Read Online Read My Lips (A College Obsession Romance) by Daryl Banner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Daryl Banner
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one—and she lifts her flirty eyes. Her big lips move. I grip the menu and point. Appearing somewhat put-off by my brash demeanor, she cranes her neck to read, then jots down my order with a frown. Her lips move again. I pick up my phone, mash thumbs into it, then show her the screen:
Over easy.
Coffee black plz.
Her eyes flash as she reads the message. She asks if I have laryngitis or something. I shake my head no. Then she pops the magic question. I nod patiently. The reaction is what it always is. Suddenly, I’m a ghost, and she wonders a few things out loud that she thinks I can’t understand. I actually watch her lips form the words, “Shit. Okay. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,” before she steels herself and returns to the kitchen—as if she were on a bomb squad and my order needed decoding or some shit.
It’s not just the deaf thing. Maybe it’s the ink that crawls up my neck from a mass of swirls and thorns that starts at my right shoulder and spreads out like a black, deadly explosion. Maybe it’s the fuck-you look I always seem to be giving. People think I’m dangerous. The less they have to deal with me, the better. I know if my roommates were here, the waitress would talk to me through them as if I was some strange entity from another planet they needed to order for. Hell, one time at an Italian place, I went through a whole damn meal without getting a single refill, check-up, or an offer for dessert. The waiter couldn’t wait to slap a check on my table and get me the fuck out; that’s how uncomfortable I make people.
Oh, and I fucking love dessert. Bastard.
My mind is a mess and the six drinks I downed at the Throng & Song are already gone, my buzz killed long ago. Even the eggs don’t cheer me up. They’re brought to the table by a different person, some server who meets my eyes worriedly as if I were a caged beast he was feeding. I’m guessing big-tits is over me. I cut into my eggs with a scowl and watch the yolk bleed across my plate.
There’s something refreshingly different about that girl from the theater … annoyingly different. It unsettles me. Everyone down here is the same. All the girls have fear in their eyes when they meet me.
She had something else. Curiosity? Confidence? It’s like her eyes cut through all the bullshit and the smoke and the walls of cynicism I built up around myself. She saw me.
Or I’m just lying to myself all over again, just like I lied to myself with countless girls before.
It’s exactly forty minutes later when I’m slipping my key into the door. The second the cold air of my apartment touches my skin, I feel relief, kicking the door shut behind me and dropping my bag onto the kitchen counter where last night’s army of beer cans and pizza boxes still sit. The living room’s unoccupied and Brant’s door is shut, so I assume he sealed his lady-deal. With a huff at the abundant laziness of my two helpless roommates, I surrender to half an hour of housekeeping before I allow myself to chill.
Or maybe I just want to take my aggression out on these dishes and cups and cutlery. It infuriates me that I can’t get that girl out of my mind, which shows in the way I scrub the glass in my hand. The water seeps into my sleeves the way she seeps into my every thought. Her singing captivated a room full of drunk morons. Who the hell manages to do that? I could physically feel the noise of the room die away when she took to that microphone. The frenzied hum of the place, a hum I could feel through every fingertip and follicle of hair on my body, it grew still, just so she could make her music.
That vacuum of sensation was fast replaced by a beauty I was all too eager to drink in with my eyes. I don’t think I knew eyes were capable of drinking until that moment.
Thoughts of her bring me to the couch where I collapse and kick my sore feet up, my eyelids growing heavier by the second. I mash a throw pillow behind my head and let
Over easy.
Coffee black plz.
Her eyes flash as she reads the message. She asks if I have laryngitis or something. I shake my head no. Then she pops the magic question. I nod patiently. The reaction is what it always is. Suddenly, I’m a ghost, and she wonders a few things out loud that she thinks I can’t understand. I actually watch her lips form the words, “Shit. Okay. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,” before she steels herself and returns to the kitchen—as if she were on a bomb squad and my order needed decoding or some shit.
It’s not just the deaf thing. Maybe it’s the ink that crawls up my neck from a mass of swirls and thorns that starts at my right shoulder and spreads out like a black, deadly explosion. Maybe it’s the fuck-you look I always seem to be giving. People think I’m dangerous. The less they have to deal with me, the better. I know if my roommates were here, the waitress would talk to me through them as if I was some strange entity from another planet they needed to order for. Hell, one time at an Italian place, I went through a whole damn meal without getting a single refill, check-up, or an offer for dessert. The waiter couldn’t wait to slap a check on my table and get me the fuck out; that’s how uncomfortable I make people.
Oh, and I fucking love dessert. Bastard.
My mind is a mess and the six drinks I downed at the Throng & Song are already gone, my buzz killed long ago. Even the eggs don’t cheer me up. They’re brought to the table by a different person, some server who meets my eyes worriedly as if I were a caged beast he was feeding. I’m guessing big-tits is over me. I cut into my eggs with a scowl and watch the yolk bleed across my plate.
There’s something refreshingly different about that girl from the theater … annoyingly different. It unsettles me. Everyone down here is the same. All the girls have fear in their eyes when they meet me.
She had something else. Curiosity? Confidence? It’s like her eyes cut through all the bullshit and the smoke and the walls of cynicism I built up around myself. She saw me.
Or I’m just lying to myself all over again, just like I lied to myself with countless girls before.
It’s exactly forty minutes later when I’m slipping my key into the door. The second the cold air of my apartment touches my skin, I feel relief, kicking the door shut behind me and dropping my bag onto the kitchen counter where last night’s army of beer cans and pizza boxes still sit. The living room’s unoccupied and Brant’s door is shut, so I assume he sealed his lady-deal. With a huff at the abundant laziness of my two helpless roommates, I surrender to half an hour of housekeeping before I allow myself to chill.
Or maybe I just want to take my aggression out on these dishes and cups and cutlery. It infuriates me that I can’t get that girl out of my mind, which shows in the way I scrub the glass in my hand. The water seeps into my sleeves the way she seeps into my every thought. Her singing captivated a room full of drunk morons. Who the hell manages to do that? I could physically feel the noise of the room die away when she took to that microphone. The frenzied hum of the place, a hum I could feel through every fingertip and follicle of hair on my body, it grew still, just so she could make her music.
That vacuum of sensation was fast replaced by a beauty I was all too eager to drink in with my eyes. I don’t think I knew eyes were capable of drinking until that moment.
Thoughts of her bring me to the couch where I collapse and kick my sore feet up, my eyelids growing heavier by the second. I mash a throw pillow behind my head and let
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