Page 10 of Touch In Excess

He sounded like he knew what he was talking about, which was a surprise. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who did sex work, though maybe that was an unfair assumption. He was absurdly good-looking, after all, and he was living on one of the most expensive streets in Norwich. If he was the family disappointment when it came to his art, maybe he was paying his bills another way.

But Skye realized he didn’t want to ask because he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to make that the tone of their date. He wanted to know Rami. To see what made him smile and what made him cry. To see if he was a dog or a cat person. To see what he liked on his burgers and how he took his coffee.

The rest could wait.

He took a breath, then said, “Does it bother you?”

Rami blinked. “That’s a strange question.”

Skye’s eyebrow lifted. “Is it?”

Rami didn’t answer him, and Skye wondered if maybe he’d overstepped somehow. But then Rami squeezed his hand and shifted closer, his eyes fixed on the horizon. The moment suddenly felt still. Quiet. Good.

Skye found himself breathing a little deeper and a little easier. He’d never felt like this before. It had to mean something, didn’t it?

“How about a subject change?” Avan suggested after a long beat.

Rami nodded. “I like talking about history.”

Avan met Skye’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and he winked. “Wonderful. Tell me your favorite historical fact.”

Rami looked like Christmas had come early. He took a deep breath, glanced at Skye, then said, “Well. Did you know that there’s a theory the Ancient Greeks were genetically colorblind, and that’s why their art—I mean, before the British came and removed all the paint from their artifacts—was so garishly painted?”

“I don’t get it. It has to make sense. You can’t just deep-fry something and call it a UFO because it’s round-shaped.”

Skye was grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. He picked up one of the deep-fried, cheese-stuffed artichoke hearts and zoomed it in the space between him and Rami before shoving it in his mouth. The appetizer had been sitting for nearly ten minutes, but the cheese was still hot enough to sear the roof of his mouth.

“See,” he attempted to say.

Rami rolled his eyes. “Yes. But also no. They should just call things what theyare.”

He took a more delicate bite of his own, then blew on the molten insides. He seemed to not enjoy extreme temperatures of anything, Skye noticed. He ordered his drink with no ice, and he was only eating the outside of the artichoke while the cheese cooled.

“I have a good friend who’d agree with you. He’s a very literal kind of guy.”

“Is he Autistic too?”

“No, I—well. He might be. I don’t armchair diagnose anyone though,” Skye said. He was noticing strong similarities between August and Rami, but far be it from him to make any kind of assumption.

Rami cocked his head to the side, then set down the artichoke heart and raised his hands. ‘Is he a Sin too?’

Skye smiled and didn’t bother pointing out that there was a chance—even if it was a tiny one—that someone in the bar understood ASL. He swiped his hands off on his jeans, then answered back, ‘No. He’s an artist. But he’s in a relationship with one. Lust,’ he spelled. ‘He’s our boss. Owns the Tower.’

Rami looked startled. ‘Can you have a boyfriend?’

‘I can have a boyfriend who doesn’t mind…’ He didn’t have the lexicon for what he wanted to say. ‘My job,’ he eventually signed.

Rami nodded. His face wasn’t very expressive at all for someone as fluent in ASL as he was, but he was starting to notice little subtle twitches, eyebrows barely up, barely down as he signed. He wondered how many people paid Rami close attention. He had a feeling not many.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

Skye shook his head. ‘No. I’ve been single for a long time.’

Rami bit his lip, and for a second, Skye thought he might offer to change that. It would have been his move if he’d been set up that way. Rami’s cheeks darkened with a blush, and a smile played at the corners of his mouth, but after a long beat, he dropped his hands and picked up his fork, spearing the artichoke heart and taking a bigger bite.

Skye’s stomach sank down to his feet. He must have been doing something wrong. They’d been at the table for nearly half an hour, and he’d been laying it on thick, but Rami wasn’t taking the bait. He knew he hadn’t misinterpreted what this was. They both knew it was a date, but Skye realized maybe his expectations were skewed because unless he was interacting with the Sins, most of his contact with people ended in sex.

And he had to remind himself that while sex was great—and he would not say no to a night with Rami—it wasn’t his endgame. He didn’t even have one of those in mind yet. The thought of not knowing where something was going was suddenly thrilling.

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