More silence constructed from awkward, then a soft hiccup of laughter from Georgia.
“Good joke,” she said.
“It is one of my better ones. I often tell it as Peter Graves, Captain Oveur from Airplane—Flying High, but I thought that might be too much, under the circumstances. He gave them a line from the movie in his Peter Graves voice and Georgia laughed with less self-consciousness, Trent going with her too boisterously.
Damon breathed deeper. He hated sucker-punching them almost more than he detested fucking up in front of them.
“What kind of a bad day are you having?” Georgia said. “Can we get you anything?” She’d asked that before, sweet, but she was thinking headache tablets or a magnifying glass. He needed Lina with her white coat professionalism and her no-nonsense verdict. He needed to know what the prognosis was and plan to deal with it.
God, he knew the answers to both those questions already. He’d held on to his residual vision far longer than Lina and her team of consulting ophthalmologists had thought possible given his condition, but the day when legally blind took on a darkly practical meaning was closer now than it’d ever been. He shook his head, trying to get focused on what he needed right now, and it wasn’t this job he was screwing up.
“You need Terry Blackhaver.” They were listening. “Terry is a local guy who does me. Occasionally I think he does me better than me, but don’t tell him that. Get Terry in here and I’ll cover his fee and square it with Ben. That way the client gets what they need and no one misses out.”
“What, um, no? You want us to hire a guy who impersonates you?” Trent’s disbelief was like an over-pumped basketball bouncing around the room.
“Yeah. Terry will do a good job in half the time it’ll take me to do a bad job. I can’t see the footage, so I can’t get the timing right. It’ll take you too long to splice it together and the interactivity will be an unworkable.”
“He’s the local guy? Are there others? Hell, I mean I guess it’s possible, but I never thought about it before,” said Trent.
“Three, that I know of. Not counting the comedians who do Vox. But Terry is a good guy. I’m happy for him to take the job.”
“What if we could time the script for you and you didn’t need to watch the vision?”
Damon turned towards Georgia. Her voice had a hesitant quality to it, as if she was expecting to be talked over or misunderstood. He’d noticed it earlier and assumed it was first day nerves, but maybe it was something more. “What are you thinking?”
“I know when you voice animation the audio comes before the vision.”
“Normally. Sometimes we come back to handle special scenes but yeah, voice tracks get laid after initial storyboarding. They match the animation to the voice.”
“But the client didn’t have that kind of budget. They shot to a script and need the audio to match. What if we were able to give you a signal in place of the vision as a cue?”
“What kind of a signal?” said Trent.
Damon put his index finger to his Bradley watch, felt for the two ball bearings that told him the time. Hiring Terry would work better and he could be pleading with Lina’s assistant to see Lina before lunch.
“Yeeeah.” He gave the word an infusion of scepticism and reluctance and put both hands on the lectern. What they all needed was for this little adventure to be over.
“What if I gave you a signal where the line needs to start and a physical beat to work to?”
He was set to query that when he felt a gentle press on the back of his hand. Georgia’s cool fingerprint.
“Like this.” She pressed again then followed up with four quick taps. He captured her hand, ice cold, and she sucked in a breath. She must’ve thought she’d offended him.
He wrapped her small hand in his bigger paw, half expecting her to snatch it back. “Like a metronome.”
The shape that was Georgia shifted, maybe she nodded, then she remembered. “Yes.”
He released her hand as Trent said, “Works for me.”
He could be camped out in Lina’s rooms or he could do this. Terry would probably love the income. He was a retired postman who’d won a radio station talent quest by impersonating Vox. The station had approached Damon to do a voice-off with him. Listeners were supposed ring in and vote for the right Captain Vox. It’d been fun and he’d let Terry win. He could give Terry another win. But Lina was going to give him bad news in that unruffled even tone that made him think of frozen desserts and brain freeze.
He was particular about his desserts. “Works for me too.”
Trent whooped and the door swooshed open and closed again. “Georgia?” She’d moved away after he let her hand go, but only one shape had left the room.
“I’m here.”
“How do you want to do this?”
She came around to his side of the lectern, but kept her distance. The monitor was dead ahead. “If you put your hand down like you did before, I can tap it.”
He did that and she edged closer. He smiled, now he could smell her freesia scent. She put her finger to the back of his hand.
“Do you know you smell like fresh washed sheets in the sun and strawberries with vanilla and icing sugar?”
She jerked her hand away.
“That’s a good thing. That way I know it’s you.”
“You really can’t see me?”
“You’re a shape, Georgia. I see you moving. If you were closer I’d see more of you but you’d still be blurry.”
“You don’t use a cane?”
“I do, collapsible. I didn’t need it to get here. I worried you, didn’t I?”
Her body shifted, she leaned away. “Trent and I, we’re both embarrassed. We could’ve helped you more.”
“I could’ve asked.” Not that he did often, though that might to need to change. His independence would be that much further compromised. And once he told Taylor, she’d think the idea of moving in was a cry for help. Fuck denial. He should’ve been more ready for this; he’d been too busy being busy and inventing excuses.
“I get the impression you don’t generally ask.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. Now he could admit how irritated they were. How hard it’d been to see the script on his tablet. How much he’d had to rely on Taylor to move around the last couple of days. The only good thing was he had time between his bookings to get his act together.
“Damon?”
“Sorry. I was miles away. What did you say?”
Silence. Movement. Maybe she shrugged, then remembered. “Ah, it’s not important.”
“Yeah, it is. Sound, voices, particularly the things people say, how they say them, they’re incredibly important to me.”
“Trent is setting up for us.”
“I’m sure he is. But that’s not what you said.”
“No.”
“Georgia.” Best dad tone, by way of school principal.
She huffed. “I said I didn’t think you often asked for help.”
Interesting. Perceptive. Not the first impression he usually made. “I’ll bet you thought I was drunk.”
“I.” She slapped something, a hand to a thigh most likely.
“Yeah, you did. Reasonable assumption.”
“You’re a terrible tease.”
“Guilty as charged, ma’am.” He tipped an imaginary ten-gallon hat on his good ole boy head. A little Jason Stackhouse idiot swagger. Georgia Fairweather wasn’t immune to charm after all. Knowing he could make her squirm made this moment less uncomfortable, for him at least. “And don’t you mean flirt?”
“I.” She sighed and slapped again. “I give up.”
He laughed. “You can’t give up. You had the idea of the century. Move in close to me and let’s see how this’ll work.”
She stepped closer, but they could still fit something skinny like Taylor between them. “Georgia, I’m blind, I’m not contagious.”
She edged closer, her breathing sharp. Taylor standing side o
n would still fit. He reached over and enfolded her far shoulder, shuffling her in to his side, but let go of her quickly, so she’d know it was more a functional touch than a familiar one. “You can outrun me. If you stick a foot out, I will fall over it.”
“You don’t have to…”
“What? Joke about it? I’ve been going blind since I was fifteen. I’m thirty-two. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it. Would you rather I flirt?”
She made a small sound of discomfort from the back of her throat.
“I guess that’s a no.” He waited, got nothing. “Difficult first day, huh.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to…”
He felt her shift, her arm brushing his. “Fly a plane? Heck me neither. But I’m willing to be guided by the screaming if you are?”
She laughed, that soft breathy sound she made, more polite than mirth. He’d like to hear her laugh properly, like she meant it, not like it was the socially acceptable thing to do. If she smelled like clean laundry and fresh fruit, what would she sound like let loose? What would she taste like if he licked her skin?
Trent gave them the okay. They started from the section he’d had trouble with. At first all he felt was her single finger with its one note beat. As the timing for the interactive voice and video sections got more complex she rested all her fingers on his hand, using her index finger to tap out the timing in advance of the line required. Her fingertips went from cool to warm on his skin. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to his memory of the script and the rhythm she gave him. It was an inadvisable workaround, stop start, and took longer than it should’ve, but they made a good team, and they got it done.
The last section was straight narration. Georgia pulled her hand away. “I’ll leave you to finish this.” She was almost shoulder to shoulder with him, taller than Taylor. She was looking straight at him. She had dark hair. He put a hand to it and she flinched.
“It’s okay.” He pulled his hand away but left it hovering. “I wanted to see if your hair was straight or curly.”
Her out-breath told him it was all right to move his hand again, just till it met the crispness of her hair. “Curls.” He smiled; she had slippery curls you could wrap your fingers in. “Are you beautiful, Georgia Fairweather?” The gasp, that little intake of breath trembling like hurt told him he’d gone too far.
“It’s okay to slap a blind guy if he gets too fresh. But you don’t wear a wedding ring so, I, ah, took the liberty. Tell me you don’t go out with a weightlifter, or a cop, or a Gypsy Joker, because it’s not okay for any of them to hit a blind guy.”
Why was he pushing this? She was clearly uncomfortable with him, but her strange mix of hesitancy and capability were intriguing. Women who liked him used the tactile thing as an excuse to get close; sometimes it was practical, stopped him walking into walls. Often it was close to predatory, a literal grab bag of wrong, like Umbria who’d had a hand in his pants pocket before they’d finished the production meeting.
He hadn’t had a woman he was genuinely interested in touch him in a way that transcended helping him move around for a long time. Too long. But he’d liked the feel of Georgia’s hand on his, how her skin warmed with the contact, how she forgot to stand stiffly and relaxed, no longer tensing if her elbow brushed his side. But they were done and he should stop torturing her.
“Thank you for helping me out of this professional car crash.”
“It was good to meet you, Damon.”
He nodded. “It was lovely to meet you too, Georgia. You survived me on your first day, maybe you will end up owning this place.”
He got that little hitch of breath that was her approval and it was cause and effect. He felt for her shoulder, ran his palm down her arm to her hand, lifted it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. He held on a moment too long, a moment past the shock that’d allowed him time to pull off that move. She lifted her hand away and her shape blurred, the door opened and he was alone.
He didn’t have any further contact with her. Either she stayed quiet while Trent finished up or she’d left the studio. Lauren organised a taxi for him and he went to Lina’s office. She took pity on him, in her frozen food way, but only after she made him apologise as Stewie Griffin from Family Guy to the patient whose appointment he was queue-jumping
Minutes later the pressure of Lina’s hand on his shoulder was all the confirmation he needed. It was also all the sympathy he’d get from her.
“Your vision is down to, let’s not even give it a percentage. Have you been having headaches?”
“No.”
She moved away, behind her desk. “Anything unusual?”
He thought about it. Denial wasn’t a great supporter of self-awareness. “I’ve been sneezing, dry throat, feeling like I might get a cold.”
“Not related. Pollen count. Germs. Stress. Ordinary doctor stuff if it persists past over the counter support. I want to do a thorough examination but this confirms your thinking.”
He stood. He had what he needed and the Family Guy fan was waiting.
“You should assume it will get worse quickly from here, Damon. Get your support system organised.”
“Right.” He reached for his ID cane. He was going to need a goddamn long cane to do more than find doorways, assist with heights and drops, and warn people to watch out for him. Using a long cane would be an adjustment. There were going to be lots of fricking adjustments.
“Make a proper appointment. Just because you’re a long-term patient doesn’t mean you can barge in here any time you like.”
He aped surprise. “It doesn’t?”
“I’m charging you for this consultation. Reception will call you a cab.”
“You’re a doll, Lina, and the world is a better place with you in it.” He did that as George Clooney, her favourite movie star, and hoped she blushed.
He got the cab to take him to Moon Blink. He’d hang out with Angus, blow off the day and worry about it all tomorrow. Monday nights were slow at the bar, they could shoot the shit, and he wouldn’t need to feel the crush of his own personal eclipse so acutely. He could stare in the face of darkness and give denial another flat-out run.
Angus had a coffee poured before he’d warmed a stool. “How was work?” He was fossicking around the bar, facing away.
Damon took a sip, warm like Georgia’s fingertips, crisp like her scent, a touch bitter like her lack of interest. He should tell Angus about his vision. He owed it to him. But denial was kicking up its heels in warm sand with a sea breeze at its back.
He put the glass down and cleared his throat. “I met a woman today. I want to see her again.”
6: Disturbed
Not in the shelf life of canned beans did Georgia think she’d ever come face to face with Damon Donovan again. And now he was sitting in Avocado’s reception, joking with Lauren while he waited for her to pull her big girl pants on and get over herself.
Trent could have done this job, or Naveen, or Franca, but not only had Captain Vox agreed to voice a new navigation application for Avocado’s biggest client, he’d requested Georgia as his engineer.
There had to be hundreds of voices that would be appropriate for scripting the tourism nav app, thousands, and why a male voice not a female one, so why Damon Donovan? And why would he want to do this job anyway? He could be in LA or New York or Tokyo doing something much more interesting than narrating travel adventure software.
Surely there was a cartoon character going begging for a distinguishing voice or a documentary that needed a commentary. Why did he have to be here, booked to work in Studio B for the next six days?
On top of all that, he was a player who took advantage of his disability to make a move on her while she was trying to help him out. She didn’t want any further contact with him because he was going to wreck her fragile new-found peace. If she’d had time up her sleeve she’d have faked being sick to get out of doing this.
She was so unbalanced about him she was ashamed, but
he pushed every single one of her hot buttons, activated all of her primary carer instincts and triggered that panicked feeling of being closed in she thought she’d left behind. And she couldn’t allow that to happen again, so soon, so never.
Damon and Lauren were trading favourite lines from movies. He didn’t know she was standing there and a house could’ve fallen on her and Lauren wouldn’t have noticed.
If she closed her eyes she could remember what it felt like to have him touch her hair, just that quick brush of his palm. More curious, more affectionate than anything that’d happened to her in a long time.
Georgia didn’t want anything to do with Damon, but she wanted him to wrap one of her curls around his finger and not let go, she wanted him to kiss her again, but on the mouth, and that made her feel tense and stomach sick.
She was so starved for affection she was ready to fall in lust with the first person who took an interest in her, even when that person was the worst possible idea.
She was never going to get through this without setting some rules. He wasn’t to touch her again and she certainly wouldn’t be touching him. There’d have to be a horde of Nazis in reception bearing the Ark of the Covenant before she did Morse code moves again. If he needed help moving around, Lauren could do it. It was bad enough she was going to have to listen to his damn voice and watch him through the studio window for six days, and that didn’t include post-production, but at least she’d be alone then and there’d be no danger of wanting to know him.
Because that was the real problem. He fascinated her, but in a different way to the stardust he sprinkled on Lauren. He had a kooky sense of humour. He’d fooled them into thinking he had no disability at all and he’d asked for help only grudgingly. That wasn’t how it worked. Not in her experience. How it worked was you got angry and nasty and you lashed out at people who had greater advantages than you did and you blamed the person closest to you.
There would have to be rules for dealing with a man who busted all those expectations, because he was fearsome and he shook her up.
Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) Page 5
