by Shayna B
I nodded and kissed his cheek. “I’m really glad you could come,” I told him.
“Me too,” he said. Amanda grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and said goodbye before the two of them left the gym.
“Well, I should be getting back home as well,” Liam said. “I have a conference call early in the morning, so I need my beauty rest beforehand.”
I chuckled as I gave him a hug. “No amount of beauty rest will ever make you pretty,” I told him teasingly.
“Smart ass,” he muttered and then walked away without another word.
“Since everyone else is leaving, we’ll head out as well,” Jared said.
When I realized that meant we’d be alone with Rachel and David, I quickly turned to Blake. “You ready to go too? I’m kind of tired.”
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” he agreed. “Sophie, do you need Hailey to drive you home?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you aren’t coming home tonight?”
“Duh,” he replied.
I blushed a little when Rachel gave me a knowing look. “Don’t look at me like that,” I muttered.
Blake started to chuckle. “You’re blushing right now, aren’t you?”
“No,” I lied.
“Yes you are,” Rachel said tauntingly.
“Traitor,” I accused her.
She just laughed. “Don’t worry about Sophie; we can give her a ride home. That way you’ll get some more alone time,” she said with a wink.
“Uh guys, I’m still here,” Jared said.
“So?” I replied.
He sighed and shook his head. “I’m out of here if you’re going to start talking about that,” he muttered, grabbing Laurel’s hand and pulling her with him.
I grabbed Blake’s hand as well. “We’re leaving, so we’ll see you guys later. I’m sure we’ll see you over the break, but I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas now in case I don’t speak to you before.”
“Merry Christmas,” Rachel said. “And have fun tonight,” she added teasingly.
I blushed again and then pulled Blake out of the gym. “Why do our friends have to enjoy embarrassing me?”
“You’re cute when you get embarrassed,” Blake said mockingly, quoting me from earlier.
“Shut it, or you’ll be sleeping in the guest room tonight.”
He sighed. “Yes dear,” he muttered sarcastically.
“Much better.”
Chapter twenty-five
The hospital let Jake come home for Christmas day as a kind of trial run. He’d have to go back on Boxing Day, but if everything went well he’d be home for good on New Year’s Eve.
On Christmas day, we invited Sophie, Blake, Laurel, Amanda and Sophie’s mom to join us after lunch. They all arrived bearing gifts, and the first hour was spent opening presents. Blake got me a beautiful silver and emerald bracelet that Sophie had helped him pick out and I absolutely loved it.
I’d had a hard time deciding what to buy Blake for Christmas. I had searched the Internet for hours and finally found a jeweler that actually made jewelry in Braille. I ordered a silver chain and a simple square pendant. On the pendant I had the words Love is Blind engraved on both sides. One side was in Braille and the other wasn’t.
When he took the pendant in his hand, he frowned a little as he ran his thumb over the words, obviously surprised to find it in Braille. Then he smiled as he read what it said. “It really is, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah, it is. I thought you might like something like that. I didn’t even know you could get things like this. It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet.”
After all the presents were open, including new bones for the dogs, Sophie, Blake and I went to my room to hang out until dinner. Blake and I sat together on the bed and Sophie sat in the chair by my desk. “So are you guys going to perform anywhere again?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “The talent show was mainly to show people that people with so-called disabilities are capable of amazing things.”
“Well you did that pretty well. I heard a lot of people talking about it after the show before I found you guys in the gym. They were all shocked at how well Blake could sing.”
“We proved our point then. So I don’t see any need to repeat the performance. Unless Blake wants to,” I added, looking at him.
He shrugged. “It was fun, but I agree with you. We proved our point and we did it well.”
“That’s too bad. You guys are really good and it would be cool to see you perform again,” Sophie said.
“Well, we’ll still be playing around at home, so you can hear us there all the time,” I told her.
“That’s true. Do you guys want to play some cards? I brought the ones with Braille on them.”
We both agreed and that’s how we spent the rest of the afternoon until we were called out for supper. Grace had outdone herself with the meal, and everyone enjoyed it immensely. The entire day and evening ended up being a lot of fun, and it was easy to forget all of our problems, at least for a little while.
When everyone was about to head out, Blake pulled me away from everyone. “Do you want to come spend the day at my place tomorrow?” he asked.
“I kind of want to spend time with Jake tomorrow,” I replied. “He has to go back to the hospital in the evening, so I want to be with him as much as possible.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. How about the day after then?”
I smiled. “Sure, that sounds like fun. Do you have anything special planned?”
He shrugged. “Not really. It’s just been awhile since we’ve had a day to ourselves to just relax.”
I stepped closer to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, laying my cheek on his chest. “It has been kind of hectic the past couple of weeks, hasn’t it?”
He rubbed my back lightly as he nodded. “Yeah, it has.” He held me close to him for a few moments. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
I nodded and gave him a sweet and gentle kiss. “Love you,” I murmured against his lips.
“I love you too. Have a good night.”
When everyone had left, Jared, Jake, Liam and I went into the living room to watch a little TV together. It was nice to be able to sit with my brother again. I found I enjoyed doing little things with him now more than I did before the accident.
We all went to bed about an hour later since it was getting so late. Tonto followed me into my room and plopped down on the floor, happily chewing away on his new rawhide bone. I glanced at my phone and saw that it was flashing, indicating that I had a new text message. I walked over to it and picked it up, assuming it was just from Blake telling me goodnight. But when I opened the message I saw it was from Marcus.
It was another one saying that he missed me and wanted to talk to me. I deleted the message and sat on the edge of my bed, dropping my head into my hands. I was beginning to seriously think that I would have to get a restraining order in order to get him to stop bothering me.
After a few minutes I called Blake, needing to hear his voice so that I could settle down. He picked up after two rings. “Miss me already?” he asked teasingly.
I chuckled a little. “Of course, I always do,” I replied.
“What’s wrong?”
“How did you know something was wrong?”
“Because I know you, and your voice is off. Are you going to tell me what happened?”
I scooted onto the bed further and put my back against the headboard. “I got another text message from Marcus, that’s all. I needed to talk to you so I could settle down before trying to sleep. I know I’ll have another nightmare otherwise.”
I heard him curse quietly. “Why the hell does that idiot keep calling? He must know that you despise him and want nothing to do with him.”
“He never was the smartest person in the world,” I said.
Blake sighed. “I hate to say it, but maybe you should just talk to him once. As much as I don’t want y
ou to, maybe it’ll get it through his thick skull if you scream at him a bit.”
“Throwing things at him didn’t get the message across, so why would yelling at him do anything?”
“Maybe he thought you only threw things in the heat of the moment and that you’ve had time to cool off.”
“I don’t think he’s smart enough to think of that, but maybe you’re right. I’ll think about talking to him, but I’m not making any promises.”
“If you do decide you want to talk to him, make sure I’m around, okay? I can help keep you from smashing your phone to pieces.”
I grinned. “Deal. Are you in bed already?” I asked, changing the subject.
We talked for a few more minutes and then said good night to each other. I fell asleep with a smile on my face, which never happened after I heard from Marcus. Talking to Blake afterwards had made a huge difference, and I vowed to thank him properly for it another time.
The next day I hung out with Jake, Liam and Jared. We played games and watched a couple of movies before we took my brother back to the hospital. He wasn’t pleased about having to be back there, but the trial run had gone well and it was likely that he’d be released for good on New Year’s.
When I got to Blake’s the day after, he was waiting for me at the door. He pulled me in for a passionate kiss as soon as I walked inside and it left me breathless. “Well hello to you as well,” I said with a laugh.
He held me snugly to his body. “Hi. Did you know that I’m happy to have you to myself for the day?”
I grinned. “I think that kiss did a pretty good job of letting me know that. Are we going to stand here all day? Or are we going to go do something?”
He kissed the side of my neck. “I’d be happy to just hold you like this all day,” he stated.
I pushed him away a little. “As tempting as that sounds, I’m hungry. I brought ingredients to make some cookies and you’re going to help me.”
“I am?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’ll be fun, especially because we can eat as much cookie dough as we want to. There’s no one here to tell us not to.”
“Hmm, it has been awhile since I’ve had raw cookie dough. Let’s go do some baking.”
A couple of hours later, we were sprawled out on the couch in the living room. Both of us were groaning and holding our stomachs. “Now I understand why my parents always told me not to eat too much cookie dough,” I moaned.
“Whose bright idea was it to eat that much?” Blake asked.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I defended myself. “And you have to admit, it did taste really good.”
“That’s true. How many actual cookies ended up getting baked?”
“A dozen,” I said sheepishly. “We ate the rest of the dough before it could go into the oven.”
“No wonder we both feel so sick then. That’s a lot of cookie dough.”
I wiggled around until I could lay my head on his chest. “I say we have a nap right here until we feel better.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” he murmured, and we drifted off to sleep together.
When we woke up a little later, we both felt better so we decided to go listen to some music in his room. But when we got there, he had a different idea of what we should do, and we ended up spending an hour in his bed before we finally turned the music on.
“Have you decided what to do about Marcus?” he asked me at one point as we were lying on his bed together.
I shrugged. “Not really. I know I’m not ready to talk to him yet, but maybe I’ll be able to a little further down the road.”
He kissed the top of my head. “You know I’ll be there for you no matter what you do, right?”
“I know. And as much as I never want to talk to him again, I know that I should eventually, even if it is just so I can get some closure.”
“We don’t need to worry about that right now,” he said. “Have you decided what we should do for New Year’s Eve?”
“Do you want to just come over to my place? Jared, Jake, Laurel and Amanda will be there, as long as Jake actually gets released. Liam is going to some party that he’s throwing for one of his companies, so he won’t be there.”
“Sounds good to me,” he replied. “Will I be staying the night there?”
“I’m hoping you will. I like falling asleep with you.”
“Good, because I like falling asleep with you as well.” He played with my fingers for a moment. “I was thinking about something earlier.”
“Oh? What?”
“After we’ve graduated, do you want to maybe get a place together?” he asked, a bit of nervousness evident in his voice.
“What if I’m sick of you by then?” I asked teasingly.
“Well, that’ll be too bad for you because I’m not letting you get away, no matter what.”
I laughed and kissed his cheek. “Well in that case, I like the sound of getting a place together. Do you know what you want to do after we graduate?”
“I was thinking of maybe becoming a guitar teacher or something.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Think you can deal with students without scaring them off?”
“Ha ha,” he said sarcastically. “Yes, I think I can do that. I know I won’t make a lot of money doing that, but it’s not like either of us really needs to worry about that, since you have your uncle and I have my trust fund. What do you want to do?”
“Maybe become a teacher,” I said. “I think it would be fun and I might be able to make a difference by doing that. I’m not sure what grade I’d want to teach though.”
“Not high school, because all of the boys would get major crushes on you. They’d be too busy drooling over you to get any of the work done.”
“Hmm, maybe I want a bunch of boys drooling over me.”
Blake rolled so that he was on top of me. “I’m the only one who needs to be drooling over you,” he retorted.
I kissed the tip of his nose. “But I think it’s cute when you get jealous.”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t get jealous,” he muttered.
“Yes you do, and like I said, I think it’s cute. It makes me feel more desirable.”
He ran his nose up my jawline. “You are very desirable,” he replied.
I pushed on his chest until he rolled off of me. “I’m glad you think so.” I pushed myself into a sitting position. “I have an idea. Since you want to be a guitar teacher, why don’t you start by teaching me?”
He sat up beside me. “You want to learn to play the guitar?”
I shrugged. “I do if you’re the one teaching me.”
He stood up and offered his hand to me. “Let’s go then. I left my guitar in the music room, so we’ll go in there.”
An hour later, we were both laughing at my attempts to learn. Apparently my musical talents did not extend to the guitar, because I couldn’t produce a single correct note. “Maybe I should just stick to the piano,” I admitted.
“No, you’ll get it eventually. And if I can succeed in teaching you, then I’ll know I can teach anyone.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, knowing he couldn’t see me. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to your girlfriend,” I told him.
“I’m only speaking the truth. Come on, let’s try this again.”
A few minutes later, we heard the front door open, but neither of us paid any attention to it. We figured that it was either Sophie or her mom that had decided to come home early. We were sitting on the couch in the music room with our heads together as Blake positioned my hands properly on the guitar strings. “Now just try strumming,” he instructed.
I did as he said and let out a little squeak of excitement as I finally produced the correct note. “I did it!”
He laughed and sat back a little. “And it only took an hour and a half,” he teased.
“Yeah, yeah, you don’t need to rub it in,” I grumbled. We both turned our head towards the doorway when we heard footsteps app
roaching. A moment later, an older man appeared in the doorway. I shrank into Blake’s side a little, because I didn’t recognize him.
“Who’s there?” Blake asked me.
Before I could reply, the man spoke. “Hello son.”
Chapter twenty-six
I felt Blake’s whole body stiffen and he slowly turned his body towards the doorway. “What the hell are you doing here?” he spat.
I was a little shocked at the venom in his voice. I knew he hated his father, but the anger and resentment radiating off him was so extreme that I almost flinched away from him. I leaned forward a little so I could get a better look at Blake’s father.
He was tall and well built, with brown hair and hazel eyes. His facial features were similar to Blake’s, but seemed harder somehow. He didn’t acknowledge me as he gazed steadily at his son. “I came to see you. Your mother and I are staying for a couple of days.”
Blake stood up abruptly and took a threatening step forward. “Like hell you are! I don’t want you anywhere near me. Just turn around and go back to where you came from.” His body was shaking in anger.
I stood up as well and laid a gentle hand on his back. He tensed even more for a moment before relaxing slightly. I didn’t say anything, just kept my hand on him to give him support.
His dad’s eyes shifted to me for the first time and he regarded me emotionlessly. “Who is this?”
Blake shifted so that he was standing in front of me, blocking his father’s view of me. “That’s none of your business,” he said harshly. I moved a little so that I could peer around Blake to see his father.
“You’re my son, of course it’s my business,” the older man replied.
Blake gave a humourless laugh. “I stopped being your son the day you sent me to live here. Remember? You couldn’t handle a disabled person being part of your perfect little family.”
His father didn’t flinch at the words. “I did what I thought was best,” he replied.
“Well you’re a complete idiot, but I knew that already,” Blake said.
