Read My Lips(56)

Brant slaps my thigh, bringing my attention back, and he tells me I’m not going to hurt her. Or maybe he’s trying to convince me that I won’t. “You don’t piss on everything you care about,” he tells me, mouthing the words so distinctly, it looks like he’s shouting. Maybe he is. “Now message her and go get some dinner!”

I shake my phone. “I did. She won’t answer.”

Brant pats my leg, then flips on the TV and grabs an Xbox controller. I stare at him quizzically. He lifts a brow at me when he notices. “What?”

“Your bowling thing,” I mumble at him.

“Fuck it,” he says, then adds something about the team being doomed because the lesbians are going through something and are gonna break up any day. Or maybe that’s not what he said at all. He shrugs, then mentions something about catching one of them giving him “the eyes” and how he’s pretty sure she goes both ways. “And also, I want to be here for you when Dessie answers,” he says, nudging my phone with his elbow. Then, he faces the TV and starts playing.

I grab the other controller. When Brant notices, a grin spreads across his face.

“Oh, it’s going down,” he says, his teeth flashing.





An email from Dr. Thwaite puts some extra speed to my getting-ready routine early Tuesday morning.

Mr. Kellen Michael Wright, our Official Lighting Designer Douchebag, has flown in early from the big apple to work with us here in the rotted grapefruit and he wants me to meet him at seven at the theater.

So fucking blessed.

And still not a peep from Dessie.

My eyes half-open, I pull a shirt over my head before I’m completely dried off from my shower, droplets of water wetting down the back in spots. I’m racing to get ready not so that I’m punctual for this Wright fucker, but because I need to do this right to impress Dr. Thwaite. It’s his opinion that matters to me, and being late receiving this lighting designer will reflect poorly on the whole department.

But most of all, me.

I push through the doors of the theater in record time, even before the box office has opened. No one’s in the main office except for Ramon who answers the phones, so I assume the big shot isn’t here yet. I make a trip to the bathroom to check myself in the mirror, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and fixing my hair. I haven’t been to the gym in almost a week and I can tell; I get so irritable so quickly when I don’t go. All that aggression doesn’t take long at all to build up inside me, and add to that the frustration of how I’m fucking things up so bad with Dessie, it’s a wonder I haven’t busted a vein in my forehead.

I doubt she’s up this early, but I have nothing to do until the designer arrives and I need to occupy my head with something other than wanting to put it through a wall. My phone’s out in seconds:



ME

Hey Dessie.

Really sorry about being MIA.

I hope u’re OK.

I keep thinking about u.

A lot.

I’m at the theater early

waiting on someone.

Kinda feel bad about

leaving you hanging.

Plz message me back?



With a sigh, I run some water over my face, then stare at my phone and wonder if she’s actually awake and might answer back. I stare for ten full minutes.

Suddenly, I feel a presence at my side. Turning my head, I find another student at the sink next to me. I ignore him and study my face again, especially the ugly wound on my cheek. I bandaged my face twice, but it’s not as good as when Dessie did it. I might as well wrap my face in duct tape for as unsightly as it is.

The dude taps me on the arm. I turn, lifting a brow. He’s a bit older than I realized at a first glance, maybe thirty or so. He’s my height and he wears a short-sleeve salmon-colored button shirt and jeans. His left wrist is thickly decorated in leather bands, wristlets, and wooden-beaded bracelets. He has a thin build and designer glasses. I have never seen this dude before, and clearly he doesn’t know who I am because he starts talking at my face, his mouth so little, I can’t understand a fucking word.

Until he says three words I do understand: Kellen Michael Wright.

Fuck, are you serious? I straighten up at once, my eyes flashing open, and I extend a hand. “Clayton Watts,” I get out, feeling my voice shake, which sends a surge of insecurity through my body that I instantly resent.

He shakes my hand and smiles, then confirms precisely who he is with a few words, the last of which being “New York”, I think. Did Dr. Thwaite not warn him about me, or …?

I type into my phone quickly that I’m deaf, then show him the screen. He reads it, then nods and pulls out his own phone, holding up a finger to tell me to wait as he types one-handed. Then he flashes me his own screen, telling me he’s looking forward to a quick tour once he takes a leak.