Read My Lips(74)

Maybe that’s why they say eighty percent of sign language is your expression, and not the actual signs you make with your hands.

I get sentences from the way your feet fold when you’re seated. Or how your legs are inclined toward—or away—from the person you’re talking to. You tell me whether you’re comfortable around me by letting your arms hang at your side, or thrusting your hands into your pockets, or crossing your arms protectively over your chest. I note the angle of your head, where your chin points, the wrinkles in your face between which either amusement or resentment is expressed.

It’s a fucking book, from one end of your body to the other. And Kellen says it all without speaking.

He looks at me, awaiting an answer to some question I didn’t hear.

I nod. “Exactly,” I agree, just wanting this stupid shit to be over with so I can get back to Dessie. She should be out of her acting class by now, and it’s dress week, which is when life gets tough for both of us. She has dress rehearsal every night while the crews give their full focus to the show, making adjustments to the costumes, set, sound, and lights as we communicate with the director to set up lighting cues, like when the lights come on or fade out or change color, and so on.

It’s Monday. Only five days separate her from opening night. I can’t imagine what a wreck she must be. It doesn’t matter how good I tell her she is; she won’t hear a word of it.

Suddenly, the screen of Kellen’s tablet slides over the table in front of my eyes. In place of the description of a lighting cue, he’s typed:



Are you here today?

Getting anything

I’m saying at all?

Or am I wasting my breath

trying to teach you?



I smirk and face him, unable to hide my irritation for some reason. “I must’ve missed what you just said. Can you repeat it?”

He erases his words on the tablet, then types onto it in front of me:



Can’t rely on you seeing

what I’m saying anymore?

Need me to type everything out

for you suddenly???



Looking back at him, I see the exasperation in his eyes. I see the frustration in his hunched shoulders. I also see the curl of dislike in his parted lips, the way it makes his chin dimple.

It’s not just my absentmindedness. He’s annoyed by something else entirely, and taking into account all of what Dessie’s told me about this piece of work—and how public Dessie and I have been over the past several weeks—I can take a guess as to what’s tied his pretentious panties into a pretzel: he doesn’t like that Dessie and I are together.

“I’m fine,” I tell his lips, feeling the tension in my jaw work into each word. “Repeat yourself once and I will understand.”

He mashes his fingers into the tablet, yet again:



You sure about that???

I’m teaching you valuable lessons here.

I can easily do this by myself.



I barely read the message. My eyes zero in on his. I give him every ounce of fury behind my gaze as I consider whether to punch him in the face for what he did to Dessie years ago, or punch him in the jaw for the condescending way he’s talking to me now, or just let it all go and taking the higher ground.

“I’m here to learn,” I say through gritted teeth.

Then, twisting his face away, I see Kellen mouth something to himself.

“What was that?” I prompt him.

He shakes his head, taking his tablet back to resume his work, except this time he ignores me, not saying a word.

I won’t let it go. “What did you just say?”

He rolls his eyes, then mouths the word, “Nothing,” at me before returning to his little thousand-dollar shiny show-off tablet.

I can’t hold back with this motherfucker. “Maybe it escaped your attention, but I’m deaf,” I explain to him, drawing his gaze back to me, “and it’s fucking rude to say something under your breath when you know damn well I can’t hear you.”

He studies my face for a moment, pensive and superior. Then, without the assistance of his tablet, he says, “She told you about us.”

My nostrils flare. I say nothing.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, his mouth curling into a triumphant smirk. “That’s what this is, isn’t it?”

I can’t be sure of his words, not exactly, but I know the gleam of arrogance in another man’s eyes when I see it, even if it’s through his pair of designer glasses.

He leans in, his face so close that I smell the onion from the bagel he ate this morning. His lips part and he says, “You’re pissed because I got inside her first.”

My fist meets his face before I draw my next breath.

The force is so strong, he flies back in his rolling chair, knocking against the sound console.