Page 24 of Silent Is The Heart

‘Young?’I’m usually in bed by now. I was never one to fall for peer pressure when I turned the legal drinking age, but I casually palm the shot glass just to claim it as I watch him down another.

“Do you come here often? I don’t remember this place being here.”

It opened about five years ago. I did work on the guy who owns it.

“S&H. Does that stand for something?”

The corner of his mouth ticks up, his fingers drum in a frenetic motion on the table as his head bobs to the beat of the music. I can’t seem to look away from the angles of his face. The shadows under his cheekbones, the smooth-looking texture of his skin, the cords in his neck, the dark curtain of lashes lining his intelligent eyes. He’s exactly the same, but completely different. He was always real, but is somehow even more so now. I never contemplated my patients’ looks. I saw only cases, only symptoms or struggles that I needed to remedy. Maybe because he’s no longer a patient, I’m seeing him with different eyes. Easton Bennick is beautiful. Strikingly so.

Yeah. Speak no evil—hear no evil,he replies, gesturing toward Wolf on the last of the idiom.

Looking across the table, there’s barely any space between Melissa and Wolf. They’re practically nose to nose as she whispers something to him. Except, no one would be able to hear a whisper in this place with the volume of the music. His gaze is focused on her mouth.

He’s lip reading.

His profile affords a clear view of his left ear. In the hollow of it, I spot a tiny device.

Hear no evil.

He’s deaf. Easton looks pleased with himself when I glance back at him, obviously seeing the understanding in my face.

I don’t know whether it’s from my years of working with the non-verbal or if it’s because I know Easton isn’t the kind of person to just blurt out facts. It makes sense now, however, how his friendship with Wolf may have come to pass. It also explains why Easton’s signing far exceeds the few ASL words and phrases I taught him.

I’m both glad he found a friend he felt comfortable around and sad that it means he might have isolated himself on purpose from people who were more verbal. Frowning, I bring the shot to my lips, determined not to get caught looking analytical. I promised both him and myself that I’d leave Hampton out of this hangout.

Gasping for breath after the fire in my throat subsides, I let out an embarrassing groan. How does he look so fit if he drinks this stuff on the regular?

Got any hair on your chest yet?he asks, grinning.

I’m too young to be a prude and too old to be competitive. I can at least not be boring, though. “A few after that, I think.”

Sighing, I lean back against the upholstery, letting the effects of the liquid ooze its way into my veins. The sedating sensation is a welcome one, uncoiling tight nerves that have been tense for so long that I didn’t think they’d ever give me a reprieve. Alcohol was only ever a social affair for Jason and me, with the occasional glass of wine at dinner. I never contemplated it after he died. It seemed like it would be a dangerous way to handle grief, and I was a big enough mess without it. If I knew I could have some self-control, I might indulge now and then, given how I feel at the moment. The movement of the dancing patrons in front of us almost seems hypnotic as I stare in a blissful haze, free of worry for the first time in a long time.

I’m jostled when a body presses against my side, only to find it’s Easton. He’s shifted closer to me. A surprising spark of static filters through me at the contact and the proximity until I catch him nodding toward the dance floor.

Oh, brother. He’s trying to get out of the booth and I’m sitting here like a lug. I scramble to move and let him out. It’sstill strange to see him eye level with me. He was either in a wheelchair or hunched on his crutches back when I knew him before. We’re the same height now.

Just as I move to reclaim my seat, his hand hooks under my upper arm.

Come on,he gestures and angles his head toward the dance floor.

“What? Oh…no. No, I’m not much of a dancer.”

Maybe in the kitchen to something less fast-paced… back before life pulled the rug out from under me, I don’t add. His mischievous smile returns, however, accompanied by another tug on my arm.

You can go back to Hampton and put all my new moves in my file.

Grudgingly, I concede, taking his outstretched hand. I blame guilt over his mention of Hampton for part of it. The other part is possibly because of the smile he gives me and those eyes… I never noticed how they can draw you in. Mostly, I just tell myself that I want to keep him smiling to make up for any of the grief I caused him.

Bumping past a few patrons, he releases my hand once we’re deep in the mix of the crowd. It is sensory overload upon the realization that I am fully out of my element. Some remix of Måneskin’sBeggin’is thumping all around us. Easton’s promise of new moves doesn’t disappoint. He bursts into fluid movements as frenetic as the light in his eyes that both mesmerize and intimidate me. I tell myself that my one drink and the two shots I downed are making my hips sway in a comparable manner, but likely resemble a junior high student at their first dance. Whatever he sees, he approves of or is thoroughly amused because his smile brightens. One of hismoves brings him in closer, but he doesn’t retreat. His chest is nearly flush with mine. He’s so close I can feel the heat of his body and the brush of his thighs as he shifts and those deep sea-blue eyes of his lock onto my gaze like I’m the only thing in his focus. It’s freaking intense and… andsomething. Something else that I can’t name.

I feel centered suddenly. It’s as though he cast a line, caught me, and reeled me in with one look, like he knew I was floundering. I’m no longer bobbing out of time. The music is flowing through me, through both of us like we’re one.

It’s probably him. He’s clearly the better dancer and more in his element than I am—one of those guys who can make any dance partner look good. I’m just along for the magical ride, getting a hit of his glory. If that isn’t alcohol talking, I don’t know what is.

The spell thickens when he spins and slips behind me. For a second, I think the line has been severed, that I’m back to free-falling on my own, but I feel hands on my hips. A chest pressed to my back. I should have no idea that it’s Easton, but I do, without a doubt, even without looking back. I can feel it in his presence as though my body knows his.

There are so many sensations I thought I’d never feel again in my life. Joy has predominantly been the one I’ve mourned saying goodbye to forever. Laughter, another. Arousal, however, I think I parted ways with far longer ago than I care to admit. If I admit it, it makes me the bad husband I’ve avoided acknowledging that I was. You’re supposed to love and want your husband through thick and thin—through droughts and floods. I didn’t even care that our spark had died. I loved him anyway. At least, that’s what I told myself, but is it love when you no longer crave your husband romantically?

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