“Are you sure?”Joe asked.
“Sure.Are there some dishes that are traditional for you?Either let me know what they are, or you can make them at Harm’s and bring them along.”Derek seemed so excited.“I have a few recipes of my mother’s that I make every year.”
“Does your sister usually come?”
Derek shook his head.“She usually comes down for Christmas.But it seems that her practice is shutting down for a few days this year, and we haven’t seen each other since I went to visit her this past summer.”
“Thank you for the invitation,” Harm sighed as carefully as he could.“It sounds nice, and I really want to meet Suzanne.”He suddenly had a question.“Are there specific signs for names?”
Derek grinned.“Suzanne and I have specific signs for each other.We developed them as kids, and we still use them.Most people would letter sign their name.”Derek set down his fork and began signing as he spoke.“So Suzanne is this….”Derek made the sign, and then he made a second one.“And that is her sign for me.”
“Do they have other meanings?”Harm asked.
“Sort of.Mine for Suzanne is close to ‘little sister’, and mine is close to ‘big brother’.But with a few inflectives thrown in for good measure.Let’s just say our parents were not amused.”He smirked, and Harm could just imagine what they might have come up with as kids.“It was easier than spelling the name between us all the time.”He kept signing for him, and Harm repeated the name signs back.“Very good.”
“Well, I’m not going to use that same one for you.I have one of my own.”Harm made the sign, and Derek stilled.
“Harm….”
“What?That’s the sign I’m going to use for you.”Harm grinned.
“What does it mean?”Joe asked.
Derek’s cheeks reddened by the second.“It means ‘sweetheart’.”He looked down at the table and grew quiet.Harm wondered if he had done something wrong.Maybe he was moving too fast and should have kept that part of his feelings to himself.When Derek finally raised his faced, there were tears in his eyes.“I’ll have to think of a sign for you.”He sniffed and then looked away before picking up his fork.Joe and Larry smiled as they looked at each other, doing that silent communication thing once more.
Chapter 13
DEREK WASnervous and kept going over his checklist for Thanksgiving dinner.“Why are you so wound up?”Suzanne asked as she stood out of the way.
“Because I’m making dinner for you and Harm’s family.And because you didn’t get here until late and he had to work yesterday, so you didn’t get to meet him yet.”He glared at her.“How come you’re not nervous?It’s just mean of you.”
She rolled her eyes.“Get it together.I’m sure I’m going to like Harm, so relax.It’s just dinner.There isn’t any reason to get your panties in a wad.Unless… you aren’t planning to ask him to marry you, right?”
“No, I’m not.”He was yell signing.
Suzanne gently touched his shoulder for a moment.“Then stop all of the worry and just have a good time.You’ve got enough food to feed an army, and if nothing else we can all drink until we get the giggles and pass out.You’ve told me that Harm is a nice man, and his dads are as well.”She leaned back against the counter.“You’re worried about the communication logistics, aren’t you?”
“Yes.So I created a group chat.”He invited Suzanne to the group.“I figured that then everyone could talk to everyone else, and I wasn’t going to have to interpret sign for everyone.But signing directly with Harm is good.He needs to practice.He’s been learning for maybe a month now and he’s really eager.It’s how we communicate between the two of us… sort of.We use a combination of speech and sign right now, because he can hear me.”
“The woman who developed the materials you’re using was wondering if signing was used differently with a speech loss.Would it be okay if I had her contact you?She’s very curious, and it might be something that could help her dissertation.”
“Of course,” Derek said as the doorbell rang.He hurried to the front door, only to stop dead in his tracks.William stood on his doorstep holding a casserole dish.“What?”He was speechless.“William, what are you doing here?”He stood in the door and… holy hell, had William’s feverishly crazy mind imagined some sort of dinner invitation?
“I took your advice and found someone else.”He held the casserole dish without offering it.This situation was weird, and the more Derek tried to figure it out, the more his head hurt.
“Good.I really hope you have a great day with them.Enjoy the holiday, and I hope it’s everything you wanted.”He smiled and closed the door before William could offer him whatever he was carrying.Derek didn’t want anything from William, and he was afraid that if he offered something and Derek took it, that might be enough encouragement for William to start following him again.
“Who was that?”Suzanne signed as soon as he turned around.
“My stalker,” he answered.“I have no idea why he showed up today, but I had to shut him down fast.He said he found someone else, and I hope it’s true, but I also hope it’s real and he hasn’t just found someone else to stalk.”
“What about the break-in?Did he have anything to do with it?”Suzanne asked, and Derek groaned.
“The burglar is still in jail as far as I know.Red, the police officer who helped with the call, says that the guy who broke in had been in the Gingerbread downtown, and he had heard that there was no one home here.So he apparently got it into his head to break in and rob the place for drug money.Red said that the guy was high as a kite when he broke in, and that it took some time before they were able to get anything coherent out of him.”
Suzanne hit him with one of her steely stares.
“I know.William could have been the one to spread it around that we were gone, Lord knows.Or they could have been talking about a different house and this guy broke into mine.I don’t know and I can’t prove anything.The police patrol the street more than they used to, so that’s good.But as far as a link from the burglar to William, there isn’t much.”He signed as he shrugged and lowered his hands.“It sucks,” he added and went to check on the turkey.
