What He Heard

Mason's shoes were gone from the entrance, and Eli had left a note about studying at the library.

For once, the suite was empty.

Cole set the umbrella in the shower to drain, then took one look at my damp sleeves and pointed me toward the bathroom.

“You first.”

I looked at his sweatshirt. Half of it was nearly black with rain.

“You're wetter than I am,” I signed.

“I'll change while you're showering.”

“You'll be cold.”

He caught my hand on its way down and pressed a quick kiss to my knuckles.

“I'll survive ten minutes.”

I stood there, looking at the place his mouth had touched.

His smile softened.

“Jamie?”

I looked up.

“Hot water. Before you start shivering.”

I pointed at his wet clothes.

“Yes,” he said patiently. “I will also take my own advice. It's a revolutionary afternoon for both of us.”

I laughed, shook my head, and went to get clean clothes.

His hand lingered at my waist when I passed him.

I turned toward it.

He let go at once, misunderstanding.

That small, immediate withdrawal made me want to reach for him even more.

Inside our room, he took a dry towel from the shelf and handed it to me. Then he stripped off his wet sweatshirt.

I looked at the ceiling with remarkable speed.

He noticed.

Of course he noticed.

“You've seen me without a shirt before.”

I continued studying a crack in the paint.

“Jamie.”

I looked at him despite myself.

He had put on a dry T-shirt. There was water in his hair, his cheeks were a little flushed from the cold, and the smile on his face was so familiar that it hurt.

Not in a bad way.

In the way something did when you had been looking at it for years and suddenly understood what it was worth.

“I'm ordering food,” he said. “We don't need to go back out. Take your time in the shower. I'll leave your warm clothes on the radiator. Just don't put them too close to—”

I stepped forward and kissed him.

It was quick. A press of my mouth to his, made slightly clumsy by the fact that I had to rise onto my toes.

When I came down again, Cole had stopped talking.

For perhaps the first time in our entire friendship.

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

The towel slipped off my arm and landed on the floor.

He didn't seem to notice.

“What was that for?” he asked.

I lifted my hands.

“I wanted to kiss you.”

He looked at the words, then back at my mouth.

His expression changed slowly, like he was afraid to move too fast and frighten the answer away.

“You can't just do that and expect me to remain normal.”

“You weren't normal before.”

He laughed once, breathlessly.

I smiled.

His hand rose to my face. This time, I turned my cheek into it.

“Careful,” he murmured. “I might start thinking you've decided to keep me.”

“I have.”

He went still.

I made sure he was watching before I signed the rest.

“I want to be your boyfriend.”

For a second, nothing happened.

Then he closed his eyes, and the smile that broke across his face was so unguarded that I felt it everywhere.

“Say that again.”

I rolled my eyes, but my hands were shaking a little when I repeated it.

He watched the whole sentence.

Then he took my hand and held it against his chest.

His heart was beating as fast as mine.

“Good,” he said, with a roughness in his voice I'd never heard before. “Because I was running out of ways to pretend I wasn't hoping every time you looked at me.”

“You weren't pretending very well.”

“I've been told.”

His thumb moved over my knuckles.

“Was it the umbrella?”

I thought about it.

“It was you getting wet.”

“I can arrange that again. The weather seems cooperative.”

I laughed and pushed lightly at his chest.

He stayed close, watching my face.

“It was before that too,” I signed. “I just needed to catch up.”

Cole's mouth softened.

“Apparently, we both did.”

I thought of the way he had always waited for me.

People who loved me had sometimes grown impatient with the space between a question and my answer. My parents weren't cruel, but I knew the look they exchanged when I reached for my phone at a crowded table. The little weariness. The conversation continuing before I had finished typing.

There were years when I made my answers shorter because it seemed easier for everyone.

Cole had never asked me to become smaller to keep up.

He could be arrogant, jealous, impossible. He had spent an entire week making a complete idiot of himself over another man buying me tea.

But he watched my hands. He waited for my face to change. When I laughed, he looked as though I'd given him something.

I had loved being understood by him long before I knew what else I wanted.

Now I wanted this.

I drew my hand from his chest, guided his palm to my waist, and pulled him closer by the front of his shirt.

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

“Again?” he asked.

I nodded.

This time he bent to meet me.

His lips were warm and softer than I expected. The first touch was careful. I leaned into the second, and his hand spread at my back, holding me close without trapping my arms.

I caught his shirt in both fists.

He made a quiet sound against my mouth.

For a moment, all the things I'd worried about seemed astonishingly far away. Ryan's theory. Cole's claims of heterosexuality. Whether wanting to sit between his knees had meant anything.

It had meant something.

This did too.

A small, uneven sound escaped my throat when he kissed the corner of my mouth.

He paused, his forehead resting against mine.

“I love your voice,” he whispered.

Heat flooded my face.

I loosened one hand from his shirt so I could sign.

“I didn't say anything.”

Cole smiled.

“I heard you anyway.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“What did I say?”

His thumb brushed my cheek, over the place he'd bitten days earlier. Then he looked into my eyes with a certainty that made my heart stumble.

“You said, ‘I like you, Cole Bennett.’”

I stared at him.

He looked unbearably pleased with himself.

I thought about correcting the translation. About making him nervous again, just a little, to repay him for the tea and the movie and every outrageous thing he'd told Ryan I meant.

Instead, I nodded.

His smile disappeared into another kiss.

For once, he had translated me perfectly.

The End