I love the way his teeth, tongue, and lips form the word “first”, a hint of Texan accent in it and the “s” muffled slightly.
“Well, unless you want me to hold a conversation with your chest …” I tease him.
He throws an arm over the back of the couch, the shirt dropped to his lap and forgotten.
I sigh with pleasure, unsure if he heard me or not. My eyes are helplessly glued to his muscles. “Fine,” I say breathily. There are worse things I’ve been subjected to. “You going to tell me how you got that thing on your face?”
Clayton’s forehead screws up. I assume he didn’t catch what I said, so I indicate my own cheek, then point at his expectantly.
He sighs and looks away, biting his lip. I slap the couch, drawing his attention back. “I know you didn’t just … ‘fall’.”
He shakes his head no, confirming my suspicion.
“So?” I prompt him.
It seems to take a measure of effort for him to even think about it, which casts a lightning bolt of worry through me. Finally, he pulls his phone out, taps a bit on it, then shows me the screen:
Some punk assholes
from the corner store
followed me out n jumped me.
“Oh my god!” I blurt out as I read it. “Why??”
“Bad attitude,” he answers quietly. “Dumb.” He shrugs, all the muscles of his shoulders moving with him. His eyes linger on my lips.
I remind myself that he’s staring at my lips for the functional purpose of grasping what I’m saying and urge myself not to be so damned turned on by it.
“You don’t like to talk much,” I observe, though I meant it as a question.
His eyes detach from mine, caught in a thought. Then, with a short sigh I’m not sure he meant for me to hear, he types into his phone again. I watch his face work through a bunch of different word choices as he struggles with how to say whatever it is he’s typing. With a pinch of reluctance, he shows me the screen:
I’ve always been weird
about talking out loud
since I can’t hear myself.
Been this way
since I lost my hearing :/
I nod slowly, then take his phone from him, earning a snort of protest as I delete what he typed and write my own message. I reveal the screen:
I like what you sound like.
Not that you need any more boosts
to your insufferably large ego.
He grins, and half a laugh escapes his lips, all his pearly whites shining. He meets my eyes with his head still tilted down to the screen, his forehead scrunched up in an adorable way.
“I like what you sound like,” I repeat, shrugging.
His eyes harden. “I … wish I could hear what you sound like.”
“My voice is pretty boring,” I assure him. “You’re not missing much.”
“I doubt that.” His eyes brush over my face, a hint of curiosity in them. He reaches for the tequila and pours two more shots. When he offers me one, I shake my head and gently push it away. To that, he shrugs and downs them both, one at a time. His face visibly loosens, his eyes turning watery. “There’s a lot about you I’d like to learn, Dessie.”
I put an arm over the back of the couch. Utterly incapable of enforcing discipline on my hands, I find myself curious about his tattoo. The moment my finger touches his neck, he seems to freeze in place, staring into my eyes intensely as I observe his ink, tracing the shape.
“Why the tattoo?” I mouth to him, hardly using my voice.
“Mmm.” He gives it some thought. “Tattoo,” he mumbles, his mind seeming to go somewhere far away. “Had to watch my back all through high school. When I turned eighteen, I … I decided I wanted to look like a bad-ass no one should fuck with. So I … wanted to …” He sighs and takes his phone out of my lap, typing into it as I continue to trace the ink on his neck. I wonder what that’s doing to him, if anything.
Then, he shows me the screen:
Ur finger is driving me nuts
I grin. He glares at me playfully, but I see the tightness in his jaw. I might be waking the beast again.
My finger reaches his earlobe. I study it curiously and find my mind arriving at a question I’d wanted to ask for quite a while, the most obvious question.
“How long have you been deaf?”
He squints at me, the humor in his eyes traded quickly for solemnity. I wonder if he understood the question, due to his lack of response. I let go of his ear and take the phone back, typing into it:
How long have you been deaf?
He hardly looks at the screen before he murmurs, “Since I was twelve.”
“How?”
“Measles.” He mumbles the word so bitterly that I almost miss what he says. “It spread to my ears, shitty parents, lack of medical treatment, lucky to be alive, blah, blah.”