I huff, trying to separate the sections again. “A French braid.”
He laughs softly, moving to sit behind me on the bed. “This is anything but a French braid.” His hands gently push mine away, his fingers slipping into my hair. “Let me.”
“You can braid hair?”
“I used to do it for Rosie.” His focus is on the sections he’s creating. The name sends a pang through me, but I want to ask so much more, to learn more pieces of his life. A few beats ofsilence stretch between us as his steady fingers tug confidently at my hair. “It’s fine.” He seems to feel the question hanging in the air. “You can ask. She’s been gone fifteen years. I still miss her every day, but it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. I can talk about her.”
I hesitate only for a moment, but then I think of how he helped me so much today, so maybe talking will ease something for him, too, however small. “What happened?”
“Mom and her, they died in a car crash. Levi and I were with them, but we were in the back seat.” His fingers pause briefly in my hair, then continue.
“You were…” I swallow, feeling a knot of empathy and sorrow in my throat. “You were in the same car when it happened?”
“Yes.” His answer is so quiet I can barely hear it. He inhales slowly, his fingers gently tugging on a strand as he weaves it in. “It was… yeah, it was horrible.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, knowing all too well how it felt then and how he feels now. “How… how did you still drive after that? Or Levi?”
“I don’t know. I guess I loved cars too much. I made it my escape. Got my license not long after. Uncle Oscar had a few cars, some fast ones, and I used to take them out after he took us in. Far too fast, of course. I got in trouble more than a few times.” He chuckles, though there’s a hollow edge to it. “I guess… that was my way of coping.”
As he opens up to me, it almost feels as though his fingers are weaving calm right into me with each piece of him he exposes, with every strand of hair intertwined. I close my eyes, letting myself sink into it all.
This time, I can’t stop myself from asking, “Is that… is that why you need a hearing aid?” His hands still, and I turn, immediately regretting it when I see the look on his face. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”
“No, it’s all right.” He nudges me to turn back around, his fingers resuming their work on my hair. “You deserve the truth if we’re doing this.”
This…
The job?
This friendship?
Giving into this…thingbetween us?
That is the question I won’t allow myself to ask, no matter how far he lulls me into comfort.
“When we started living with Uncle Oscar, Levi wanted to be a magician too. Oscar showed us tricks, taught us the ropes, and eventually got us involved in his shows. Made us theMagic Twins. I think he wanted to give us purpose after… everything.”
I keep quiet as he talks, not wanting to disturb him. His fingers occasionally smooth over strands with a gentle touch as if it soothes him as well. The air is thick with impending emotion, and I can almost sense the effort it’s taking for him to tell his story.
“One time, Levi came up with a new trick. It was an illusion with fire, and he was supposed to get his pigeons out of this box that was rigged to combust. There were no pigeons inside it while that was supposed to happen, of course. But it didn’t work. When I went to check, standing right in front of it…” He trails off, and his fingers slow. “The box went off practically in my face. It was… I’m lucky I got away with only a scar.”
“And… the hearing?”
His fingers glide over the completed work before he pulls me back to rest against his chest, his arms wrapping around me.
“Lost most of it that day,” he says quietly. “I can still hear a bit, but it’s… muffled. Like everything’s underwater or behind thick glass.” He swallows thickly, adding, “Without my hearing aids, I’m… I’m pretty much lost.”
He rests his chin on my shoulder, and I hope he finds comfort in our closeness. “But they help a lot. They amplify sound, focus on voices, even filter out background noise. In the right conditions, it’s like I almost have my hearing back. Almost.” His fingers move over mine as he explains, “In a quiet room, it can feel pretty normal. Take them out, though, and I’m left with dull echoes. So yeah.” His thumb brushes the back of my hand. “Losing most of my hearing made a lot change. And I guess… I still don’t love people knowing about it. Sorry for how I acted when you saw the aid.”
Squeezing his hand, I try to reassure him. “That’s absolutely understandable.”
“The last girlfriend I had, it was… maybe three years ago?” He nuzzles my neck. “She was with me for the fame, but I didn’t see it at first. Hell, I didn’t want to see it. She loved the money and the attention Levi and I brought her. Always wanted to go out, be seen, live in the spotlight, make sure every move was caught by the paparazzi.”
He huffs against my neck, eliciting goose bumps to creep down my spine. “I guess I was too blinded by everything to see it. I thought… I thought I was in love. Eventually, it became clear that she didn’t give a damn about me.
“One night, my hearing aid started acting up.” He starts hurriedly as if trying to get through the story quickly. “I was in the middle of a crowded event, and everything suddenly went quiet, like a wall of sound dropped. I went to find her, told her I needed help getting somewhere quieter, that I couldn’t hear a thing. It wasn’t bad, but… I fucking panicked. And she… she left me there like I was some inconvenience. Made up some excuse I couldn’t hear and disappeared into the crowd.”
“Fucking bitch,” I mutter, making him laugh.
