“Forgive me in advance,” I tell her, as I hold her legs wide and push my way inside her. I bring her feet together on my left shoulder, and she’s so tight like this that I can barely get inside her. “But I’m going to come really quick.”

My balls tickle and I can already feel the pull of my orgasm, and I try to hold off, but then she takes my finger into her mouth and sucks on it while I fuck her, and I need to come.

“Can I come inside you?” I ask.

She pants. But she nods. And I do.

I feel like she has split me open and laid me bare. Like she’s seeing every part of me as I pour myself into her.

I let her legs drop, then I fall to her side, and she rolls toward me.

I flip over to face her and draw a circle on her bicep. “I’m really sorry,” I tell her, but she covers my mouth with her hand.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” It’s really not.

“It’s okay.”

“I misunderstood and I should have given you time to explain.” She’s still and she listens as I explain my thoughts that day. I thought she cheated. And I know she didn’t. If anybody knows how the tabloids can skew a story, it’s me. “I’m sorry,” I say again when I’m done.

“I love you,” she says. She kisses me.

“I love you too.” I kiss her back. “Can you stay tonight?”

She nods. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“I don’t want to ever get rid of you.” I brush her hair back. I lean close and sniff her. I’ve missed everything about her. “You smell so good.”

I roll her beneath me and take her nipple into my mouth. When she starts to squirm under me, I lift my head. “If you thought you were going to get any sleep tonight, you were wrong.”

She laughs. “I like being wrong,” she says as she reaches down between my legs.

Sam

He’s only supposed to have one person with him, because of the amount of distraction lots of people can provide, but the audiologist lets us all go in the room with him. They even bring in more chairs for us all. He told us he didn’t need for us all to be there.

“Where you go, we go,” Paul says.

Emily is the only woman here. All the others opted to stay home, because the room just wasn’t big enough for all of us. So it’s me, Pete, Paul, and Matt, along with Emily and Kit. Kit’s playing with some toys that Emily dropped in the corner of the room.

Logan’s knees are jumping with nervousness, and I’m not sure he could sit still if he tried.

I remember when Logan lost his hearing. Our mom was devastated and worried and hopeful all at once. But she rushed right out and bought videos to teach us all sign language. We learned to sign and we learned how to live with a deaf person, how to adjust to his new life. But for us, Logan was just Logan, and we did what it took to communicate with him, and we didn’t see it as more difficult than that.

This cochlear implant will certainly be a change, that’s for sure.

The audiologist attaches the receiver using a magnet they implanted in Logan’s head. “So you can’t walk through metal detectors anymore, huh?” Pete asks.

Logan rolls his eyes at him and he puts on the behind the ear microphones. They look a lot like his hearing aids do.

Logan’s knee is still bobbing up and down, and Emily covers it with her hand. She’s sitting right beside him. He stops moving and looks at her. She stares back, and so much love passes between them that it makes me want to go home to Peck. Right this very second.

“You okay?” Paul asks Logan. He signs while he talks.

“Scared,” Logan says back.

“I’m going to play a series of clicks for you, and I want you to tell me when you hear them, okay?” The audiologist waits for him to nod.

The room goes completely silent, and even Paul is holding his breath.

Logan’s head jerks when he hears the clicks. “I hear it,” he says.

“Good,” the audiologist says. “Is it loud?”

“No. Very quiet.” He grins. “My voice is loud, though. Really loud.” He looks at Emily. “Is my voice always this loud, Em?” He blushes. “I can hear my voice.”

“It’s going to sound really loud to you until you get used to it.” The audiologist adjusts some knobs. “I’m going to play some beeps. Tell me when you hear them.”

Logan’s leg starts to jump again, and Emily covers it with her hand. He grabs her fingers and squeezes tight, smiling at her. His head jerks again and he laughs. “I hear it.” He looks at everyone else. “Do you hear it, too?”

Paul nods. “We hear it.”

“Holy cow!” Logan yells. “Is that your voice?” He stares at Paul.

I watch Paul as he blinks. His eyes form shallow little puddles and he looks away. “Yeah, that’s my voice.” He clears his throat. I look over at Pete and try to catch his eye so I can make fun of Paul tearing up, but he’s swiping a hand across his cheek.

Logan grins. “I can hear you talking.”

“It’s going to take some time to get used to the sounds,” the audiologist tells me. “You’ll learn what sounds go with what items in the coming months. There might be sounds you don’t recognize at all.”

He points to Paul. “I heard his voice.” Then Logan’s eyes well up. “Sometimes I dream of your voice, Paul,” he says. “It doesn’t sound like that at all right now, but I still know it’s you.”