Sign Me Up by Dulcie Dameron
Parker
be monumental. A springboard for change. A day to trump all other days. At least, that’s what I built it up to in my mind. But now that I’m alone at my desk staring at the computer screen in front of me after Stefan’s announcement, I’m feeling a bit on edge.
Extracurricular employee adventures? It almost seems like someone put our boss up to this because there’s no way he’d willingly subject himself to spending time with those he deems beneath him. Stefan isn’t a terrible boss, but he’s also not the greatest. And he never goes out of his way to give one of his employees a kind word. Yet now we’re just supposed to believe that he suddenly wants to boost employee morale?
Yeah. Okay.
I’m not about to say anything about it, though. I can’t afford to get fired. At least not until my dream of becoming a best-selling author comes to fruition. As a deaf man in a hearing society, my work options can be limited. You’d be surprised at the number of jobs where you have to actually be able to use your sense of hearing. Plus, there’s no way I’d relinquish the perfect excuse to get to be with Jamie every single day.
It’s been exactly six weeks since she dumped that poor excuse for a boyfriend, Mike, and I’ve patiently bided my time. These past few weeks have felt like an eternity as I’ve watched her get over him.
Am I being dramatic? Possibly. But I’ve been in love with Jamie almost since the day I met her. So having to watch her go on date after date with a guy who didn’t appreciate her ate me up inside.
I knew Mike didn’t deserve her from the moment she shared one of their text conversations with me, asking my advice. Apparently, Jamie had asked if he wanted to hang out with her one night, and he’d blown her off in the worst way ever, saying he couldn’t because he had to give his cat a bath.
Really, dude? Give your cat a bath?
I sigh and lean back in my chair, lacing my hands behind my head. I should’ve asked Jamie out the second I knew she was single a year ago, before she started dating that tool, Mike, but my own insecurities and the fact that we’re co-workers kept me from speaking up. I’ve never been in a serious adult relationship. Never even had a girlfriend, unless you count Ella, my first love. But we were only in junior high and that was a long time ago.
As a twenty-four-year-old deaf guy who’s never been really and thoroughly kissed, I wouldn’t exactly classify myself as prime boyfriend material. But Jamie just gets me. Not only has she been relentless in trying to bring me out of my shell since I started working at the Gazette, she’s also been equally committed to learning ASL on her own time. She works at communicating with me like no one ever has.
Sign language may not come naturally to her, but that she puts so much effort into learning how to interact with me speaks volumes. Out of all the Gazette employees, she and Stefan were the only ones to attend the ASL class he paid for. She still doesn’t think she’s good at it, but she understands way more than she gives herself credit for.
Plus, she’s hilarious and we share a similar sense of humor. I knew very early on in our friendship that she needed a friend in the office as much as I did as a newbie. Since I started working here, we’ve shared countless inside jokes and enjoyed laughing at the ridiculousness of our co-workers on the regular.
Basically, we have a blast together.
And that’s why I worked up the courage and decided that today would be the day to tell her how I feel. My older brother, Dane, insists that three weeks is enough time to wait to ask a girl out after she ended her previous relationship. And since he’s a serial dater with way more experience than me, I listened.
But now that Stefan dumped this weird employee socialization thing on us, the timing doesn’t feel right. And I can’t even bring myself to replay the awkward moment when Jamie went flying back in her chair. I was honestly more concerned for her well-being than with what I saw, but now the pink and lace image has a hold on my mind, and I can’t shake it loose. Nor could I pass up the opportunity to tease her about it.
Then there’s Jamie and Lucas’s exchange in the lunchroom... We’re not a couple, she’d said. Even though it’s the truth, I can’t deny that her words stung. It didn’t seem like she put much force behind them, but still. She did grimace after Lucas said it, which doesn’t seem promising.
Did that admission mean that she doesn’t want us to be a couple? Ever? That the very idea disgusts her?
My mind is working double time, trying to convince my heart that I should wait to confess my feelings, at least until I’m more sure she’ll reciprocate. I run a hand through my hair, frustrated. A day that was supposed to be epic has now dwindled to a big disappointment.
A light tap on my shoulder startles me and I whip around to see a wide-eyed Jamie staring down at me. “I’m sorry,” she says with a frown. She knows I hate when people come up behind me unawares, but sometimes it can’t be helped. Like right now when I’m so lost in thought about her that I wasn’t paying attention.
It’s OK, I sign back to her with a smile. I want her to know that she’s not the one at fault.
“Ready?” she asks as she pulls her purse strap higher onto her shoulder. I sign yes before turning back to my desk and powering down my computer for the day. I grab my jacket from the back of my desk chair and follow Jamie toward the exit.
This is, by far, my favorite time of day. The two of us walk out of work together every day that she doesn’t have to leave early on assignment. It’s a habit I hope we never break.
Lucas eyes us as he leaves his own cubicle, but I ignore him. Who cares if he thinks we’re a couple. Maybe with any luck, one day we will be.
As I follow Jamie out to the elevators, it’s hard not to focus on the gentle sway of her curvy hips or the way her cropped jacket hits right at the top of her waist. But I don’t. Because my mom raised me to be a gentleman. Full disclosure, though…Jamie does bring me to distraction.
Her strawberry blonde hair falls past her slender shoulders, and her bluish-gray eyes constantly beckon me to get lost in them. Her perfect nose with a little bump in the center is peppered with freckles that get more prominent as she spends more time in the sun. And most distracting of all is her mouth.
And, ironically, it’s the one part of her that I’m forced to stare at. All. The. Time.
I’ve always been a good lip-reader, being the only one of my family with a sensory difference, and have relied heavily on the skill to understand what people are saying since I’ve been a child. But Jamie’s lips have me thinking about way more than just what she’s saying.
Her mouth is a bit downturned with a full bottom lip and a very prominent cupid’s bow on top. She has this little freckle that lives just above her top lip, and it drives me absolutely crazy. It doesn’t help that she usually wears dark, moody lip colors that accentuate every delicious nuance of her lips.
I could easily go into heavy detail but I won’t since those thoughts aren’t exactly rated G. I would wager that they’re more of the PG-13 variety. That is, assuming there’s making out with your best friend in PG-13 movies. I wouldn’t exactly know since I was banned from watching anything over PG growing up (to say that my brothers and I were sheltered would be an understatement). Besides, I’m more of a reader, so my TV watching is limited to the romcoms that Jamie forces me to watch when we have the occasional movie night.
We make it to the elevators, and I hit the down button as we slide inside. In seconds, we’re on the lower level of our small business complex, headed outside. As I hold the door open for her, the late afternoon sun instantly warms my face. When we make it to Jamie’s car, we stop and face each other.
Her hair shines in the late afternoon light, drawing my eye, as does her pleasantly upturned mouth. Everything about her makes her beautiful to me, but her beauty goes way beyond what a person can see on the surface. She’s sweet and thoughtful underneath that mildly grumpy exterior, and her sass keeps me in stitches. I can tell she feels things deeply and gets a little anxious sometimes. Every once in a while, I catch her biting her thumbnail or wringing her hands, a sure sign that she’s experiencing anxiety. On those days, I make an extra effort to lighten the mood and make her smile.
“So,” she starts, looking up at me with her stormy eyes and drawing me away from my thoughts. “What do you think of Stefan’s announcement?”
I shake my head and shrug, signing, I think he’s been possessed.
It looks like she snickers as she signs, What?
Possessed, I sign again, then convulse and roll my eyes back in my head, acting out something taking over my body. When she slaps my arm, smiling, I stop.
I don’t like it,I sign. But I’m glad it wasn’t something worse, like layoffs.
Her eyes widen and she nods. “Me too.”
Neither of us make a move to communicate for almost a minute when the urge to tell her what I’d planned to at the beginning of the day grows rapidly within me. I hadn’t envisioned telling her while we’re in the parking lot at work, but with the way the sun is hitting her hair, the moment feels right.
Just as I’m about to bring my hands up to speak, she steps back and opens her car door. “See you tomorrow?” she signs.
Disappointment clamps around my heart like a vice, but I dip my chin and offer her a one-handed wave. She smiles and slips into her car’s front seat and just like that, the moment is gone.
Once again, I’m questioning if I’m the right kind of guy for Jamie. If I can’t even work up the courage to tell her how I feel, do I really deserve her?
I turn and head for my truck, second-guessing everything.
“How did it go?” Dane signs almost the moment I step through the door. I shrug off my jacket and hang it on the hook by the door, then remove my shoes. My brother is anal about tracking dirt around the hardwood floors of our shared studio-style apartment in historic downtown Treemont. If I even take two steps with my shoes on, he’s waving his hands and chasing me around with his little Swiffer mop.
I ignore his question and go straight for the kitchen. If he’s going to poke and prod at the sore spot I’m nursing, and I already know he will, I’m going to need something cold to drink. Sometimes I wish his job as a senior commercial pilot didn’t allow him so many days off to annoy me.
Opening the fridge, I grab a Pepsi and pop the tab. I’m mid chug when Dane pushes on the arm that holds the drink to my mouth. Soda drips down my face onto the floor and I glare at him, wiping it away with my arm.
“I said, ‘How’d it go?’ he signs again with an exasperated look. I take a step back and point to the mess he made on his precious wood floor. He rolls his eyes as he grabs a dish towel, wets it, and cleans up the soda he made me spill. When he straightens, he crosses his well-defined arms over his swole chest. He’s not as tall as I am, but I can never get the kind of definition that he gets from the gym. Still, his muscles don’t intimidate me.
I’m not ready to talk about Jamie yet. Especially when there’s nothing to report.
“You didn’t tell her, did you?”
Dane’s question makes me wince. How can he always guess what I’m hiding? I’m convinced that reading people is one of his secret superpowers. Unlike me or our older brother, Logan, he can size a person up within the first two minutes of meeting them and his first impression is usually spot on.
I shake my head as I sign no. Telling her today just didn’t feel right. I don’t know if I can, I tell him honestly.
“What? Why?”
I look away, grinding my teeth. Dane doesn’t understand what it’s like to be me. He dates all the time and never lacks feminine attention. And though my appearance might interest some girls, as soon as they realize it’s harder to communicate with me than an average hearing guy, they retreat. Jamie is the first person since high school who’s gone above and beyond to be able to speak to me in a way I relate to. The first one who doesn’t treat me like I have a disability.
I don’t see my deafness as a disability at all. My mom and dad taught me to see it as a sensory difference, nothing more. True, I process things differently than others, but I am in no way disabled. And yet, that’s how I feel around most girls.
But Jamie hasn’t retreated and in the last year, we’ve grown close, but asking her for more brings up all the insecurities I’ve struggled with since high school. What if she doesn’t see me as boyfriend material?
I can’t say all that to Dane, though. He would do his brotherly diligence to reassure me I’m some great catch and have a lot to offer Jamie. So instead, I shrug one shoulder and sign, Not the right time.
I cross my arms, signaling that I don’t want to keep conversing with him, but that doesn’t deter my bull-headed brother. “Did something happen at work today?”
There he goes, reading between the lines yet again.
Reluctantly raising my hands, I sign, A co-worker referred to us as a couple and she denied it. I raise an eyebrow and harden my expression, daring Dane to come up with an alternate explanation for that one.
“I see,” he says as his gaze drops to the floor. His brow furrows deeply and I take that as my cue to finish the rest of my Pepsi. As soon as I crush the can and toss it in the trash, vibrations through the floor have me looking back at my brother. Stomping is just one of the ways my family uses to get my attention.
“Don’t read into what she said,” he says as well as signs. “You guys aren’t a couple. Not yet. She probably didn’t mean anything by it.”
I turn away and head for the couch, ready to pull out my laptop and get to work on the one thing I can control—my fictional characters’ lives. I may not be able to convince Jamie that we could be great together, but I can at least give my characters their happy ending.
When I plop down on the couch, the other end sinks too. I twist my head to the side and give my brother a deadpan look. I don’t appreciate the way his eyes soften at the edges. His sympathy isn’t welcome.
“I still think you need to tell her,” he says.
I roll my eyes, face forward, then grab my laptop from under the couch. Powering it on, I pretend like he’s not there. Of course, he’s not letting it go and taps my shoulder.
“You deserve to be happy, and Jamie sounds like a great girl,” he signs.
She is, I respond immediately because it’s true. Jamie is special. But what if I tell her how I feel, and she doesn’t feel the same? What would happen to our friendship? Would it be awkward between us? I couldn’t stand the thought of not having her to hang out with at the office.
Besides, I’m almost positive there’s some sort of unspoken rule at work about employees dating each other. I think that’s why Lucas keeps insisting that we’re already a couple, just so he has some fabricated dirt he can feed Stefan when his need for it arises.
Dane taps my shoulder again until I look at him. “Don’t let fear hold you back. Honestly, it sounds like she’s into you too.”
I don’t respond because I don’t know what to say. Dane’s only met Jamie once and it was in passing as he picked me up from work when my truck was in the shop. He’s only going off the things I’ve shared with him. There’s no way he can know for sure.
“Just think about it,” he signs before punching me hard in the arm. I try to kick him, but he hops up from the couch just in time with a growing smile. He makes his signature immature nah nah nah boo boo face and I throw the pillow at him while he goes back to the kitchen.
I click open the document I’ve been working on for the better part of the last six months and try to focus on where I’m at in the story. Dandrick has just rescued Lady Elyse from the evil King Volkien’s men. He’s doing his best to soothe her, but she’s still terrified.
As I consider how this pivotal moment in the story should unfold, Jamie’s mortified expression after she fell out of her chair flits through my mind. She was so embarrassed I witnessed her fall, but she shouldn’t have been. I was the one who scared her half to death. When I forced her to look me in the eye and her embarrassment melted into gratefulness, warmth spread through my chest. I’d like to think that my help and reassurance did that for her, that maybe me being there for her meant something.
If only I could get her to see me like that all the time. To give me a chance to be the one who catches her anytime she falls.