“I’ve been too nervous to eat today,” I admit, laying a hand on my stomach, which is suddenly growling. I’m glad he can’t hear it.
“Why nervous?” he asks as he slides into a booth. Sometimes Logan forgets that he’s not signing and uses the minimum number of words possible. It doesn’t bother me.
I open my mouth to tell him how scared I was that he hated me when Annie, the waitress, comes to the table and asks, “Do you need a menu?”
Logan shakes his head and motions to me. He’ll have what I’m having. “Two pieces of apple pie and two root beers.” I say.
She nods and cracks her gum at me. “You look awfully familiar,” she says, her eyes narrowing at me.
Logan takes a napkin and pulls a Sharpie from his pocket. He’s never without something to write with. He very slowly writes the words my girlfriend. It’s slow enough and the letters are spaced far enough apart that I can read them. Then he points to me.
Annie’s eyebrows lift. She twists her mouth into a look of incredulity, but then she shrugs and walks away.
“Why didn’t you talk to her?” I ask. “You do have a voice.”
“I don’t talk to everyone.”
“Mmm hmm,” I hum. “Sometimes I think you like your silent world.”
“I like it just fine as long as you’re in it.” He takes my hand in his and swipes his thumb across my skin. He flips my arm over and looks closely at my tattoo. He looks up at me. “You already knew you were going to leave when you got this.”
I knew these questions were coming. And they have to be answered. “I had already called my Dad and told him I would come home if he would take care of Matt. Yes.”
He drags his finger from my wrist to my inner elbow, and the hairs on my arms stand up as he traces the letters of his name. It’s not a dainty tattoo. It takes up my entire inner forearm. “You called your dad from the hospital that day when they said there was no hope for Matt.”
I nod. “They said he could have a chance if he had enough money. And I had access to enough money.”
His brow crinkles. “Why didn’t you just tell me? You let me wake up alone, and you were gone.”
“Would you have let me leave?”
He drags a hand down his face as though he’s tired. “I don’t know.”
“I didn’t want to argue with you about it. It was Matt’s life or my freedom.” I shrug. “I chose Matt’s life.”
His blue eyes bore intently into mine as he leans forward and cups my neck in his hand. He pulls me toward him. His breath touches my lips ever so gently, and then his mouth slides across mine. I don’t know what I expected, but this isn’t it. He licks across the seam of my lips, and I lift up to press myself closer to him, hopping up on my knees so I can lean across the table. His tongue is a velvet rasp against mine. When he pulls back, I’m breathless.
“Don’t leave me again,” he says.
“I won’t.”
He squeezes my neck, kisses me really quickly, and sits back. I want to go and sit on his side of the table so I can touch him, but he won’t be able to see my lips if I do that. I tap his arm so he’ll look at me. “I want to show you something.”
He raises his eyebrows, and he waggles them playfully. “You had better be ready to show me everything.”
I choke. I’ll show him that later. “Ask me something in sign language.”
When I left, I was a novice at speaking his language. I could follow some things, but not everything. I took a class while I was gone. Now I’m pretty good at it.
He narrows his eyes at me and starts to sign. I started classes at NYU on Monday, he says.
I start Julliard next Monday.
He grins.
Not bad. You practiced?
I took a class.
His mouth falls open. For me?
No, dummy. For me. He grins at that. “Dummy” is a term of endearment in his family. There are a lot more words they use, and none of them flattering, but they love one another like crazy.
My brothers want to see you, especially Matt.
I nod. I want to see them, too.
I take his hand in mine and flip his wrist over so I can see my tattoo on his skin. It’s something I’d drawn when I’d felt hopeless and lost. He put it on the inside of his wrist, and then he added a keyhole so I’d have a way out. It sort of goes with the key on my arm. I drag my finger across the one he wears. It’s beautiful. Just like him.
He shifts in his seat, adjusting his fly. I raise my eyebrows at him. “Something wrong?” I ask. I use my voice because I don’t want to let his hand go.
“Aside from the fact that I’m horny as hell, no.” He laughs as heat creeps up my face. “Let’s talk about the snow or the frozen river or I’ll never be able to get up from here.”
Annie sets two plates of pie and two root beers between us. Logan grins at her. I tell her thanks, trying to distract myself. There’s something I need to ask Logan. I don’t have any right to the answer, and I shouldn’t even care, but I need to know.
He tilts my chin up with a crooked finger. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Logan,” I begin. I take a deep breath. “I left you. And I’ll understand if you moved on. I just want to be sure that you want me now, from this moment forward. Whatever you did or whoever you saw when I was gone is none of my business.” Tears sting in my eyes. I’m forgiving him for whatever he may have done and doing a really poor job of it.