Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
I must have dozed off. Simon woke me setting a tray down on the bed.
“What’s all this?” I signed.
The warm glow of his bedside lamp sheened gold off the silky belt of the dark green dressing gown he slipped off and hung on the back of his door. I hadn’t even noticed him get up.
“Smoked salmon, cream cheese bagels. Pickles if you like them. Fruit. Water. I’m famished. Bit late for proper cooking though, sorry.” The mattress dipped as Simon climbed back in.
Only he could look remorseful about not getting up in the middle of screwing my brains out to provide a full meal. No one had ever brought me dinner in bed. Even if it was just a posh sandwich stuffed with more smoked salmon than I knew what to do with, cut precisely in half.
I crunched into a gherkin, cheeks aching from smiling so much.
“So...” I signed. The mattress curved, rolling us closer as I shifted onto my side. “Have you heard the one about the Deaf man visiting London?”
Simon paused, his bagel halfway to his mouth. “Are you telling me a joke while I’m trying to eat?”
“Yeah.”
He set the bagel down. “I’ll grab my hearing aids.”
“No point. It’s in BSL.”
“Okay...” A sort of content resignation layered between his lazy vowels, and he bolstered a pillow under his elbow. “Go on then.”
“Let’s call him B-r-i-a-n.”
“Brian?” Simon echoed my finger spelling with an unconvinced tilt to his eyebrow. He stretched a yawn, all cat-like and languorous.
“What’s wrong with Brian?” I signed.
“No idea.” Simon wet his lips, slipping back to speaking. “It’s your joke. Is he ill?”
I hinged a laugh, fingers working a wag into my jaw, up and down, exaggerated like a clown puppet. “Oh you’re hilarious, you are.”
Simon grinned sleepily. “Go on. Tell me.”
“Okay,” I signed. “So, Brian’s from another country, right?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He’s staying at this proper posh hotel—”
“The Ritz or something?”
“Yeah. Like that.” I relaxed back into my pillow. Simon might have been pretending to be half asleep, but he was paying attention to my hands and my mouth and my body. It felt good to be his only focus.
“He’s meeting his father-in-law for the first time. Wants to make a good impression. But he’s late, he’s run all the way there, and he’s trying to get in.” Taking on Brian’s frazzled look, I rattled at the door handles I’d set into space, all commotion.
Simon sat up a little straighter, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“The door guy comes over,” I continued signing, placing all the details in space. “Top hat. Tails.”
And then I stepped into him, looking down my nose at Brian, shaking my head. I sketched the boundaries of an imaginary notice, lodging it into the space between us.
“It says pull.”
Understanding flashed light-bulb-like across my face as I angled into the place I’d parked Brian. “Brilliant. Thank you,” I signed, effusively grateful as I tapped at the side of my head. “I understand now.”
Interest simmered in Simon’s eyes.
Pulling open the imaginary door, I puffed my cheeks as I signed relief. Obstacle overcome.
“But, inside there’s another door. It won’t open either.” The handles were stuck. Turning slightly, I changed, pulling on the drawn up, snootiness of the porter standing right where I’d left him. Again, I tapped on the sign beside the doorway. “This one says push.”
I grimaced, nodding slow, giving an embarrassed thumbs up on Brian’s behalf. “Right. Got it.”
Simon snorted a giggle.
“Thank you. So much. I understand.” That head-tap again. Brian’s gratitude dimmed.
Leaning back, I tracked the path of the porter walking away and sagged with Brian’s relief at him walking away.
“Right. Focus.”
In the space in front of me, Brian’s path snaked deeper into the hotel until—
Hands out sharp and final, everything stopped.
“There’s another door. Won’t open.”
Through me, Brian’s exasperation peaked, shaking his head. But he steeled himself. I glanced over over my shoulder for the snooty porter, back to the door again.
Peering forward, I scanned the imaginary wall for clues.
“Ah! A sign! Perfect.”
Up on my knees, I reached down, slotting my fingers under the bottom edge of the door, heaving up with all my might. Nothing happened. My neck muscles bulged with effort. I tried again. Once, twice, barely managing to keep a straight face.
Simon started laughing – little huffed breaths out of his nose that made me glow, and try even harder.
Tutting, arms folded, I was the porter again, staring down at Brian on his knees. This was no pantomime, every part was language, pure communication layered into the detail of every sign. “What is this guy doing?”
With an eyebrow raise, I reached to press the button next to the little informative plaque on the wall.
Looking up, I slackened my jaw, hands back under the bottom of the door, Brian’s realisation dawning on my face.
I sat back on my heels.
Crossing one pair of fingers over the other, I floated them up in a smooth line.
“Lift.”
Simon snorted.
Right in front of Brian’s gormless face, I pinged the elevator doors open with my hands. “And his father-in-law stepped out.”
Simon groaned.
“Oh come on,” I protested, signs matching my true tone again. “You’re laughing aren’t you?”
“Out of pity. That was terrible.”
He jabbed his pillow like it had lumps, but he was barely holding back a laugh. Mine was cloud-like. Maybe single peas under teetering stacks of mattresses bothered him too.
I mimicked his earlier eyeroll and wet my lips.
“Bull,” I mouthed, voice off, “shit.”
Simon scoffed, grappling me down against him, only I wasn’t fighting him all that hard. The steady heat of his body was dangerously familiar now. So was the way his eyes lingered on my lips well after we’d finished kissing.
“I could get used to this,” he murmured, sagging into the plumped pillow.
“Which bit?”
“Not having to guess the punchline.” His nose wrinkled. “Don’t gloat about it.”
“I’d never.”
Curling in next to him under the warmth of the sheets felt deeply right. I could get used to all of it.
Under the covers our thighs tangled and my dick nudged against his hip.
It wasn’t just the sex. It was being here, with him, like this.
Pillow talk and goofing about. His perfect, vibrant home stacked full of memories and family and all the things he cared about.
This decadently soft bed where he’d smiled at me, and let me chat rubbish like I wasn’t wasting his time.
But Simon still employed me. Even if he’d grudgingly admitted he liked me, he wasn’t the kind of guy to abandon his morals because I made him giggle. None of this would last. I should be grateful I’d convinced him to extend the sex holiday at all.