Page 23 of The Tides Between Us

I smiled at the sentiment in his message.

Giana

We’ll be here.

Declan

I’ll see you later then.

* * *

The day felt like it was dragging. It was almost as if time had slowed down and the clock was ticking slower than it ever had before. But then it did that weird thing where all of a sudden it caught up. The next thing I knew, it was close to four o’clock and Anna was popping her head through the doorway of the lab.

I looked up from my work in front of me. She stepped inside, but hovered close by the door. “Someone is here to see you. Do you want me to tell him you’ll be out or what?”

I shook my head, grabbed my notepad, and jotted down my response. Anna only knew small pieces of ASL, so it was easier to just write it to her.

You can bring him back here.

She raised a suspicious eyebrow at me. It wasn’t a typical thing we did here, but if Declan wanted to help out around here, he was going to have access to everything in the back anyway. I nodded at her.

“I’ll send him back.”

I watched after her for a moment as she disappeared from the room. My heart was already skipping a beat at the mere thought of him being in the same space as me. My hair was pulled back in a low bun. I was wearing a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a lab coat. I didn’t really dress to impress today, and it’s not like the animals here really cared about my appearance.

Suddenly, I had wished I dressed a little differently today. Or at least put on some makeup or something.

I closed my notebook where I was recording my findings and organized the different tools at my work station. It was a bit of a cluttered mess. I was just looking through some of the samples I took from one of the dolphins we had, searching for evidence of potential pollution effecting its protective layer of skin.

Rising to my feet, I began to clean things up and I was carrying a tray over to the refrigerator just as the door to the lab opened once again. Declan was by himself, looking just as good as he always did. The oxygen from the room instantly vanished and my lungs constricted. He was dressed differently than the last few times I had seen him.

He wore a long-sleeve white SPF shirt that said Riviera Maya across the front in bold navy letters. His wasn’t wearing the typical board shorts I usually saw him in. Instead, he was wearing a simple pair of cognac-colored cargo shorts. The door shut behind him and I offered him a smile as he stepped into my space.

I set the tray inside the fridge and turned back around to face him. He lifted his hand to wave at me and I watched his lips move as he said hi. I shifted my weight nervously on my feet and gave him the most awkward wave ever.

And then something completely unexpected happened.

He placed both fists together with his thumbs up and rolled his hands forward so his palms were facing upward with his fingers slightly curled in. He then finished by pointing at me.

“How are you?”

The air left my lungs and my throat constricted. The simple movements of his hands shook me to my core.

He had just signed to me.

My heart literally stopped in my chest. My breath hitched. I stared back at him as a wave of emotion washed over me. Words would never come close to touching the way he had made me feel with one simple sentence.

I swallowed roughly over the emotion that was thick in my throat. Lifting the tips of my fingers on my right hand to my lips, I pulled them away, the back of my hand touching my left palm.“Good,”I signed back to him.

His face cracked into a smile, revealing the dimples in his cheeks. “I can’t promise I can have a full conversation in ASL, but I know a thing or two.”

I was momentarily speechless. My eyes refused to leave his.“Since when?”I signed to him.

“After we went to breakfast that one morning.” He paused for a moment and ran his fingers through his tousled waves. “I know we have other ways we can communicate, but I want to learn the way you speak. I don’t want you to have to write or type everything out all the time. I just want things to be easy for you.”

Words failed me. My lips parted and hung open as my gaze was cemented to his golden brown eyes. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t blink. Couldn’t breathe. He was learning it forme. It was the greatest gesture I had ever received from someone. I couldn’t accept it, though.

I shook my head at him.“You don’t have to do that.”

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