AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I studied him, seeing the pain in his entire form as he typed about losing his mother, the loss of creativity that followed. I was filled with regret I would never get to meet her. If she’d raised a son like Shay, then she’d surely been a marvellous woman. “But you went back to creating, even if only for yourself.”
“It’s therapy, in a way,” Shay typed.
“I can see that. Why always birds?”
Shay’s eyes turned contemplative, his attention levelled across the room, his thoughts elsewhere. Then he blinked, coming back to himself. “I’ve always been fascinated by their bone structure, the shape of them, all the different types of beaks and feathers, the different sizes and colours. I want to capture their likeness, but I also want to capture the way they make me feel. They’re these beings that are always on the periphery of our world, hovering in the sky, observing us. There isn’t another creature like them. And so much of what they are, how they make themselves known, is in their voice, their song. How could I not be fascinated by these small animals that so effortlessly possess the thing I’ll never have?”
His question caused pain to pinch at my chest, my eyes growing watery. I knew being mute made life hard for him, but he’d always seemed so accepting of it. He figured out ways to navigate the world without being able to speak, but it was clear now he did feel some sadness about it. A part of him surely mourned what and who he might’ve been.
“That’s not how I see you,” I said gently. “I don’t see you as being someone without a voice. Actually, I see you as more. Talking is such a shallow way to interact now that I’ve known you, Shay. It’s like comparing greyscale to colour. You engage with others on a deeper level. I felt it from the very first time our eyes met. You pulled me into your orbit without ever needing to utter a word. I was captivated by you. Every tiny expression or body movement communicated something. I can’t even begin to list the hundreds of things you’ve told me simply by the look in your eyes.”
Shay drew me close, pressing his lips to the underside of my jaw, and I trembled.
“You said you love how I see you, how I portray you when I draw you,” he typed. “Well, I love how you see me, too. All you just said, no one’s ever spoken about me that way.”
“It’s all true,” I breathed as his hand swept across my stomach. “I really want to learn more sign language, though. I was jealous of Nuala tonight, how she effortlessly engaged you in conversation.”
I felt his mouth curve into a grin where it was pressed to my jaw. I turned in his hold, capturing his earlobe gently between my teeth, and felt a shudder go through him. He’d thrown the phone aside now. It was lost somewhere in the bedsheets. But he didn’t need to respond because again the look in his eyes told me exactly what he was thinking.
You never have any reason to be jealous. I’m yours. Only yours.
Shay moved us, so I was lying flat on my back. Then his lips trailed a path down my stomach, and he said those things once more, that time with his entire body.
***
When I woke up, it was morning. I stretched out in my bed like a lazy cat, smiling because I’d orgasmed three times last night. It was a record. Then when I realised I was alone in the bed, a brief, momentary rush of worry barrelled through me. Where was Shay? Had he left during the night or earlier that morning?
My biggest fears tried to drag me under when I heard a clinking sound and turned over. Shay was kneeling by the radiator close to my bed, the one that hadn’t been working for months. I’d mentioned that to him last night, hadn’t I?
I sat up, my hair falling messily over my shoulder as I stared at him. There was a toolkit on the floor that didn’t belong to me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and he looked my way. He was so absorbed with the radiator he hadn’t noticed me waking up. His eyes warmed, a tendril of heat there, too, as they wandered over the curves of my breasts beneath the thin T-shirt.
Shay picked up his phone. “You said last night this was broken, so I went next door to Bob’s and asked if he had a set of tools I could borrow.”
My heart squeezed, butterflies flitting around in my chest. “You’re fixing it for me?”
Shay sent me a self-deprecating look. “I’m trying. No promises.”
“I have faith in you,” I said, sliding from the bed and bending to kiss him. It was a light touching of lips at first but soon grew hungrier. Shay pulled me down to the floor, my hands tangling in the ends of his hair. I slid my tongue along his, wanting to drag him back into bed and just narrowly resisting. When I broke away, we were both breathing raggedly.
