not edited again, and the copy-pasting kind of messes up my formatting, for which, sorry!
Nick’s POV
“Nick! I’m out to see Stan!” Joey shouted through the apartment, not bothering to come and see if I was in my room.
“Be safe!” I yelled back, a grin taking over my lips when I heard her stomp to my bedroom and throw the door open to stick her head through the opening.
“I already told you, we’re not quite in that stage of our relationship, Nick.” She spat, shooting me an evil look when she spotted my grin. “Ugh, I hate you!” She’d long disappeared and was on her way to the front door but I couldn’t resist yelling another reply.
“Except that you don’t, dear sis!” A bout of laughter escaped my lips at her grunting before she slammed the door shut behind her.
“Joey?” Lars inquired once he had my full attention back on him. I nodded and quickly typed out what had happened just minutes before. We’d been skyping a lot lately, and usually we did okay with signing and lip reading, but sometimes, like today, the connection was kind of dodgy, making the images blurred and pixelated so it was difficult to communicate without typing. It was still nice to see him though.
It was easier to be here, now that Lars and I were talking again. We’d said goodbye with tight hugs and promises to keep in touch, both realizing it wouldn’t be easy but determined to make it work somehow. It did work, mostly. Skype was a wonderful invention and whenever either of us was bored, we’d take to WhatsApp to text back and forth.
Lars left a couple of minutes after, telling me he’d agreed to meet up with Kevin before going out. It stung, just a little bit. I knew very well what their relationship had been like before Lars and I had become a couple, and I wasn’t sure what it was between them now. I knew I wasn’t allowed to be jealous though, so I’d decided not to ask and just be a friend who didn’t care much about who Lars decided to sleep with. It wasn’t my business anyway, not really.
I shut down the skype window and opened the google play music app before I pulled up my dissertation. Not being distracted by boyfriends at least proved to be productive for my scientific credibility, something positive to soothe the burn. George Ezra’s deep voice came through the speakers along with the quiet guitar. My house in Budapest, my hidden treasure chest, golden grand piano, my beautiful piano. For you, you, I’d leave it all. I sang along under my breath while reading over the text I’d written so far, changing some words here or there. A more upbeat song came up after, but it didn’t accompany my mood very well, so I clicked a couple of buttons, pulling Budapest back up and putting it on repeat.
I was well on my way to melancholy when a ding announced an incoming skype conversation. I smiled when I noticed it was Zoe, grateful for the interruption. After saving the word document and stopping the music, I accepted the call. Her curls were matted, not as springy as usual, and she looked tired.
“Hey sweetie,” I greeted her. “Are you alright?”
She let out a humourless chuckle. “No, not really. But I was calling you in an attempt to be cheered up a bit, so if you don’t mind?”
“We’ll not talk about it then,” I decided, giving her a small smile through the computer screen. Instead, I told her about Joey’s hissy fit when she’d seen the bowl filled with condoms I’d put in our bathroom. She’d been properly hilarious. I’d thought about it, and I didn’t really want to know if she was ready to take things to the next level with Stan already, but I certainly wasn’t ready to deal with my sister getting STD’s or pregnant, so it seemed like an elegant solution. At first she’d been offended that I thought she’d do it with her boyfriend of three months (which was probably a testimony to her being an incredibly decent girl) and then she realised maybe I wanted to use them too, her face screwing up at the idea alone. I’d left her to believe it, although I wasn’t planning on sleeping with anyone, let alone start a new relationship. Zoe and I exchanged some more casualties, and I was glad to see she seemed a bit happier already, a small smile on her face and her eyes a bit less dull.
YOU ARE READING
Sign Language (BoyxBoy)
Teen FictionNick ends up in Belgium, of all places, after he desperately wants to get away from his cheating ex-girlfriend who was with him on a student exchange program in Sweden. He never expected to use his knowledge of sign language again, but that's his fi...
