Holding Her Hand (The Reed Brothers 9)

We follow the waitress to our table, and Lark slides into one side of the booth and I take the other. I am sincerely grateful for the table between us. The waitress leaves two menus and walks away.

A group of teenagers at a nearby table all take their phones out and start snapping pictures.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “By the end of the night, you’ll be known as the hot guy I’m fucking on the down low in all the tabloids.”

I shake my head like a dog shaking water from its fur. “I’m sorry, but all I got from what you just said was that you think I’m hot and we’ll be fucking later.”

Her face turns bright pink and she looks away bashfully.

“That’s not what I meant,” she says.

“So you don’t think I’m hot?” I tease.

She finally smiles. “No, I do,” she rushes to say, her fingers working quickly.

I grin. “Good. I think you’re pretty hot too. S-M-O-K-I-N-G,” I spell out with my fingers, and then I blow the tips of them like they’re on fire.

Her smile grows and the flush on her cheeks moves all the way down her chest. “Thank you,” she says tentatively.

I lean toward her a little like I’m imparting a secret. “Now about the fucking…” I toss my hands up in question, leaving it open for her.

“Well, we don’t have to worry about that since you don’t fuck hearing girls.” She stares hard at me, and this time it’s me who blushes.

“I didn’t say I don’t like hearing girls. I just couldn’t take one home to meet my parents.” I must be the biggest dick on the face of the planet after that comment. But she’s not angry. She leans back against the seat cushion and just stares at me.

“You’ve had sex with hearing girls?” she asks. Her eyes search my face, like she’s looking for the smallest hint of a lie.

“Never had an opportunity,” I admit. “My circle has been pretty small.”

She takes a sip of her water. “Tell me about your circle. Where did you go to school?”

I name a school for the deaf upstate.

“You lived there all the time?”

I nod. “Except for holidays and weeks off.”

“Did you ever get lonely?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Never. Too many people around.”

“Th

en you went to NYU?”

I nod. “How did you know that?”

She smiles. “I might have asked Logan.”

“I met Logan at NYU. It was refreshing to meet someone who was deaf at such a big school.”

“I bet it was. Why didn’t you go to a deaf college?”

“I got a scholarship at NYU to study art.”

“You said your circle was small,” she reminds me. “If you were at NYU, your circle was huge.”

“No, the school was huge, and so was the student population. But the deaf population was tiny.”