Chapter 3 #2
“Negotiate. Don’t just show up at coordinates someone sends.”
“Noted.”
He continues to squat down next to me, me still on my knees, trying like hell not to cry again.
Too bad a single tear slips down my cheek. But before I can swipe it away, I feel his thumb touch my skin, dragging it away. I let out a soft gasp at the sensation of being touched by another person.
A hot person.
A hot man.
Our eyes meet, and his lips part. I can’t help it. My insanity wins over, and something inside of me snaps. I crash into him, forcing him onto his ass, my legs straddling his lap as I slam my mouth onto his.
He grunts, his lips firm against my own, his hands moving to my waist as he steadies me. But I’m frantic.
Overheated and turned on.
Depressed and lonely.
Craving this like I’ve never craved another man before. It’s odd, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I want him, and if the way he’s kissing me back is any indication, he wants me too.
Suddenly, he wrenches me away, his eyes wild, his hair slightly mussed from my hands. His chest is heaving, and I swear I can almost hear his heartbeat in his chest.
“Wait. We shouldn’t,” he says.
“Why not?” I croak, and he swallows.
“We just shouldn’t, Leaf.”
And then he gently sets me to the side and stands up. And without a backward glance, he stalks from the room. The door shuts behind him, and I sag onto the floor, trying to find the pieces of my ego he smashed.
Or maybe I smashed. What was I thinking, rushing him like that? I never do that sort of thing. Mainly because I don’t want to get turned down like I just did. But in that moment, it seemed like he wanted it.
Or hell, maybe I was just imagining it.
When he doesn’t return after several minutes, I tuck my face into my hands and groan loudly.
Yeah. I made a fool of myself, and now I’m out of a hot man and TNT.
Fuck.
Michael will be pleased about this turn of events. He’ll gloat, I’m sure of it.
I envision the rodent, chewing on my strawberries, smiling at the camera, and I curse.
There is no way, at this point, I’m ever going to solve my Michael problem.
I have no idea how much time passes. All I know is that the floor of this little motel is a scary thing.
Its carpet is somehow…sticky? And the smell?
Not quite sure if that killed the mood when I kissed SilentEcho, but I can’t bring myself to get up.
And I honestly don’t know if he’s coming back or not.
I peer up at the bed, which seems worse than where I’m sitting, if I’m being honest. I really don’t need to bring home bedbugs. Oh god, are there bedbugs? Perhaps I should use the TNT on this entire place too. Put it out of its misery.
Either way, the rejection sits heavily in my chest, and I’m not really sure what to do with it or myself.
It’s not that I’m unused to such a thing.
I get plenty. I haven’t been on dating apps in a while because I got really discouraged whenever I’d show up to a meeting location and saw the look on their faces.
And listening to their contrived excuses about why they had to leave early? As though I’m not going to see right through it to the truth?
I know I’m not exactly a catch. I have uncontrollable anxiety and fatigue from burning out at work.
My shoulders and wrists are mostly ruined from interpreting long hours, I’ve never had a successful relationship last longer than a few weeks, and I’m pretty sure that “mole” I have is a third nipple.
But I don’t think I’m that bad of a guy.
And this is the first time I’ve been straight up rejected mid-hookup, if I could call it that.
Sadly, I definitely would have fucked Echo if he’d given me the chance.
That’s how much I’ve lost my mind. But I’m pretty sure one good orgasm at the hands of another man will go far in making me feel better.
Marginally, at least.
It didn’t need to be anything serious. Just a quick hand job would have sufficed. But he ran out of here like a bat escaping hell, and it’s hard not to take that personally.
Not to mention, he fucked off with the TNT, so I’m back to square one with Michael, once again, being the victor.
“Fucking Michael,” I murmur, staring at a peculiar spot on the floor.
“The guy you’re after?”
My gaze shoots up, and I narrow my eyes at Echo, who’s hovering in the doorway. “How the hell did you get in here?”
“Door was still open,” he says, taking a few steps closer. “And anyway, it’s mostly broken. Anyone could get in here.”
Right now, he looks different. Perhaps it’s defeat, but maybe it’s something else. His expressions are hard to read, which is rare for me, considering half the language I use to interpret is facial expressions.
“Oh. Um…”
“You should be more vigilant,” he says. The distance between us gets even smaller. “This isn’t the best part of town. I’m pretty sure the other side of the motel is running a prostitution ring, and I think I can smell meth cooking a few doors down.”
I blink at him. “You know what meth smells like?”
He pulls a face, then grabs the rickety chair and sets it a few feet away from my spot on the floor. It creaks a little as he sits, but it doesn’t break.
“I’ve been around. I’ve had…interesting jobs most of my life.” He says it with a tone that tells me not to ask more questions about it, so I roll my lips between my teeth and nod.
‘Why did you come back?’ I sign, and I catch the way his eyes flicker after my hands.
He turns his head slightly, and that’s when I see them.
Very slender, bronze hearing aids tucked so far behind his ears they’re almost invisible.
There’s a thin wire that I know is attached to a tiny little insert that sits in his ear canal.
No wonder I didn’t see them before. They got lost in his hair.
“Leaf…who’s Michael?” he asks instead of answering me.
I swallow heavily. “A menace. I know I sound like a nutcase, but he needs to be taken out. I’ve tried everything.
I’ve tried reasoning with him, bargaining, bribing.
I tried to grab him and stick him in a cage, but when I did that, he went full-on attack mode.
I have a scar to prove it.” I lift up my shirt, and there’s a pink, now-healed gash right above my hip bone from his nasty little claws. “I don’t know what else to do.”
He stares at me for a long time. “Where is he?”
“My farm. I mean, he doesn’t live on my farm. He just makes himself comfortable on it and ruins all my freshly planted vegetables and fruit. He’s currently destroying my new strawberry plants, and I don’t think my zucchini is going to survive the season.”
He cocks his head, his brows furrowing. “Have you tried going to the cops?”
I pull a face. I’m not a huge fan of cops. I’ve had too many clients abused by law enforcement for them to be my go-to. Besides, if I went to the police station to report a freaking groundhog, they’d laugh my ass right out the front doors.
“They won’t help. Trust me. They’d think I’ve lost my mind, which isn’t far off, I think.”
He takes a breath. “You seem like a good guy, Leaf.”
I jolt. Once again, I realize he knows my name. But…hell, I’ve been calling him Echo. Maybe he just borrowed it from my shit-for-brains screen name. It’s not like a lot of people are named Leaf these days.
Or any that I know of.
Maybe I should ask.
But…the way he’s looking at me, maybe I shouldn’t.
“How do you spell your name, by the way?” he asks as though he can read my mind.
I frown at him. “How do you know that’s my name?” He huffs a small laugh, and I roll my eyes. “Fine. It is my name, and it’s spelled like the things on a tree.”
“Shit,” he murmurs as though somehow the spelling of my name matters. “Unlike your screen name.”
“Yeah. I was trying to be sneaky or…whatever.” I fiddle with a loose thread on my jeans. “So…did you change your mind about the TNT?”
His gaze flickers back over to the bag of money. It’s a lot, I know. He doesn’t exactly look like the kind of guy who needs it, but maybe he’s the kind of guy who wants it.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he eventually says. His hands fidget, like he’s trying not to sign when he speaks.
I debate about using ASL and going voice-off, but it’s been a priority of mine to let the Deaf person take the lead in how they want to communicate. He knows I sign and hasn’t switched, so I take that to mean he wants to just use his voice.
“I’m sorry,” he says, like he thinks the look on my face is devastation. He seems like he means that too. “I don’t think killing someone is going to solve your problems.”
“No, but Michael isn’t just someone. He’s—” My words get cut off when a phone starts buzzing loudly in his pocket.
He jolts and stands up. “Will you wait here, please?”
I shrug and gesture toward the door. It’s not like I was going anywhere at the moment anyway. I seem to have lost the motivation to go home.
Echo nods, then walks out and shuts the door. Well, as far as he can anyway. They really do need to blow this place to bits.
This time though, I’m too curious. I crawl onto my hands and knees and scoot toward the window. The blinds are thick—probably the only expensive thing in this shitty room, and I gently pry one aside.
Echo’s back is to me, and he’s clearly got a FaceTime going. He’s signing, but the angle he’s at, I can’t catch anything he’s saying, and his screen is too small for me to see who’s on it.
I sigh and turn around, slinking back to my spot on the floor. God, this is starting to feel like a huge mistake. He’s great eye candy, and I really like the way he speaks—almost like he cares, which is probably how he always does business.
But if he’s not going to sell to me and he’s not going to fuck me, then what are we even doing?
What the fuck am I doing? I’m in the room with a criminal.
Though, I guess I’m a criminal too. Two peas in a pod.
The door opens a second later, and he presses his fist to his chest and rubs it in a circle. ‘Sorry.’
I tilt my head to the side. ‘You want sign?’