Listen With Your Heart [May Continue in Future]

CH 14

Henry's POV

My brothers and I sat on Tom's bed later that night after our parents announced that we would be meeting our grandparents. We talked about what our grandmother and aunt would be like. It was decided that our aunt would be cool while our grandmother lived alone with fifty cats. We also talked about Pops's parents but decided that they were cool too almost instantly.

I usually enjoyed these conversations with my brothers and I was trying my best to be patient but Oliver was getting on my nerves. Even though Oliver knew how to lip read and to speak, they weren't skills that he used very often anymore so he was out of practice, understandably; but he was acting like he was sixteen again and could do both very well still. Oliver tried to speak at a normal conversation speed like when he used when he was sixteen, instead of carefully enunciating every word like he has been for the past year; so he wasn't understandable half the time.

His speaking volume fluctuated wildly from syllable syllable, from slightly above a whisper to something close to a normal speaking volume, to nearly shouting; most often though he didn't produce any sound at all since he was trying to speak without touching his throat to appear more normal for our grandmother. Dad became agitated and upset by Oliver's actions, telling Oliver over and over that he didn't need to change for our grandmother and he should just be himself.

I looked at my phone was one of my friends texted me: Come over Henry, we need to practice. I stood up "I'll see you guys later" I said outloud as I went to the closet to grab my guitar. "Lemon goo witch yew" I heard Oliver say. I was already tired of correcting his pronunciation so I just signed and nodded "Let's go.' "What? I'm going to stay here alone?" Tom protested. "Spend some quality time with your hand, I think it misses you" I said with a grin before I started to put on my shoes. Tom snorted and reached for his phone and after a moment he said "Hey Dylan, you free tonight?"

Oliver and I walked down the street; I was carrying my guitar case in one hand while he was texting on his phone. "Why did you want to come?" I asked, cheating since I signed with one hand. "I just wanted to spend time with my brother is that so bad?" Oliver signed, forgetting his vow and using his hands to communicate again. I raised my eyebrow at him "You're going to meet those guys later and didn't want any awkward questions from Tommy huh?" After a moment he just grinned and nodded. I rolled my eyes but didn't say anything else.

I walked to where my band was, in the garage of the house of the leader singer. The band I was in was named The One Direction Of The White Eskimos. I got the name from two different places; I got One Direction from some of Uncle Zayn's and Pop's stories about a group of friends they used to hang out with back in England. I got the second part when I told Dad that my band needed a name and he offered the name: White Eskimos; since one of his dreams was to play in a band when he was younger and what would have been the name of it. My friends took the two names and just smashed them together, thus TODOFWE was born...we need a better acronym though.

"Henry about time, where you been?" my bandmate and lead singer asked before turning to Oliver and literally shouting "Oliver it's been awhile since I've seen you, how you doing?" "Justin, why do you do that? You know he can't hear, so shouting literally does nothing except make you obnoxious" I said. Alicia laughed from her drums "He's just trying to be nice Oliver, you and all your brothers are so protective of each other geez." I made a face at her but didn't comment.

"Justin isn't there something you want to tell Henry?" our bassist said. "Oh, right Alex, Oliver we have a show tonight!" "What where?" I asked. "In Alicia's uncle's friend's cousin's bar! We going to be paid ten bucks each!" Justin said excitedly. "I'm not eighteen yet" I said. "Yeah it's fine, we already talked about it with her uncle! Cmon let's practice because the show is in an hour!"