Defending Everly (Mountain Mercenaries) by Susan Stoker

Author:Susan Stoker [Stoker, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-02T18:30:00+00:00

That night, Everly watched as Ball and Elise both made fun of his latest attempts to communicate. He never seemed to get frustrated, and he no longer relied on Everly to translate for him. He and Elise muddled through, and if either of them got stuck, they picked up their phones sitting nearby and texted each other.

Everly had never dated anyone who’d gotten along with her sister like Ball did. Granted, not many of her boyfriends had even met Elise, but the few who did were uncomfortable when she and Elise had a conversation they couldn’t understand, and they hadn’t made even the smallest effort to learn any signs.

She might’ve thought Ball was trying too hard to impress her, except when he and Elise started “talking,” Everly may as well have not even existed.

It was after dinner, and Elise and Ball had been at it for at least an hour, when Everly heard a sound she hadn’t heard in more than a decade.

Her eyes whipped up, and she stared at her sister in surprise.

She was laughing. Out loud. Hard. Her head was thrown back, and she was holding her stomach, laughing so much that tears were coming out of her eyes.

When Elise finally recovered enough to talk, she nodded and repeated the sign for bullshit. She made horns with her pinkie and pointer finger on one hand, holding that arm up, and formed a fist with the other, touching it to the opposite elbow, opening and closing her hand quickly. Like crap coming out of the back end of a bull.

Ball laughed and repeated the sign.

Everly had no idea how long her sister had been teaching Ball dirty words. She stood and walked over to the pair. She didn’t want to end their fun, but felt somewhat obligated to break it up. “What are you guys doing?” she asked, even though it was pretty obvious.

Without guile, Ball said, “Elise is teaching me how to swear. Look.” He made a circle with the fingers of one hand and slammed the middle finger of the other inside. “Asshole.”

Everly rolled her eyes. “I know what it means. I’m not sure my little sister should be teaching you that stuff. She shouldn’t even know it.” Everly was signing as she spoke so Elise wouldn’t feel left out of the conversation.

Everly, seriously? I’m fifteen. I’m not a nun. Of course I know how to swear.

How about you say good night to Ball and get ready for bed? You’ve got school in the morning, and I have to work.

Elise pouted, but couldn’t hold it for long. She smiled immediately, signed good night, and beamed at Ball when he returned it. She hugged Everly and headed for her room.

“She’s a good kid,” Ball said when her door shut behind her.

“Yeah. I can’t take credit for that, though. It was all Me-Maw and Pop.”

“Now that I don’t believe,” Ball told her, yanking on her hand and pulling her down to sit next to him. “I had a long

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.