Page 12 of Love Lessons: Expanded Edition

But today he was hoping to meet people that he might see again. And the stranger’s gray eyes were so warm and excited. He decided to be honest.

Kind of. I’m hearing, but I have an auditory processing disorder. Signing is easier for me because there’s nothing blocking me from understanding when the language is visual. So I’m actually… He drew a line with his index finger from his ear to the top of his head, subverting the sign for DEAF to indicate the lack of connection between his brain and his hearing, instead of between hearing and talking. It was a joke, but it was also pretty accurate.

The stranger laughed. Makes sense. I’m excited to have somebody new to chat with.

It was a relief to be accepted so easily. And was the man leaning closer? Was that flirting? Dustin’s heart was racing in his chest.

I assume you’re going to the munch.The man fingerspelled the word and Dustin wondered if there was a sign for it.

I… yes. How did you know?

Most people don’t think so hard about walking into a restaurant for a burger.I’m also one of the organizers and I heard from Bruce that someone who uses ASL was coming. The stranger winked at him. That was definitely flirting.

But he wasn’t going to let himself think about what all of that flirting meant. Or about how attractive the man was. He was just here to gather information.

Dustin held open the door and gestured toward it with an “after you” motion. The man slipped past him.

With a sense of relief, he pulled out a little case and popped in his ear plugs as he walked across the restaurant. They served the dual purpose of cancelling a lot of the noise that he found so overwhelming and alerting people that he might not understand them speaking. There was nothing he hated more than someone assuming he could interpret, since he could sign and supposedly hear, and then having to explain that spoken English mostly sounded like a foreign language to him.

He slipped the case into his pocket and took a few longer strides to catch up. As the stranger moved in front of him, he let himself look. Just a little.

Even dressed in a loose t-shirt and casual jeans, the stranger's slim musculature was enticing. While Dustin had never really thought much about longer hair on men, he couldn’t help watching how the straight, pale tresses gently swayed with each of his steps. Instead of making him look feminine, it looked edgy. Like he was a skateboarder. Or maybe a rockstar.

He wove through the tables with a loose-limbed confidence that Dustin could never hope to emulate. Dustin followed him, assuming that he would know where to go.

But halfway across the room, he wheeled around, catching Dustin staring at his ass. Dustin felt his face go red.

Like what you see? He barely shifted his weight, but somehow he was posing now, one foot in front of the other and muscles popping in his arms.

Dustin wasn’t quite sure what to say. He did, of course, like what he was seeing. He’d always been attracted more to someone’s energy than to any particular gender, and just watching him walk was a turn on. But could he say that?

For some reason, the man seemed to find his lack of response attractive instead of pathetic. He walked back a few steps to where Dustin was standing. Then he touched his back in a way that was something between a nudge and a bro-y slap between his shoulder blades, but then it lingered as the stranger guided him forward.

Together, they walked through an open doorway to a separate room at the back of the restaurant. About a dozen people sat around a long table with another dozen or so empty chairs still waiting. One of them looked up, and then a wave of greetings echoed through the room.

He couldn’t, fortunately, hear much of the conversation, but apparently the stranger was named Landon and he was quite popular with everyone here.

While Landon greeted people, Dustin slunk around and snagged a chair that was a few seats over from where the next person was sitting.

Landon went in for a few hugs, and Dustin noticed that the people he was talking to had figured out how to wait until Landon could see them to speak. Someone waved up and down to get his attention, and then waited until he turned. It was nice that the group seemed to know how to accommodate Landon’s Deafness, or at least as much as they could without signing.

Dustin needed a moment to observe. He was normally a confident person, but mostly because he arranged things so that he was communicating on his terms. Usually that meant avoiding crowds of new people and either using email and chats, like he did at work, or occasionally finding Deaf friends.

He expected Landon to join the main group, but instead he pulled out the chair next to Dustin and settled into it, his long legs stretching out, thighs spread, while he slouched against the back. He looked utterly relaxed and yet completely present.

Dustin, meanwhile, could feel how tense his muscles were. He was sitting straight up in his chair, hands clenched on his knees, and he willed himself to relax his arms.

Landon grabbed an onion ring from the basket that was just slightly too far away for Dustin to reach, and then swung toward him. I just realized that I don’t know your name.

I’m Dustin, he fingerspelled, and then tapped a D to the middle of his chest as his namesign.

Landon gave his name in return, fingerspelling and then pressing an L to his temple.

Nice to meet you, Dustin. Since you’re new here, I just wanted to say that everyone’s really friendly, and you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to. If it gets too loud or busy or anything and you need to take a break, everyone will understand.

You don’t need to explain yourself to anyone, he continued, and you can ask questions, but people also have the right to not answer them. It’s better if you ask general questions, and people can choose if they want to share more personal information. Or, you can just hang out. So, any questions so far?

Dustin sucked in a breath, then forced himself to let it out slowly. He hadn’t thought far enough ahead to prepare questions. Now he was wondering if all of Landon’s flirtatiousness was just the performative cheer of a group organizer.