Here & Now

by Melyssa Winchester

  Here & Now

  Count On Me #5

  Here & Now

  (Count On Me #5)

  By

  Melyssa & Joey Winchester

  Copyright © 2014 Melyssa Winchester

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written consent of the Author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names; characters; places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Image Copyright © sivilla @ Shutterstock

  Cover Image Design by Melyssa & Caleb Winchester

  For JJ. This one’s ours and it’s an always and forever kind of thing.

  “An arch consists of two weaknesses, which, leaning on each other, become a strength.” – Leonardo da Vinci

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Here & Now Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  About The Authors

  Other Works by Melyssa Winchester

  Shattered by Pamela Sparkman & Deanna Gohn Excerpt

  Prologue

  Cadence

  It’s been a really long time since I’ve been this nervous.

  Honestly, I never thought in a million years I’d be sitting where I am now. Well, that’s not exactly true. Sitting in my doctor’s office and waiting for him to come in, I’ve done that before. It’s the reason I’m here that makes this moment so unbelievable.

  This always happens the same way. I fail at yet another hearing aid and then the conversation comes around to something I’ve said no to a total of three times over the last five years.

  Cochlear Implants.

  The first time it was mentioned to me, my mom—who at the time was just as upset as I was with the lackluster hearing aid results—brought it up to me and I’d told her that I was sick of trying. No way was I letting a surgeon anywhere near my head for something that wasn’t guaranteed to work.

  The next time was all on me. I had a moment of weakness. You know the one. You wake up one day and you’re just plain tired of being different. Being so ostracized for the way you are that you’re willing to try just about anything to change it. To be like everyone else.

  To be normal.

  Turns out, I came to this very office, everything was explained to me and by the end of it, the fear of having someone fiddling around in my head forced my hand and I walked away with a resounding no.

  That should have been the end of it, but of course, it wasn’t. A year ago, a few months before I was exiled to Wexfield High and ended up meeting and falling for Dillon, I was sitting in the office again. The fear won out that time too.

  I can’t let it win this time.

  I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and by a lot I mean, it’s pretty much the only thing I’ve been able to think about when I’m not in school. It’s overtaken my thoughts so much that I even brought it up to Dillon on one of the weekends he came down from Toronto to visit.

  Not a word has been said since that one conversation and even though he’s back for good, I’m here doing this alone. When I made the decision to come here for this consultation, wanting to go over the pros versus the cons, proceeding in whatever way I was going to go, I kept it a secret from everyone. My mom included.

  I didn’t do it because I wanted to purposely hide things. I did it because I didn’t want to get their hopes up, only to have them dashed when I backed away from the idea. Especially with Dillon.

  He doesn’t come out and say it, but with as much information as he’s been absorbing over the last year; the articles he’s read, things he’s gone out of his way to research, I know he wants nothing more than to find a way for me to hear. It’s part of the reason I’m here now, but he’s not.

  I want the same thing. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something as badly as I do this. It’s not just about him though. Dillon, no matter how complicated he can be at times, loves me for me. This is something I would love to do for him, but it’s not really about him at all.

  It’s about me.

  For the first time since I was really young, I want to be able to hear; even if it doesn’t sound at all the way it would for the average, non-deaf person. The laugh my mom does when I say something she finds funny, the way Dillon leans into me and tells me he loves me. I want to hear those things.

  I especially want to hear my dad tell me how proud he is of me. The dry heavy rumble I expect his voice to sound like after years of watching him try to hide his smoking habit.

  I want to hear them all.

  The door to the office opens and turning in my seat, expecting to come face to face with my doctor, it’s not his eyes I’m met with. The ones staring back at me are mirror images of my own and ones I’ve been aching to see since I last saw them two days ago.

  My hands are immediately up and moving before he even has a chance to ready himself, my question obviously one he expects because his hands lift almost as quickly in response.

  What are you doing here?

  “You really didn’t expect to go through this alone, did you?”

  Considering I hadn’t said a word about the appointment or even what it’s for, that’s exactly what I was expecting to happen. His being here right now is confusing. If I didn’t even tell my mom about this, how did he manage to find out about it?

  How did you know I would be here?

  We’ve come a long way over the last year. Where Dillon didn’t know a thing about signing when we first met, he’s picked up so much being around me and my mom that he’s almost as proficient as us now. It’s amazing really. When he puts his mind to something, there’s nothing that will stop him.

  “You really shouldn’t leave your phone laying around.”

  His lips lift into a smirk, but instead of it being cocky the way I’m used to, it’s different and it’s easy to tell by the way his eyes crinkle as he moves in closer, sitting in the chair to my left and dragging it closer that he’s being playful on purpose.

  Resting my hands in my lap, no longer shy or worried about him hearing me, I choose my next words carefully before opening my mouth to say them.

  “How long have you known?”

  “Two days.”

  The last time we were together at my house and watching movies is when he found out the truth. I knew it was going to be a mistake getting excited and making that silly little countdown clock appear on my phone at random times, counting down the days.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Caddy?”

  “You just got back. You need to settle in and get used to things here. I didn’t want to get in the middle of that.”

  “You’re kidding right?”

  Shaking my head, his bod
y tenses and I catch his chest rise and fall. He’s sighing.

  “School is getting in the middle of where I really want to be.”

  Leaning across until his face is pressed closely to mine, our eyes focused on each other and our foreheads resting together, he runs his finger down the side of my face and smiles.

  “If you haven’t figured it out yet, where I really want to be is with you.”

  This is a side of Dillon no one else gets to see. Whenever we’ve been out places, he does the normal things, like hold my hand or stand extra close to me, sometimes even kisses me, but he never goes above and beyond. It’s his way. He’s still adapting to us, but it’s moments like this one right now that I live for.

  He’s the Dillon I knew was buried underneath all the mess last year. The guy that’s part of the reason I made this appointment to begin with.

  “I want to be with you too.”

  “Good.” He says before kissing the tip of my nose softly. “Because I’d like to see you try and kick me out of here now.”

  Backing away just a little and turning his head to the side, I see an opportunity to take the kiss on my nose a step further, but before I can make it all the way to his lips, the door opens again, jolting the both of us from our positions and putting the focus on the intruder to our moment.

  My doctor.

  It’s time for Dillon to learn the real reason I’m here today. What I couldn’t tell him even though it’s been front and center in my mind for weeks now. I just hope that when he learns what I want to do, he doesn’t get his hopes up.

  He’s been let down enough.

  Chapter One

  Dillon

  If these implants work, Cadence could hear.

  After sitting through what was probably the world’s most boring conversation—the only real part worth hearing being the risks involved—the doctor informed her that she was an eligible candidate for this thing called Cochlear Implants and if she was sure it was what she wanted, they’d move forward.

  When I first met Cadence, all I wanted to do was hear her. Right from the first day in her mom’s class, I wanted to hear this incredibly sexy girl speak. She spoke and my world stopped. In mid movement it just stopped and I’m not even sure a year later that it’s been kick started back up.

  The sound of her voice still has the same effect it had then. It’s music. A unique melody that someone saw fit to give to someone as undeserving as me.

  Cadence is my melody.

  After I found out she was deaf, there were a few times where I wished she really could hear me. That for once in our lives we wouldn’t have to be facing each other with her eyes locked on my lips in order to know what I was saying, but it’s not something I craved.

  Craving Cadence, yes, I definitely did that, but to crave something as mundane as having her hear the sound of my voice, especially having to live with the damn thing myself every single day, it never mattered.

  Knowing that there’s a possibility she could though, it’s fucking huge.

  She’s the only person in the world I want to hear me, and knowing that someday soon I might get that, I’m not sure what the hell to do with what I feel. I have nowhere to place it. I want to get on a fucking rooftop and scream about it so everyone can feel the way I do, but she won’t let me.

  ~*~*~

  “I need you to promise me something.”

  Even after a year together she has no clue that I’d promise her the world if I could. There isn’t one thing she could ask me for that I wouldn’t go to the fucking ends of the earth to make happen.

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  I take that back. Maybe there is something I can’t promise her. I can’t give her this. I don’t know what appointment she just sat through, but with everything I took in that the doctor told us, all I can see is hope and for me that’s mind blowing.

  It’s not exactly a secret that I’m the last person to believe in anything. I don’t have faith and I don’t do hope, or at least I didn’t until her. Now all I do is hope.

  “You wanna tell me why?”

  We’ve been out of the appointment for about fifteen minutes now and we’re just sitting in the car. The key is in the ignition, but I’m making no move to drive her home even though I probably should. Her body is turned in toward me, my own doing the same, almost as if we’re magnets being pulled toward each other.

  I sensed a mood shift when we were leaving, but with everything I heard, I put it out of my head. With what she’s asking me to do now though, I should have been more focused on it. What makes me happy has the opposite effect on her.

  She almost seems depressed, and for Caddy that’s fucking weird. She’s one of the happiest people I know.

  “It might not work. Nothing else has.”

  “But you only tried regular hearing aids before right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts, Caddy. Please let me have this.”

  I heard everything the doctor said, all the risks involved and while some of them scare the ever living shit out of me, it’s not enough for me to feel anything but good about this.

  Whether it works or it doesn’t, I’m going to love Cadence until the day I die, but just the little sliver of hope that it could work and she would be able to hear me, her parents and our friends, it’s the only thing I can see.

  “Dillon…”

  “What?”

  “I’ve tried to do this three times before and every single time I back out. I might back out again…”

  The way her voice fades off hurts. For the longest time, I thought I was the one that had something to fear. That this beautiful, smart girl would wake up someday and realize she deserved a hell of a lot better than a bully with anger issues. A fighter. The way she’s reacting now, it means I’m not the only one.

  She doesn’t want me to get my hopes up because if it doesn’t work she thinks it’s going to change things.

  Like hell it will. Over my dead body. Caddy is mine, able to hear me or not.

  “And if you back out this time, it doesn’t change a damn thing.”

  “How can you say that? It will change everything!”

  We’ve been together a year and never once in that entire time, even if we did spend a lot of time apart while I was in Toronto, has she yelled at me like this. Sure, there was a lot of shit that happened before we actually got together, but since, no way. I’ve never met a girl as in control of her shit the way Cadence is.

  There’s definitely more going on here. Things she doesn’t wanna tell me.

  “Do you want to do this?”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to hear you.”

  “So you’re doing this for me?”

  She shakes her head, but I don’t believe in it. It’s like we’re back in the damn bathroom in high school all over again. It’s me in reverse. She wants to do this for me more than she does herself.

  “You already hear me, Caddy. I’ve got everything I need. Everything I want. If this is even about me at all, don’t do it.”

  “Wouldn’t your life be easier if I could hear?”

  Whoa. Okay. This is even worse than I thought. It’s like I’m at the hospital with Kayden all over again. She’s lost her mind if she believes for a second that my life with her isn’t anything but exactly what I need and want it to be.

  “No. My life would be different if you could hear, but it wouldn’t be easier or better.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Because it was your life’s ambition to date a deaf girl that’s still in high school.”

  This is about a whole lot more than the damn implants. This is what the distance between us caused. The rules she imposed so we would both be free to live our lives even though we were miles apart. She hid it the entire time I was gone, but she can’t anymore. Her thick armor; what makes her such a badass, its cracking.

  “It was my life’s ambition to end up six feet under. You s
aw the way I was. You lived it for a while. I don’t give a fuck about you being in high school, and I haven’t given a shit about you being deaf from the moment I met you, so that’s bullshit too.”

  Her body, which up until that point had been locked in its position pointed toward me, tensed and hard, begins to settle into the seat and I don’t care how it looks, I allow myself to relax, exhaling loudly as I lean my body back into my own seat.

  “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Hi. My name is Dillon and I used to fight 300 pound guys two or three times a week.” I remind her, flashing her a smile the minute she raises those beautiful brown eyes up to meet mine again. When she returns it with one of her own, even flushing pink in the process, I know I’ve won the battle.

  I might need to kick the wars ass, but this battle definitely goes to me.

  “I’m with you, Caddy. Just you. And besides, it’s kind of hot dating a high school girl.”

  When she reaches over to smack me, I take the chance, gripping onto her tightly and pulling her over the seat toward me, not stopping until our lips are finally pressed together the way they should have been an hour ago in the office before her doctor interrupted us.

  This is another reason I had to come home. I couldn’t handle not doing this every single day. There is nothing in the world that compares to the way it feels when I’m kissing Cadence. It’s when I hear her clearer than I ever have before. We’re connected, in sync.

  When I’m with Cadence, I feel alive where all I felt before was dead.

  “Didn’t you know? That’s what I love about high school girls. I get older and they just stay—”

  “The same age.” She completes before pressing her lips back to mine again until nothing, not even my last breath matters anymore. All that matters is her.

  ~*~*~

  I need to be happy about this even if it doesn’t change anything. I know why she’s acting the way she is, but if it takes me showing her every day from here until the end of eternity, I’m more than willing to show her that I love her for the person she already is, not the person she feels she needs to become.