Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (6 page)

He looked towards the booth and waved a hand to make sure they were listening. “Two pilots walk up the aisle of an aircraft. Both are wearing dark glasses, the man has a guide dog, the woman a white cane.

“Damon, um.”

That was Trent. Poor bugger. No wonder he didn’t know what to say. Damon went on. “Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin, but they enter the cockpit and the engines start up. The passengers glance around; searching for a sign this is a practical joke. Maybe they’re being punked, maybe there are cameras. When the plane starts to taxi, they begin pressing their call signs and shouting, but the attendants ignore them. The plane moves faster and faster down the runway and the people sitting in the window seats realise they’re headed straight for the water. They scream, and soon all the passengers are screaming and praying.”

He made an aeroplane out of one hand and flew it off the edge of the lectern. “At that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air.” There was no sound from the control booth. It’d be ironic if Trent and Georgia had picked now for a bathroom break.

“The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, the cabin service starts, and they retreat into their magazines and books, secure in the knowledge the plane is in good hands.” He dropped his hand. “Are you guys with me?”

“Yeah, um.” Trent again, sounding embarrassed still.

“Meanwhile, in the cockpit, one of the blind pilots turns to the other and says, ‘You know, Jane, one of these days, they’re gonna scream too late and we’re all gonna die.’”

Not a sound.

He’d been going for any chord of uneasy laughter.

“I thought you guys knew. I’m sorry to throw you for such a loop.” The door opened and he turned towards it. Two shapes, Trent and Georgia. “Hi, don’t feel bad. This is my fault. I should’ve made sure you knew.”

“It’s not in your profile,” said Trent. “We checked it when we knew Pinetti hired you.”

“You’re right. I’ve never needed it to be. I’ve got enough close vision with the right lighting to read my big print, and I use digital audio to memorise short copy. It’s my distance vision that’s shot and I generally don’t need that to work. But I do owe you an apology. I’m having a bad day. I would normally have gotten through this no problem and you’d have never needed to be any the wiser.”

More silence constructed from awkward, then a soft hiccup of laughter from Georgia.

“Good joke,” she said.

“It is one of my better ones. I often tell it as Peter Graves, Captain Oveur from
Airplane
—
Flying High
, but I thought that might be too much, under the circumstances. He gave them a line from the movie in his Peter Graves voice and Georgia laughed with less self-consciousness, Trent going with her too boisterously.

Damon breathed deeper. He hated sucker-punching them almost more than he detested fucking up in front of them.

“What kind of a bad day are you having?” Georgia said. “Can we get you anything?” She’d asked that before, sweet, but she was thinking headache tablets or a magnifying glass. He needed Lina with her white coat professionalism and her no-nonsense verdict. He needed to know what the prognosis was and plan to deal with it.

God
, he knew the answers to both those questions already. He’d held on to his residual vision far longer than Lina and her team of consulting ophthalmologists had thought possible given his condition, but the day when legally blind took on a darkly practical meaning was closer now than it’d ever been. He shook his head, trying to get focused on what he needed right now, and it wasn’t this job he was screwing up.

“You need Terry Blackhaver.” They were listening. “Terry is a local guy who does me. Occasionally I think he does me better than me, but don’t tell him that. Get Terry in here and I’ll cover his fee and square it with Ben. That way the client gets what they need and no one misses out.”

“What, um, no? You want us to hire a guy who impersonates you?” Trent’s disbelief was like an over-pumped basketball bouncing around the room.

“Yeah. Terry will do a good job in half the time it’ll take me to do a bad job. I can’t see the footage, so I can’t get the timing right. It’ll take you too long to splice it together and the interactivity will be an unworkable.”

“He’s the local guy? Are there others? Hell, I mean I guess it’s possible, but I never thought about it before,” said Trent.

“Three, that I know of. Not counting the comedians who do Vox. But Terry is a good guy. I’m happy for him to take the job.”

“What if we could time the script for you and you didn’t need to watch the vision?”

Damon turned towards Georgia. Her voice had a hesitant quality to it, as if she was expecting to be talked over or misunderstood. He’d noticed it earlier and assumed it was first day nerves, but maybe it was something more. “What are you thinking?”

“I know when you voice animation the audio comes before the vision.”

“Normally. Sometimes we come back to handle special scenes but yeah, voice tracks get laid after initial storyboarding. They match the animation to the voice.”

“But the client didn’t have that kind of budget. They shot to a script and need the audio to match. What if we were able to give you a signal in place of the vision as a cue?”

“What kind of a signal?” said Trent.

Damon put his index finger to his Bradley watch, felt for the two ball bearings that told him the time. Hiring Terry would work better and he could be pleading with Lina’s assistant to see Lina before lunch.

“Yeeeah.” He gave the word an infusion of scepticism and reluctance and put both hands on the lectern. What they all needed was for this little adventure to be over.

“What if I gave you a signal where the line needs to start and a physical beat to work to?”

He was set to query that when he felt a gentle press on the back of his hand. Georgia’s cool fingerprint.

“Like this.” She pressed again then followed up with four quick taps. He captured her hand, ice cold, and she sucked in a breath. She must’ve thought she’d offended him.

He wrapped her small hand in his bigger paw, half expecting her to snatch it back. “Like a metronome.”

The shape that was Georgia shifted, maybe she nodded, then she remembered. “Yes.”

He released her hand as Trent said, “Works for me.”

He could be camped out in Lina’s rooms or he could do this. Terry would probably love the income. He was a retired postman who’d won a radio station talent quest by impersonating Vox. The station had approached Damon to do a voice-off with him. Listeners were supposed ring in and vote for the right Captain Vox. It’d been fun and he’d let Terry win. He could give Terry another win. But Lina was going to give him bad news in that unruffled even tone that made him think of frozen desserts and brain freeze.

He was particular about his desserts. “Works for me too.”

Trent whooped and the door swooshed open and closed again. “Georgia?” She’d moved away after he let her hand go, but only one shape had left the room.

“I’m here.”

“How do you want to do this?”

She came around to his side of the lectern, but kept her distance. The monitor was dead ahead. “If you put your hand down like you did before, I can tap it.”

He did that and she edged closer. He smiled, now he could smell her freesia scent. She put her finger to the back of his hand.

“Do you know you smell like fresh washed sheets in the sun and strawberries with vanilla and icing sugar?”

She jerked her hand away.

“That’s a good thing. That way I know it’s you.”

“You really can’t see me?”

“You’re a shape, Georgia. I see you moving. If you were closer I’d see more of you but you’d still be blurry.”

“You don’t use a cane?”

“I do, collapsible. I didn’t need it to get here. I worried you, didn’t I?”

Her body shifted, she leaned away. “Trent and I, we’re both embarrassed. We could’ve helped you more.”

“I could’ve asked.” Not that he did often, though that might to need to change. His independence would be that much further compromised. And once he told Taylor, she’d think the idea of moving in was a cry for help. Fuck denial. He should’ve been more ready for this; he’d been too busy being busy and inventing excuses.

“I get the impression you don’t generally ask.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. Now he could admit how irritated they were. How hard it’d been to see the script on his tablet. How much he’d had to rely on Taylor to move around the last couple of days. The only good thing was he had time between his bookings to get his act together.

“Damon?”

“Sorry. I was miles away. What did you say?”

Silence. Movement. Maybe she shrugged, then remembered. “Ah, it’s not important.”

“Yeah, it is. Sound, voices, particularly the things people say, how they say them, they’re incredibly important to me.”

“Trent is setting up for us.”

“I’m sure he is. But that’s not what you said.”

“No.”

“Georgia.” Best dad tone, by way of school principal.

She huffed. “I said I didn’t think you often asked for help.”

Interesting. Perceptive. Not the first impression he usually made. “I’ll bet you thought I was drunk.”

“I.” She slapped something, a hand to a thigh most likely.

“Yeah, you did. Reasonable assumption.”

“You’re a terrible tease.”

“Guilty as charged, ma’am.” He tipped an imaginary ten-gallon hat on his good ole boy head. A little Jason Stackhouse idiot swagger. Georgia Fairweather wasn’t immune to charm after all. Knowing he could make her squirm made this moment less uncomfortable, for him at least. “And don’t you mean flirt?”

“I.” She sighed and slapped again. “I give up.”

He laughed. “You can’t give up. You had the idea of the century. Move in close to me and let’s see how this’ll work.”

She stepped closer, but they could still fit something skinny like Taylor between them. “Georgia, I’m blind, I’m not contagious.”

She edged closer, her breathing sharp. Taylor standing side on would still fit. He reached over and enfolded her far shoulder, shuffling her in to his side, but let go of her quickly, so she’d know it was more a functional touch than a familiar one. “You can outrun me. If you stick a foot out, I will fall over it.”

“You don’t have to…”

“What? Joke about it? I’ve been going blind since I was fifteen. I’m thirty-two. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it. Would you rather I flirt?”

She made a small sound of discomfort from the back of her throat.

“I guess that’s a no.” He waited, got nothing. “Difficult first day, huh.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to…”

He felt her shift, her arm brushing his. “Fly a plane? Heck me neither. But I’m willing to be guided by the screaming if you are?”

She laughed, that soft breathy sound she made, more polite than mirth. He’d like to hear her laugh properly, like she meant it, not like it was the socially acceptable thing to do. If she smelled like clean laundry and fresh fruit, what would she sound like let loose? What would she taste like if he licked her skin?

Trent gave them the okay. They started from the section he’d had trouble with. At first all he felt was her single finger with its one note beat. As the timing for the interactive voice and video sections got more complex she rested all her fingers on his hand, using her index finger to tap out the timing in advance of the line required. Her fingertips went from cool to warm on his skin. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to his memory of the script and the rhythm she gave him. It was an inadvisable workaround, stop start, and took longer than it should’ve, but they made a good team, and they got it done.

The last section was straight narration. Georgia pulled her hand away. “I’ll leave you to finish this.” She was almost shoulder to shoulder with him, taller than Taylor. She was looking straight at him. She had dark hair. He put a hand to it and she flinched.

“It’s okay.” He pulled his hand away but left it hovering. “I wanted to see if your hair was straight or curly.”

Her out-breath told him it was all right to move his hand again, just till it met the crispness of her hair. “Curls.” He smiled; she had slippery curls you could wrap your fingers in. “Are you beautiful, Georgia Fairweather?” The gasp, that little intake of breath trembling like hurt told him he’d gone too far.

“It’s okay to slap a blind guy if he gets too fresh. But you don’t wear a wedding ring so, I, ah, took the liberty. Tell me you don’t go out with a weightlifter, or a cop, or a Gypsy Joker, because it’s not okay for any of them to hit a blind guy.”

Why was he pushing this? She was clearly uncomfortable with him, but her strange mix of hesitancy and capability were intriguing. Women who liked him used the tactile thing as an excuse to get close; sometimes it was practical, stopped him walking into walls. Often it was close to predatory, a literal grab bag of wrong, like Umbria who’d had a hand in his pants pocket before they’d finished the production meeting.

He hadn’t had a woman he was genuinely interested in touch him in a way that transcended helping him move around for a long time. Too long. But he’d liked the feel of Georgia’s hand on his, how her skin warmed with the contact, how she forgot to stand stiffly and relaxed, no longer tensing if her elbow brushed his side. But they were done and he should stop torturing her.

“Thank you for helping me out of this professional car crash.”

“It was good to meet you, Damon.”

He nodded. “It was lovely to meet you too, Georgia. You survived me on your first day, maybe you will end up owning this place.”

He got that little hitch of breath that was her approval and it was cause and effect. He felt for her shoulder, ran his palm down her arm to her hand, lifted it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. He held on a moment too long, a moment past the shock that’d allowed him time to pull off that move. She lifted her hand away and her shape blurred, the door opened and he was alone.

He didn’t have any further contact with her. Either she stayed quiet while Trent finished up or she’d left the studio. Lauren organised a taxi for him and he went to Lina’s office. She took pity on him, in her frozen food way, but only after she made him apologise as Stewie Griffin from
Family Guy
to the patient whose appointment he was queue-jumping