THE DEAF BOY HEARD IT ALL (BOYXBOY)

WELL QUESTIONS (4)

The light in the kitchen was on. The closer we grew to the kitchen the clearer I could hear talking coming from inside. Three different voices each that I knew well. Jude, Harlow and Harlow's mother, Aunty Lisa was inside.

". . . violate us." the end of Harlow's angry comment came across. I froze in my steps and team Ghost Lives stopped with me. Closing my eyes I knew that Harlow was going to be upset about all of this. Jude must have broken the news to her by now. I wish he would have at least called her, talked to her before he signed the papers.

There was no way that Jude thought Harlow would sign off on having cameras up all over the place. Maybe that was why he did it while she was at work. So that what was done was done and he just had to deal with his wife's hot temperature afterwards.

"I know Har, but we're bleeding money. The inn has to do better. This will give us the push we need." Jude was as calm as always. If his wife was the one that was the hot head Jude was the one that always was chilled. He never raised his voice and I never saw him get angry with anyone. He was level headed and normally thought things through. That was unless it came to ghost. Then he just dive into the deep end.

Peeking around the corner I could see Harlow pacing the kitchen floor in front of the stove. Jude was pushing his fingers through his hair as he sat on one of the countertop and Aunty Lisa was at the table. A glass and bottle of rum in front of her.

Aunty Lisa was an older woman in her mid-fifties. She had long silver hair that she stopped dying about five years ago. There was warm honey brown eyes that had laugh lines around them. She was a pleasantly plump woman who words could be like acid when she choice. My father and Aunty Lisa had been married for twenty years before dad cheated on her with my mother.

When they divorce Lisa told father she wasn't leaving this house. The inn was her home and he couldn't make her leave. She has always been a part of my life. A caring aunt that watched over me when my parents weren't around. When I learned the truth about everything I had thought Aunty Lisa would hate someone like me. I never got that feeling from her, though. Sometimes she treated me better than her own daughter.

"They said they probably won't need any of the footage of our rooms and they would cut the cameras if we are having sex." Talking about having sex or fighting wasn't what they were cutting the cameras for, though. Zane had already moved to the other side of the wall so he could put his camera into the kitchen getting my family drama on film.

"Oh, they don't have to worry about sex. I won't be touching you until they are out of here." Harlow threatened and Jude hung his head. It wouldn't be the first time she threatened to freeze him out. According to Jude it never lasted long. Of course, anytime he told me this I shiver and run away.

"Harlow-"

"I can't believe you were so stupid!" Harlow pointed a threatening finger at her husband. Jude only sighed at his wife. "What about Lyra and Gunner? Do you think I want their image out over the internet." I hadn't thought about my image or it being online. I guess it was too late for that now. All of us were all over the internet. Ghost Lives said they were streaming all of this. Letting people get a detailed look at what it's like to live in a haunted place.

"This is for Lyra and Gunner. Lisa had to take out a second mortgage on this place for Gunner's surgery. We're drowning in debt and I'm the one who had an idea to fit it. Maybe there were other paths but this one isn't so bad either." Jude once again voice was even and calm. I was shaking, though.

My fingers clenched into a tight fist. I didn't know. I had no idea that Lisa had taken a second mortgage. I didn't know that they had gone into debt because of me. They made it seem like it was so easy. Like they had the money and it was okay for me to want something, that it was okay that I asked for my hearing back.