Chapter Six. The Post-It Note Promise
Chapter Six
The Post-It Note Promise
Felix has four bandmates.
Calum, Will, Mateo, and … the other one. Lucas? Landon? I can’t remember. (In my defense, he’s hardly featured on DAYDREAM’s Instagram account—home to a whopping nineteen million followers.)
Ahead of our meeting at 12:30 p.m., I plant myself on the floor of the office. Ginger naps next to me. Usually, I avoid the main office—a.k.a., Mom’s evil lair—after a fight, but she didn’t bother coming to the Center this morning. So I can cyberstalk in peace.
So far, my knowledge has greatly improved from the obvious: Felix Song is DAYDREAM’s irksome lead singer-slash-frontman.
Their Instagram feed is mainly things they posted themselves, like cooking content from #ChefMateo, Calum playing his green guitar, or Will’s gym-rat selfies and artsy photography. But there are more professional posts, too, like the ad campaign Felix did for BURBERRY. (Why am I not surprised?)
I stop scrolling when I come across their tour announcement.
At the top of the sky-blue background with fluffy white clouds, the text reads: “DAYDREAM North American Tour.” The names of twenty-two cities and corresponding dates are at the bottom.
Felix stands front and center in a silky white V-neck button-up, flashing that dazzling grin of his.
His arms are crossed, causing his biceps to bulge.
The other boys are perfectly posed around him, wearing a spectrum of pastel shades.
Their Boston concert grabs my attention. Ellen, my dad’s best friend-slash-Jo’s and my godmother, has a D/deaf summer camp in Boston. I haven’t seen her since Dad’s funeral, and I wonder if I could work in a visit. It would be nice to see her and pick her brain about the Center.
I scroll to another post, and I recognize it instantly—it’s the image from the signed poster the Songs proudly display.
Like the tour-announcement photo, Felix is the center of attention, singing into a bedazzled mic while the other members are gently smiling beside him.
The more photos I look at, the more that becomes a recurring theme.
The other members almost seem like background models.
I zoom in on the members’ faces and notice they all have light, dewy makeup on, really driving home the soft-boy brand their band name implies. They look unnaturally perfect.
As I zoom out, someone taps my shoulder. I jolt in surprise.
“J-O—” I pause my grumpy signing as I whip my head around to see Felix squatting behind me.
“Sorry!” he signs.
Ginger glances up from beside me, a string of drool dangling from her jowls. She harmlessly boofs at him, then goes back to ignoring him.
“You can’t sneak up on people like that!” I gripe. “Turn lights on and off when entering a room.” I motion to the light switch and awkwardly wave when I spot Sunglasses in the doorway. “It alerts deaf people someone is there.”
“Sorry,” he reiterates.
I check the time on my phone. 12:14 p.m. “You’re early.” I squint at him.
“I always leave thirty minutes early— —traffic, but it wasn’t bad today.
I stopped by— —coffee shop but— —line wasn’t long— —cut down on travel time.
Ah, and Jo told me— —back here. I didn’t mean to scare you.
” His words come flying out before I have a chance to even try and lipread or fill in the blanks.
The way he talks is like a stream of consciousness.
He stands up and offers me a hand; the other holds an iced Americano. I reluctantly take his hand, and he pulls me to my feet. His lips curve upward when we make eye contact.
Felix is a lot taller up close. I’m a perfectly average five-five—no matter how much Jo (who’s barely five-seven!) teases me about being short—but standing here with him, I feel like a little kid.
He’s got to have eight or nine inches on me. This close it’s hard not to notice his inky eyes, sparkly smile, and blemish-free, bronzed skin. It’s like Felix won the genetics lottery.
He’s gorgeous.
I hate it.
“So whaddya think? We look good together, don’t we?”
“W-what?” I splutter. I look down at our hands and realize they’re still tangled together, his long, tan fingers encasing my smaller, pale ones. I yank mine away and take three steps back, which is as much distance as this tiny office can provide.
His eyes crinkle as he laughs. “The boys and me.” He points to my phone. “You were looking at our photo.”
I ignore the heat rising in my face. The last thing Felix needed to see was me lurking on the band’s profile. Although, in the context of us holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, I’m grateful he was referencing my cyberstalking.
“I guess.” I pull my best neutral face. “Kind of looks like a unicorn threw up on you, though. With all the pastels and sparkles.”
From the doorway, Sunglasses snickers. Felix looks at her, startled by her display of human emotion, and her face returns to a blank slate. He sighs and hands me the iced Americano he’s clutching.
I accept with a frown. “You didn’t get a coffee?”
“Yeah, nah. Caffeine makes me extra hyper.”
It’s hard to imagine him even more hyper. I take a swig as he casually leans against the wall, one leg crossed over the other. He stares at me, waiting for me to lead the conversation. I lean against the desk, mirroring his posture.
“I’m willing to give you one chance,” I enunciate. “I’m going to be honest: I don’t believe you’re committed to this. You’ve never given me any reason to trust you’ll actually do the work to learn ASL.”
He flashes a comically kicked-puppy frown, alongside a momentary crease in his brow. If I didn’t know better, I might suspect some hurt behind the facade. “I’ve tried my hardest.”
I tsk. “Your hardest was skipping lessons for band practice? Never reading the ASL grammar books I gave you? Making me reteach you the fingerspelling alphabet every week?”
He opens his mouth to reply, but he decides against it, instead hazarding a timid “sorry” by rubbing a fist on his sternum.
“Don’t even try to half-ass it,” I continue.
His Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps. “Nat, in the past I wasn’t able … it was really hard because … well, I … never mind.” He stops wracking his brain for excuses and forces a tight-lipped smile. “I’m committed this time. I promise.”
I search his face for any hint of deceit but find his expression to be open and honest. Maybe … vulnerable?
It’s almost painful to accept the offer and resign myself to a summer of being Felix Song’s hired help—but not nearly as painful as losing the Deaf Center.
“Okay, good,” I say.
“Sweet as!” He claps his hands together. “So I’ll see you—”
“Whoa, buddy, hold on. I have some conditions,” I continue. “I’d like to have a day off from 24/7-Felix duty in Boston. My godmother runs a Deaf summer camp, and I want to visit her.”
He chuckles. “Sure. No biggie. I’ll double-check with my manager”—the corners of his lips twitch in a nearly imperceptible grimace—“about the schedule, but that should be fine. Is that all?”
“No, actually.” Now’s as good a time as any to tell him about how situational my hearing can be.
“My hearing ability varies depending on the circumstances. Right now, it’s quiet, we’re close together, and I have a clear view of your lips, so I can pick up a fair amount.
But throw in things like background noise, low lighting, soft voices, accents, or fast talking”—I can’t help the way I emphasize his bad habit—“and it’s way harder to follow a verbal conversation.
So please be patient if I need you to repeat yourself or slow down. Okay?”
“Alrighty.” He nods thoughtfully. “Maybe we can just be patient with each other, yeah?”
His tone is good-natured, but I bristle. Is he already giving himself a free pass for slacking off?
I press on. “Now, let’s talk about the fact that you’re lowballing me.”
This triggers a loud laugh. “I’m sorry?”
“$17,000 for the sixty-six days I’d be on call is $32.20 an hour, based on an eight-hour workday. But you need me to be available 24/7. That math isn’t mathing.”
He’s the son of a businessman. He should know how to negotiate proper compensation.
He opens his mouth, makes a loud “uhhh” sound, then closes it. “Does that mean you want more money?” His face is scrunched up, like he’s using his muscles to think.
I guess business sense isn’t a genetic trait.
Before I have a chance to teach him the art of the deal, he says, “Name your price.”
I freeze. I didn’t expect him to fold so quickly.
Luckily, though, I crunched the numbers last night.
Besides what we owe the bank, we’ll need enough to continue making monthly payments until I get back and can start my fundraising in earnest. If I include our mortgage payments for the rest of the year, thirty thousand total would be ideal—and leave my slush fund untouched so we’d have money for the revamping and eventual roof repairs.
I fall back on every ounce of business knowledge I have and start higher than what I’m aiming for so we can negotiate down.
“$40,000,” I say.
“Alrighty.”
“Then how about—wait, what?!” I gape at him. He … agreed. To my first number?! “‘Alrighty’? Like, yes? You’re saying ‘alrighty’ to paying me forty grand?” I clarify.
“Yup.”
“Oh … kay.” I swallow. Then, since I’ll need enough to pay the mortgage while I’m gone, I add, “Um. I need $16,500 of it up front. You can pay me the rest after.”
He does a curious-puppy head tilt. “$16,500? Not twenty-five percent? Half? That’s oddly specific…” His dark eyes rove over my face. “Ah. Are you in debt with a mafia boss?”
“Oh no. You’ve discovered my secret,” I deadpan.
“Russian or Italian? Makes all the difference.”
“Yakuza, actually. Joke’s on you.”