Chapter 4
Royce~
The drive to Roxanne’s house hadn’t been long enough in my opinion.
She lived only two miles from the school, though it’d been a pleasant surprise to learn that she only lived three blocks from my house.
While I had no plans on stalking her beyond what I’d already had, having her live so closely was going to help with picking her up for school every day.
“So, are you going to tell me what happened after we left?”
It was Saturday morning, and my mom was already up, making breakfast. My parents were creatures of habit, and Dad was in the shower right now, after his morning run, while Mom cooked.
My mom always woke up at five, so her daily workout had finished a long time ago.
It was nine right now, and Mom was an angel to let her men sleep in when they needed it.
Sitting down at the breakfast bar, I reached for a piece of sliced fruit. “Her friend, Pepper, let me drive Roxie home.”
Mom chuckled at that. “Pepper sounds like a very good friend.”
“She is,” I confirmed. “She threatened me if Roxie didn’t make it home safely.”
Mom turned from the stove to look over at me. “Roxie?”
I grinned because I couldn’t help it. “I asked her if I could call her that, and she said yes.”
“So...?” she prompted before turning back towards the stove.
“Well, since I couldn’t really talk to her while I was driving, the ride to her house had been a bit awkward. However, once we got there, we stayed in the car and talked a little bit.” I let out a soft laugh. “Of course, that was after she had texted Pepper to let her know that she was home safe.”
“You know, texts are-”
“As soon as Roxie sent the text, Pepper had facetimed her to make sure,” I added.
Mom started laughing. “I’m liking Pepper more and more.”
“It’s awesome that Roxie has a friend like her,” I agreed. “Girls should always look out for one another, but more so when one is at risk a little more than the others.”
“So, what did you guys talk about?” she asked. While I was a teenage boy with teenage boy hormones, my parents had raised me to respect females, so my mother knew that nothing had happened in my car last night.
“I asked her if she liked the game, if she liked sports,” I told her.
“Things like that. I asked her about her family, and she told me that her father is a doctor, her mother is the director at the rec center, and that she has an older brother in college. His name is Arnold, after their dad, and he’s going to college for teaching. ”
Mom transferred the food from the pan to the breakfast platter before turning to face me again. “She signed you all that? And you understood it?”
I grimaced a bit. “Well, no,” I admitted. “We ended up exchanging numbers and texted a lot of the conversation.
Mom went back to arranging breakfast, and after setting everything onto the breakfast bar, she smiled at me. “Well, I bet that made things a lot easier.”
“It did, but...” I let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to text her, Mom. I want to talk to her. I want to communicate with her in a way that makes her feel close to me. Not in goddamn texts.”
Her face softened. “Royce, it’s only been a few months,” she pointed out. “Give it some time. It’s not easy learning ASL.” Since she was also taking classes, I knew that she was just trying to be helpful.
Just then, my father came walking into the kitchen, his hair still damp from his shower.
I watched as he walked up to my mother, wrapped an arm around her, then kissed her neck like I wasn’t in the room.
If there was one thing that could be said about my parents, it was that they were still very much in love with one another.
My father adored my mother, and she let him.
“Do you two mind?” I joked.
“My wife, my house, my rules,” Dad chuckled. “Deal with it.”
“I have,” I snorted. “For eighteen years.”
“Well, how in the hell do you think you got to be here, son?” Dad smirked. Still, he did me the favor of getting his paws off my mother.
“Dude, I’m about to eat breakfast,” I grumbled like the offended teenager that I was. “Leave my mother alone.” Mom laughed, making me and Dad both smile.
“She was my wife before she was your mother,” he replied.
“Eat,” Mom said, putting a stop to the back and forth. “Both of you.”
“So, since you have an away game this coming week, we’re heading over to visit Quincy this weekend,” Dad announced. “Thought we’d give you a heads up.”
I nodded as I made my plate. “Okay, no problem.” While my parents weren’t the hovering type, they still liked to visit my brother whenever they could. “I miss him.”
“Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away,” Mom reminded me. “You’ll see him soon enough.”
After a few comfortable moments of eating, Dad finally asked his questions. “So, how did it go last night? She seems like a very lovely young lady. She even humored your mother with some signing after you went to the showers.”
Mom chuckled, and I smiled. “It went well, but I was just telling Mom that I wish I was more fluent in ASL,” I told him.
“I don’t like how we had to text most of our conversation.
I know that she can read lips, but that felt ridiculous since it was me who couldn’t understand her signing and not her that couldn’t understand me. ”
“Look, I’m not an expert with things like this, but...well, why don’t you ask her if she can help teach you to sign?” he suggested. “They say that the best way to learn another language is to use it constantly. Maybe Roxanne can sign as slowly as you speak, and you both can learn from one another.”
As I thought about that, it was a rather good suggestion. “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea,” I muttered. “I’ll ask her about it on Monday.”
“Well, did you ask her out, at least?” Mom asked. “Like to be your girlfriend?”
“I’m going to do that on Monday,” I told her. “I wanted to give her some time to think about my interest in her.” I let out a sad laugh. “Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Oh, that has nothing to do with her being deaf, son,” Dad chuckled. “That’s men with all women.”
“Watch it, Bram,” Mom teasingly warned.
“Always, honey,” Dad easily replied, and I just smiled at the two of them.
~
Roxanne~
It was Saturday morning, and I was pretty sure that I hadn’t stopped smiling since Royce had driven me home last night. Royce had been the perfect gentleman, but I wasn’t sure if some of that had been in part to Pepper threatening him.
Still, last night had been perfect.
“Okay, I can’t stand it anymore,” my mom signed as she walked into the living room. We’d just finished cleaning up after breakfast, and Dad had gone to take an emergency phone call.
Both my parents worked Monday through Friday, so the weekends were usually ours.
However, if there was an emergency, my father was more than willing to handle it.
He wasn’t one of those doctors who were in it just for the money.
He genuinely cared about people, and it showed in the way that he dealt with his patients.
As for Mom, she also had scheduled hours, but if the center was doing something big, or if it was the holidays, then she put in more hours than was required of her.
While she hadn’t been raised in poverty or by a single parent, my mother had something special about her that made it easy for her to connect with the struggling youth.
So, between her and my father, I learned early on what it meant to treat people right.
“What?” I signed.
She arched a brow as she took a seat in one of the armchairs. “You’ve been smiling like you have the sun on your face ever since you got back from the game last night,” she signed, a teasing smirk on her face. “What gives?”
I let out an embarrassed sigh before signing her the truth. “A boy.”
Her smirk turned into a smile. “Okay, I want to hear all about it.”
“All about what?” Dad signed as he walked into the room.
“Is everything okay?” My parents were very involved with each other’s lives, so I wasn’t surprised that my mom asked him about the phone call.
“Everything’s fine,” he signed. “There was an issue with a transfer.”
Mom nodded, then spilled the beans. “Roxie’s met a boy.”
My dad’s brows shot upward. “Is that why you went to the game last night?”
Again, this town was a sports town, so most citizens knew what was going on with the local high school, even if they didn’t have any kids that age, and my parents were no different. Plus, my mother loved sports, so she was always in the know, even if I didn’t play any.
I nodded. “Royce Cameron,” I voiced, feeling giddy enough to speak. No matter how strange I might sound, I always felt safe with my parents.
“Yosemite’s varsity quarterback?” Mom asked, switching to speaking since I’d chosen to speak. My parents were awesome like that. They always let me set the pace of our communication.
I nodded. “Pepper had wanted to go anyway, but Royce had asked me to go when we ran into each other in the hallway yesterday.”
“So, tell us about this young man,” Dad spoke, his words precise.
“He invited us to sit in the players’ section, then after the game, he introduced us to his parents,” I told them. “His father’s a lawyer, and his mom’s a stay-at-home-mom.”
“Meeting the parents, huh?” Mom teased. “That’s pretty serious.”
My dad just eyed me, being the protective father that he was. “And then what happened?”
“He asked if he could drive me home from the game, and after Pepper gave him permission, he drove me home,” I answered.
“He asked Pepper for permission?” Dad asked, a little smirk on his face.
“Well, she threatened him, so...” I shrugged.
Mom laughed. “Leave it to Pepper.”
“So, did he drive you home?” Dad asked.
I nodded. “When he pulled up to the house, we stayed in his car for a while, talking and getting to know each other.” I smiled. “He’s learning how to sign. He’s not very good, but he tries. He said that he’s been taking classes for a few months now.”
My mom’s hands came up to cover her gasp, her eyes watering immediately. Dad’s entire face softened, his eyes shining right at me. “He has, has he?”
I nodded at my dad again. “I think...” I shrugged. “I think it’s sweet.”
“It’s more than sweet,” Mom said after getting her emotions under control. “It’s admirable.”
“He asked if he could pick me up for school on Monday,” I told them. “I said that it’d be okay.”
“Good,” Dad said. “I’d like to meet this young man.”
“Don’t you have to be at the office before then?” I asked.
“I do,” he admitted. “However, I want to meet Royce Cameron more.”
“Okay,” I said.
My mom started clapping like a loon, and I had no idea why.
Royce wasn’t the first boy to ever show interest in me, and I’d had boyfriends before.
Two decent ones, but I’d met them both during my early years of taking ASL classes, and both boys had also been deaf.
At the time, it had seemed easier to date someone who’d been dealing with the same struggles that I’d been, but it wasn’t long before I realized that I didn’t want easy.
I wanted real, no matter how hard that might be.
“Okay, okay,” I teased. “Can we get back to our Saturday morning without Royce Cameron?”
Both my parents smiled, but Mom wasn’t giving up so easily. “Of course,” she said. “After I text your brother and tell him that you have a boyfriend.”
I shook my head, then went back to watching television.
Before Mom had walked in, demanding answers for my smile, I’d just started a Halloween marathon.
While I loved rom-com movies, sometimes I got burnt out on all that emotional drama.
With scary movies, there was no drama. All you had was blood and guts, and sometimes that’s all a girl needed on a relaxing Saturday.
Halfway through the first movie, I got a text on my phone. Pepper was probably sleeping in, but she’d gotten all the answers to her questions last night. As soon as Royce had walked me to my door, then left, I’d been on the phone with Pepper.
AJ: Heard u have a bf?
I laughed.
Mom hadn’t been joking.
Me: Maybe. I don’t know 4 sure yet
AJ: Let me know when u do
Hopefully, I’d find out soon.