Mercedes smirked. “That wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain pediatrician, now, would it?” Even though Carli was good at reading lips, her roommate was always considerate and signed when she had her CIs off.
“Maybe.” Getting a bowl from the cabinet, she ladled a small amount of soup into it and sat at the kitchen table.
“Is that all you’re having? I thought you’d be starving by now.” Mercedes poured some hot water over a tea bag in a mug and sat with her.
“I had snacks at the party, so I’m not too hungry. But this is far healthier than anything I ate there.” Her speech was clear, but Mercedes liked practicing ASL, so Carli made sure to answer her that way.
“How was it? Did the doc pay any attention to you?”
Rolling her eyes, Carli nodded. “Probably more than he should have.” She told her friend how he’d come down to radiology earlier that morning for some X-rays and to make sure she was coming.
“Then, he made me wear a costume that matched the other staff.”
“Something sexy or something silly?”
“They were all dressed up as characters fromToy Story, and he was Sheriff Woody. He gave me a bonnet, staff, and stuffed sheep, and I got to be—”
“Bo Peep,” Mercedes fingerspelled, her eyes twinkling. “You know what that means?”
“Yeah. That my dress was like a sheepherder’s.”
“No, it means he wants you to be his girlfriend. They’re a couple, you know.” Her eyes twinkled.
“He mentioned that, but I’m sure it didn’t mean anything. It was simply one of the costumes they had left over.”
“If you say so.”
Mercedes drank her tea while Carli finished her soup. The silence felt great. The noise from a long day with excited kids and then the ride on the commuter rail had started her head pounding. How did people do it who couldn’t shut off their hearing? This was definitely the best of both worlds, though many wouldn’t agree.
When she finished and rinsed out her dish, she saw the can of Mountain Dew sitting in the sink.
“Evan was here? Did he come in time for dinner, the mooch?”
Her lips pulled back as Mercedes said, “Yeah, how could you tell?”
She held up the can and drained any last drops. “No one else drinks this. Why do we even have it here? I never buy it. The last thing I need is my brother here, bugging me more than he already does.”
As Carli tossed it in the recycle bin, her roommate shrugged. “I may have picked some up last time I went shopping.”
Evan was a bit of a homebody. Too bad he hung around her home more than his own, though much of the time it was with Mercedes and not her. He approved of people if they were hearing, but not if they were deaf pretending to be hearing apparently. Like he thought of her.
After changing into loose yoga pants and a long sleeve t-shirt, Carli sank onto the couch and picked up a book she’d been reading.
“You said the doc paid too much attention to you.”The magazine Mercedes had been looking at dropped in her lap. “Good attention?”
“I don’t need good attention from him. It’s not like anything would ever happen between us. He’s a doctor. And hearing. You know how many people still look at me as ‘that poor deaf girl’.”
“Right. He also aggravated you the first time you met. Why would you want him?” Mercedes lifted her shoulders.
After a few minutes back into their reading, her phone vibrated. Swiping her finger over the screen, she saw a text from Blake. With a picture of the two of them at the party.
A waving magazine got her attention, and she glanced at Mercedes. “What are you grinning about?”
Darn, she hadn’t realized she’d done that.
“Nothing. Just a picture from the party. Blake says they want to put it on the Facebook page for the hospital. They can’t use pictures of the kids for obvious reasons.”
“Let me see.” Mercedes was out of her chair and crammed in next to her in seconds. “My my. He is yummy. You never told me how gorgeous he is. And he has his arm around you.”
