Page 6 of Roleplay at Randy's
The day she moved away was probably the saddest of my life, but she’s never let me feel like she left me alone. As cliché as it sounds, Miya really is my best friend.
“Nah. Go love on your fiancé. I’ll be home soon.”
“Alright, little brother.” I roll my eyes because she isat bestfive minutes older. “Give Cal a hug for me.”
“Of course. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Night.”
The line goes silent, and despite my assurances, my feet come to a stop on the sidewalk. My chest feels heavy, weighted, and I take a couple deep gulps of air to keep it from suffocating me.
With the soft, warm breeze and fresh air in my lungs, it’s easy for my thoughts to float and wander, for the constant strain tying my shoulder-blades together to loosen.
It’s like I exist in a vast nothingness with my head tipped to the star-filled sky.
The quiet wisps of nature intermingle with the soft strum of guitar strings, ebbing and flowing with the wind, and my feet have a mind of their own carrying me toward it.
Slow and deliberate, the sound is a stark difference to what I find myself moving to on stage.
A bass pounds out the beat like a steady heart.
The music is a symphony of noises when I reach the source: a grassy field enclosed in a metal fence, an old school boom box-looking bluetooth speaker beside a wooden bench.
But I’m much more interested in the person throwing their body into the song like they’re an extension of it.
My fingers touch cool metal, a barrier for my impulsive need to reach out. To touch the beauty across from me. To become a part of it.
The person stops—a missed step, a breath to catch—and the glow of the streetlamp illuminates a pair of rich brown eyes that hook on mine like opposite ends of a magnet.
They falter, and the grin that spreads across my face is themost honest display of excitement I’ve felt since that night at the diner.
“Matty.” His name falls out of my mouth on an exhale that leaves me breathless.
His arms drop to his sides, and his movements stall, but then the sweetest smile graces his lips. He doesn’t bother to stop the music or turn it down, crossing the few feet to the fence between us with a furrowed brow.
“Elias, right?” His voice quivers as it comes out through hard pants.
God, he’s beautiful. In an ethereal, enchanting way. Flushed skin and pink, puffy lips from breathing in the cold air.
“Glad to see I made an impression.”
He lets out a quiet chuckle and tips his head back. “Forget someone who soaked my pants? Never.”
A fresh, red tint blooms across his cheeks, and it sends butterflies spiraling in my stomach.
I don’t see the shiny, blue, metallic hearing-aid he’d run off to rescue the other night, and a spike of anxiety shoots through my veins.
My ASL knowledge consists primarily of simple greeting signs and the alphabet, so I don’t know how to even begin asking him about it, but he’s understood me so far, so maybe …?
“Can you hear me?” I ask like the most fumbled football play in existence.
He raises his brow and freezes for all of two seconds before a bold bark of laughter breaks him out of it.
“Enough, yeah. Helps that you’re right in front of me.”
My skin prickles with an astute awareness, one that feels every sweep of Matty’s gaze.
“You’re good,” I say. “The dancing, I mean.”
