Chapter 3
RHYS
“Well, that was an unmitigated disaster.”
I walked into our apartment and dropped next to Tyler on the couch.
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” he said, putting down his gaming controller.
“Oh really? What’s my pet peeve?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“People who tailgate. Bad in cars, worse when standing at the grocery store.”
“True. There’s no reason for you to push your grocery cart into my ass. But that’s not my biggest pet peeve.”
“Oh.” He held up a finger. “People who don’t listen. And you hate it when people try to guess what you’re trying to say when you stutter.”
“Yep.”
“Oh my God. Did the guy do that?”
“Well, he didn’t rush my words, but I’m pretty sure that was because the batteries on his cochlear implant died.”
“He was Deaf?”
“Hard of hearing, I think?”
“That’s not really his fault, though, is it?”
“He knew he was going on a date and hadn’t bothered to, I don’t know, charge his battery? It went out right as I walked up to him. He made a joke about him not being able to hear and me not being able to speak, so…”
Tyler’s lip curled up in disgust.
“…yeah. He got mad when I asked him to be quiet about the date since I wasn’t out to my team, and he asked me if I was experimenting.”
“Dickhead,” Tyler spat out. “What did you do?”
I laughed. “Walked away, which he didn’t like. Especially when I pretended not to hear him calling after me.”
Tyler snort-laughed. “That was pure poetry, my friend.”
I lifted a grass-stained shoulder. “To be fair, I do understand that he was frustrated. I was thirty minutes late.”
“That was because Jackson bent the shit out of his ankle and you had to stay with him and the paramedics. You messaged him, though, right?”
“Yeah. Still… I think it was just one of those wrong place, wrong time sort of things.”
“Damn. Sorry, dude.”
“Worse, he’s a chef and had just picked out a massive bone-in rib eye. You should’ve seen it,” I said, approximating its size with my hands.
“You do love a good rib eye.” Tyler scratched his nose, sending me a look. “In the limited profile that he got from you, do you think yours mentioned that you liked steak?”
I nodded. “Pretty sure. The info I got on him came from the same section.”
“So, he was paying attention, but then his hearing went out and he decided to go with a shitty joke.”
“Yep. Though… he did apologize about that part. Immediately. And he looked super frustrated with the hearing situation.”
“Was he at least hot?”
I let out a long whistle.
“That good, huh?”
“He had tattoos on his neck and down his hands.”
“Was he mean looking?”
“Super mean looking.”
“Okay, but which Anarchy guy did he look like? That Hunnam dude?”
“Actually, he looked more like… I dunno. A young Colin Farrell? Maybe slightly rougher around the edges.”
“Seriously?” Tyler whistled. “Damn, dude. That’s wet dream material right there.”
“Please never say the words ‘wet dream’ to me ever again.”
Tyler stuck out his tongue as I pulled up the app, intent on deleting it. Before I could, though, a notification popped up.
Did you complete your blind date? Tell us how it went.
I hit the Date Completed button, warming up to leave a sternly worded email, when another notification popped up.
Having completed your blind date, you now have access to your date’s full profile.
“Now they give me his profile,” I muttered.
“You should open it up and see if they knew what the hell they were talking about,” Tyler said, still spying on my screen.
“Clearly they didn’t, but sure.”
I tilted my screen away from Tyler’s nosy eyes and clicked on Severin’s profile icon to see what he had to say about himself. I started swiping through his pictures and… hoo, buddy.
“What?” Tyler said, yanking my screen toward him. “Oh, fuck.”
Oh, fuck was accurate. In the first pic he was wearing a plain white T-shirt over tight jeans, perfectly setting off the tattoos crawling up his arms. The next picture was even better.
“Damn,” Tyler said, crowding me. “He makes Colin Farrell look like a tiny, overcooked noodle.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know, Tyler, the point at which you find a shirtless man hot might be the point at which you should begin to examine your own sexuality.”
“Shut up,” he said, elbowing me. “Go to the next picture.”
Each picture was sexier than the last, and I was starting to feel self-conscious.
“Go down to his About Me section,” Tyler said, reaching over to scroll for me.
I batted away his hand and thumbed my way to the section. Hrn. I could see why the app thought we’d be such a good match. He loved big bears and thick thighs. More importantly, he was also looking for a serious relationship.
“The only thing he listed as a red flag was picky eaters because he loves cooking for his guy,” Tyler noted, touching his finger to the screen to scroll down a little farther.
Fuck.
I pushed Tyler’s hand away again and kept going through Severin’s profile.
“He’s got a whole paragraph on how he lost his hearing. Apparently, the cochlear implant journey has been a nightmare. Says here that he sometimes prefers the silence so he can think straight.”
Tyler shook his head. “It’s too bad that he was a dick to you.”
“It’s no excuse, but it sounds like he’s been really struggling with the technology. And I was thirty minutes late.”
“I’d also like to mention that you smell like a rugby player,” Tyler said, waving his hand in front of his nose. “If it’s true what they say about your other senses heightening when you lose one… you may have been sunk out of the gate.”
I snorted. “I don’t think that’s true. Either way, I think the universe is telling me to—”
My assumption was interrupted by a notification on the app.
“It’s him,” Tyler shouted, hitting the blinking button on the screen.
I yanked the phone away from his meddling fingers and pulled up the messaging screen.
Severin: Hey.
“What are you going to do?” Tyler asked, angling to see for himself.
I looked at the blinking cursor for a moment.
“I can’t tell if I want to cuss him out or give him another chance.”
Tyler shrugged. “See if he apologizes. Sincerely. If so, it might not hurt to try for a redo in a better location.”
I scrolled back up to his pictures and decided that my friend had a point. I stood, sent Ty a half-assed salute, and started walking to my room.
“Wait! I hafta see what happens.”
I rolled my eyes and let myself into my room, locking the door. Seconds later, the knob jiggled.
“I can’t believe you locked me out of your room!”
“Boundaries, Tyler!”
I could hear his frustrated huff through the door and laughed. I really did have the best roommate. Looking down at the phone, I decided to see what Severin was about.
Me: Hey
Severin: So… that was the worst first date ever, right?
Me: Might be.
The three dots bounced and stop, then bounced and stop again. Finally, his response came through.
Severin: Shit. I am so fucking sorry. I promise I’m usually nicer to hot rugby guys.
I bit back a grin.
Severin: Seriously, I was such an asshole. I’m sure your stutter sounds lovely. I just couldn’t hear anything you were saying. When I tried to read your lips, the stutter threw me off. No excuses, of course, just wanted to say again that it was me, not you.
My instincts told me to give him a chance, so I went with a light response.
Me: You can read lips? I should take you to a rugby game and you can tell me what my opponents are saying.
Severin: I’m not near as cool as all that. Unless you’re saying something simple, I’m kind of terrible at it.
Severin: Don’t ask me about sign language, either. It’ll only embarrass me
.
Hm.
Me: So, let me get this straight. You don’t keep up with the battery on your implant, haven’t learned the language, and you don’t know how to read lips. Something tells me you prefer to be left alone.
Severin: Fair assumptions. I have become a bit of a hermit since I lost my hearing. Pretty pathetic that I’m still mad after all these years, but it’s the truth.
Severin: Though, in my defense, that was a freshly charged battery and it shouldn’t have died like that.
Me: Sounds frustrating as hell. Sorry for assuming otherwise.
Severin: I’m an asshole, but I’m not that big of an asshole.
Severin: Well, I take that back. Pretty sure I accused you of making our date an experiment which… cringe.
Me: I was wondering if you were going to apologize for that.
Severin: It’s not even like I’ve had bad experiences with people who were new to their sexuality. I’ve just known I was gay since I was eight and in love with my third-grade homeroom teacher.
Me: I’m super comfortable in my sexuality, but I’m not used to having this number of eyes on me. I don’t know my team well enough to know how to approach it, so I was just being cautious until I had more information.
Severin: Meanwhile, I was totally yelling, wasn’t I?
Me: So. Loud. I was jealous of your deafness for half a second there.
Severin: Is it weird that at the end of the day I can’t wait to take off my ear and just enjoy the silence?
Me: You take off your ear?
Severin: That’s what I call the damn processor.
Severin: Tell you what. I read through your profile, and I can see why the computer put us together.
Me: Me too.
Severin: And I bought this enormous steak that I will never be able to eat on my own.
Me: That so?
Severin: I also know that you like to eat, and that your biggest pet peeve is when people don’t listen to you.
Severin: I promise, I’m a good listener when I can hear properly.
Me: Are you asking me out on another date?
Severin: I think I am. If you dare.
Me: Would you be offended if I said I’m only saying yes because I want that steak?
Severin: Not at all, ha.
Me: I may have also seen your shirtless selfies.
Severin: And I may have seen your shirtless rugby action pics.
Me: Fair enough. Let’s do this.