My Undercover Life

Episode 12

After staring at Bradlee for a good five minute, I realized that he was trying to talk to me. He was fingerspelling super slowly, probably hoping I at least knew the ASL alphabet. But, I didn’t. Though, when I was younger, I remember doing a movie where my character was hard-of hearing so I had to learn some sign language to prepare for that role. That was also years ago, so I attain little to nothing. I mean, I still knew the easy letters like a, b, c, j, l, x, y and z and I think I caught a few ‘a’s in there but I wasn’t positive.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know the alphabet . . .”

He let out an audible sigh, his electrifying eyes drifting down, glancing at his phone. I watched as he quickly tapped some buttons before showing me the screen. Notes was opened, and in clear black letters it read:
Please don’t tell anyone I’m hard of hearing.
“Why?” I couldn’t help but asked. It wasn’t like anyone will start making fun of him just because he needed hearing aids to hear. He’s one of their ‘Gods’ according to Megan. In my opinion I think that will make the girls fall for him even more.
He bit his lips, concentrating on his typing before he showed me his phone again.
I don’t need anyone treating me differently. I like my space, and I certainly don’t need pity.
Pity. Even though I personally never experienced pity from anyone before, I got where he’s coming from. All my life my family sheltered me because I was this innocent child star. Sometimes you just need to explore life on your own—just like everyone else.
“Alright.” I nodded, giving him a thumbs up. His eyes moved from my lips to my thumb. “My lips are sealed.” I made a small motion with my hands, demonstrating the zipping action causing him to chuckle the tiniest bit. It was super soft, but I couldn’t help but appreciate how his eyes lit up, looking like he actually enjoyed my company, unlike yesterday where he didn’t acknowledge me at all.
Thanks.

This time he actually mouthed the words, and even though I’m a horrible at ASL, I could at least read lips. Plus, the word ‘thanks’ was an easy word to read. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.

“No problem,” I voiced, knowing that if he didn’t quite hear that, he would’ve read it. His eyes were perfectly focused on my lips whenever I spoke, so I doubt he missed what I’d said. I’m guessing that’s how he was able to understand the teacher yesterday during class. He had read his lips. “So, um . . . forgive me if this is insensitive,” I started off saying, chewing on my bottom lip in nervousness, “but can you talk if you wanted to? I know that some hard of hearing people can speak orally and sign, or strictly one over the other.”

Instead of typing his answer on his phone, he lowered his head in a nod, and when I saw the corners of his lips lifting up, I knew he wasn’t offended by my question.

I blew out a sigh of relief when I saw that response. “That’s great!” I said cheerily, glad that he wasn’t mad at me. The last thing I wanted was to ruin this moment. “But you rather sign, correct?”

He nodded his head again, causing a few strands of hair to fall over his eyes. I couldn’t help but watch as his muscled ripped under his dark vast as he moved his arm up to rearrange some of his hair to the side.
“Would you ever talk to me?”

As soon as that question left my mouth, he immediately lifted his head, his eyes meeting mine. Deciding to get a closer look at them, I realized they weren’t just a grayish blue in shade. No, they had specks of gold and green surrounding his irises, making his eyes even more unique and colorful. Hearing the sound of a loud gulp, I snapped out of my daze state, and automatically moved my eyes away from his. Seeing the wave of his hand underneath my lashes, I slowly peeked up seeing him mouth the word, maybe before the corners of his mouth moved up, giving me a full blown smile.

I was about to return the gesture when a loud annoying ringing filled the air, signaling the end of class. Feeling reluctant to leave, I made sure to take my time packing up, watching Bradlee in the corner of my eyes. When he had his folder inside his bag, I heard the sound of metal scraping across wood, as he pushed his chair backwards. I started gathering my things together when I thought he was going to leave, but I was surprised to see him still standing there.
Looking up slowly, I saw him with his head down, his dark locks covering the side of his face. Even though I couldn’t exactly see his face, I could tell he was debating over something by the unclenching and clenching of his fists. He continued that motion for a few seconds or so before he made his mind up, and lifted his hand up, and took the sheet of paper in front of my desk.

Once it was safely in his hands, he hurried past me and bypassed the rows of students before turning our quiz onto Mr. Meyer’s desk. I watched as Mr. Meyer thanked Bradlee before he turned around, his brilliant grey-like eyes looking dead at me. I was about mouth the word thanks, before my breath got caught in my throat. Bradlee, he was standing there with the utmost captivating smile plastered on his face. He continued to stare at me, even though our annoying classmates started giggling softly, gushing at Bradlee. They were mostly looking at him, probably just as memorized as I was by his smile. By the sound of it, it appeared to be the first time they’d ever saw Bradlee smiling. I couldn’t help but feel special in a way that he was actually smiling at me, and not at them. Almost as special as the fact that I was the only one that knew his secret—something that I’ll make sure to keep.
Before I could even walk over towards him, he started making his way out the classroom, his fangirls following right after him. Shifting back to my bag, I stuffed everything I’d gathered earlier inside not exactly caring if it was neat or not, and started making a beeline towards the front door.

Catching his lean body turning the corner at the end of the hallway, I was about to run after him when I felt a hand on my shoulder, halting me in mid-step. As I whipped around, I saw the face of none other than Hunter Le Feuvre. The corners of his lips started forming a smile; his body practically oozing happiness at the sight of me.
“Hey Avery,” he chirped, his mood pleasant and not like yesterday morning at all.
“Hey, um…listen I’m kind of in a hurry—”
His smile wavered, his whole demeanor changing. It was almost like I had kicked a puppy or something. “Oh, I see.” He scratched the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact with me. Though I could tell they were filled with despondency. “You’re looking for my brother, right?”
My eyes widened. “H-how—”
“I just saw him walking by,” he explained, cutting me off. “I just kind of guessed.” He shrugged. “I’ll let you get to it—”
“No-no,” I stepped in, “it’s fine.” I gave him a welcoming smile. “Did you need something?”
“Not anything in particular,” he said, his smile back on his face, his voice perky again. “I was actually going to talk to Mr. Meyer when I saw you walking out of his room.”
“Mr. Meyer? You have him too?” I asked, curiously.
“Yeah, I have him third period,” he told me as he shifted to a more comfortable position. Leaning against the doorframe, he started staring at the wall behind me. His cheeks heated up in embarrassment when he uttered the words, “but, I’m kind of failing his class.”
“Really? Are you in the regular class or are you in college course?” If he was in the college course, I could understand why he would be. It’s a pretty difficult class if you can’t grasp the material well. And some people just don’t get Biology as well as others.
“Regular.”
“Well,” I started, thinking, “if you want, I could help you with the subject,” I offered, not exactly sure where this was coming from, or even why I was offering Hunter this. It may have been the way Hunter was acting when he told me he was failing his class, or the way he was looking at me with actual kindness. “I’m actually pretty good in biology, so it wouldn’t be too hard to teach you.”
“Seriously!?” he asked, his eyes wide with shock. “You’ll actually tutor me?”
“Yeah.” I rolled my shoulders up, chuckling at his cute reaction. “Why not?”
“Thank you!” He leaped forward, as he brought my head to his chest on impulse. His arms engulfed my backside, his airy scent mixing with my cherry blossom perfume. “You have no idea how much this means to me!”
“Ah… Hunter?” I mumbled into his chest, his arms still around me.
“Yeah?” He looked down at me, his minty breath fanning my face. It was then that he realized how close we really were against one another. All he had to do was move his head down an inch or so, and we’ll be nose to nose. “Oh, s–t!” He backed away like I was on fire. “I’m so sorry,” he apologized like mad, his face turning red. “I didn’t realized what I was doing…”
“It’s fine.” I laughed, patting his shoulder. “I’ll see you later, alright? I need to hurry before I’m late to my next class. I so don’t want a repeat of yesterday.”
“Um… yeah… sure…” he started off muttering under his breath, his eyes shifting back and forth. “I wouldn’t want you to be late or anything on my behalf so I guess, I’ll see you at lunch then?”
“Yes, yes.” I chuckled. “You’ll see me at lunch,” I told Hunter as I gave him a final wave goodbye.

As I made my way down the white-colored hallway, the last thing I heard from Hunter was, “she said yes!” I couldn’t help but laugh under my breath, causing some people to stare at me weirdly. I shrugged them off, not exactly caring what they thought of me anymore. All I could think about as I made my way to class was the next few weeks with these guys. No matter how I think about it, none of these guys seemed like cold-hard killers to me. Maybe just maybe my cousins were wrong when they put together the suspect’s list. But then again…it’s still too early in the game to tell anything. One of them could just be a really good actor, but the question is—which one?

---

A/n: Sorry it was short, but I hope you still enjoyed the chapter though!