by Abbi Glines
“What did Asa say?” I asked, needing to understand why Ryker had attacked him. And what exactly did attack mean? Did he throw a punch?
Hunter looked annoyed, but I could see by the way his expression changed that he wasn’t mad at Ryker. He needed to be mad at someone, so he was directing it at me. Making this all my fault. Even when he knew it wasn’t. “Asa said something about it being hard to talk to you since you’re deaf. Not sure exactly how it was put, but Ryker reacted more violently than necessary.” He paused a minute and ran a hand over his face. Then he said, “I understand, though. His reaction. His wanting to defend or protect you—I respect him for it. But damn, Aurora. We have a game to win. Ryker is my best receiver.”
“What did Ryker do? Hit him?” I hoped not. This all seemed a bit much. It was true I was deaf, and yes, communicating with me for Ryker was a challenge.
“Slammed him against the lockers and threatened him. Nothing too severe, but it was hands-on and aggressive. Coach stopped him. It could have been worse. But Asa was trying to calm Ryker down, not make him angrier.” Hunter shook his head then and tilted it back to stare up at the ceiling.
Asa wasn’t small. But Ryker was a little larger, I guessed. I couldn’t see him being strong enough to slam Asa against the lockers, though. The image bothered me. That wasn’t much to get upset about, and the truth was, the more time Ryker spent with me the more people were going to talk. They would say much worse things. He couldn’t react that way every time or ever again. Hunter was right; he had a future to worry about. The reality of this situation was starting to sink in. I hadn’t considered something like this could happen.
“More people will say things. He has to accept that and not defend you unless it’s absolutely crucial. He can’t do this every time someone says something about you being deaf.”
He was only saying exactly what I was thinking. I agreed, but I didn’t know what to do now. How to handle it.
“Dad will want to know about what happened. Ryker won’t be playing first half, and I need to tell him why. I am not going to tell him you are talking to Ryker or seeing him. Just that Ryker took offense to it for my sake.”
This would happen at dinner. I had to go along with it, but I hated the lie. I wanted to tell Dad about Ryker. Hiding him was wrong, especially for the reasons I was having to do so. Skin color was not important. My father was an educated man, and I would hope he believed that too. Hunter didn’t think so. Hunter also knew our father much better than I did.
I studied my brother’s expression for a moment, wondering if he was right. Would telling Dad the truth only cause more issues? I could wait. One more day. The game was tomorrow night, and Hunter was already worried about playing without Ryker.
I just nodded. I would go along with whatever he told Dad at dinner.
Hunter turned to leave my room, and I saw my phone light up where I had left it in the center of my bed. I hurried over to it and picked it up to see two text messages from Ryker. And one from Tallulah.
I went to Ryker’s text first.
We need to talk. Can I see you tonight?
Then the next one, two minutes after the first
Don’t let Hunter convince you of anything please. Let me explain.
Before responding, I went to Tallulah’s text.
Do you want to ride with me to the game tomorrow? We can sit together.
That one I had an immediate answer for, so I responded.
Yes. Thank you!
Then I went back to Ryker’s text. Keeping my distance from him until the game was over might be best, but it wasn’t fair. Not to him. I wanted to see him. To tell him that defending me when someone states the obvious has to stop.
Can you pick me up outside at 8:30?
His immediate response was:
Yes!
I smiled in spite of it all. He always made me smile.
She Must Be Something Special
CHAPTER 25
RYKER
I stood in the kitchen, where I had been summoned by my father the moment I walked into the house. My sister was nowhere in sight, which meant he’d sent her to her room for this. Nahla loved gossip, and she was nosy as hell. She’d be listening from the hallway.
Mom was cooking something on the stove, and she glanced back at me with a concerned expression before stirring what had to be chili in that large pot, because she didn’t cook much else in it. Concerned over the fact my mother was cooking, I moved my gaze to my dad. He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning on the counter, studying me hard.
“Explain this bullshit,” he said, then pointed to the kitchen table for me to sit down. If he wasn’t sitting, then I was going to stand too. He liked to tower over us when we were in trouble, but now that I was big enough to look him in the eyes he wanted me to sit. Nope.
“Asa was out of line. He needs to watch his dumbass mouth. I corrected him.” I knew he already had the details from Coach Rich. This was pointless. He just wanted to know why I cared about Asa saying anything about Aurora.
“You like the Maclay girl?” he asked, his tone even. No angry edge to it.
“Yes. I do.”
Mom turned around again to look at me. I flicked my eyes toward her a moment, then back to my father. She looked even more concerned now, and I didn’t see why she should.
“She’s deaf. You don’t know sign language. It would be hard to communicate with her. That is what Asa was saying, from my understanding of the situation. That was out of line? He needed to be slammed against a locker and threatened because he was pointing out the truth?”
I tensed. “It was the way he said it. The tone in his voice,” I replied, unable not to sound pissed.
“His tone? You slammed not only a friend, but a teammate, against the motherfucking locker because of his tone? Your future depends on this game, son. Not playing in it for the entire first half draws attention. The bad kind. You think scouts won’t find out why you aren’t playing? You think they want to bring a guy in with a fucking hot head that snaps over stupid shit?”
“It wasn’t stupid.” I stopped him and realized I’d taken a step in his direction.
His eyebrows shot up at my movement. I may have been his height, and my shoulders were wide for my age, but his were wider. He was where I got my size from, but my biceps weren’t as large as his.
“Ryker.” My mother’s voice warned me, almost panicked.
“She’s making you stupid. Shit. This is a first,” Dad said, then shook his head in disbelief. “Boy, you got a college career to focus on. You want to get out of this town and be someone, you have the talent and size to do it. But a girl making you act like an idiot will stop that. End it all.”
“Aurora understands all this. Hell, her brother is the most driven athlete I’ve ever known. It’s all he fucking does. She gets this is important to my future. She won’t try and stand in my way.”
Dad poked my chest with his large finger. “You. It’s you that will sink it. Because of her. Football comes first. Before females. You’ve always known that. Don’t let this one mess up your head. Your goals.”
“She isn’t,” I shot back at him.
“She did today. And she didn’t even mean to.”
I knew my reaction to Asa was a mistake. I wasn’t going to admit it, but I knew it. I’d snapped and couldn’t seem to stop myself. My need to protect her had been controlling me. The fact someone could say something much worse eventually wasn’t lost on me. I didn’t know if I could stop myself from reacting to it. Today I hadn’t been able to.
“Honey, we want you to have relationships. You’re young, and the fact you like this girl so much makes me happy. It gives me hope that you’re maturing in that regard. But your father is right. You have to think about your future first. You can’t let that hot head of yours pop off over everything someone says about her.” My mom had moved closer, and Dad knew as well as I did she was moving in to protect me, if needed. Dad had never been ab
usive or anything like that, but I had also never stood up to him like I had a moment ago.
“There is also one more thing. I don’t know if you have thought about yet. She’s white.” Dad said it as if this was a big deal. I’d dated plenty of white girls. Hell, my aunt was white.
“So,” I said, incredulous that he’d even brought up skin color.
“Coach Rich mentioned her daddy might have an issue with it when I talked to him today. Something Hunter said to him about not saying anything to his dad about this. He wanted to explain it to him.”
Shit. I hadn’t thought about her dad finding out. Aurora hadn’t mentioned it when I’d texted her. But Hunter had already made it clear my being black was going to be an issue with his dad.
“Aurora doesn’t agree with Hunter on how her dad is gonna react. But his opinion is not a concern to her. Don’t see why it should be for you,” I said.
He laughed then but it wasn’t one full of humor, either. I was the one that said, “You’re a stupid fuck.” My hands balled into fists I would never use on my dad, so they stayed by my side.
“If that girl’s daddy don’t want her dating a black man, then she won’t. He’ll lock her ass up. Have you seen the way he controls his son? The man stands on the sidelines and tells Hunter what to do. The boy obeys like a damn robot. If I yelled at you like that, we’d end up tied up on the damn football field, because your strong-willed ass would smart off. Hunter does what he’s told to do by that man, and it ain’t healthy. You think he won’t do the same with his daughter?”
“She won’t let him. You don’t know her. You haven’t met her. She is nothing like Hunter. The first night I got to spend time with her was because her dad had pissed her off and she left the house. After texting me to come get her. She makes her own choices.”
“How do you talk to her?” my mother interrupted. I turned my gaze back to her, and along with the concern, I saw curiosity. She was trying to understand. But then I expected that of my mom.
“She reads lips well, and she trusts me enough to use her voice with me. She doesn’t do that with anyone else but her brother and parents. And I’m learning sign language from some YouTube videos I found. Tallulah is going to teach me more after football season, but for now I’m teaching myself a little at a time.”
My mother’s eyes went wide, and the proud smile on her face wiped out the concern. “You’re teaching yourself to sign?” she asked, but not needing me to answer. It was more of an impressed statement. Something she wouldn’t expect from me.
“Shit,” my father muttered. “This girl just moved here last weekend. How the hell did you get wrapped up with her so damn fast?” He was not impressed. He was aggravated.
I knew this was all happening fast. This week felt like it had been so much longer. I didn’t like the me I had been last week. I didn’t want to be him again. Because that guy didn’t know what it was like to see Aurora smile and know he’d been the one to cause that.
“Monday morning, the first moment I saw her, something fell into place.”
Dad groaned and hit the counter with his palm. “Well that’s just fucking beautiful.” He didn’t sound at all happy. He was being sarcastic. “You have a college career ahead of you! Don’t go getting all sappy about this girl when you have to leave her this summer.”
My mom reached out and touched my arm and squeezed it gently. She didn’t say anything. Dad stalked out of the kitchen without another word. When the door to his man cave closed loudly behind him, mom gave me a smile. “He’ll calm down. He’s just worried about you losing a chance to play SEC football. You know that.” She stood on her tippy-toes, and I leaned down enough so she could kiss my cheek.
“I can’t wait to meet this girl. She must be something special.”
I smiled. “She is.”
It Was Their Normal
CHAPTER 26
AURORA
I knew they had been discussing me when I walked into the dining room, because I saw my name on Hunter’s lips. I didn’t pay attention to what they were saying but went to the chair at the table that was mine. I already knew this was going to be a bad meal with a worse topic of conversation.
Ella was placing the food in the center of the table, and I recognized something that had couscous in it. That was promising if the stuff with it wasn’t tofu. I couldn’t be sure. Ella’s last dinner had been remarkably weird as well as bad.
When Hunter sat down across from me, I looked at him instead of the food, and he gave me a silent warning. He was making sure I let him talk and hadn’t decided to tell Dad the truth. For Hunter’s sake and Ryker’s, I wasn’t going to do that tonight. He was right. The game was important for both of them.
Hunter signed and spoke at the same time. He and Dad would do that for Ella. I didn’t. I wasn’t using my voice with her. If it was anything they thought she needed to hear, they’d tell her. “Dad is asking you something,” he said so I would turn to look at Dad. I’d been avoiding him. I didn’t want to talk to him. If it wasn’t for the silent pleading in Hunter’s eyes, I’d have continued to ignore him. For my brother, I didn’t. I turned my gaze to my dad.
“Why do you think Ryker defended you today?” he asked point-blank. Dad never was one to beat around the bush.
“He has been nice. Very helpful at school the times I’ve been around him. One of the few people who have tried to speak to me and get to know me.” I signed then I was done. No more.
Dad frowned. “This is all friendly with him? Ryker is known to use girls. He has a new one every time I see him.”
“He is being friendly. Just like Nash and Tallulah are friendly.”
Dad turned his head to Hunter, and I followed with my gaze.
“That’s what I told you,” Hunter said to Dad. “He said Asa’s tone was what made him angry. Not that he was calling Aurora deaf. Asa can be a jerk.” Hunter’s expression was neutral, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. I wondered what Dad’s voice sounded like. Was it hard? Threatening?
I looked back to see Dad’s response. “Ryker has college scouts coming to see him at this game, as do you. He has been contacted by both Georgia and Vandy already. I don’t understand why he’d jeopardize that. His father should have a tighter hold on the boy. So much talent and he doesn’t focus on it. He has a future in football, or he would if he stopped with the wild life.” He was speaking to both of us.
I hadn’t known he had those two colleges already talking to him. He’d never said that to me. I also didn’t want to be reminded of his wild life.
Hunter shrugged as if he was relaxed, but his body was strung so tight I wondered how Dad didn’t notice. He was nervous. Dad always made him this way. “I don’t either. He’s got a hot head at times. Asa may have made him mad earlier, and that was just what finally set him off.”
Ella took a bowl from the table that held some sort of cucumber-and-onion salad in it and passed it to me. She wanted us to start eating. I was done with this conversation too, and as much as I didn’t want to eat this salad, I took some then passed it to Dad. He was still frowning and looked at it, then ignored it before looking back at Hunter.
I set the bowl down, watching my dad’s lips because he’d stopped signing.
“You can’t let Ryker’s dumb, careless attitude affect the game. This is on you now. You handle it. Get it done. Focus. Nothing else but that game matters in your world right now. Got me? Nothing. Ryker can act like a—” He stopped then, but I didn’t turn my eyes away from him. He was looking at Ella now. She must have been speaking, but I didn’t turn to see what she was saying. Instead I shifted my gaze to Hunter. He was watching me. When our eyes met, he lifted his eyebrows as if to make a point. He was trying to convey something to me silently. I quickly looked back at Dad to catch him saying, “My house. I’ll use whatever damn word I choose.” Then he picked up the bowl he’d ignored earlier.
A hand touched my arm. Ella was handing me the couscous dish now, and I was hopin
g this wasn’t tofu. I got some of it, then handed it reluctantly to Dad. I wanted to leave this table. I wanted to ask Hunter what was said that I’d missed. Dad took the bowl this time; he glanced at it then up at Ella. “Is this tofu?” he asked. The creases on his forehead were permanent from years of frowning, but when he was scowling, they were worse. He hated tofu as much as I did. It was possibly the only thing we had in common.
I quickly looked to catch Ella’s response. She nodded and said, “Yes, but I did something different to it. Just try it.”
Yuck.
She handed me the final thing she’d brought to the table. It was a bread of some sort. Lots of seeds or nuts and it was brown. Dark brown. If we had real butter to go on this, it would be good. I knew, however, that the butter look-alike on the table was from the health food store and disgusting. I’d given it a try before on my waffle. There was real butter in the fridge. Why couldn’t she just let us use that?
I handed the bread to Dad, who then said, “Where’s the real butter?”
Ella walked out of the room with an annoyed expression. She wasn’t as willing to please him as Hunter was. I doubted he was as hard on her as he was on Hunter. It took her a moment to come back, and I began to wonder if she had left. As much as I wanted butter, that would be what he deserved. Ella had made the meal; he could have gone to get the butter himself. Maybe thanked her for the meal. She did return with the butter, though. The meal went on with no more talk of Ryker. Dad didn’t seem to care about Ella’s feelings and went right back to talking about the game with Hunter. Whenever I looked up, Hunter would be nodding and Dad would be talking. Every move Hunter could possibly make on the field was being gone over. I felt bad for Hunter, but he let Dad do this to him. I just didn’t understand why. Why didn’t he stand up to the man?
When we were all as finished as we were going to be, because Hunter and I had struggled to eat the dinner but tried our best to get most of it down, I helped Ella clean the table and kitchen. Dad expected us to do it. We were females. If I didn’t feel bad about Ella doing it herself, I’d leave. But it wasn’t her fault. Dad told Hunter to come with him to his office downstairs. They were going to go over the game tapes now. Did this ever get to be too much for Hunter? I was tired thinking about all he had to listen to.