“I’m good,” Derek said, and he quickly turned his attention back to his work. At least, in these moments, his work gave him a sense of purpose, and ever made him feel like his existence was a burden.
‘You talk to your friend yet?’Amit asked later that week over coffee.
Basil sighed, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what to say, and I hate writing so much. I saw him heading into the community center for the ASL class, but they’re not going to get into anything useful for months.’
Amit gave him a tiny smile, waggling his brows. ‘You could always offer to private tutor him.’
Basil felt his cheeks heat up, even as he shook his head. ‘He was on a date.’
‘One that ended almost as badly as yours, man,’ Amit pointed out. ‘I’d say a comfort blow-job is always a good conversation starter.’
Basil gave him a dry, expressionless stare. ‘Why are we friends?’
‘Because I’m amazing, and you’re kind of a loner who doesn’t like to socialize,’ he told him with a grin and a shrug. ‘Anyway, I’m just saying it might not be the worst thing in the world that the dude walked out on a date because some gym-rat insulted Deaf people.’
Basil couldn’t deny that. That fact had been haunting him since he and Amit had eavesdropped on Derek’s date. Amit was a skilled lip-reader which made it much easier for him to interpret what was being said from four tables away, and Basil had been on the edge of panic until Derek all-but told his date to fuck off and then walked away.
It was almost a near echo of Basil’s own bad date—the roles reversed, and he couldn’t ignore how it made him feel that Derek had just as quickly and just as easily jumped to his defense. He hadn’t told his sister about it, who was still feeling contrite and apologetic after the date with Jay, but he’d told Amit everything which was why they were out for ice cream that night.
‘He offered me a free tattoo,’ Basil eventually said.
Amit choked on his drink, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth to wipe away latte foam. Setting his drink down, he stared at him. Hard. ‘He offered you a free tattoo. A free tattoo at Irons and Works?’
Basil flushed a little, shrugging one shoulder. ‘Is that weird?’
‘Irons and Works,’ Amit started, spelling the name out very carefully, ‘is not the kind of shop that just gives stuff away. They’re expensive because they’re good. Every person who works there is employed because they’re able to prove their talent is a step aboveothers. This is like getting free music lessons from Mozart.’ When Basil raised both his brows, Amit rolled his eyes. ‘Okay not Mozart, but close. I’m just trying to make a point that if this guy offered that to you, take it.’
Basil found himself brushing fingers along his forearm, the place he’d get that damn Night-Blooming blossom tattoo if he really was going to go through with it. He’d been thinking about it since Katherine chased after him and explained what Derek really meant by the offer. ‘I can’t seem to stop thinking about him.’
‘I noticed,’ Amit replied, a dry expression on his face. ‘Are you really set on never dating him?’
Basil shrugged, glancing away for just a second to gather his thoughts. ‘No. I want to say yes, because the thought of going through anything like my ex put me through sends me into a panic spiral and I can’t live like that. But every one of my instincts is telling me Derek won’t be like that. None of them will.’
Amit considered him for a long moment. ‘I’ve spent most of my teenage and adult life in the Deaf Community. I don’t have a lot of hearing friends, and the only reason I know those guys is because they were the best rated and I wanted good ink. I’m not the kind of guy who would tell you to start dating outside of our community, or to give hearies a chance, because I don’t really feel like that. But those guys are different. I was there when the owner’s daughter came home from her doctor’s appointment after they were told she was hard of hearing.’
Basil’s eyes widened. ‘They came to the shop?’
‘It’s their family, all those guys,’ Amit clarified. ‘I was getting one of my side pieces done, so I was laying on a table. Sage had been going for a while, and he was in the zone, so he didn’t want to stop, but it was obvious there was news. I always take my hearing aids out because the buzzing is overwhelming, but Tony’s really easy to read.’
Basil knew this story. He’d seen it a hundred times on social media—parents struggling and crying because their child was deaf.He’d read a hundred captions on a hundred videos, ‘We didn’t know what to do when we got the diagnosis, we were heart broken.’
Then some inspo story about finding some amazing speech therapist or audiologist and their baby smiled for the first time after they got CIs or hearing aids or whatever. He didn’t need Amit to tell him this.
‘I thought it was going to be some bullshit, and I couldn’t decide if I was going to get defensive or not, because you don’t fuck with people permanently altering your skin. It ended up not being necessary. He sat down at a computer, and when someone asked him what was up, he just turned around and said, ‘Jazz is deaf, so you fuckers better be ready to learn sign with me.’ Then he found a couple of classes and made some calls, and before I was wiped down and wrapped up, he was registered for ASL.’ Amit gave Basil a second to absorb all that. ‘I know the guys have been slow about it, but they’re nothing like Derek’s date. And nothing like your ex. No one’s forcing this girl to verbalize. They sign with her all the time. They let me sign with her. They all try.’
Basil knew that. He knew it in the effortless way he’d seen Sage and Derek handle the kids, in the way they were with his sister, and how Derek always used every bit of sign he knew with Basil before resorting to paper and pen. Maybe if he started slow. Maybe if he took up Katherine, and now Amit’s, advice and worked with him, gave him time so they could get to know each other without communication creating a barrier between them, there could be something real there.
‘Start with the tattoo,’ Amit said. ‘Go from there.’
At home,Basil paced his room, annoyed with himself and unable to stop replaying his conversation with Amit over and over in his head. Boiled down to the bare bones of the situation, it was simple. He liked Derek, Derek wasn’t anything like Chad, and he would probably be safe.
But that didn’t erase his fear of what could be, of what it all meant, and the not knowing how serious Derek was about any of it. They could try this—they could move forward and try something more, and then Derek could get annoyed, or bored, or tired of not speaking his own language and eventually they’d reach an impasse. Mostly because Basil would not voice—he would not. He would not compromise that part of himself again for anyone, no matter what they meant to him. A word or two here or there—fine. But he’d never carve away at his Deaf identity because it made some hearing person’s life easier.
And he didn’t know if there was middle ground between him and Derek with that between him.
Walking to his chair, he flopped down and pushed back, a little too hard. He hit the wall with a thud, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the octopus painting crash to the floor. With a gasp, he jumped to his feet, terrified that the canvas had been torn, and he yanked it from between the desk and the wall.
It looked fine, and then he saw a scrap of something poking out of the wood frame in the back. For a moment, he thought the canvas had torn, but as he picked at it, he realized it was something else. A folded bit of paper, and he could see ink bleed on one side.
