Author's Note: Sorry for the extreme delay between chapters this time. I have no good excuse. :P I'll try to avoid letting it happen again but we'll see…at least it was less than a month lol. I know that's too long, though.

Also, I apologize that this chapter is so short. I will try to post chapter 3 tomorrow, though, so hopefully that makes up for it.

Anyway… Happy Halloween! And enjoy chapter 2. I'll try to write chapter 3 asap.

Chapter 2: "Texting"

Travis, back at Melody and Emmett's home later that evening, felt his phone vibrate and pulled it out of his pocket. He looked down to see the lit up screen. He felt so excited as he saw a text from Mary Beth. Carefully, he saved her number into his phone before replying.

Yeah, tonight was great. So even without knowing ASL, you enjoyed the film?

Definitely. I could appreciate enough.

Awesome. UR pretty good at ASL for a hearing person, btw.

Really?

Travis considered her question. He realized he had a very limited sample of hearing people with whom he'd interacted. The Carlton school principal was a CODA so of course she was just as good as the Deaf folks with whom he'd interacted. There was Bay, who had dated Emmett pretty seriously for months, and who had been switched at birth with a girl who had been signing since she was three, so it made sense she'd be good too. Even Toby had some motivation to learn to sign, for his newly discovered sister and for Emmett who was in his band, and even for Travis' sake since Travis was now one of his employees. (Travis hated thinking about that. He'd wanted so badly to have been chosen to be the manager.)

But then there was John, whose daughter was Deaf but who struggled with even the simplest signs, even after months of practice. And there was Travis' family, who had never bothered to even try. So, yeah. Mary Beth, who presumably had not even attempted a single sign before today, was pretty good. He thought so, at least.

Really.

He waited for her reply. He was sitting on a very nice couch, alone in the living room. Emmett and his mother were watching something on TV over in the next room.

I want to learn more before we go on our date. But I don't even know where to begin!

He could understand how overwhelmed she probably felt.

Don't worry about it too much. I can be patient and have gotten pretty good at reading lips over the years.

A part of him was worried she'd be like what Wilke was for Daphne. The complete opposite of Bay. A hearing person who didn't even try. He never intended to give her permission to not try. But there he was, basically doing just that. He couldn't help it. He knew she'd try anyway, even though he didn't really know her at all yet. But he had a good gut feeling about her. She seemed like the type to try.

They set up a time and place for their first date. It'd be in two days, they'd go see a movie at the theater in town that had closed captioning. Then they'd go to get ice cream afterwards, at a little place not too far away.

He remembered how horribly buying the rose for Daphne had gone. He was so nervous he'd do something similar to screw this up. He was glad they didn't have to sit through an entire meal together, worried their communication barrier would be a problem. Eventually, he hoped they would do all sorts of things together. But for now… he wanted to take things slow.

Taking things slow included not texting her too much right away. He didn't want to seem overly desperate or something. So as much as he was curious to find out more about who she was and what her life was like, he decided to just be patient and wait for their first date.

He set his phone up to start charging and then casually joined the Blesdoes in the other room. They welcomed him kindly, then returned their attention to the closed captioned program.

Travis was so glad things in his life were finally really fitting into place. A girl he liked seemed genuinely interested in him, and he was starting to feel like a part of this little family too. Life really wasn't so bad.