Chapter 2
TWO
LUCAS
I stand behind the counter, trying not to scowl every time Megan leans too close, invading my space with her chatter. If I could scream in her face, maybe I would. But I can’t anyway.
The heaviness in my chest is always there, a weight embedded in me, pressing down on my lungs, on my skin, on everything. Some days, I can push it into the background, pretend it’s not there. Today isn’t one of those days. Today, it feels like I’m drowning in it.
The world is loud—not in sound, but in presence.
The hum of students’ laughter, the rustle of pages, the hiss and grind of the espresso machine.
I can’t truly hear it, not fully, not clearly, but I feel it.
It presses at the edges of my awareness like static, blurring one thing into the next until it’s all just noise.
I glance around the café—velvet armchairs, polished tables, bookshelves stacked with spines meant to look casual but curated for wealth.
This place isn’t for people like me. It’s for the rich kids who grew up knowing exactly where they belong.
They sit in clusters, designer bags spilling off chairs, laughing easily over their overpriced lattes. They belong in the noise.
Me? I belong in the silence. In the corner no one looks at in the space between words.
They don’t know how silence can be a comfort and a prison all at once.
How their voices twist when they realize I won’t answer the way they expect.
The quick flicker of pity, of impatience, before they mask it with politeness.
The forced smiles, the awkward pauses. I give them a nod, a practiced smile, and pretend I don’t notice.
My fingers brush my hearing aid. Four years in, and it barely helps now.
Everything is still blurred, muffled, like sound wrapped in cotton.
Medically, I’m “hard of hearing.” To most people, I’m “Deaf.” To me, I’m…
outside. Navigating the world with sign language, silence, and five years of traumatic mutism.
Years of isolation that have become a habit.
I hand off a coffee and muffin with the same practiced smile, then bury myself in the tablet, sorting sales.
That’s when I feel it.
The shift.
The air tightens, like the room exhales all at once and forgets to breathe back in. My body notices before my mind catches up—a shiver crawling up my spine, the prickling heat across my skin, my shoulders locking tight.
I look up slowly. He’s here.
My breath stutters.
The man from the alley.
My grip tightens on the tablet. No. No, no, no. For three days, I told myself I wouldn’t see him again, and I imagined it. That he wasn’t real, that the wide eyes, the blood, the violence were just a trick of my exhausted mind.
But he’s real. He’s standing in this café like he belongs here, like he didn’t shatter something in me that night.
The sight of him is wrong, and yet…My chest twists.
He looks at me. Only at me.
And I can’t move. Fight-or-flight surges through me, screaming to run, to hide, to do something. But my body refuses. I’m frozen, caught in his gaze, like he’s pinning me to the floor without even touching me.
A nightmare, or a dream. I can’t decide which.
Those eyes—icy blue, unrelenting. The same ones that locked on mine that night in the alley, searing themselves into me even when I tried to forget. Eyes that watched me as if I were prey.
Cold. Sharp. Impossible to read.
And now, here they are again, pinning me down with terrifying precision.
My hearing aid hums faintly, a reminder of the world’s noise, but it’s drowned out by the pounding of my heartbeat, heavy and uneven in my chest.
He’s taller than I remember. Dark clothes stretch over broad shoulders, the fabric catching the café’s warm light but softening nothing about him. His face looks as though it were carved from something ruthless, inhumanly perfect. Beautiful and dangerous.
Too much. He is too much.
He moves closer, and the distance between us shrinks. The café around me feels foreign now, as if he’s torn me out of my safe orbit. He doesn’t belong here. Neither do I—but for entirely different reasons.
“Hi! What can I get you?” Megan’s cheerful voice cuts through the haze of my spiraling thoughts. She leans forward on the counter, smiling too brightly, too practiced. I don’t need to hear every word to know when she’s trying too hard, flirting with customers the way she always does.
I force myself to glance at her, but it doesn’t matter.
Because I can feel him. Watching me. His stare doesn’t waver, doesn’t slip to her. Not even once.
My breath leaves me in a shaky exhale. My body’s betraying me, reacting in ways I don’t understand. My chest is tight, racing—but not just with fear. Something else coils in me, something I don’t have a name for.
Megan falters, her smile faltering under the weight of his silence. Confusion flickers across her face.
I lift my hands, signing slowly, deliberately: “Don’t worry, Megan. I’ll take care of it.”
She sighs, rolls her eyes, and walks off with a flick of annoyance. She doesn’t understand. She can’t.
And then it’s just us.
I reach inside my apron for my notepad, the one I always use at work. My fingers tremble as I flip to the first page. The words are already there, written neatly in black ink:
Hello,
I’m Deaf and don’t speak, but I can lip-read and I use a hearing aid. Please write your order or speak clearly. Thank you for understanding.
I slide it toward him with unsteady hands.
He doesn’t touch it.
His gaze lingers on the words, then he speaks—low, deliberate.
“Iced Americano. To go.”
His voice cuts through me.
I hear it clearly through the static of my hearing aid.
Deep. Smooth. Calm.
It slides down my spine, coils around my ribs, and presses in.
My stomach knots like I’ve swallowed barbed wire—sharp and twisting.
I should be worried, even terrified. I just saw this man beat someone to a pulp in a dark alley.
And yet... my body betrays me. It leans toward him as if it recognizes something, as if it craves more of what it should fear.
I hate it. I hate how much I feel him— I shouldn’t, not after everything I’ve been through.
My head nods stiffly, my hands moving on autopilot as I type in his order. My fingers stumble across the register, clumsy, jittery. My breath refuses to steady.
He pays with a black American Express card—of course, he does.
What makes my heart stutter isn’t the card, but the number flashing on the tip screen.
For a seven-dollar coffee, he leaves a tip so outrageous my mouth parts and snaps shut again before I can stop myself.
No one has ever tipped me that much. Not once, in all the years I’ve worked here.
I glance up, startled, and his eyes are already on me.
Waiting. Measuring. The tilt of his head says he’s enjoying my fumbling, like he’s watching me unravel piece by piece.
Is this a game? A bribe to keep my mouth shut about what I saw?
Or something worse, something that feels too close to being prey under a predator’s gaze?
I look away quickly, heat prickling my neck. My chest squeezes tighter as I turn to make his order, but I can feel him watching, following the small, nervous movements of my hands.
Too closely, too intently. I don’t understand him, and I also don’t understand why he’s here.
Why does he look at me like that?
Why does he make me feel like this?
When I hand him the cup, I’m careful so our fingers don’t touch. My hands are trembling anyway, and he notices. His gaze flickers down, catching the shake in me like it’s his to own.
And then, just like that, he turns and leaves.
The tension in my chest doesn’t leave with him.
“Okay, wow,” Megan’s voice breaks through, suddenly at my side. “Why does he smell so good?”
He did. He smelled good—too good. His scent still lingers, rich and dark, even against the wall of roasted coffee and pastries.
“And the Black card?” she continues, wide-eyed. “Oh, he’s rich-rich.” She pauses, narrowing her eyes at me. “Do you guys… know each other?”
I shake my head quickly, avoiding her stare, burying myself back into work. My throat is tight, my heart racing too fast.
Shit.
I didn’t even thank him for the tip.
* * *
I step inside the apartment, exhaustion clinging to me like a second skin. My body feels heavy; my thoughts are even heavier. But then the warm scent of soy sauce and garlic wraps around me like a blanket. Comforting. Familiar. Home.
Tyler is in the kitchen—our cramped excuse for one, barely more than a counter and a few mismatched cabinets. Somehow, he always manages to make it work. There’s always something sizzling, steaming, or simmering, turning our shoebox into something that feels alive.
He glances up from the pan, a grin tugging at his mouth. “Hey, handsome.”
His tone is playful, teasing in that way only Tyler can pull off.
I roll my eyes, but a small smile sneaks through anyway. He calls everyone handsome, but somehow, with him, it never feels cheap.
“Hi,” I sign, dragging my hands through the air more sluggishly than intentional. "What’s for dinner? I’m starving.”
“Fried rice with eggs and veggies,” he replies, tossing cabbage into the pan with a flourish that suggests he’s performing for an invisible audience. “Go shower. You smell like coffee and look like regret. Dinner will be ready soon.”
I huff, too drained to form a comeback, and shuffle down the narrow hall.
My room waits at the end, small but tidy, just enough space for a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and the little window cracked open to let in cool evening air.
It isn’t much, but it’s mine. Neat. Steady. A pocket of order in a messy life.
I sink onto the bed, tugging out my hearing aids and placing them in their charger. The world cuts out instantly, silence pressing down on me, thick and absolute. Sometimes it’s unbearable. Tonight, it’s a relief.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it free, glance at the screen—Mom.
My chest tightens. Without hesitation, I decline the call and toss the phone onto the bed. I don’t have the energy for that tonight. For her.
The shower is lukewarm at best, but it does the job, washing away sweat, tension, and the stale smell of coffee that clings to my clothes and skin. I try not to think of him, the man with the eyes like ice and the voice that still coils in my chest. But the memory lingers, unwelcome and sharp.
When I step out, hair damp and skin flushed, I slip into an old V-neck polo and shorts. They hang loose on me, soft with age. I feel lighter, if only by degrees.
The living room now smells like fried rice.
Tyler has already set two bowls and a pair of water bottles on the small coffee table.
Our couch—the secondhand one we found on Facebook Marketplace—is sunken in the middle, but it’s still the most comfortable spot in the apartment.
He’s already sprawled across half of it, patting the cushion beside him with a grin.
I sink down, giving him a look that says You’re insufferable. He only grins wider.
I tap my ear and shake my head, signaling that my hearing aids are charging. He nods in understanding, as it’s second nature to him now.
We eat in silence, not awkward silence, but the kind that comes from years of knowing each other’s rhythms.
Finally, he leans back and signs with exaggerated theatrics: “Well? What do you think of my masterpiece?” His expression is smug enough to rival a Michelin-starred chef.
I smirk, raising an eyebrow. “Leftover rice and eggs?”
He glares dramatically, then shovels a massive spoonful into his mouth.
“Hey,” he exclaims, signing sloppily with one hand. “It’s Classic. Timeless. Genius.”
I roll my eyes, but the corner of my mouth tilts up.
He swallows, leaning closer, conspiratorial. “Also…I may or may not have stolen half the ingredients from the school kitchen.”
I let out a breath that could almost be a laugh. Warmth creeps into my chest, steadying me in a way nothing else today has managed. Tyler has always had that effect on me.
He works as a chef in Blackwood University’s dining hall and always seems to have a few connections there. Honestly, he’s the reason I even have my job at the café. Without him, I’d still be scrambling.
I twist open my water bottle and take a sip, watching as he wipes his hands on his sweatpants before signing with a glint in his eyes: “So, I’ve got something for you.”
I raise a brow. “If this is another one of your—”
He cuts me off with wild hand gestures, nearly dropping his fork. “God, no. No more of that. I’ve officially retired from setting you up on dates.” His exaggerated seriousness makes my lips twitch. “This is work-related.”
I keep chewing, narrowing my eyes, waiting for the catch.
“The Blackwood University art exhibition and auction is coming up this weekend,” he signs to me, and I give him a nod.
Of course, I’ve heard of it. Everyone has. An elite playground for the university’s wealthiest art students to flaunt their work, where only the rich and their families are invited. Paintings sell for more than I’ll probably see in a lifetime.
“Okay… and what does that have to do with me?” I ask
Tyler signs, “They’re hiring servers, and you also have experience as a server. It’s a Fancy event. Formal wear. Lots of rich kids sipping wine, pretending to understand paintings that probably look like a toddler went wild with finger paint. All you have to do is carry trays, smile, and get paid.”
The bite in my mouth suddenly feels heavy. My stomach turns. The last thing I want is to spend an evening serving spoiled brats who already look down on me enough at the café.
Tyler sees it in my expression; he always does, and slows his movements. “It pays well, like, stupid well.”
I rub at my temple, skeptical. “How well?”
His grin widens, smug. “Enough to cover half of your share of this month’s rent.”
That makes me pause. Rent. Bills. Numbers I can’t outrun. My share alone is a thousand, and I barely scrape it together most months. The thought of being surrounded by glittering dresses and tailored suits makes my skin crawl, but saying no feels impossible.
I swallow hard, then sign slowly, “Fine.”
He lights up and throws an arm around my shoulders, tugging me in with mock cheer. “That’s the spirit! Just… try not to glare at the guests too much. Give them your nicest, fakest smile, okay?”
I snort, rolling my eyes. “I don’t glare.”
He barks out a laugh like he doesn’t believe me for a second.
And maybe he’s right.