Epilogue #4
Exhaustion is tugging at me, and I can’t imagine he wants me to stay. Not after telling me that I wasn’t allowed to touch. Not after letting me break his one rule.
I tap him, and I feel him turn his head. I can barely see him from where I’m lying with my head flat against the mattress, but with one weak hand I sign, ‘You want me go?’
There’s a beat of silence and stillness, then, against my thigh, he shakes his head. I feel another pulse against my temple. This time, instead of lust, it’s confusion, affection, and fear. But it’s gone before I can examine what it truly is.
My fatigue is taking over. Darkness is creeping along the edges of my vision, and the thousand questions I have for Eissa are fading.
We will talk in the morning, I think. I will find out what all of this means after I get a little rest. Today was a long day, and two orgasms thrust me over the edge.
If only I knew, in that moment, what my sleep was going to rob me of.
He’s gone.
I can feel it before I’m properly awake. I’m in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, and there’s a presence here that isn’t Eissa. I sit up with a gasp, naked, half-covered by a sheet, and a woman with wide eyes is staring at me.
Her lips are moving far too quickly for me to catch any words, and I groan, holding up a hand for her to stop. I feel like I have a hangover. My balls were sucked dry, and my body wrung out.
‘Deaf,’ I sign, mouthing along with exaggerated mouth movements.
She gets the look most hearing people get when I do that. A little fear, a little embarrassment.
“Sorry,” I watch her say. I can tell she’s shouting. I don’t know why they always do that. I mean, it actually does help some of my friends with more residual hearing than I have, but for me, it’s pointless. And annoying. And it’s too fucking early for all of this.
Except, oh god, it isn’t. My eyes catch the archaic little alarm clock on the nightstand, and I see it’s almost noon.
Fuck.
I start to scramble from the bed and realize I’m still naked. I clutch the sheet and give her an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” I say aloud. She also gives me the face most hearing people give me at the sound of my accent, but I’m too wrecked and tired to care. “Give me two minutes, and I’ll be out.”
She hurries for the door, and I glance around, realizing that if there was any evidence Eissa was staying here, there isn’t anymore. I hadn’t been able to give the place a good look when I first arrived, and I imagine the Vyastil travel with some kind of luggage, but there’s none now.
He packed up and left, probably in the middle of the night, with the way my luck always goes.
I swing my legs over the bed, and then I see my clothes are folded neatly on the dresser. For some reason, that pisses me off. How fucking dare he. How fucking dare he tidy up and not wake me and leave me here to be humiliated by housekeeping.
I get dressed quickly and furiously, shoving my feet into my shoes, then patting my pockets for my phone. It’s in there, but it’s nearly dead, so I grab my room key because I still have three more days in this place before I can go home.
Marching to the elevators, I ride it to the fifth floor, then dart into my room and plug my phone in before grabbing the little hotel-branded notepad and pen from the desk in the corner.
I’m not really thinking straight as I head for the lobby, and there’s a short line for the front desk, so I wait, trying to make sure I’m not making huffing angry noises as the agent checks people in and out.
By the time I get there, the blonde woman is still smiling. At least, until she sees the expression on my face.
‘You sign?’ I ask.
She grimaces and shrugs.
Of course not, but I came prepared. I hold up a finger, then yank the notepad out of my back pocket and scribble on it: Vyastil name Eissa, check out already?
She reads it, lips moving through the words, then she looks up at me and speaks. I hold up my hand, shaking my head, then gesture to the paper.
Now she looks frustrated, but she takes the pen from me and begins to write.
I can’t give out that information, but we currently have no Vyastil staying here.
I snatch the notepad back and tip my fingers from my chin. ‘Thank you.’ I try to mean it. None of this is her fault. Eissa is the one who wham, bam, thank you ma’amed me. He’s the one who allowed me to break his rule, who left me wanting more.
Who left me feeling like there’s an empty space inside of me in the shape of him.
Which is not something I should be feeling over a single one-night stand. And that makes me even angrier. And not because I’m actually angry, but because I’m hurt.
For a moment—for a single moment last night—I thought I was more. I thought I wasn’t some experiment or a walking curiosity. I thought maybe he wanted me for me.
That he meant it when he said I was beautiful.
That the way he touched me after giving me that rule meant something more.
That I was more.
Walking past the buffet, I see several groups of people from the convention, one hand signing, the other shoveling food into their faces. It’s not as much of a comfort as it was before, thanks to Eissa.
But I force myself to take a breath. I’m catastrophizing again. I’m assuming the worst.
Maybe he didn’t leave me on purpose. Maybe he tried to wake me. Maybe he left me a quiet, soft kiss on my temple before an emergency took him away.
I can’t let myself assume that I mean nothing to every person who touches me the way Eissa touched me. And hell, I live near a major portal, so there might be a chance I’ll see him again.
And if I do—no, when I do—I will ask him if that night meant anything at all to him.
Because right now, it feels like it means everything to me.