Love is Blind (23 page)

“I know. But you still love me.”

“True, but sometimes I don’t know why.”

I elbowed him in the side. “Jerk,” I
muttered.

He laughed and kissed the top of my head. “Yeah,
but you still love me,” he taunted.

I decided to just ignore him and tuned back into
the conversations everyone else had been having while Blake and I
were talking. We stood with them for another five minutes before
Rachel and David found us. Rachel was almost bouncing with
excitement when she pulled me into a hug. “You didn’t tell us you
two were performing!” she said.

“We wanted it to be a surprise. Sophie was the
only student in the school who knew about it. Mr. Avery helped us
keep it quiet by letting us rehearse in the auditorium when no one
else was around.”

“Well, you sounded absolutely amazing. I never
knew either of you could sing like that,” she stated.

“I knew Blake could sing, though it’s been a few
years since I’ve heard him,” David said.

Blake shifted a little, obviously uncomfortable.
“Yeah, I haven’t exactly let anyone hear me sing or play the guitar
in the past couple of years.”

“Well, you’ve gotten even better over the years,
that’s for sure,” David complimented him.

I knew Blake didn’t really like all the
attention, so I changed the subject. “Hey guys, let me introduce
you to everyone. This is my brother Jake and this is Amanda. You
already know Jared, and that’s his girlfriend Laurel. And this is
my uncle Liam, though he hates it when I call him my uncle.”

Liam made a face. “It makes me feel old,” he
said.

I could see the curiosity on Rachel’s face,
obviously wondering why I’d never mentioned my brother before, but
luckily she didn’t say anything about it yet. I had a feeling she
would be asking me a lot of questions later though. “It’s nice to
meet you all,” she said warmly.

We all hung out together for another half hour,
before Jake had to go back to the hospital. He looked up at me with
a small smile. “See you tomorrow?”

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 you 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?”