Maybe Now (Maybe #2)(87)

I don’t know why, but that sentence made my heart melt a little. I smile and take a drink.

“Have you told your parents about me?” he asks.

“I told my mother I have a boyfriend. She asked me twenty questions.”

He grins. “Only twenty?”

“Maybe twenty-five.”

“What did you say? How did you describe me?”

“I said you’re very talented. And very cute. And good at pranks. And good in bed.”

Ridge laughs. “I’m sure you did.” He leans back in his chair, casually bumping my knee with his. He’s staring at his plate, scooting around the rest of his risotto. “Did you tell them I’m deaf?”

I didn’t tell them, but for no other reason than it just didn’t come up, and I honestly didn’t think about it. “Should I have?”

Ridge shrugs. “Might be worth mentioning. I don’t like to catch people off guard if I can avoid it. I like for them to have a heads up.”

“You didn’t give me a heads up.”

“It was different with you.”

“How?”

He tilts his head and contemplates his answer. Then he picks up his phone, which means he wants to explain something that he feels he can get across better in text than if he were to verbalize.



Ridge: In most cases, I like to warn people before we meet. It makes for less of an uncomfortable moment when they find out. I didn’t warn you because it felt like…I don’t know. It was just different with you.

Sydney: A good different?

Ridge: The best kind of different there can possibly be. My whole life I’ve been the deaf guy. It comes first with every person I ever meet. Being deaf and how a person will react to that is my first thought in every new conversation I have. It’s most likely the first thought of the person I’m having the conversation with. It defines how they treat me, how they react to me, and how I react to them. But with you, I sometimes forget that part of myself. With you, I forget the one thing that defines me to everyone else. With you…I’m just me.



I’m glad he texted all that, because it’s one more thing he’s said to me that I want to keep track of and remember forever.

“My parents are going to love you just as much as I do.”

Ridge smiles for a moment, but the smile is fleeting. He tries to hide it as he reaches for his drink, but I saw the split-second conflict in his eyes. It makes me wonder if he’s only agreeing to meet them to appease me. What if he isn’t ready to take that step? It’s not like we’ve been dating long at all.

“You okay?” I sign.

He nods, reaching for my hand. He rests his on top of it on the table, brushing his thumb across it. “I’m good,” he says. “It’s just that sometimes you make me wish I had better parents. Parents who could meet you and know you’re perfect for me. Parents who could love you.”

His words make my heart ache for him. “You have Brennan. He loves that you’re happy.”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “And Warren.”

“And Bridgette.”

Ridge makes a face. “Oddly enough.”

“Right? I really like her,” I say with a laugh. “If someone would have told me six months ago that me and Bridgette would eventually be good friends, I would have bet my life savings against it. It’s only five hundred dollars, but still.”

Ridge laughs. “If you would have told me six months ago that me and you would be dating and spending an entire day helping Maggie move into my complex, I would have bet your life savings against it, too.”

“Life is strange, isn’t it?”

Ridge nods. “Beautifully strange.”

I smile at him, and we finish eating in comfortable silence. I clear the table and load the dishes into the dishwasher. Ridge hooks his phone up to the Bluetooth on my stereo and turns on one of my Spotify playlists.

This is how I know he truly loves me. He does things that don’t have an impact on him at all, like making sure there’s always music playing, even though he can’t hear it. He knows I like it, so he does it to make me happy. It reminds me of the first time he did this. We were in his car, driving home from the club, and he turned on his car radio for me.

It’s the small things people do for others that define the largest parts of them.

Ridge folds his arms over the bar and leans forward, smiling at me. “I got you a present.”

I grin as I turn on the dishwasher. “You did?”

He reaches out for my hand. “It’s in your bedroom.”

I have no idea what it is, but I grab his hand with both of mine and pull him to the bedroom because I’m excited. He pulls me back so he can walk through the door first. He lets go of my hands so he can sign what he’s speaking. “We were writing a song together once when you mentioned how you wish you had one of these.”

He pushes open the door and walks to my bed, then pulls a huge box out from beneath it. It’s an electric keyboard, complete with a stand and a stool. I recognize the brand immediately. It’s the same ones we use in my music classes, so I know exactly how much he spent on this gift, and I immediately want to tell him I can’t accept it. But at the same time, I’m so excited about it, I rush over to it and run my hand over the box.