“Se—verin?”
I mean, sure, I was glad to be able to hear and communicate with people more easily, but it wasn’t great. I for sure missed listening to music without the tinny, bad-robot sound of the implant. I’d started learning sign language, but between relearning how to process sound and starting Escoffier a year after I’d wanted to, I hadn’t really given it the focus it deserved.
I halted my pacing of the meat department, distracted by the biggest bone-in rib eye I’d ever seen. God, it was beautiful. I reached for it just as a large hand gripped my shoulder.
Not gonna lie, I may have screeched like a little girl. It was hard to tell, though, since my processor was not cooperating. I spun around and a massive man with fluffy golden retriever hair who looked like he’d been rolling around in the grass stepped back.
Ah, hell. That was Rhys Dawie, alright.
“Se-Severin?”
I read my name off his lips, though there must’ve been something funny about the way he’d said it because his face was going red.
“I’m Rhys Dawie. S—orry about the rug-rugby gear. I didn’t wa—nt to be any later.”
Some of that cut out, but it didn’t matter because I already knew who he was.
“You’re Rhys, right?” I asked, and he nodded. “Am I pronouncing that correctly? Rhys as in Reece’s Pieces?”
He nodded, grimacing.
Fuck, I was probably yelling.
“Apologies if I’m being loud. My ear went off.”
“Wha-wha-what?”
God, it was so hard to understand what he was saying. I was terrible at lipreading, but I could usually pick out the easy words. I pulled my processor away from my ear, showed it to him, then reattached it.
“I have severe hearing loss, and my battery needs to be replaced.”
“Can you hear me now?”
I tilted my hand side to side. “A little. I’m having a hard time understanding you, though.”
“Sor-sor-sor—” He stopped and took a deep breath. “So—orry, I stu—tter when I’m nervous.”
I laughed. “Well, this is a disaster. I can’t hear and you can’t speak.”
Rhys took another step back. He was still in his rugby gear and I’d been right about his thighs. The way he looked off to the side, though, clued me into the fact that… shit. I might’ve said the wrong thing.
In fact, I know I did.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t hear very well and if you’ve got a stutter… I won’t be able to understand you until I get my batteries situated. I wasn’t making fun of you, I promise. Super promise.”
He nodded, but still said nothing. We stood there for a moment, completely awkward, and I let out a sigh. Probably a little more loudly than I should have.
“Tell you what, I think you’re a handsome guy, and if the tattoos haven’t scared you off, maybe we can reschedule our date.”
He made a pained expression, then looked around, carefully.
“Is something wrong? I can’t tell,” I said, looking around as well, though I didn’t know what for.
He made a quiet down gesture with his hands, which irritated me. I hadn’t waited an extra thirty minutes for this guy to be told to quiet down. I mean, I probably was still yelling, but he knew I wasn’t doing it on purpose.
My equipment died for real this time and I cursed under my breath. Ripping the processor off my head, I shoved it in my pocket.
Fuck. Blessed silence. Well, not complete silence, but at least everything had been reduced to gentle background noise.
