Holding Her Hand (The Reed Brothers 9)

She blows out a raspberry, her lips vibrating as she does it. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Thank you for letting me plead my case.” I rub my sweaty palms up and down the thighs of my jeans. “I guess I should go so you can go back to…” I raise and lower my hand up and down the length of her body. “…whatever this is you’re doing.”

“It’s called wallowing.” She stares at the TV, which isn’t even turned on.

“What does wallowing consist of?”

“Beauty rituals.” She points to her face. “Lots of unhealthy food.” She points to the kitchen counter where there are several bags of takeout waiting. “I couldn’t decide what I wanted.”

“What did you get?” At least she’s talking to me.

“Pizza. Chinese. Chicken parmesan from the Italian restaurant. Donuts from the bakery on the corner.” She pinches her lips closed. “Four flavors of ice cream.” She throws up her hands. “That’s how I wallow.”

“You went out and got all that?”

She shakes her head. “I sent someone. One of the benefits of always having security hanging around. They’re willing to go get food. I’m kind of glad you showed up, because now they won’t think I ate it all by myself.” She jerks a thumb toward the kitchen. “Are you hungry? There’s a lot of food.”

“I could eat.” I shrug. “Do you have plans tonight?”

She laughs. “You’re looking at them.”

“Can I hang out with you?” I hold my breath while I wait for her reply.

“You want to hang out with this?” She motions to herself again.

“I like this,” I say, making a move like she’s a prize on The Price is Right. “I like it a lot.” I look at her TV. “We could rent a movie.”

Her brow furrows. “You enjoy movies?”

“With closed captioning, yes.” I smile at her. “You’ve never spent much time with deaf people, have you?”

“Just Logan Reed…” She winces.

“Where did you learn to sign?”

“We all learned when we were small,” she says. “Peck had a really bad stutter, so it was the only way she could communicate. Then when Peck married into the Reed family, we realized that the whole family used it to communicate, and we felt like it was rude not to know the language, so we took a few refresher classes on the weekends.”

“Really?” I ask as I brush a lock of damp hair from her forehead. “That was a wonderful thing to do.”

“It was nothing.”

“It’s everything,” I tell her. My belly does a little dance.

“Logan didn’t lose his hearing until he was twelve, so he could speak really well, but even he couldn’t catch everything we said by reading our lips.” She gets quiet for a minute. “You don’t speak much, do you?”

I shake my head.

“Okay.” She picks up a remote and hands it to me. “You pick a movie while I go wipe some of the crap off my face, will you?”

I nod and take the remote from her.

“Help yourself to dinner, if you want it.”

“Okay.”

I turn on the TV as she disappears around the corner. I find the pay channels and look through what’s available. There’s a horror flick that’s new, and it’s supposed to be really scary. I buy that one. I’ll have to pay her for it later, since I’m using her account. I get it queued up and go to the kitchen. She has all the food still in bags, so I unpack it and get out two plates.

She comes out a few minutes later and she’s wearing black yoga pants that hug her ass, and a sheer t-shirt. Her face is wiped clean and it’s shiny, and she has pulled her hair back in a ponytail.