Even if I managed to steer Nina away from talk of homecoming that one time, it didn’t count for much at school the following Monday. Suddenly everything at Engelmann seemed to be about homecoming. I was a bit stunned I hadn’t noticed it sooner. There were brightly colored, glittery banners and fliers plastered throughout the hallways, and somebody had even started up a countdown in the cafeteria.

All this excitement for homecoming just served to remind me of the one disastrous dance I went to at Pratt my sophomore year. The guy I’d been crushing on at the time, Jake Perkins, asked me to go with him in the middle of math class, only to ditch me halfway through the dance for some other girl. I spent the rest of the dance as a wallflower, feeling sorry for myself. I was not eager to repeat the experience, and besides—how different could homecoming at a hearing school really be?

I should’ve been preoccupied with upcoming midterms, and in a way I definitely was, but it was hard to shake off thoughts of homecoming with so many reminders everywhere. Even Beau—who claimed he wasn’t good at dancing—was in on the homecoming babble and seemed genuinely excited.

I was sitting across the table from him at lunch, probably paying more attention to him than I should have, as he spoke with Jackson. Beau talked with his hands a lot even when he wasn’t keeping up with his signs, and sometimes watching him was more interesting than anything else going on at Engelmann.

Beau wasn’t facing me head-on, so I couldn’t be positive, but I was pretty sure I saw his lips form the word homecoming a time or two.

Jackson was easier to get a read on, and maybe it was rude of me to think, but the guy had a big mouth. Lipreading whatever he said didn’t take much effort. My interest was definitely piqued when I saw Jackson say, “. . . should ask Erica . . . homecoming.”

I figured Jackson must’ve been talking about the Erica I’d met at the student fair event a while back. I’d seen her a couple of times in the hallways and she’d wave hello to be polite, but that was about it for our interaction since I didn’t have any classes with her.

Beau just rolled his eyes at Jackson, saying something like, “. . . don’t like . . . like that.”

So Beau didn’t like Erica? That was . . . interesting. She kind of seemed like the type of girl Beau would date, being the student body president and all.

When Beau glanced my way a second later, I quickly averted my gaze and tried to engage Nina in a conversation in sign. Somehow it was significantly more embarrassing getting caught lipreading when it was Beau’s mouth that I was watching.