Page 4 of Love You Like That (Excess All Areas 4)

When Alex had gone home with a couple who had gone to the press about their night together. Nothing quite like your sexual preferences being outed by total strangers. Now speculation raged. Was he bi? Was he a third or in a throuple? A switch? Gay? He’d not felt the need to clarify he was pansexual because he knew it would open him up to a whole other line of questioning.

“Fair point,” Jase said. “But that was B.C.”

“Before Christ?” Nan asked.

Jase laughed. “No. Before Cerys. Detroit was a turning point, Nan. Don’t worry. I won’t be marching off stage.”

Nan patted Jase’s hand. “Good. And you?” She turned to face him.

“I’ll be good, Nan.” And he would, because not only had he become more discrete, but he had a bet to keep him entertained.

With Zoe Atkins. If he could just get her on the damn bus.

Jase’s phone rang fifteen minutes later, just as they’d sent Nan on her way with hugs all around. “Hey, sunshine. Miss me already?” There was a pause, then he shoved the chair back. “It what? Stay out of there. I’m on my way.”

Alex stood. “What happened?”

“Their kitchen roof just collapsed.”

Zoe Atkins looked up at the ceiling of the kitchen that was now a giant hole. Yellow insulation, cracked plaster, the dangling wires of the lights, and beams that ran the length of the house were all exposed. Chunks of plasterboard adorned the island and the floor. Plasterboard which had grazed her shoulder as it fell.

The still-steaming coffee cup was on the counter across the kitchen where she had left it. But the path to it was treacherous given her bare feet and shaking knees. Her reflection in the microwave door revealed wide eyes and dust-covered hair.

Water dripped, which, combined with the electrics was not a good thing.

And her heart raced faster than the notes in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

“Jase says to get out of the kitchen. He’s on his way,” Cerys signed. Then she sneezed because the air was filled with…well...they couldn’t tell.

“Holy shit,” Zoe signed. “It almost landed on my head. Go let Jase in.”

From the safety of the small dining area, Zoe looked up at the ceiling again as she took a quick picture to send to their landlord. Were there more cracks? How did they miss it? Would it be safe to even go into the bathroom directly above?

We have a small problem, she typed and attached the image.

Within moments, Jase and Alex ploughed into the room.

“Jesus. What the hell happened? Are you hurt?” Jase asked Cerys. She watched Jase’s lips. Between her hearing aids and lipreading she caught enough. He tugged Cerys into his arms and kissed the top of her head.

“I’m good,” Cerys replied. “Just a little shook. It caught Zoe.”

“I was making coffee and went to grab milk out of the fridge when the roof collapsed,” Zoe said. When it was just her and Cerys, they would sign. But having only gone deaf while at university, she could speak just fine.

Alex brushed some of the dust off Zoe’s shoulders, the contact more violent than she was ready for after finding herself in the middle of a ceiling collapse. “You okay?” he signed.

Zoe held her hand out to show how it was shaking. “Not the best of mornings.”

“Come here,” he said, tucking her against his chest. He smelled good; she could never quite pin it down. It was earthy, never floral. The kind of scent you could just keep inhaling and it would never give you a headache. He wore a delicate knit top with holes between the stitches. She could make out his ink, but not the designs.

Carefully, Alex eased Zoe back a fraction and picked a piece of fluff out of her hair. “You were lucky you weren’t standing beneath it. It’s wet. Looks heavy.”

Zoe nodded. “And it came between me and coffee.”

Alex grinned. “Well, I can fix that.” Carefully, with one eye on the ceiling, he stepped through the debris, tipped her coffee into the sink, rinsed the cup, and then poured her a fresh cup. “M-i-l-k?” he fingerspelled.

“Please,” she signed.

As Alex grabbed milk and Jase inspected the damage, Zoe looked over to Cerys. “How did we end up hanging around rock stars?” she signed. “Like, there are two of them in our kitchen right now.”

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