Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (7 page)

Minutes later the pressure of Lina’s hand on his shoulder was all the confirmation he needed. It was also all the sympathy he’d get from her.

“Your vision is down to, let’s not even give it a percentage. Have you been having headaches?”

“No.”

She moved away, behind her desk. “Anything unusual?”

He thought about it. Denial wasn’t a great supporter of self-awareness. “I’ve been sneezing, dry throat, feeling like I might get a cold.”

“Not related. Pollen count. Germs. Stress. Ordinary doctor stuff if it persists past over the counter support. I want to do a thorough examination but this confirms your thinking.”

He stood. He had what he needed and the
Family Guy
fan was waiting.

“You should assume it will get worse quickly from here, Damon. Get your support system organised.”

“Right.” He reached for his ID cane. He was going to need a goddamn long cane to do more than find doorways, assist with heights and drops, and warn people to watch out for him. Using a long cane would be an adjustment. There were going to be lots of fricking adjustments.

“Make a proper appointment. Just because you’re a long-term patient doesn’t mean you can barge in here any time you like.”

He aped surprise. “It doesn’t?”

“I’m charging you for this consultation. Reception will call you a cab.”

“You’re a doll, Lina, and the world is a better place with you in it.” He did that as George Clooney, her favourite movie star, and hoped she blushed.

He got the cab to take him to Moon Blink. He’d hang out with Angus, blow off the day and worry about it all tomorrow. Monday nights were slow at the bar, they could shoot the shit, and he wouldn’t need to feel the crush of his own personal eclipse so acutely. He could stare in the face of darkness and give denial another flat-out run.

Angus had a coffee poured before he’d warmed a stool. “How was work?” He was fossicking around the bar, facing away.

Damon took a sip, warm like Georgia’s fingertips, crisp like her scent, a touch bitter like her lack of interest. He should tell Angus about his vision. He owed it to him. But denial was kicking up its heels in warm sand with a sea breeze at its back.

He put the glass down and cleared his throat. “I met a woman today. I want to see her again.”

6: Disturbed

Not in the shelf life of canned beans did Georgia think she’d ever come face to face with Damon Donovan again. And now he was sitting in Avocado’s reception, joking with Lauren while he waited for her to pull her big girl pants on and get over herself.

Trent could have done this job, or Naveen, or Franca, but not only had Captain Vox agreed to voice a new navigation application for Avocado’s biggest client, he’d requested Georgia as his engineer.

There had to be hundreds of voices that would be appropriate for scripting the tourism nav app, thousands, and why a male voice not a female one, so why Damon Donovan? And why would he want to do this job anyway? He could be in LA or New York or Tokyo doing something much more interesting than narrating travel adventure software.

Surely there was a cartoon character going begging for a distinguishing voice or a documentary that needed a commentary. Why did he have to be here, booked to work in Studio B for the next six days?

On top of all that, he was a player who took advantage of his disability to make a move on her while she was trying to help him out. She didn’t want any further contact with him because he was going to wreck her fragile new-found peace. If she’d had time up her sleeve she’d have faked being sick to get out of doing this.

She was so unbalanced about him she was ashamed, but he pushed every single one of her hot buttons, activated all of her primary carer instincts and triggered that panicked feeling of being closed in she thought she’d left behind. And she couldn’t allow that to happen again, so soon, so never.

Damon and Lauren were trading favourite lines from movies. He didn’t know she was standing there and a house could’ve fallen on her and Lauren wouldn’t have noticed.

If she closed her eyes she could remember what it felt like to have him touch her hair, just that quick brush of his palm. More curious, more affectionate than anything that’d happened to her in a long time.

Georgia didn’t want anything to do with Damon, but she wanted him to wrap one of her curls around his finger and not let go, she wanted him to kiss her again, but on the mouth, and that made her feel tense and stomach sick.

She was so starved for affection she was ready to fall in lust with the first person who took an interest in her, even when that person was the worst possible idea.

She was never going to get through this without setting some rules. He wasn’t to touch her again and she certainly wouldn’t be touching him. There’d have to be a horde of Nazis in reception bearing the Ark of the Covenant before she did Morse code moves again. If he needed help moving around, Lauren could do it. It was bad enough she was going to have to listen to his damn voice and watch him through the studio window for six days, and that didn’t include post-production, but at least she’d be alone then and there’d be no danger of wanting to know him.

Because that was the real problem. He fascinated her, but in a different way to the stardust he sprinkled on Lauren. He had a kooky sense of humour. He’d fooled them into thinking he had no disability at all and he’d asked for help only grudgingly. That wasn’t how it worked. Not in her experience. How it worked was you got angry and nasty and you lashed out at people who had greater advantages than you did and you blamed the person closest to you.

There would have to be rules for dealing with a man who busted all those expectations, because he was fearsome and he shook her up.

“Tell me what you know about Georgia.”

She should speak, cough, both hard to do when you were holding your breath. What was he up to? And who had the advantage now?

“She’s new. Not much to know. Keeps to herself.” Lauren lowered her voice. “A bit of a snob. Not exactly up herself, but you know, standoffish.”

“Shy?”

Lauren shrugged a suntanned shoulder. “Maybe, but this is not an industry that attracts shy people. She’s kind of dull, you know. She’s a bring leftovers for lunch, go straight home after work kind of person. Boring.”

The she in question was wishing that imaginary house would fall on her. Didn’t need to be a McMansion, a modest weatherboard would do the same amount of damage as this conversation.

Damon laughed. “Last time I tried that, I had cat food instead of tuna in my bag.”

“Oh no, what did you do?”

He shook his head. “Gullible much.”

Lauren made an exasperated gasp and Georgia took that as her entry point. “Damon.” She’d be a professional. Do her job. Keep to herself, bring her lunch from home, and she’d get though the next six days.

He stood. Looked in her direction and smiled. He had very pale, very steady blue eyes and though she knew he could barely see anything arm’s distance from his face, he seemed to look right through her to all the scars and tics, fears and phobias she was made of.

“Hey, Georgia. Good to see you again.”

“Why would you say that?” Lauren said, her words firing out in an explosion of disbelief.

He quarter turned his head towards Lauren, his dimple appearing. “Because it’s a hell of a lot politer than saying good to smell you again.”

“You kill me,” Lauren said.

Oh God, why didn’t he kill Lauren, slay her with his lazy wit, because then they’d take him away and the app developer could hire someone else to do the job. But that was about as likely as death by falling house.

“Though Georgia does smell particularly good.”

Lauren laughed. Georgia blushed hot, but at least he’d never have the satisfaction of seeing it. “We’re in Studio B again. Would you like some help to get there?” Lauren was already standing.

“Nope. If you walk in front of me and don’t lead me over any open trapdoors, I’ll be fine.”

Hmm, what she’d give for a trapdoor. She turned her back to him and went to the outer door of Studio B, holding it open so he could come through. He put one hand to the doorjamb, then trailed it along the corridor wall.

“Are you mad with me, Georgia Fairweather?”

She was furious with him because he made her feel things she didn’t want to feel. “Why would I be mad with you?”

“I think it’s because I’m breathing.”

She let the door go and it bumped against Damon’s shoulder. He stepped forward and it shut behind him, closing them in the narrow corridor to the control room.

She’d just closed a door on him
.
“Of course I’m not mad with you.” She walked forward and opened the second door.

“Yeah, you are. I’m sorry.”

She held the door and glanced back at him. He looked straight at her. She’d be in his blurry blob range. The only way to betray herself was with her voice, she needed to school it to be cool. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I’m not sure, but something tells me it’s the right thing to do.”

“The only thing we have to do is get four hours of your voice down.” She went through the door and it closed behind her. He didn’t step through. She opened it again. He hadn’t moved. “Sorry, I…” He could’ve opened the door. He’d deliberately waited.

“Georgia, I am sorry I was too familiar with you. It won’t happen again.” He’d wanted the privacy. He had no way of knowing how many people were on the other side of the door.

“Come through and let’s get started.”

“Yes, let’s start again.” He put his hand out, shake ready. She looked at it; she didn’t want to take it but she couldn’t leave him hanging there like that. “Georgia?”

She put her hand in his and let him control the shake.

“I’m Damon Donovan. You might know me as the voice of Captain Vox. I like burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel ice-cream, parasailing and long slow walks on the beach.” He held her hand steady. “Your turn.”

She sighed so he’d hear it. “I’m Georgia Fairweather, nice to meet you.”

He laughed. He might’ve been annoyed she wouldn’t play, but he laughed. He still had her hand and she’d have to make a thing of it to pull it out of his grip.

“Things to know about me. I tell bad jokes. Cats creep me out. I love music and books. I grew up in a small country town. I think Google is making us dumb, Facebook killed friendship and selfies are the beginning of the end of civilisation. Also I don’t understand adult colouring books. Your turn.”

“Um. We need to start.” She needed him in another room, separated from her by thick glass.

He opened his hand and released her. “We just did.”

He didn’t say anything more than was functional as she set him up on the iso booth. He had a new tablet and an earpiece he wanted to try out. A program that would read him the text he’d then voice for the recording. He was working on a way to eliminate the need to read text in any point size. Ah, so that’s why he’d taken on this job. He was using it to experiment with his process.

She went into the control room and air became easier to breathe. He was standing at the lectern. She got feedback. His tablet.

“Damon is there wifi on your tablet? I’m getting feedback.”

His hands moved. The interrupting signal stopped. “Better?”

She put her thumb up then grunted and turned the movement into a face palm. “Perfect. When you’re ready.”

“I need one thing.”

She looked up from the panel. “Yes.”

“Tell me one thing about you. One thing and I’ll give you the next four hours without interruption.”

One thing, what could one thing matter? She sighed. “I lived in London.”

“One thing I don’t already know.”

“You should be specific about the rules.”

“Rules are made for—”

“You don’t want people to know you’re blind.” Well hey there, that was professional. She put her head down on the edge of the panel, a slider poked her eyebrow.

“Not true, but I’m not my choroideremia either.”

She sat upright and looked at him. Mortification was a sensation a lot like nausea and revelation tasted like blood. Hamish was the fight, the injury that thwarted his ambition, and Georgia was his martyr.

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be, but you have to tell me two things now.”

Two things that would tell him nothing; a small price for her insensitivity. “I’m an only child and my parents are dead.”

He was quiet, but his expression changed, he dropped his chin and frowned, and she knew she’d told him the wrong things. He’d expected eye colour or favourite food. He’d have taken a joke answer. She should’ve said she liked cake decorating and collected souvenir spoons. She’d lost the knack for banter a long time ago, she no longer had the words to fill in the fun bits, couldn’t join the dots between one amusing sentence and another to form a friendship.

“I’m ready when you are, Damon.”

He voiced the content, stopping often to correct his phrasing, perfect a paragraph. Working only from his memory and audio prompts from his software. She’d never seen that done before. He sipped on lemon water Lauren provided, and there was very little for Georgia to do but watch him and the voice levels and stew in the rancid juices of her own social ineptitude.

At the end of the session, Damon rubbed his neck, packed up his gear and came through the door to the control room. “Okay?”

“All good.” She stood and got the next door for him. “Do you need us to call you a taxi?”

“No. I’m fine. See you tomorrow.”

She watched him go down the corridor, open the last door and exit into reception. As he turned, he had a ready smile for Lauren. A nicer person would’ve gone with him, held the door, insisted on helping him to a taxi. But Damon didn’t define himself as his disease and she wasn’t going to be a nice person for him. She’d engineer his sound quality, but she’d master her own self-preservation.

7: Sorting Colours

“When you’re ready, Damon.”

He was rip-snorting ready to crack the problem of Georgia. She was the single most interesting thing in his life right now. He stood at the lectern and looked out towards the control room. “I’m thinking about getting a dog.” He hadn’t been until this moment, but it must’ve been wagging the tail of his subconscious. At least it was a decent conversation opener, who didn’t like dogs?