Page 56 of Deafened By Silence
“Wow, are you sure he’s your real dad? Maybe you should seek a DNA test,” I raise my brows, dripping with sarcasm. There’s no trace of humor in Rhys’ responding glare.
“I’m nothing like him,” he growls down the microphone. Sore subject, got it. Sitting with his elbows on the table, chin in his hands, Rhys watches me draw arrows and mess around with different colored highlighters.
“He cares about the scholarships.” My highlighter stalls mid-air.
“Absolutely not.” Inside our corner booth, the air compresses, the weight of the pen in my hand becoming heavier. Rhys’ lip curls, and he leans further forward, angling his head like a predator going in for the kill.
“Do you know why Clayton is so special?” he hisses. I prop my head on my hand, bat my lashes and sigh dreamily.
“Thickly, corded muscles. Brooding personality with a soft, gooey center. Huge?—”
Kenneth suddenly appears at our table with two steaming cups on a tray, but he only sets one down for me and leaves, ignoring Rhys completely. I manage to hide my smirk behind the cup, thankful for the distraction from Rhys’ narrowed stare.
“Clayton’s scholarship is state funded due to his criminal record. It’s not just the board of trustees and the investors who will get involved if he leaves, it’ll be the secretary of education. They will want a full report detailing my father’s failures and sitting right in the center of it, will be me.” Rhys grins, far too smugly for a man who’s planning to sink along with his own ship.
“If Clayton goes, you’ll get kicked out as well.”
“My being here is a means to an end. I never intended to stay.” A trace of his usual cockiness floods back. Spreading his legs, Rhys adjusts his posture and centers his focus on his cuticles. I could roll my eyes at the display, but dealing with Rhys’ self-destructive behavior will have to wait for another day.
“We’re not using anyone else as a pawn to get back at your father. There must be other ways.” Finally, Rhys relents and we stretch our brains to the depths of our imaginations, coming up with plans involving botched charity galas, press leaks, even straight up robbery from his private art collection. With every idea his shoulders drop, the tightness around his mouth loosening, the black edge of him softening into something I am becoming rapidly addicted to. I quickly find I’m not helping out of a necessity to save everyone else from his wrath, but because he needs someone to lean on. Because I want to be the person he seeks out this time and every time.
Easing the page from the notebook, I hand it over, content that I’ve done my bit. I’ve given Rhys plenty of ways to fulfill his need to harm, without causing pain to anyone else.
Kenneth has kept my coffee topped up, the latest cup burning hot as I sit back, cradling it in my palms. I sip gently, and it tastes like heaven, sweet enough to ease the edge in my chest. The shop buzzes around us, the echoes of the espresso machines hissing and a playlist of indie ballads humming through Rhys’ microphone. It’s dulled beneath the even sawing of his breath as he reads over what we’ve created and nods slowly.
“I’ll edge him out, make him see what he’s turned me into.” Rhys mutters, mostly to himself. My heart aches to watch Rhys shoulder his burdens alone, cocooning himself in hatred rather than see how broken he really is. Quirking my lips, I don the mask he usually wears.
“You do like a bit of edging.”
The corner of his mouth lifts and for the first time all morning, his face relaxes. Rhys shifts, rounding to my bench seat and pressing firm against me. His leg lines mine, his shoulder pressed close as long, inked fingers slip over my thigh. Taking my coffee, Rhys sips it himself, his throat working and limbs easing. It takes everything in me to pretend that the heat of him isn’t overriding my senses. That the patterns he’s tracing on my thigh aren’t carving themselves into my very being.
“May I offer an alternative approach? Something completely off script?” I tilt my head. With him so close, my chin practically rests on his shoulder. Rhys hums thoughtfully, leaning closer still until my lips are beside his ear. “Have you ever thought, instead of destroying your father’s legacy, you surpass it?”
Rhys stills, the cup in his hand forgotten. I’m glad I have his full attention, because I reckon I’m only going to get one shot at this.
“You could be so much more, Rhys. You’re smart, deceivingly so. And committed. At some point, maybe you should stop holding yourself back, pressed beneath his heel with nothing but devious plans to cut him at the ankles. You could see what you can be without anyone pinning you down. Maybe the best way to bury your father would be to drown him in your shadow. Don’t wound him, overthrow him.”
Rhys’ eyes lift to mine like he’s searching for the trick, the punchline where I laugh in his face and tell him he’s not capable of it. All he finds is quiet confidence and something I doubt anyone has ever given him. Encouragement. The entire cafe narrows to the distance, the warm steam and clatter receding until I hear nothing but the faint thump of my own heart. Every tiny intake of air he takes sends a ripple through my ribs. His fingers pause on my thigh, the pads of them pressing in a way that is both ownership and question, and I answer by curling my hand into his t-shirt, clinging with the plea to believe in himself.
Rhys leans in a fraction, and the warmth of him spills across my cheek, his jaw brushing against my skin as if he is deciding whether he can cross an invisible line he set himself. Tilting his head upwards, he presses the tenderest kiss to my temple.
“I’ll consider it,” Rhys mumbles into the microphone, his tone hoarse.
“Thank you,” I beam a genuine smile. Releasing his t-shirt, before we end up becoming a scandal on the student portal ourselves, I remove the cup from his hands and nudge him out of the booth. “And now we’re finished with your crisis, you need to help me with mine. The library is calling.”
“Oh, I actually have a thing—” Rhys tries to duck out but I grab his hand, hiking my backpack onto my opposite shoulder and tug him towards the exit. He digs in his heels like a petulant child, knowing full well this mama isn’t opposed to a bit of spanking. On full grown men that beg for it, that is.
“Too bad. It’s my turn for a pre-life crisis.”
Chapter Thirty Four
Leaning back with a frustrated huff, I slam the laptop shut and press the heels of my hands into my eyes. One more line of my thesis and I’ll claw my own brain out. I’ve been slipping lately, but not because I don’t care. It’s because every time I try to focus, a pair of green eyes and the curve of a body that fits against mine too damn perfectly hijacks my concentration.
I’ve started looking forward to sleep, because at least in dreams I get to relive that night. Our date plays on a loop in my head, over and over. And in those dreams, I’m someone else entirely. A man with no scars, no shadows, no weight dragging behind me. A man who takes Harper on picnics, drives her through town in some classic car with the top down, shows her off to the world instead of hiding her in the dark. Waking up has become a cruelty.
The dorm is quiet today, Kenneth off dealing with some family crisis. Perfect conditions for catching up on work. Or it should be. Instead, I’m standing at the window watching a group of guys kick a ball around on the lawn. Their laughter carries through the glass, jeering and playful taunting leaking in. Thesetting sun slants across the field, dipping low, dragging the day down with it.
Not for the first time, I wonder what it would feel like to join them. To grab a beer afterward. To be someone who doesn’t feel like every laugh is borrowed from a life that isn’t his. Would Jeremy think I was insulting his memory if I tried? Or would he tell me to stop punishing myself and live a little? Lately, the question has shifted. It’s not ‘What would Jeremy do?’anymore. It’s ‘What would Harper’s dream man do?’And that’s an impossible mantle to live up to.
