Page 22 of Love Limits

Ash: don’t let her close to your neck. could be a vampire.

Ash: or werewolf?

Ash: you can add your own squares

Ash: so how come she gets a date and i don’t? i was promised cuddles!

Zhong couldn’t hold back a smile. He’d been a bit nervous asking Ash to hang out, but their eagerness put him at ease.

Zhong: We’re hanging out on Tuesday.

Ash: tuesday is stoopid

Zhong: LOL. So we shouldn’t meet on Tuesday?

Ash: no! tuesday is great! i love tuesday

Zhong: Awesome. I’m looking forward to it. I should eat dinner now, though, so I can leave.

Ash: or you could just leave now...

Zhong: She’s on her phone, too.

Ash sent him a meme of a family sitting down to an elegant dinner together, all looking at their phones. He snorted.

The meals finally arrived and he dug into his pasta. His date was suddenly looking a lot better, since he knew he’d have an eager audience waiting to hear about how bad it was.

Tuesday was going to be awesome.

***

Zhong smiled all the way through the week. He’d gotten a lot of his upcoming work done over the weekend, and now he was just proofing a quick article on dog breeds. It was a nice break after the two dense scientific articles and the biography he’d just finished.

He was messaging Ash all the time now, or at least on their days off. He’d discovered that they pretty much weren’t available from 6am to 8pm on the days they worked, and then they just wanted to crash. Sometimes he’d get a quick text if they were on break, but more often than not they worked through and he didn’t hear back for hours.

The rest of the time, Ash had a flurry of cute GIFs and funny banter for him. They’d stayed up late on two nights playing online word games, too.

He’d enjoyed every minute of it, but he worried that they weren’t getting enough sleep. Even though his schedule was flexible, he tried to make sure Ash didn’t stay up too late.

Now it was Tuesday. Ash wasn’t working, but they’d already texted twice about running late. The most recent one said they were on their way. It sounded like a stressful day.

His phone buzzed in his pocket at the same time that a new window popped up on his computer screen.

In the grainy doorbell interface, Ash looked exhausted but cheerful. Zhong buzzed them in. Since he didn’t have an internal doorbell hooked up with lights or his phone, he waited outside his apartment door.

He hoped he looked alright, though that was a silly thought. He’d been distracted and buzzing with energy today, so he’d gone down to the gym in the basement twice, and then taken a shower. Now he was wearing a nicer-than-usual t-shirt. Would it look like he was trying too hard? Or not hard enough?

He ignored mirrors most of the time, but Ash clearly thought about their appearance a lot. Or maybe they thought about clothing as art? Maybe he should even change into a nicer shirt.

He just really wanted Ash to like him. Finding someone who was Deaf and loved board games and didn’t think it was weird that he wanted to platonically cuddle all the time was the trifecta of friendship.

And if Ash wanted to hang out with him at game nights with Dustin and Landon, that would be even better. Instead of feeling left out, Zhong could snuggle with Ash, who would be ridiculous and act like a baby bird waiting to be fed while kicking ass at Scrabble.

This really, really had to work.

Zhong was tempted to duck back inside and make sure that he looked OK.

There wasn’t any time, though, because just then Ash flew down the hall, nearly swallowed up in a puffy green coat. Their dark eyes, outlined by thick mascara, shone with delight and their wild, curly hair bounced with each step. A little, black grocery bag swung erratically on their wrist as they signed. Hey! Sorry again that I’m late. My car hates me. And the laundry machine hates me. And my supervisor kind of hates me. Ugh. I’m so glad that I’m here.