Page 24 of Kiss-Fist
“Are you two dating or something?”
I fucking wish. “No. He’s my new client, and I was just kind of hoping I could figure out what he said before he took off.” There. Not a lie. Just…not the whole truth about my motivations.
Leaf hums, then holds his hand out for the phone.
“Gimme.”
“You made me promise you wouldn’t do any translations,” I point out.
“Interpreting,” he corrects, “and yes. But you didn’t make fun of me when my shorts started riding up my butt-crack, so I can do you this one solid.”
My palms begin to sweat. What if Robbie’s telling me what an asshole I am? What if he’s going on about how much he wishes he had a hotter trainer? What if he thinks I smell like jock cheese?
“Thom?”
I clear my throat, then slap the phone against his palm and close my eyes. “Don’t tell me if it’s mean, okay? It’s been a rough week, and I don’t want my feelings to be hurt.”
He makes a soft noise that kind of sounds like a laugh, but I don’t look up. And the silence stretches on. And on. Andon. It’s not nearly as comfortable or as soothing as my silences with Robbie.
We communicate a lot through touch. His face is so easy to read—he’s like a novel in a language I’m just starting to learn.
“I don’t, uh…I don’t know about this,” Leaf eventually says.
I drag my hand down my face. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“No,” he says slowly, “it’s notbad. It’s just kind of…personal.”
“Okay, shit. Don’t tell me.” The moment I say the words, I regret them. “Or tell me. Damn it! I don’t know what to do.”
Leaf sighs, then tilts his head to the side. “I had this rule when I was interpreting: if a hearing person would knowwhat someone was saying, then the Deaf person should know too. Even if it sucks. I would interpret every single thing I could hear, even if it seemed unimportant.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
He nods and squares his shoulders. “If you’d said all that to this guy’s face and he couldn’t understand you, I’d have told him everything. So…”
“So…” So? Is he going to say it or just torment me?
Leaf drags his tongue over his lower lip, then sighs. “So it’s only fair you get the same treatment.” He pauses for another beat. “You’re so hot.”
I flush. “Thank you?”
“No,” he says, slapping a hand over his face and dragging it down. “I’m telling you what he said.”
“Oh.” My blush goes deeper. “Right. Sorry. Carry on.” I glance away. I cannot hear this while looking at him.
“You’re so hot. It’s really starting to piss me off. Why do you need to touch me like that? I wanted to come to the gym to work on my muscles, not get my dick hard. I have never hated and loved something so much at the same time. If you had any mercy, you’d throw me into the sun. At least then this would all stop.”
Silence falls again, and my insides are squirming like I just swallowed an entire kaleidoscope of butterflies. I knew Robbie had gotten hard during one of our sessions, and I knew our time together wasn’t totally miserable, considering he kept coming back.
But I didn’t realize he felt likethat. And I didn’t know it was tormenting him the same way it was tormenting me.
I feel myself twitch in my shorts, and if it wasn’t for thefact that I had a spin class in ten minutes, I’d be going for an angry-yet-confused jerk-off session in the staff bathroom.
Fuck. What am I supposed to do with this?
“I, uh…I’m gonna go shower now,” Leaf says, handing my phone back.
I nod. That’s probably for the best. “Thanks, Leaf. I owe you.”
