Page 23 of Tameron

Oh.Oh.“I didn’t mean that kind of Daddy. I meant like a pet-daddy, a cat-daddy.”

“Now he tells me.”

“We call Nash Daddy all the time.”

Dayton seemed to have recovered. “Sure, but he is a bit of a Daddy to you all, isn’t he?”

“You’re saying you’re not the same type? You rescue kittens from trees, encourage people to exercise, help folks with their homework… Sounds like a Daddy to me.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” he said after studying me for a few beats. “And that’s a little worrisome.”

I chuckled. “I promise I’m not suggesting you become a Daddy to anyone other than Knives. I’m just saying you shouldn’t point fingers at Nash when you’re very much like him.”

“We’re not that similar,” he protested, and his voice held a bit of a sharp edge that I couldn’t place. Why didn’t he like being compared to Nash? They were friends, and Dayton knew how much Nash meant to me, so why wouldn’t he take it as a compliment? Hell, if I could figure that man out. Every time I thought things were improving, we took two steps back again.

So I sighed. “Whatever. It’s not important.”

His shoulders dropped and he looked away. “You’re right. Want to do your new presentation for me?”

I stood a little straighter. “You don’t want to read it first? I printed it so you could look and tell me what you think.”

“Nah, do the presentation. It’s good practice for you, and it’ll help me give appropriate feedback because I’ll see it the same way your teacher will.”

“Right, right.” He had a point, but now I was suddenly nervous. And Knives, who’d been my emotional support kitten while talking to Dayton, now wriggled in my arms, as if she knew it was time for her to go. As soon as I put her down, she walked right over to Dayton. Two seconds later, she lay curled around his neck, her head resting on his shoulder. Traitor.

I unfolded the printout—no way would I be able to do it without that—and wiped my non-sweaty hands on my pants, awkwardly standing as Dayton sat on the couch, leaning back expectantly. Damn, I hadn’t been this nervous since my sixth-grade oral presentation on pickup trucks. I took a deep breath, cleared my throat, and took another breath. Jesus, I felt like a man about to be executed. I’d had military ops I’d been less nervous about than this.

To his credit, Dayton waited patiently, not once giving even the smallest sign of impatience. And somehow, his calm transferred to me and I was able to start. After the first paragraph, those strange nerves finally drifted away, and I got into it, signing with fluidity and ease.

After what Dayton had told me, I’d researched the history of ASL, and he’d been right about it being a source of cultural pride. It had been Alexander Graham Bell—yes, the guy who invented the telephone—who had strongly favored oralism over sign language despite having a deaf mother and, later on, a deaf wife.

Hell, the dude had even suggested Deaf people should not be allowed to marry other Deaf people so as not to propagate deafness. That was a seriously fucked-up opinion right there, and he’d even tried to support it with some pseudo-science that had been quickly debunked.

Anyway, I’d put some of that research into my talk and spent some time discussing how important ASL was to the Deaf community before stating that oral language was still my preference. Hopefully, that would be enough to appease my teacher.

When I was done, the nerves came back in full force. What if Dayton hated it? But he didn’t leave me in suspense for long. “That was really, really good.”

The tension immediately seeped from my shoulders. “Yeah?”

“You offered a much more nuanced view of ASL and what it means both socially and culturally. And it would be hard for your teacher to fail you on this one.”

Pure joy exploded inside me. “Thank you. Man, that’s a relief. Any feedback on the signing? I know I still need to work on my non-manual markers, but other than that?”

He shook his head. “Other than that, I didn’t spot any mistakes. It’s clear you’ve practiced hard.”

I shuffled my feet. “I didn’t want to fail again.”

“You shouldn’t.” The warm hand on my shoulder did strange things to my stomach. “You’ll be fine.”

Dayton was right. This time, my teacher didn’t fail me. In fact, I passed the test with a ninety-two percent score, which made me stupidly happy. The results came in as I was waiting for the water to boil so I could put the pasta in.

The red sauce had already been simmering for a good hour—the recipe courtesy of one of Nash’s coworkers, whose grandmother had brought it with her from Sicily or some shit. It could’ve been straight from some mob family or have been paid for in blood. I didn’t care. I’d made it once before, and it tasted divine.

I screenshot the result and texted it to Dayton.

I passed!

I knew you would. Congrats! That’s an amazing score.

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