Read My Lips (A College Obsession Romance)

by Daryl Banner

  “Oh! Yes, of course,” says Ariel with a feathery chuckle. “I was told that. I’m so silly. Transfer, yes?”

  “Right.”

  She smiles warmly. That smile lasts for about four seconds before it turns to ice. “So I heard about the song, Dessie. At the piano bar.”

  I swallow, steeling myself for whatever it is she wants to say. “Song?” I prompt her innocently, but knowing exactly what she’s talking about.

  “You sang a song to Clayton. Clayton Watts,” she clarifies, tilting her head so all that angelic, blonde hair drifts to the side like a curtain of snow. “I don’t mean to step on any toes, or to come off any certain way, but … just friend to friend, woman to woman … you need to be warned,” she tells me, her eyes soft and glassy. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but—”

  “I’m usually of the mindset that it doesn’t matter what I hear,” I retort as politely as I can, despite the sharp edge to each of my words. “I judge a person based on how I think of them, not others.”

  Ariel’s sweet smile hasn’t left her face, though it tightens considerably at my words. I’m not fooled. Of course the ex would want to scare everyone else away from Clayton; this bitch just doesn’t want to picture his sexy lips anywhere near mine. Possessive, much?

  “You are a very sweet person,” she tells me, and despite how I’m feeling, I can’t tell whether she means it or is just being snarky. “I wish everyone had as open and caring a mind as you. Well.” She tightens her smile yet some more. “It was certainly a pleasure. I have to be off now to help grade Phonetics papers for the voice prof. Have a nice day, Dessie! And … do take care,” she adds. “A rose always looks lovely from a distance, but their thorns will prick you just the same. It’s in their nature.”

  With that, she dives back into her little river, her legs turning into half a fish, then flitters away.

  I spend the afternoon alone, bitterly eating Ariel’s words and spitting them out of my mind. She’d totally do well to have a sea hag rip her tongue out. No, I didn’t get a text from Victoria, nor did she answer when I knocked on the door to her dorm four separate times. Sam wasn’t there either, presumably at the library or something, so I enjoy a dinner alone in the University Center food court. My meal is a half-wilted salad with nine-thousand calorie dressing. Boy, have my standards plummeted. If my mom and sister could see me now …

  My dad would probably cheer me on and laugh. He was always the cool one in the family who encouraged me, even when I had my five-year-long tomboy phase in junior high, which completely humiliated my sister. You wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at me, but I’m actually quite handy with a switchblade. I also know how to tie eleven different knots and am not afraid of mud—which I always made fun of my sister for, considering stage makeup basically is mud that you put on your face.

  When I’m back at the School of Theatre for my Wednesday evening lighting crew shift, my heart rate is so high, I seriously feel like I might faint before I reach the door. I don’t know why my confidence is so finicky; it’s blazing one minute, dead-cold the next.

  I push through the door of the auditorium.

  Clayton is seated on the edge of the stage.

  Alone.

  He doesn’t look up. He seems intent on staring at the seats. Surely he isn’t avoiding looking at me.

  I force myself down the aisle to the stage. When he still doesn’t look up at me or acknowledge my existence—even with me clearly being in his peripheral view now—I give up, sitting on the edge of the stage too, but keeping quite some distance between us.

  I fight an urge to fruitlessly say hello, then roll my eyes at how dumb I am. I shouldn’t have signed to him. I had no idea what I was doing.

  I still don’t.

  “This is just lovely,” I mumble under my breath, picking my nails despondently.

  “What’s lovely?” comes a voice from behind.

  I jump, turning around to find Dick standing there.

  “Hello, D… Dick.”

  “What’d you call me? Just kidding.” He sits down between us, legs dangling off the stage. I wonder if he was saving up that joke; I can picture him practicing it into mirrors. “Some guys switched around, since I had openings for more people Monday and Tuesday. So, it looks like our Wednesday crew is now … just you two. Which really means it’s just you, Dessie.”

  “Just me,” I echo.

  “And you’ve been cast in Our Town as Emily,” he reminds me unnecessarily, “and they will be starting rehearsals next week.”

  “Yes, right.”

  “So, it seems that we have a bit of a sudden scheduling conflict.”

  I frown. Clayton seems to be in his own world, his hands braced on the edge of the stage in a way that tightens and accentuates his big, muscular arms. He stares down at the floor. I wonder if he was somehow told of this conflict already. Despite knowing he’s deaf, I can’t help but feel like he’s overhearing this whole exchange. It’s weird to me to think that he’s there, yet not a part of this conversation at all.

  “What are we going to do, then?” I ask.

  “We have a number of options. You can work today. Clayton can show you the grid one-on-one. I trust him, just have your phone handy so you both can back-and-forth that way. I presume you know he’s deaf,” he adds quietly, as if it’s necessary to whisper. “I have a serious stack of paperwork to catch up on in my office, otherwise I’d take you around myself. Also, the Monday and Tuesday crew kinda finished all the work I had planned for you guys this week, so …” Dick runs a hand over his oily head, as if there were still hair there. “Work tonight, and next week we’ll discuss whether rehearsals can be worked out to exclude Emily’s scenes on Wednesdays. That, or we’ll have to find you another shift.”

  Heaviness sets in my chest. I hadn’t realized how much I was looking forward to being near Clayton every Wednesday night. And alone, at that. Now, it sounds like I won’t be anywhere near him after today.

  “I liked this shift. It fits into my schedule,” I tell him, pushing the words out despite knowing full well that I’m completely free for most of the rest of the times available.

  Dick nods. “I’ll talk with Nina and we’ll figure something out.” And with that, he gives Clayton a big slap on the back, the sound of which is meaty and firm, like he just slapped a mountainside. Clayton slowly turns his head to meet Dick’s eyes with his dark, half-lidded ones. “I’ll leave it to you, Clayton! Show Dessie the grid,” he says, overpronouncing his words. He even points up for emphasis. Then, he turns back to me. “He’ll introduce you to Bertha, the cherry-picker. If you guys tip over, just scream; the Wednesday night set crew is working beyond the double doors and should hear you,” he says with a nod toward the backstage. “Just teasing about the falling over. Really, you’ll be alright if Bertha’s legs cooperate and lock today.”

  “Bertha’s legs?”

  “My extension is 330,” he whispers, then hops off the stage and departs the auditorium.

  The silent vacuum of the enormous room crushes in on me. Then, through that silence, I hear Clayton breathing. I turn my face. He seems to be scowling at the floor like it did something wrong to him. So, what’s the plan now? Are we just going to sit here?

  Tentatively, I give a small wave of my hand. Either it does not get his attention, or he’s ignoring me. “Hey,” I say, then feel dumb the moment the word comes out. Would it be rude to get his attention by slapping the stage? Screw it. I tap the flat of my palm against the stage three times, inspiring three small vibrations, and accompany the gesture with another thoughtless, “Hey, Clayton?” Nothing.

  I clench shut my eyes. I shouldn’t have signed to him. I ruined everything. What a dumb idea. Even now, I’m reliving that moment in the UC food court with a tinge of humiliation, reimagining the annoyed look on his face. He was annoyed, right? Or am I projecting my own doubts onto a perfectly innocent memory?

  I’m here for three damn hours. I’m not going to spend them
sitting on the edge of the stage playing ignore-me games with Clayton hot-as-fuck Watts.

  Fighting a blush that’s quickly spreading over my face like a firestorm, I climb to my feet and search around for something to do. A pile of cables, already neatly coiled up. I check to ensure that they’re sorted by length and color. They are. Lovely. I approach the lighting rack where all the lights dangle by C-clamps. They’re organized by type. One of the Fresnel lanterns is crooked, so I do the important and necessary work of pushing a finger into its side, righting it.

  All in a hard day’s work.

  Footsteps approach from behind. When I turn, Clayton stands there, dark and foreboding. His shirt is especially clingy today, giving me an impressive display of his gorgeous pecs. His thick, unforgiving shoulders torment each sleeve of his poor black shirt, which stretches to embrace the mass of his arms.

  I sigh just at the sight of him.

  “Up here,” he murmurs, nearly inaudible.

  I blink, then meet his eyes. Did he just …? Did I just hear him …? Or did I imagine that?

  “You can talk?” I ask inanely.

  “My eyes … are up here,” he repeats just as quietly.

  I thought I was blushing before. Nope. My face is burning like a fraternity beach bonfire now.

  And his voice … The sound of his voice is electric to me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but his every word is like silk against my skin. Isn’t that exactly how it sounded in my fantasies of him? I wonder if he realizes how softly he speaks, how sensitive he is to the vibrations of his own voice. Regardless, I could listen to that man all day long. The gentle cadence of his speech is sex to my ears.

  I clear my throat, then enunciate each of my words with great care. “I take it … you can understand me?”

  His heavy-lidded eyes regard me with a mountain of patience as he looks down on me. With the tiniest of smirks playing on his sexy lips, he nods once.

  “Okay.” I offer him a tiny, smug smile of my own. “So,” I say, punching each word, “do you … want to introduce me … to Bertha?”

  “Talk normal.”

  I study his eyes defensively. “I am,” I argue back.

  The tiny smirk becomes an amused one. “Don’t have to shout,” he says. “Doesn’t help me hear your pretty voice any better.”

  With that, he turns away, heading for backstage. I watch his muscular back as he goes, gawping after him. I was shouting?? How the hell can he tell, anyway? My eyes drop down to his perfect ass. He’s wearing a loose pair of tattered jeans that hang low on his hips, yet somehow are capable of hugging his hot, sculpted buns in a way that is annoyingly distracting. My urge to tackle him and hear the meaty sound of his body crashing into the wall as I have my way with him has not diminished at all over the past week.

  Stop staring at his ass, I chide myself, then follow.

  His biceps flex gloriously as he grips and pulls the handle of an enormous blue lift machine that has the name “BERTHA” written across the base of the cage in thick black marker. The monster rolls slowly on four squeaky wheels, Clayton grunting slightly as he tugs it to the center of the stage. I wonder if he knows he’s grunting. Miss Bertha has got to weigh a ton.

  Once it’s placed, he pulls out four long metal legs from some compartment in the base, then sticks each one into their matching slots, locking them in place with a twisting, rotary handle-thing. The legs stretch out about five feet or so in each direction, giving the machine balance. He runs its cord along the stage to an outlet. A moment later, he’s in front of Bertha and pulling open the little door of the two-person metal basket thing that we’ll be going up in.

  He pats the scary apparatus, which rattles horribly in response. “Giddy-up.”

  The last thing I want to look like is some scared girl who can’t handle a little bit of height. Throwing my chin proudly in the air, I saunter over to the machine, determined to—as the lovely Dick put it—become intimate with Bertha. I’d really rather become intimate with the man who plugged her in.

  Stepping into the basket, my shoe slips and I catch myself on the door. Clayton’s hands shoot out instinctively, grabbing a hold of my hips, and for a moment, we’re locked in place, staring at each other’s eyes. He lets go quickly, seeing that I’ve clearly caught myself from falling, and I feel my face flush again as I climb into the basket, gripping its railing so tightly, my knuckles bleed white.

  Clayton steps into the basket with me. This is not the biggest machine I’ve ever been in, and I suspect its elevating platform we’re standing on was meant for only one person, or two small people at best. His body is nearly on top of mine when he shuts the gate and locks it.

  I inhale his scent. My body shivers, consumed by the way Clayton smells—it’s like sawdust, sweat, and a hint of spice. The heat he exudes touches me as potently as his aroma, and I fight an urge to lean into him and just rake it all in.

  This is madness. This is torture.

  He turns to me. His face is so fucking close to mine, I feel his every breath on my forehead. “Ready?”

  I nod.

  He pushes a thumb into a console I didn’t notice until it’s too late, and the basket jerks, startling me, then slowly begins to rise. The vibrations tickle my feet. Bertha’s an old bitch, I think to myself. Clayton doesn’t even bother gripping the railing for balance; he just stands there, his lazily planted feet doing all the work of keeping him upright as we ascend.

  He watches me the entire time. I can’t meet his eyes. The blushing in my cheeks stubbornly persists, refusing to calm even for a moment. I start to breathe in and out through my mouth the higher we get. I’m not afraid of heights, I remind myself, then take a peek down.

  Big mistake. The stage is so, so far away. This machine is so damn rickety, it sways left and right as we go, giving me the impression that the whole basket we’re entrusting our lives with is secured to Bertha by two screws and a strip of tape.

  “Nervous?” his soft, sultry voice asks.

  I face him defiantly, despite my fears. “Petrified,” I answer sarcastically, then wonder if I actually meant the word.

  To be fair, my fiercely gripping hands have not let go and my palms are starting to cramp.

  That knowing, cocky smirk plays on his full, plush lips again. I involuntarily lick my own, thoughts of what I’d do with him alone in a room racing across my mind and rendering my face vulnerable for a second. I bet he can see my thoughts … these thoughts.

  Then I realize I am alone in a room with him. A very, very big room. I glance down again. Fuck, I clearly don’t learn from my mistakes. My stomach spins and the machine keeps going up, up, up. How tall is this damn stage? This is the biggest auditorium I’ve ever been in. Texas. Everything’s bigger, or something.

  “Here,” he says.

  I look up at him, then notice what he’s indicating, following his nod. We’ve reached the hanging pipes of the fly system where curtains and certain set pieces are hung. There appears to be a flat, painted sun—or something—that hangs in the middle, likely left over from a summer production if I had to guess. Lighting instruments can also be hung here, or in the grid, which is even higher up.

  “Do you ever …”

  His voice startles me, as I was focusing on the flat-sun-thing so as not to be so damn aware of the basket swaying side to side. I lift my eyebrows. “Do I ever …?”

  He swallows suddenly, appearing frustrated. The look comes out of nowhere, his abrupt change in mood casting a shadow over his face. Then, with a scowl, he whips his phone out of his pocket and starts typing. I think he’s texting a friend when he suddenly lifts the screen to my eyes:

  Do u ever work in the grid?

  Ever hung a light?

  “Oh,” I mutter. “No. Not really.”

  “No,” he mumbles, repeating my word. I wonder for a second if he’s aware that he echoed me, and then he plunges his face back into the phone, typing away. He shows the screen again:

  U’re not gonna
die.

  U’re safe w me.

  I still haven’t let go of the railing. “Bertha’s a bit shaky,” I explain, then catch the fact that I am, in fact, yelling and overpronouncing my words. “A bit shaky,” I repeat a touch more naturally. “B-Bertha.”

  He nods, then types some more:

  We can go back down if u want

  Why did he stop talking? I love the soft sound of his silky, sexy voice … but does he hate it?

  An idea hits me. As it’s just the two of us here, I find the confidence that had totally abandoned me in the food court a couple days ago. I have no idea where this confidence comes from, considering that I’m ten seconds from peeing my pants out of fear right now; the basket’s swaying in all four directions, like some child’s arm reaching up to grab candy from an out-of-reach candy jar, bending left, bending forward, then right, then left again. If I can get through this without losing my dinner all over Clayton’s tight, muscle-hugging shirt, I’ll call it a win.

  Removing my hand from the railing for the first time, I lift a shaky, sweat-ridden fist and knock on an imaginary door in front of me, as if my fist were a nodding head—the sign for “yes”.

  He frowns as if my sign hit him in the face. Then he shakes his head, his lips pursed and annoyed.

  Shit. Figuring I’d done it wrong, I bring a fist to my chest and draw a circle, repeating the sign for “sorry” that I’d done before. What was that other one?—the sign for “please”? It’s similar to “sorry”, oddly enough. My hands hover in the air as I try to remember it.

  Then Clayton grabs my hands, stopping me.

  My eyes flash.

  Neither of us move. I stare at him, stunned, and he stares back, though I can’t get a read on his eyes. He’s almost angry. His brow is wrinkled, pained, as if I just wounded him. He seems to be gnawing on his teeth, his jaw drawn tight, his cheeks dimpled with tension.