It started right away, and the blast of hot air told him he’d only been trapped for a handful of minutes—nothing like the eternal hours it had felt like in the moment. He hesitated one more time before putting the car in reverse, letting himself wonder if he’d ever see the guy again. But it was too late to do anything about it now. Turning onto the street, he decided he’d just let fate have at it. If it was meant to be, then it would be.
Basil got backto the condo, shaking the water off his coat and swiping his feet on the mat a few times before heading into the foyer. He could smell something cooking, which made his stomach growl, and he pressed his hand to it as he made his way down the short hallway and into the kitchen.
Amaranth was already at the stove, her back to him as she stirred something in a huge pot. He could feel vibrations through the soles of his shoes which meant she had her music on loud, and he reached for the light switch, giving it a flicker to let her know he’d finally made it back.
She turned, smiling at him as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and dropped the spoon against the counter. ‘You’re late. Did you get a huge rush after I left?’
Basil rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he walked to the fridge to get himself a beer. He cracked the top and took in a few longdrinks before he could bring himself to answer. Mostly because he didn’t know what he was going to say.
It was simple enough. He got a last-minute order for a wedding which had taken a hundred years since the woman—the mother of the bride—hadn’t wanted to communicate through his notepad and pencil. She spent twenty minutes insisting he try and read her lips, no matter how many times he jotted down that he was very bad at it, and after a long day it was almost impossible.
He had been seconds away from throwing her out and having her patronize some other business when she finally relented, and they got the preliminary order, date, and arrangements settled. He took her deposit and was damn glad to see the back of her. The drive had gotten complicated when the rain started coming down in a massive downpour. Being that he relied entirely on his vision to navigate the streets safely, having that compromised through every window but the front had been only slightly terrifying.
His plan had been to hunker down a little inside the ATM vestibule until it let up a bit, but he hadn’t anticipated what had come right after slipping inside. Not just the absurdly attractive man and his intense panic attack, but the feelings it had invoked in Basil who had long-since stopped having immediate feels for random hearies he met in public. No matter how huge and attractive they were.
And the guy was both of those things. He hovered nearly half a foot above Basil, his arms covered in ink so intense he could make them out in the near pitch black when the power went out. He was also sweet, and he could sign a little for his friend’s deaf daughter which stirred something in him he didn’t want to feel. At all.
Then the guy—Derek—had gone and shown him his art page. A page Basil had not-so-subtly saved on his browser, and he knew then he was in trouble.
The worst part about it was that if he told Amaranth about it all, she’d be fine with it, she’d encourage it, even. Because in spite of knowing what Basil had gone through with Chad, in spite of havinggone through her own bullshit with men who could hear, she always looked for the best in people. She didn’t necessarily want Basil to end up with a hearing guy, but she didn’t want him to give up in the idea of finding love wherever it might find him.
She was an absurd romantic and always had been. He wanted to hate it, but it was one of the things he loved most about her.
‘You look like you’re trying to solve some complex equation,’ she said after waving her hand to get his attention. ‘What happened?’
He gave her the bare bones version, but when her eyes lit up like a menorah, he knew he was screwed. She latched on to his vague description of Derek and demanded more detail. ‘He was fine. Freaked out,’ Basil told her. ‘He was okay by the end.’
‘Did you get his number?’ she demanded.
Basil pushed himself up from the table and snapped, ‘No,’ in her face before walking to the stove to peer into the pot. Chicken soup. Their mom’s recipe, probably, and it made him want to cry. After the long day, the obnoxious mother of the bride, and his strange draw to the tattooed guy, he needed something to comfort him.
Ama punched him on the shoulder to get his attention, and he turned, glaring at her. ‘Why didn’t you get his number? That’s like straight out of a rom-com.’
‘I hate rom-coms,’ he retorted before turning his back, a pointed gesture he knew would set her off. He felt her stomping behind him, but he ignored her in favor of getting a bowl from the top cabinet and filling it. He ate a few spoonfuls before finally turning around, and he tried not to laugh at the sight of her furious expression.
‘Asshole.’
He shrugged.
‘You have to stop shutting people out just because they slightly, and barely, resemble Chad. At this rate you’ve cut out hearing guys, blondes, guys with beards, and guys who wear shirts with collars.’
He shrugged again, eating a few more bites before putting his bowl down so he could address it properly. ‘If I was sure the guy was nothing like Chad, I’d give him a chance. But I’m not ready to trustanyone. Every time I think about him, I think about that night and I just don’t have it in me to take that risk.’
Ama’s face fell and she took a step forward, reaching for his shoulder to squeeze. ‘I’m sorry,’ she signed with her free hand, then pulled away. ‘I do understand, Basil, and I never want you to go through something like that again. I’m not asking you to put yourself at risk, I’m just asking you to remember that not everyone is like him.’
He appreciated that she didn’t mention what shit luck he’d had dating in the Deaf Community, either. He was starting to think the whole thing wasn’t other people—it was him. Someone far back in their family’s history had cursed the second-born sons named Basil or something, and he was doomed to suffer the consequences. Still, being single wasn’t the worst thing in the world. He hadn’t dated for three months and the loneliness was starting to ease. He was a happy guy, generally, and he enjoyed being on his own.
So naturally, he didn’t want to acknowledge the pressing absence he felt after Derek had left the vestibule, or how he had practiced shaping the letters of Derek’s name on his lips on the drive home. Or how the moment he slid into bed, his thumb tapped his phone screen to pull up the gallery.
And if—just if—he let himself click on the ‘buy now’ button sitting under the gorgeous octopus sketch, well, no one would be the wiser.
CHAPTER TWO
“Oh no, no no no,” Derek groaned at the shrill ringing of his phone. His one open, bleary eye peered at his phone and saw it was just past six in the morning. Which meant he’d managed a solid three hours of sleep before this nonsense. If the name on the caller ID had been anyone but Sam, he would have thrown the phone across the room and let it shatter. “What the actual, ever-loving fuck do you want right now at six in the morning?”
“Beth just called.”
If there was a way to take him from dazed sleep to wide awake like he’d just downed a gallon of espresso, it was saying the phrase, Beth called. Because Beth was the social worker handling Maisy’s case. And Maisy happened to be Sam’s burn-out cousin’s daughter who had been taken by CPS, from the hospital, and bounced around the system for nine goddamn months before they managed to locate someone in her family to take her.
