything I’m carrying pressing quiet and steady against my ribs.
Then, I head back to the party.