Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

It wasn't like how it was when I was a kid.

I placed my hand in hers, finding it delicate, almost childlike in a way, giving it a careful shake.

"I'm sorry, what was your... oh. Oh," she said, lips parting a little, eyes going wide, like she'd made a big mistake, like she somehow felt guilty for not realizing I didn't speak just by looking at me. "I'm sorry... do you not hear?" she asked, pointing to her own ear. "That was probably rude," she added, shaking her head at herself. "I'm sorry. I, ah, I'm so awkward. Well, yeah, um. It was nice meeting you," she told me, saying the words slowly, carefully, like she was assuming I was reading her lips. "I have to run to the store," she added, giving me one of those polite smiles I had expected, then rushing off.

It was probably rude of me not to correct her, to tell her I wasn't deaf. That was likely insensitive of me. To her, to the deaf community as a whole. But how the fuck was I supposed to correct her when I didn't speak in the first place? Sometimes, you just let them assume.

It was easier.

And it made me less vulnerable too.

Vulnerability, that shit was never comfortable.

I avoided it as much as humanly possible, save for maybe a handful of instances when I opened up to Liv, spoke to Liv. And once to Astrid who needed to get her head out of her ass over something she had going on with someone up at Hailstorm. Then once with Roan because, well, apparently everyone around me needed a kick in the ass every once in a while.

But that was special shit. Opening up. Letting people in.

You didn't do that every single day for every single person you came across.

So I let people make their assumptions, didn't correct them.

Luckily, I was a creature of habit, so there wasn't a whole lot of guesswork for anyone in our somewhat close-knit town. All it seemed to take was a note passed across a counter with my order at She's Bean Around or the pizza place or the Chinese food place, and they just went with it. Remembered it. No questions. No awkwardness. No having to open up old wounds for them.

As for women, well, I didn't get around as much as West or Vance or - from the old war stories - the other guys at the club did before they all settled down. But I never had an issue getting someone to come home with me, or getting invited home.

Women liked being listened to. They liked opening up to someone who didn't dispute everything they said, who didn't make them feel small for doing so. They often - not always, but often - liked being vulnerable with someone. I was a good sounding board. It all shook out in the end. They got to get three month's worth of bad dates off their soul, got a few orgasms, I got a night of stress relief, and we were both happier at the end.

I didn't feel the need to try to communicate with them.

But then the next morning, I walked out of my apartment to go grab my usual coffee and donut order at She's Bean Around, and something out of place caught my eye - a flash of white that didn't belong.

I turned fully toward Annie's door.

Where she had attached a whiteboard with a dry erase marker on a string.Hi-dee-ho Neighbor (please get this reference),

I'm sorry for the awkward first meeting. I am a little scatterbrained at the moment. Can we have a do-over? My name is Annie. You are______.I knew it was a bad idea.

I knew not a damn good thing could come from it.

But I moved across the hall, grabbed the marker.

Then filled in the blank.

And put a PS at the bottom.

Home Improvement.

What would come of such a small act?

I guessed time would tell.TWOAnnieI had no business trying to get to know my new neighbor.

Truly, I didn't.

Nothing about my life was stationary, or involved putting down roots, getting to know the people across the hall so they might water my plants and take in my mail if I was out of town for a weekend.

I didn't have any houseplants.

They weren't as portable as I would need them to be.

And I didn't get any mail.

Mainly because no one knew where I was.

Which was exactly how things needed to be.

So, yeah, I was supposed to just duck my head, pretend to be on my phone, or just be that jackass neighbor who would purposely pretend they didn't see or hear you when they passed you in the stairwell or the lobby. Or, in our case, right outside our doors.

It was smart to keep to myself.

But, well, he caught me off-guard.