Page 10 of Beginning Fate

“This is Kylie,” Oscar intervened.

When her hand came up to her mouth, I knew this was my girl. She signed, “Thank you,” to him.

I grinned. “K-Y-L-I-E?” I spelled out.

Her eyes lit up in surprise.

“D-E-N-N-Y,” I told her, one letter at a time.

At one point I fancied myself a language interpreter. I studied Spanish, French, and Mandarin, too, but thought ASL would be an easy class that wouldn't require much work. Boy had I been wrong. Regardless, it had been fun and rewarding enough that I'd actually stuck with it instead of fizzling out after one semester like the other languages.

“What animal? And where are you from?” I asked her with my hands.

She was practically giddy to have someone talking to her in her own language. I could already tell she was good at lip reading, but that wasn't the same as feeling included.

I was suddenly very happy to have taken the time to learn this stuff.

“Wolf. New York,” she told me.

“Great. Well, I am also a wolf, so this will make it easy. As you all know, Archibald Reynolds was founded as a higher education sanctuary for wolves and eventually the doors were open to all kinds of shifters. So, you'll learn to work and live with shifters of all sorts here. It can get pretty interesting.” I said aloud while also signing as I spoke for Kylie to understand.

“Interesting how?” Autumn asked.

Since Kylie was watching me now, instead of the group, I quickly let her know what Autumn had said.

“Well, as you three know, each species has their own quirks. Wolves can be quite territorial. Contrary to what youmight think, skunks only stink when you piss them off. So don't piss off a skunk shifter.”

“Seriously? Skunks?” Kylie signed to me.

I nodded but couldn't hide the humor from my face.

“What did she say?” Oscar asked.

“She asked if I was being serious about skunks. Yes. There are skunks here, or occasionally at least. We used to have a good friend of the doghouse here at the ARC named Violet. She’s a skunk shifter and let's just say, I learned that warning the hard way. Fortunately, it takes a lot to piss off a skunk. Unfortunately for me, I managed it anyway.”

They all laughed, including Kylie.

“That sounds like bullshit to me,” Jett challenged. “We were warned about you, Denny. Heard you love to embellish stories.”

“Think what you want, but it's the truth.”

Kylie's head was whipping back and forth as she tried to follow the conversation but was clearly getting confused.

“What are they talking about?” she signed to me.

“Bullshit,” I signed without saying it. “They think my warning about skunks is bullshit.”

“What are you saying to her now?” Will ask.

“Bull,” I said as I positioned my hands and arms depicting the horns, and then used my right hand to portray the droppings, “shit. I told her you all think my warning is bullshit.”

“Nice. I'm a cowboy. I'm going to remember this one because that's exactly what I thought of when you did that.”

The others all laughed as I relayed what he said to Kylie.

I noticed the parents breaking up and Kevin jogged over to join us.

“How the hell did you manage to get stuck in Denny's group?” he teased his sister.

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