Page 11 of Read My Lips

“Oh brilliant. Panic over.” I glared.

“Ben..?”

He didn’t get it, did he?

I ducked my head between my knees and pretended not to notice he’d tried to talk to me. Because the five years he had on me settled him nicely into Legitimate Adult and I was clinging onto Man-Child with both hands. He could wrench that out of my cold dead fists too, when my heart gave up beating.

I went freelance for him. What a total genius. We were both supposed to get a better deal without an agency taking a cut – stretch out his piss-take of an Access to Work funding cap a little further, and stop Mapp and Green cutting corners employing under-qualified jokers like the guy who faked his way through the Nelson Mandela memorial making up signs. But that all went up in flames if he got fired.

“Ben, I know you’re listening.” He cleared his throat, speaking louder and I cringed. His volume had been fine, but he was upping it for me and I knew it. “I’m sorry about the tie. The whole thing was… a mistake.”

We could have done mistake sex if he wanted mistake sex. I could have shown him an epically mediocre time he’d instantly regret. But that had never been on the table. When it came to me, all he wanted was a reliable interpreter for as many hours as he required. Because that was my job. And now I had to do what he paid me for – directly, and out of pocket – to cover all those hours not deemed strictly necessary to his ability to carry out the basics of his role by the government assessors.

He’d explicitly never asked for more. He didn’t owe me apologies. He’d only chosen me for work.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was in it. I should have come clean from the start instead of⁠—”

“Hoping I wouldn’t notice?”

“Yeah, alright.” He clunked his head against the glass wall of the shelter behind us. “It would have been simpler if you didn’t recognise me. You’d have plausible deniability instead of me having to ask you to lie.”

His eyes burned into mine, all earnest and soft-edged. “But it is going to be fine.”

How could it be?

“You’re my only client right now,” I signed. “You know that?”

“What?” Simon’s eyes boggled wide. “Why wouldn’t you have any other clients?”

Oh, so maybe it wasn’t totally fine after all.

“Funnily enough, I don’t have a teleportation device to let me mop up all the hour-long gigs I could be getting between your celebrity scandals and press conferences.”

He didn’t sign back, but his hand gestures got wild. “You have a day off from me. Every Wednesday.” Palms braced at the back of his skull, Simon stood, elbows up, throwing off the whole line of his suit. Never mind the breath mints. “Why haven’t you been working Wednesdays?”

“I visit my gran on Wednesdays.”

“Then weekends. Or evenings? Ben, that’s completely reckless.”

I laughed. Short and blunt and humour-free. “I’m reckless? I thought everything was going to be fine?”

Simon grimaced. His hands dropped to his sides like he’d forgotten how to hold his arms up. “Mel Booker called this meeting. Personally.”

A line of cold shuddered down the back of my neck. “Anything else you thought I didn’t need to know?”

Mel Booker was strictly hands off. She only cared about keeping Mapp and Green’s reputation perfect. This was as close to perfect as a chimpanzee’s rendition of the Mona Lisa.

“I imagine,” Simon said, “she’s looking for a scapegoat.”

I imagined she was looking for a herd of them.

“Ben, it’s very important I get in there to control the flow of information.”

“Jesus. What are you doing sitting by the side of the road with me, then?”

His eyes went all full and soft. “You have to know I’ve got no chance without you in there too.”

“Simon…” My gerbil-heart corkscrewed in my chest. That had to count as emotional blackmail.