Page 28 of Read My Lips

Angling towards me, Simon frowned. Opening his mouth, he turned to Matt again, and closed it. He knew enough to go voice off, even if he had to pick his signs carefully. “I thought you grew up with it, because of your mum?”

Shit.

“I— Did.” I hadn’t been lying exactly. But now he thought I had. Fantastic.

“His grandparents are oralist bastards.” Matt leaned against the wall, signing slow and relaxed, settling in for a good chat.

Irritation itched up the back of my neck. How many times had I asked him not to say that?

“Anyway.” I made a grab for Simon’s wrist, practically towing him up the stairs. Away from Matt. Because we fundamentally disagreed everyone in the world had the right to every scrap of personal information about you the moment you met. If we stayed down here much longer it was odds-on he’d outright ask Simon why he didn’t fancy me.

“We’ve got work stuff. Sorry,” I signed, pulling out my regretful face. “I’ll have to leave you to the packing.”

Matt sent me a theatrical eye-roll. “Slacker.” He bumped his fist against Simon’s shoulder, gesturing in my direction. “Make him work really hard, yeah? Good to meet you.”

Upstairs, I steered Simon to my bedroom, feeling more like a teenager having his mate over than a successful adult entertaining his boss. At least I’d picked up after myself this morning.

“Wow.” Simon drawled. He raised an eyebrow, already pacing around my space as I made sure the door was firmly closed. He was touching things. Adjusting them. Picking them up. “Did you Marie Kondo in here?”

“What?”

“You know – the Japanese Mary Poppins with an extreme tidying fetish and a grave misunderstanding of why anyone owns books.”

The heat in the back of my neck renewed itself with vigour. Bare walls and mostly empty shelves. Simon had a point.

“No.” Self-consciously, I rammed a handful of scattered papers on the desk into a box file. “I… I don’t have a lot of stuff. “

This was why I didn’t want him in the house, looking around at all the gaps people filled with all the somethings and the nothings they liked and cherished and wanted to hold onto.

“This is just—This is me.”

Simon’s face contorted awkwardly, like I’d told him I also used my toothbrush to clean the grouting in the shower, but he didn’t want to be rude about my personal hygiene choices.

“You should consider getting some art work.”

He’d probably have grouped my three tattered paperbacks and my hand exercisers in a deeply intentional, minimalist arrangement. But I didn’t know how to do that. It wasn’t artistic and considered. It was empty.

“What, like a horse with a moustache?”

Simon barked a glorious laugh, and picked up my copy of James and the Giant Peach, leafing fondly through the soft yellowed pages. “I didn’t have you down for childhood nostalgia.”

Taking it off him, I set it firmly in its place on my bedside table. “It was a present from Mam.”

Simon’s eyebrows hitched upward. This time I felt like the butt of the joke. “Recently?”

“None of your business.”

The walls were obnoxiously bare. Posters had felt too studenty and Gran’s voice echoed in my ear telling me Bluetack would pull off her paint. Waste of money. What did I need posters for? At a push, I could pack everything I owned into the duffle bag stuffed under my bed, heft it up on my shoulder and walk out. I’d done it before.

It’s not like I asked him to come and discover the emptiness that was my life.

“Why are you here, Simon?”

“I’m picking you up. Do you have a bag packed?”

Wait, what?

Simon sighed at my blank expression. “I did text.”