Read My Lips(26)

My heart hammers against my chest.

It’s performance time.

I lift my hand up and wave, offering a smile.

After a moment of staring, he returns a tiny nod.

You’re doing good, I coach myself. He acknowledged you. Keep going! With a jolt of excitement coursing through me, I bring a fist to my chest, then slowly rub it in a circle—Sorry.

He doesn’t respond to that, his eyes glued to my face as if he didn’t just see what I tried to sign to him.

Just keep going, Dessie. I bring a flat hand to my chest—My. I take two fingers from one hand and tap the two fingers of my other—Name. Then, I carefully form what I hope to be the correct letters with my right hand—D, E, S, S, I, E. When I’ve finished, I clasp my hands together, proud of myself, and smile again.

His face hardens. His lips purse, causing his sexy cheeks to suck in as he considers me. Oh, crap. Did I do it all wrong? Did I just call him an asshole, or insult his mother, or accidentally tell him I’m a purple frog? Maybe I should have gotten a second opinion before practicing sign language for the first time—that I learned from a Google search—on Clayton.

Then, without relaxing any of that hard attitude on his face, he nods again, then redirects his attention to his phone, where he seems to be typing for a short moment. He shows me the screen:



I’m Clayton



I breathe a sigh of relief. “I know,” I say out loud, then find myself struck with the horror of the fact that I don’t know any more signs. I looked up how to say some other things, but they’ve gone completely out of my head.

Crap. I’m out of conversation.

It doesn’t seem to matter. Clayton, his jaw flexed, gives me another tight nod and a short, halfhearted wave before he turns and departs the building. The glass doors close behind him.

I stare after him, my pulse throbbing in my ears.

Then, all the fear and doubt is replaced yet again with unapologetic glee. I just conversed with Clayton. Wow. I just conversed with Clayton using my hands.

There’s a few other ways I’d like to communicate with Clayton using my hands.

Feeling twenty times lighter than I did before, I return to my booth and pop the last bite of sub into my mouth, a giggle wiggling its way up and down my whole body. I can’t believe what I just did. I can’t believe that actually just happened.

“Is he a friend?”

I look up at Sam, who has yet another speck of mayonnaise on her face, right by her lips. I don’t care. It’s even adorable, suddenly.

“You could say that,” I answer with a dumb grin.

“Is he deaf?”

“Yep.”

I open the bag of chips I didn’t even want. I pop one into my mouth, then scoot the bag across the table to my roommate, who doesn’t even have to be asked, helping herself to one.

“He looks like someone I knew in high school,” she says. “He could be part of a heavy metal band.”

“A sexy drummer,” I say, dreaming on. First thing I’ll do when I get back to my dorm is research every sign I possibly can. “Guitarist,” I go on, wondering how to sign the phrase: I want you to push me into the wall and stick your cock inside me. “Sexy, sexy guitarist.”

“Him being a drummer would make sense,” Sam reasons. “Vibrations and everything …”

“Vibrations,” I agree, dreaming about what sort of vibrations I want to feel between my legs tonight, if I can get some time alone. I think about what signs I’d need to learn to tell him: Bend me over the table and pound me until I forget my own name.

Imaginary signs and hand-shapes keep spinning around my mind as I share the rest of the potato chips with my roommate, lost in dreams of him … and what other kind of magic I can do with my hands.





What the fuck was that?

I can barely concentrate even when I’m backstage sorting stage weights and fucking two-by-fours, as if I’ve suddenly doubled as the set crew, too. Dick was so damn efficient with his lighting crew this morning that there’s barely anything left to do tonight or tomorrow, which leaves my body in a perpetual state of busywork and my mind trapped on that girl.

Dessie.

Not a name I’ve heard before.

I’m so distracted by her that I let a stage weight go too early and the heavy fucker drops on my foot like a brick. After a shriek of pain, I kick the damn thing fruitlessly and study my foot, thankful I wore some sturdy boots today. When I take a glance at the others who are messing with the counterweight system, I realize I might’ve shouted louder than I intended to. I give them an annoyed nod, then continue about my work, determined to keep my toes unbroken.

That Dessie girl signed to me. Great. Fucking great. It’s obvious she either never used sign language before or just learned those few signs for my benefit. I don’t know which feels worse. I hate the attention that signing in public gives me. The only person I sign with is my other roommate Dmitri, who met me in an astronomy class last year when he noticed that I had an interpreter present. He’s got a deaf sister, so he was already fluent. Fuck, he’s even more fluent than I am.