Julie gave him a soft smile and took hold of the little girl's hand. “Will you let Ms. Julie cut it out? I promise not to cut too much,” she told the crying girl. Slowly, she nodded, and Julie stood up again.
She looked back to me, and smiled, then looked to the boy again. “That's Falon. He's come to help today,” she told him.
The guy looked to me, sized me up, and then turned back to Julie with a grin. “I'll show him around,” he replied.
Julie laughed and nudged his arm and she passed. “Be nice,” she told him, then winking.
I watched with an uneasiness. Maybe he was her boyfriend, and she really was just being nice to me. I didn't need to worry about flirting, or crushing, because she was a taken woman.
And I had nothing on that guy.
He was tall, and suave, like a Calvin Klein model. He wore his jeans like he was doing them a favor, and his dark blonde was style into a faux hawk that made him look more All American than 'about to bang your daughter'.
The fact that he had hair made him instantly better than me. Didn't girls like running their fingers through their guy's hair? I had hair on my legs, but I doubted anyone wanted to run their fingers through that mess.
He came to me, smiling from the corner of his mouth as he held out his hand. “So Falon,” he said, and I slowly took his hand. He squeezed it tight, and gave it one quick shake. “Funny name.”
“Comes with the funny face.”
He laughed, and I mean really laughed, like my joke was the funniest thing he had ever heard. It wasn't really meant to be funny. Just honest, I guess.
“Do you think you have a funny face?” he asked me, as if it were the simplest of questions, and for me it was.
“Of course. It isn't that pretty boy-Zac Efron look that you seem so pleased about,” I replied.
He shrugged it off easily. “My face might not be funny, but these ears are,” he replied, then poked at them. “Can't hear a single thing you say, my man,” he told me with a smile.
I narrowed my eyes. “You're lying,” I told him.
He shook his head. “I kid you not. I was born without hearing in one ear. Dear old daddy use to pop me in the other ear when I was a little kid. No sense in having a son that could only hear half of what you say. One time, he popped too hard and then, Pop! Goes the ear drums,” he said with an easy shrug.
“So you learned how to read lips?” I asked, and he patted me on the back.
“Good job, smarty-pants. And Sketch said you were a little slow,” he told me with a wide grin that only enhance his good looks.
“Sketch?”
“Julie, sorry. Most everyone calls her Sketch,” he said, shaking his head. “And my name's Liam.”
So the boyfriend had a pet name for her too. Great.
“You know, I think you and me are going to be good friends. I like a raw sense of humor,” he told me, nudging his head toward the tables, and started walking.
I stayed by his side and he kept his eyes on my face as I said, “If honesty is raw then I think we'll get along just fine.”
There were three tables, each with their own color, and own shape. One was square, one was round, and the other was in the shape of a triangle. Blue, Red, and Yellow.
He picked up the blocks that were beside the table, scatter across the floor and turned to me. “Sketch tries to keep everything picked up as soon as the kids move on to another toy, so you might pick up the same thing ten times in one day,” he told me while rolling his eyes.
“We organize everything in their own areas. This is suppose to be the drawing tables, but we had to start taking the coloring books and crayons out of her when we left because the older kids, like myself, would come and draw on everything just for spite,” he said.
“Why would they do that? Don't they have better things to do than mess with a bunch of kids?” I asked.
“You know how it is. You get sick, or lose something,” he said, pointing to his ear. “And suddenly, you have nothing left to lose.”
“Were you one of those kids?”
Liam nodded. “Once upon a time. That's how I met Sketch though, and after that, everything changed,” he said, smiling slightly.
“So, you've been together for a while?” I asked, the question bitter. I tried to mask my obvious disapproval, because I actually kind of liked Liam. I thought he might be hitting the nail on the head when he said we'd get along fine.
Except for Julie. But, I would get over that eventually. I hoped.
Liam started laughing, and then sat down in one of the chairs, looking up at me with a wide grin. “Did I read that right? Did you ask if me and Sketch have been together for a while?” he asked.
I nodded, and that really cracked him up. He was laughing like a maniac, and even one of the kids looked at me with a brow raised.
“I think you broke Liam,” he said.
I nodded. “I think you might be right.”
Liam calmed himself down, but he had tears in his eyes. He wiped under his eyes, and breathed in slowly, and then out, until he had managed to control himself more.
“Sorry, but do you really think Sketch and I are dating?” he asked, brow raised, and a cocky grin on his face.
“Well, I did, but now I'm thinking I obviously missed something,” I told him, and he began nodding.
“You are, my man. Sketch is my sister. Adopted, but she's my sister in every form of the word,” he replied.
I raised my brow, and sat down. “Now, I'm really missing something,” I told him.
Liam sighed and then grinned. “Sketch was here one night when we were in here, and my so called friends didn't warn me that she was coming, and I couldn't hear her. She caught me red-handed. She was only thirteen. I was fifteen at the time, so I could have gotten away from her if I wanted, but she talked me down. After that, I was everywhere she was, and then her parents started allowing me to stay with them when they found out about the foster home that I was living in. It was only about a month later before they asked for my permission to adopt me.
“They asked for my permission,” he said, smiling wider. “I couldn't have been happier. I know it was a huge decision, to take on a fifteen year old that's deaf, but they really are great. They've been through a lot,” he told me, and I nodded.
My sister was the same way.
“So, to answer your question, yes. We've been together a long time, but I couldn't look at Sketch that way without feeling sick. She really is my little sister, and she feels the same way,” he told me.
I nodded. I could feel the weight lifted from my chest as he said it. I really did like Liam now, knowing he wasn't kissing on Julie, and holding her.
“She doesn't have any guys at the moment,” he said, and I looked to him. He had his corner of his mouth turned upward in a wicked smile. “So if you're thinking about making the moves on her, you might want to work fast.”
I only looked at him for a moment before getting on the floor and picking up the rest of the blocks. I heard Liam laughing as he got on the floor with me and started picking up the blocks with me.
I was surprised at how many there were.
“I think my sister might like you. Don't ask me how I know,” he told me. I began trying to ignore him too.
Knowing that she might like me was not something I cared to know. She could also think that I was like her adopted brother. She could just pity me, rather than like me. There was a fine line.
“Are you listening to me?” he asked me.
I turned to him and just started moving my mouth as if I was talking. Liam looked at me for a minute, trying to figure out what I was saying, and then frowned, narrowing his eyes at me.
“That's not funny,” he said, then chuckled. “Well, it kind of is, but that's not the point.”
I smiled, and finished picking up the blocks rather than talking to him. By the time we had picked them all up, Julie was coming back, holding a clotted lump of hair with green gum in the center.
; She gave it to me, and curled my hand around it. It was still warm and sticky, like it hadn't been out of a mouth long enough. I grimaced as she smiled.
“Peace offering,” she said to me, and Liam started laughing, laying the box of blocks on the table.
I nodded, squeezing the clump. “Peace offering. I think mine was better,” I told her.
Liam shook his head. “No, this is great. Look, it's a hair piece,” he said, taking the gum from my hands. He stuck it to the end of his chin and then moved his hands to the side. “I always wanted a goatee!” he exclaimed.
Julie began to laugh, and she reached into her back pocket for her phone. “Hold still, dope. Dad is going to drop dead laughing at this,” she said, taking the photo and then moving to Liam's side to show him. He started laughing.
I watched them and was satisfied with that. Julie came to my side though, and held out the phone so I could see. I smiled staring at his dorky face and gum goatee.
“Here you go, man. Didn't mean to steal your hair,” Liam replied, giving me the gum back.
I nodded. “Thank you. I was feeling kind of bald without it,” I told him, slapping it on top of my head. They both erupted in laughter.
“Stay just like that,” Julie told me, and I did as she said. She held her phone up and snapped a picture of me.
Liam was watching over her shoulder, and he gave me a thumbs up when she finished.
“You're very photogenic. You kind of look like Alfalfa, from Little Rascals,” he told me.
“Thanks. I think.”
Julie came to my side and showed me my picture. There I was, green gum hair on my head, and a dorky smile on my face. I looked like someone that had been pieced together like Frankenstein.
Only that smile separated me from being a monster. That odd smile on my face that was only there because of her.
It was all because of her.
“Look at that hunk,” she told me, elbowing my arm.
“Have you had your eyes checked?”
“The only hunk I see around here is me,” Liam said, cocking a brow with a devilish grin.
She furrowed her brows at Liam. “You're more of a dope. And I think you look great,” Julie told me, smiling.
I couldn't bring myself to smile anymore. It didn't feel right to smile, and even though I knew they both were being nice, it felt wrong to agree with them.
It simply wasn't true.
I was saved by one of the kids crying Julie's name behind us. She looked toward them, and frowned. She looked the me, and then Liam. “Let me go see them,” she replied.
A look passed between them, and then she gave me a soft smile as her hand brushed my arm and she went to them.
I felt the goosebumps rise from where she had so casually touched me. I watched after her, not taking my eyes off of her until she was at the kids and down on her knees to hear their problem.
“What's your deal?” Liam asked me.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I told him.
He wasn't fooled. “Yes, you do. You like her, don't you? You look like you like her a lot,” he said to me.
“She's nice.”
“You think she looks nice too.”
“You don't find this weird?” I asked him, feeling very uncomfortable. “Do you normally talk about your sister with guys?”
Liam shrugged and shook his head. “Julie and I talk about everything. The only thing I find weird is that you look like the most conflicted guy I've ever seen that likes her,” he told me.
That was probably true. I just hadn’t been aware that it came through so prominently.
“I think I know why too, and that's something you'll have to work out. All I ask is that you decide one way or the other rather than stringing my sister along until she finally lets go,” he said.
There was a fierce protectiveness in his voice, and I recognized it as the same that I held for Ava. I wouldn't want any guys stringing my sister along either.
“I wouldn't do that to her,” I told him, and I meant it.
“Maybe not intentionally. You seem like you really like her, but she's already been in a destructive relationship, and I won't watch her clinging to someone that doesn't care how she feels about them again.”
He didn't continue on, and turned around.
I followed him to the mess of coloring books, and we started picking them up. We didn't talk as we did so, but I didn't think he was mad at me. He kept throwing crayons at me, and when I would throw a book at him, he would laugh.
Either he wasn't mad or he was really terrible at it.
♥
After Julie was done with the kid that had called her, she had another pulling at her shirt to come and see what she had drawn. She looked to us, and smiled apologetically as she went off with her.
I worked with Liam, but we didn't talk. It was difficult, I would guess, for him to look at me to see what I was saying, and clean up at the same time.
But I did think about what he said, and it really started to bother me.
Obviously, Julie had been in a bad relationship. The guy hadn't cared about how Julie felt. Julie had stayed with him anyway until whatever had happened to split them apart.
As much as I wanted to be able to say I would never do that to her, I knew it would be a lie. I wasn't comfortable with myself, and I didn't expect her to put up with that.
She had struck me as the type that would. She had come across as the type that would be willing to sacrifice a lot for a relationship she believed in.
Not that I wanted a relationship with Julie. I didn't know what I wanted from her, only that I wanted to be around her. I felt normal around her.
No one else had ever made me feel normal. Not even Ava. I could always think of the imposition I was placing her in, and it made me feel like an even bigger burden.
But Julie, she wasn't asking anything from me. She didn't expect anything from me. It was easy to fall into place with her and just be myself.
Stuff like that was rare for a guy like me.
I felt my phone begin to ring in my back pocket and I saw Ava's face come up. I tapped Liam's shoulder and mouthed that I was going outside. He nodded, and turned around to finish wiping down the tables. We would be going home soon.
I got outside the doors and answered my phone. Ava sounded surprised when she finally answered.
“Where are you? I came home and you, and the car are gone?” she replied.
I laughed. “You told me I could go if I wanted to,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but I tell you that everytime I leave and you never go anywhere. Where are you?”
“The hospital.”
She paused, and then I heard her take in a deep breath. “What happened? Did you get in an accident, or sh-”
“Ava,” I stopped her. I was trying not to laugh at her concern, but she was funny when she got really scared. Her voice with pitch really high, and she start rambling. “I came to the hospital to help out.”
“Help out?” she replied. She didn't believe me. I could hear it all too well in her voice.
“Yes, help out. I'm in the children's ward. I've been playing with the kids and cleaning up. I'll be on my way home in a few minutes,” I replied.
“Julie's there, isn't she?”
“And her brother, and like twenty kids that scream and stick gum in other kids' hair,” I informed her.
“But mostly, Julie's there.”
I closed my eyes, and growled. She started laughing on the other line, and I found myself smiling at her, even if I was aggravated too.
“You stay and have fun then. I was going to order out tonight,” she told me.
I nodded, leaning against the wall. “I'll be home in maybe half an hour. Do you need anything from the store?” I asked.
“No. Not that you have any money to get anything anyway,” she said.
I laughed. “That's probably true,” I said, and then remembered how big of a jerk I was being. “By the way, how wa
s the date?”
She sighed, and I could almost hear her smile through the phone. “It was amazing. He was such a gentlemen, Falon, and we walked around town and stopped by pier and just talked. He's funny and smart, and I think you'd really like him, besides just being your doctor,” she told me.
I smiled. “So, it was a date?”
“Oh, it was definitely a date.”
“And when will you go out again?”
“He asked about tomorrow night. It's the only day he has off.”
“Have fun,” I replied.
“You don't mind?” she asked.
I was laughing by now. “Why would it matter anyway? I'm just your pesky little brother. You don't have to have my approval about who you go out with,” I reminded her.
“But I care about it. Do you really not mind, or are you just trying to be nice to me?” she asked.
“I don't mind. Go, be young and dumb, and wild and free, and have fun,” I said to her, and she started laughing on the other line.
“Okay, and what will you do while I'm gone?”
“I'll figure something out. Don't worry about it,” I told her.
“Alright. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She hung up, and I ended the call. I was smiling because of how happy she had sounded. It was nice to hear her excited and happy, because it didn't happen often.
“So, he loves?”
I looked toward the voice, seeing Julie walking toward me. She was smiling softly. The afternoon light casted a soft glow around her small frame, giving her the appearance of an angel.
I grinned. “Yes, I too can love,” I replied.
She laughed and leaned against the wall beside me. She didn't leave much room between us. I could feel her body heat radiating onto my skin, and I knew how soft it might feel if I were to touch it.
But I didn't.
“Do you want to talk about what happened in there earlier?” she asked me, but didn't look at me as she did. It didn't bother me because I couldn't force myself to look at her either.
“Nothing happened, unless you're talking about Liam's amazing goatee. That was perfect,” I told her.
She laughed, but I knew it didn't detour her. “I'm being serious. You get really frightened whenever someone talks about the way you look. Just like when you called yourself a freak, I don't get it,” she replied, her voice entering that soft, careful tone that I was beginning to learn was her serious voice.
Lovely Monster Page 5
