Without a doubt, p.14
Without a Doubt, page 14
“I don’t think it’s a sob story,” Rhys said quietly. He understood what Carter was saying—to be part of something—and yet alien. To be welcomed, but too damned afraid of your own failings to let yourself fully dive in. “I get it.”
Carter grinned again, though it didn’t reach his eyes, and he shrugged. “I finished all four years in ASL, and Gabriel and I use it all the time. And I’ve been trying to get more comfortable being without these.” He brushed his hand over his naked ear. “It’s just…scary.”
“We can do something else if you want,” Rhys said, leaning in closer without really thinking about it. His hand lifted, and he brushed his fingers over the edge of Carter’s curls where they hung close to his earlobe.
Carter swallowed so heavy, Rhys could hear the way it caught in his throat. The moment was charged. It was like he was standing at the edge of a cliff, and the future was waiting below, begging for him to jump.
After a beat, he pulled back, and he saw Carter’s shoulders sag—though he wasn’t sure if it was from relief or disappointment.
“I want to do this,” Carter said.
Rhys smiled at him—forcing it wider than he was used to, but he saw the way Carter noticed. The way his pupils dilated just a fraction. “Then let’s do this.”
He gave Carter the privacy to turn off his implant, stepping out of the car and moving to the back to get the lunch bags. The man was still in the car as Rhys unlocked the straps, and he had just gotten the kayak to the ground when the door slammed, and Carter offered him a tentative smile.
‘Carry the paddles?’ Rhys asked, spelling more than signing.
Carter nodded, then reached for them as Rhys hefted the kayak by the front seat and balanced it on his shoulder. He hadn’t done enough weights for the job to be easy, but the path was short, and soon enough, his sandals sank into moss as they reached the end of the launch. He heaved it to the ground, then steadied it with his hand as he looked over his shoulder.
“Have you,” he started, then stopped and shook his head. He hooked his foot around the bar, then lifted his hands. ‘Have you done this before?’
Carter laughed then pinched two fingers to his thumb. ‘No. I have never been able to afford a kayak trip.’
Rhys’ heart wrenched with something like guilt over what he had and what Carter had been denied. But they had this—they had this moment now. ‘It’s fairly easy. We just have to keep rhythm, but the water here is calm.’
Carter nodded, following Rhys’ stuttered signs, then he threw the lunch bags into the back before shuffling forward. “So just,” he said aloud, his voice quiet and almost unsure, “get in?”
Rhys nodded his fist. ‘You sit in back and follow my lead. Okay?’
Carter offered him a thumb’s up, then grabbed Rhys’ arm in an iron grip before stepping in. The kayak swayed and dipped, and Carter sucked in a breath, but it only took a second for him to get seated. When he was secure and the kayak swayed again, he laughed—full throated and beautiful.
The sun glinted off his shades as he pushed them high on his nose, and it was then Rhys realized that he was completely gone. It was too late to pull back. He wanted Carter—desperately—and he didn’t think the feeling was entirely one-sided.
Taking a breath, Rhys turned and got in, determined not to think about it right then. He wanted to enjoy this day—to give something to Carter for being a better man than he’d ever deserve to know—and not think about what that could mean. Or what he wanted that to mean.
Digging his paddle into the water, Rhys glanced over his head, nodding at Carter before he picked up the rhythm. He could feel the other man struggle to match it, but it wasn’t long before he got the hang of it, and the kayak ate up the distance. The sun was high overhead, warm with the promise of getting hot later in the afternoon, but for now, it was perfect. The moment felt lost in time, like they could be anywhere, be anyone, and nothing would take away from how well they fit.
The silence wasn’t heavy, and it wasn’t important. Just being there made Rhys felt like he’d done something right for the first time in years.
Nearly an hour passed before they reached the little bank. The shores were sandy and covered in shells, and the seagulls not far off were a cacophony of noise. He couldn’t help but glance back at Carter whose gaze was fixed out over the horizon, and he wondered what it would be like to experience it all without the pressing volume of sounds.
Maybe it was terrible, but maybe it was peaceful.
Maybe it was neither.
Maybe, he thought as they rode up onto the sand, it was a little bit of both.
Rhys set the paddle down, then planted his feet in the shallow bank before turning and offering his hand. Carter didn’t hesitate when he took it, his palm a little sweaty and warm, and he didn’t hurry to let go, either. Rhys’ heart gave a little drumbeat against his insides, and he swallowed back all the words he wasn’t brave enough to say.
But he wondered if maybe he would. Maybe he could find a way to make this work—to at least try.
He barely knew Carter, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t ignore the way the man had made him feel where so many others had been nothing more than a void.
‘Hungry?’ Carter asked when Rhys looked at him again.
He smiled softly and nodded, watching his firm, round backside as he bent over to retrieve their food. His cock didn’t move, but he felt a warmth that had been absent for so damn long, and he wondered how much it would take to get him actually worked up. Maybe if he’d managed to get there himself—to find joy again in touching himself—it wouldn’t feel like such a climb, but he knew it was going to be work.
And he couldn’t expect anyone—not Carter, not some nameless, faceless stranger—to be patient with him until he got there.
Feeling suddenly low, Rhys turned away and found a shady spot under a small collection of tall trees. He brushed a handful of bigger shells out of the way, then settled down and waited for Carter to join him. The man looked a little hesitant, but he still sat in the cleared space Rhys had made for him, and he drew one leg up toward his chest.
‘Are you okay?’
Rhys almost laughed because no one had really been able to read him before. Not like that, not even Henrik. “Yeah,” he breathed out, then shook his head and rubbed a fist in a circle over his chest. ‘Sorry. It’s a habit.’
Carter’s brow furrowed, and his lips curled through the letters as Rhys spelled habit out, then he blinked in surprise. ‘What is?’
‘Voice,’ Rhys signed, his V at his throat. ‘I don’t forget. I just default to voice, and I don’t mean to.’
Carter scoffed aloud and waved him off. ‘Me too. I was friends with this girl in college. She lost her hearing from some infection when she was in elementary school, and her parents got her implants immediately. She said she spent all her time re-learning how to hear for so long, but it was hard because she couldn’t keep them on all the time. And in those silent spaces, she felt lost.’
Rhys followed Carter’s signs, which were slower than some of the sign-fluent people he’d met during his studies, but far more graceful and practiced than his own. It made him wonder why Carter was down on himself and his skill when it was clear the language was at the tip of his fingers like it belonged there.
‘Is that how you feel?’ he couldn’t help but ask.
Carter shrugged. ‘I did. Even in the club, I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be part of it. They never made me feel that way,’ he added in a hurry, like Rhys might think it was their fault. ‘I just don’t think…’ He stopped and licked his lips. ‘Imposter syndrome,’ he spelled slowly.
Rhys knew it well. More than he ever liked to think about, but it was an old friend. He never felt worthy or smart enough or good enough to do the things he was doing. He was stuck in the ‘fake it’ mode of fake it ‘til you make it, and he hadn’t quite figured out how to reach his goal. Even with Viggo’s health declining, and his death, Rhys had showed up, but it had always felt like he was going through the motions.
‘She told me one of the things that helped was going without her implants. To class with her interpreter, to the store, to work.’ Carter chewed on his lower lip and glanced down at his feet before stretching his legs out. His body was gorgeous. He was young and lithe, and he looked so strong. Rhys fought the urge to reach out and touch him again. ‘To get comfortable in the silence,’ he went on. ‘I feel like when I choose sound, I’m betraying my deafness, and when I choose silence, I’m letting my parents down.’
‘I wish I knew what to say to help,’ Rhys offered. It was nothing more than a placation because that was something he’d never understand. He had known from the beginning that no matter how he acted or what he accomplished, he would never be enough for his father. The man had cared about no one but himself, and Rhys could only take joy and pride in how far he’d come in not being anything like that man.
That monster.
‘I don’t need advice,’ Carter answered him, his teeth showing with his smile. ‘I just mean…this is nice. Being able to be this,’ he waved his hand at his ear, then out toward the water. ‘I don’t feel pressured to be anything else with you.’ When the words spilled from his hands, there was a look on Carter’s face—something like surprise and a little bit like horror. And eventually, resignation. Stillness settled down on them, and then Carter crossed his legs and leaned a little closer. ‘Did you love your husband?’
Rhys blinked at him in surprise. ‘Yes.’ His hands hesitated, because that had been true, but Rhys had always wondered if he was even capable of loving someone enough—the way they deserved to be. ‘We had a quiet relationship.’
Carter cocked his head to the side and raised his brows, asking without words or signs what he meant.
‘V and I were mostly together because we were friends. And we had good sex,’ his hand trembled a little because it felt almost taboo to be talking about that with Carter. But in that moment, it was impossible to see him as anything other than someone who could reach into his chest and touch his heart. ‘I don’t think we’d be married right now if he hadn’t died. He wanted me to be…different.’
“Different,” Carter said aloud. He reached forward for the food, fiddling with the bags, then opening them to pull out sandwiches and little containers of chopped fruit. “Like an anger issues, or…?”
Rhys felt his cheeks heat up. ‘I know what it must sound like, but I promise I don’t get angry like that often. I will never forgive myself for the way I talked to you.’
Carter bowed his head, then nodded before he looked up. ‘Why me?’
Rhys realized what those two signs were asking. Why had Rhys lost his temper at him? Why not someone else? ‘Because you made me feel vulnerable.’
Carter pulled back a little, then dragged his tongue over his lower lip. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rhys confessed, and that might be the most honest thing he’d said in a long while. ‘It’s not a bad thing.’ He looked down at the sandwich Carter had put near his knee, which allowed him to choose when he was ready to eat. It was very…him. A subtle, unobtrusive thing. It was something a PA might have done after working with him for far longer than a few weeks—who had learned his smaller, almost pointless little quirks.
And it felt important. It felt timeless.
‘I have a benefit to attend Wednesday night,’ Rhys signed after a long while. Carter had his sandwich halfway to his mouth, and he froze. ‘It’s a charity thing. Dancing, drinking, an auction. Most of the people use it as an excuse to spend an absurd amount of money on vacation packages they can write-off because they donated a couple grand to our housing fund.’
Carter took a slow bite, then set the sandwich down and swiped his hands on the sides of the board shorts. ‘Okay. Do you need help with something? I can shop if you need a new tux or…?’
‘I want you to come with me,’ Rhys told him. His heart was in his throat, but he didn’t care. ‘As my…’ his fingers hovered in the air a long moment, ‘guest.’
It wasn’t what he wanted to say. He knew the sign the word he wanted to use, but he didn’t know Carter well enough yet, and he couldn’t risk it.
Carter’s lips curled around the word guest, then the corner of his mouth lifted. “Okay,” he said aloud, “I’d love to be your guest. Though you should probably know I don’t have, like, some fancy Gucci suit.”
At that, Rhys laughed—a nervous thing bubbling up out of his throat. He watched Carter’s eyes trace the line from his chin to his chest, then back up again, like he was drinking in the sight of the sound he was making. In that moment, Rhys would have given anything for the ability to look into the future and see if this moment led him on the path to crash and burn.
But he supposed the waiting, the anticipation, the not knowing—that was all part of the journey.
‘I’ll give you the details tomorrow,’ he promised.
Carter just grinned at him again, then nudged him and jutted his chin at the sandwich. Another small, subtle thing, and god…Rhys loved it.
14
Carter spent all of the next day losing his damn mind and replaying every single second he’d spent with Rhys. He’d woken up early, and at best, was hoping to put the man in a good mood by making breakfast. He hadn’t expected that to snowball into a kayak trip, or subtle, careful touches that were far beyond friendly.
Or the date, because he had seen the delicate way Rhys had signed guest like he meant something else.
Like he meant more.
Panic had set in and hadn’t left him since Rhys dropped him off at his building and drove away. His apartment was empty. Gabriel had cleaned up a little before he left and left his missing implant in the center of the coffee table. Carter didn’t bother with it, instead putting them both on his nightstand and letting himself just exist as he was.
He felt braver after his afternoon with Rhys. He felt more like the person he was always trying to find in the tangled web of his own insecurities. And he wasn’t sure what the hell to do with that because he’d been down this road before.
He wasn’t quite sure if Rhys was trying to make up for the way he’d been terrible on the date, or if the man truly didn’t remember, but he didn’t stare at Carter like a person trying to keep a secret. He never looked like he was worried Carter had figured it out.
So maybe this was it—a fresh start for him, for them.
Rhys texted him later in the afternoon with the information about the charity benefit. It was being held at the resort he’d picked Rhys up from, and it was black tie formal.
Rhys: If you need something new, charge it to the company.
Carter did need something new, but he wasn’t sure he was brave enough to do that. Maybe Rhys’ other assistants did, but he wasn’t quite sure that made it better considering he knew this was a date. Or at the very least, both men wanted it to be. And Carter had no plans of keeping the night platonic, if Rhys was willing to cross the line with him.
Carter: Wouldn’t that be like…taking advantage? And anyway, I’m not sure I’d even know where to start. Maybe this is a terrible idea.
Maybe he was being too fucking insecure. It wasn’t exactly an attractive quality in a man, and having some sort of middle school breakdown over a tux on a Sunday afternoon was hardly a come-hither statement. And when Rhys met him with absolute silence, Carter started to actually panic.
He had Gabriel’s number on the screen when a text came through half an hour later.
Rhys: I’m outside. All you need is your phone.
Carter’s heart was thrashing in his chest as he tucked his phone into his pocket, shoved his feet into his untied shoes, then stumbled out the door. Rhys hadn’t been lying. He was parked at the curb, the engine idling, the passenger window down.
He looked less casual than he had the morning before when they hit the water, but he wasn’t the buttoned-up CEO either. His polo was worn and looked soft, his glasses perched high on his nose which almost covered up the quirk in his brow, and his lips were soft.
‘Hi,’ he signed through the open window.
Carter smiled at him, holding back a laugh as he wrenched the door open and climbed in. “What are you doing?”
“Stopping the madness,” Rhys said, the left side of his mouth rising a little bit. “We’re going suit shopping.”
Carter reached for the door handle again out of sheer panic, but he felt the vibration against the panel when Rhys put the Jeep in drive, and it locked. “Don’t, Rhys. Please.”
“I’m under orders,” Rhys said as he pulled onto the main road and took the first right turn, which Carter knew led to the strip of designer stores a few miles north. “Henrik threatened to…” He paused, and there was a faint pink to his neck. “I won’t repeat it, but let’s just say his threats were motivating.”
Carter couldn’t stop his laugh this time, though it bordered on hysterical because he was just starting to deal with the fact that he’d had an intimate date on the river with his boss, and now he was shopping for a suit for some posh night out.
With his boss.
His boss that he wanted to climb like a tree in spite of already having gone there and in spite of it blowing up in his face.
“The event is going to help raise money for our community,” Rhys said when Carter started to breathe a little more normally. “And while I can’t deny that most of the people who are donating it aren’t giving out of the goodness of their hearts, we have control over the funds. Which means that they actually will go to the community. And Carter”—Rhys took a breath, then ran his tongue over his bottom lip before he spoke again—“people like you. You’re charming, and you’re sweet, and you’re passionate. It’ll motivate them to donate more. Especially if you look like you fit in.”
Carter bit the inside of his cheek and fidgeted in his seat. “That’s…”
