Mute (Muted Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

Jemma shook her head. “Just me and his dad.”

“A family man, hmm?” sent her father. Jemma was struck forcibly by how much this conversation reminded her of the first time she’d come home and announced she had a date. Her sixteen-year-old self had been a bit overwhelmed. She’d had several years more practice dealing with her family at this point.

“He lives next door to his dad,” she typed. “I think he pretty much moved in with him after The Event. His father is sick pretty often, and he likes to be available.”

“He sounds wonderful, Jemma. What does he do that he can come into the library every day?” Her mother watched her, eyes sparkling.

“He is a computer programmer. It seems to be a pretty portable job, at least for him. I guess it depends on what you’re programming and such.”

“Is he hot?” sent Jill. At her parents’ lack of reaction, she assumed it was for her alone. “I mean, that’s not the most important thing, of course, but it’s still something I need to know.”

Jemma wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. It wasn’t that she found him unattractive, but she normally liked the looks of the people whose personalities she liked, too. She and her sister rarely agreed on who looked good. Instead of trying to describe him, she navigated to Facebook, then typed in his name, clicking on his mostly-private profile and turning the phone toward her sister, showing her the profile picture, one of Jack and an older man who looked very much like him, presumably his father.

“Nice job,” sent Jill before taking the phone and passing it to her mother, who passed it to their father.

“As a reminder,” sent Jemma since her phone had been appropriated, “there is nothing romantic between us. We’re just friends. There’s no need to get excited here.”

“When’s the last time you had a real friend, Jemma?” asked her mother, expression softening to take some of the sting from the words she’d typed.

Jemma shrugged, trying to remember. It hadn’t been that long, had it? She wouldn’t interact quite so easily with Jack if she weren’t used to having friends.

“A couple years, I guess,” she typed when her father handed her phone back. “Most of my friends moved away around the time I got my undergraduate degree, and I just never clicked with anyone in grad school.”

“Can we meet him?” Her mother’s mental voice was quiet, hesitant, leaving almost no echo.

“Not right now, Mom, okay?” Jemma sent back. “I promise, though, that if we start doing anything that resembles dating, you’ll meet him.”

Carolyn bit her lip and nodded. Matthew smiled.

“Okay,” he sent to the family, “who wants dessert?”

***

Jemma rolled over in her bed again, sighing. She’d gotten so used to talking to her stranger - to Jack - every night before sleep that the silence was almost deafening. She wished she had a wall clock or a TV in her room, something to make a little bit of noise. She could always turn Netflix on via her cell phone, but she never could get the volume quite right to fall asleep to. She was in between books and didn’t want to start reading a new one when she was exhausted and had been trying to fall asleep for an hour already.

Talking to her parents that night had helped. As she’d explained to them, Jack seemed like a good person, and he’d sounded genuinely remorseful at having upset her. They would need to talk through what had happened, as well as their connection itself, to figure out whether she could trust him, whether he really hadn’t meant to deceive her, and how they could move forward. Jemma still found herself trusting him, and she didn’t want to feel like a fool for doing so. That meant figuring things out, which would be easier to do if she brought him into the conversation to help them work through details and possibilities.

But not tonight. For now…

“Good night, Jack” she sent, the connection opening immediately even though he took a moment to respond.

“Good night, Jemma,” he sent back, and with his voice still echoing in her mind, she finally fell asleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

Talk

When he came in at his normal time, Jack looked unsure, watching Jemma for her reaction. She smiled at him, and he visibly relaxed, making his way to the circulation desk.

“Hi,” he sent when he reached it.

“Hi,” Jemma sent back.

“I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to come in today. I mean, I thought I was, and you’d seemed…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, is this okay?”

She nodded, then looked around the room.

“Talking this way might not be, though,” she sent. “It looks like we’re just staring at each other.”

“Ah.” Jack set down his laptop and reached for the tablet.

Do we want to talk about things now? After work? If after work, do we need to keep quiet during the day? Or just act like normal?

She shrugged.
I guess we act normal?
she typed.
I mean, I haven’t really had this happen before.

He nodded, still looking hesitant.

“It’s okay,” she sent, and he flicked his eyes up to hers. “We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, it doesn’t help either of us for you to be upset or worried about how I’m going to react. I already reacted. My head is on straight again, and it’s just a matter of figuring things out.” She paused, waiting for a response or a reaction. “You’re staring again.”

He blinked and a slow grin worked its way across his face. “You’re something, you know that?”

A librarian. One who should probably get back to work
, she typed, and he looked back up at her, worried again until he saw the amusement still on her face.

He gave her a mock salute, retrieved his laptop, and made his way upstairs to his normal spot.

When her phone buzzed just minutes later, Jemma frowned and pulled it out of her pocket. She saw a text from her mom.

Just thinking about you today. I hope your day is going well.

Jemma released a breath before replying.

It is. I hope yours is, too.

She held the phone a minute longer to make sure it wasn’t going to vibrate again before putting it away.

A patron approached for help, and then another, and Jemma’s day picked up speed.

***

Fifteen minutes before closing time, which was earlier on Saturdays than the rest of the week, Jemma felt Jack hovering in her mind.

“You can come down. I think everyone’s left,” Jemma sent.

“Okay. There’s nobody up here. I’ll check downstairs for you,” he sent back.

“I could get used to a telepathic assistant,” she sent, letting humor show through her tone.

“That could definitely have its perks,” he sent, coming down the stairs. He grinned at her before turning to walk through the aisles of books.

By the time he finished and reached the circulation desk, Jemma had printed the last report, and she moved to the main door to check foot traffic. As she approached the door, a dark sedan sped out of the parking lot. She frowned but turned her attention back to the traffic counter, then returned to the desk and entered the total in the log book and the spreadsheet.

“Why do you write that down twice?” sent Jack. “I’ve noticed you usually note things either on the computer or on paper, but that’s the only number I’ve seen you write in both places.”

“Some years, the number of patrons who use the facility is how we get our funding,” answered Jemma, closing the book and putting it away. “That’s what Cecily told me, anyway. It seems we’re currently relying on circulation, but our budget has stayed in the same proportion to the other libraries for about five years. Since it could affect funding, though, we keep an electronic copy and a hard copy.” She held up one of her printouts. “Circulation gets a hard copy, too, just not handwritten.”

“Ah,” said Jack. “Those all sound like good reasons.”

Jemma nodded and put the papers where they belonged, then looked at the clock.

“We’re officially closed until Monday,” she sent. She watched him, the two of them silent. He looked tired, with bags under his eyes. He was too young for them to be permanent, so he probably hadn’t been sleeping well. She remembered him saying he’d been awake because of his dad.

“Should we go somewhere?” Jack’s mental voice broke into her thoughts, and Jemma blinked. “I mean,” he continued, “we were going to talk, so I didn’t know whether you wanted to just stay here or go somewhere else.”

“We probably shouldn’t stay here,” sent Jemma. “I don’t want to abuse employee privilege or anything.”

“Fair enough. Where do you want to go?”

Jemma came around the counter and he fell into step beside her as they made their way toward the double doors of the main entrance, stopping just inside.

“I don’t really have anywhere I like to go.” Jemma tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I mean, I’m here, or I’m home, or I’m at my parents’ house.” She looked away from the empty parking lot and toward Jack. “What about you? Anywhere you like to go when you’re not here or home?” she sent.

He grinned, but she thought she saw a hint of blush on his cheeks in the dim light. “You’re gonna think it’s weird, where I used to go to work when I didn’t come here.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s that?”

“The food court at the bigger mall.”

“And that’s where you went when you wanted to focus on something quiet?” Her head was tilted to the side as she tried to understand.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Sometimes, when I’m working on something quiet and everything around me is quiet, it’s just too much, you know? I start getting distracted, looking for things to occupy me. But if I turn on music or a movie or something, I hear that more than the numbers and ideas and everything else I need to work with.”

“But the mall works?”

“Yeah. It’s sort of white noise, you know? At least before The Event, all the laughing and talking and shouting, that hum and clatter that’s so normal in big food courts and cafeterias.”

Jemma nodded. “I can see that. It’s easier to tune out a cafeteria crowd for reading than some other noises.”

“Exactly.” He paused, glancing at the parking lot and back at her. “Have you been to the mall since The Event?”

She shook her head.

“It’s bizarre,” he sent. “Is that where we want to go?”

“Sure,” she replied. “Meet you there?”

“See you again soon,” he sent, sounding almost excited.

They exited the building, and Jemma checked the locked door before they headed to their cars. When they were seated, car doors locked, Jack sent a message through the connection they hadn’t closed.

“This Talking is handy. I bet it helps for driving places together even with a normal range.”

“And no worries about being pulled over for not using a hands-free device.”

His warm chuckle echoed through her mind, and they left the empty parking lot behind.

***

They walked together from the parking lot to the food court entrance. The parking lot was fuller than she usually saw it, but she had always tried her best to avoid the mall on weekends. When they opened the doors, Jemma blinked repeatedly at the loud, cheery music playing over the speakers.

“It’s a little loud at first,” sent Jack, “but it sort of fades after a while. It was normal volume right after The Event, but then whoever controls the volume, they must’ve decided it was too quiet and cranked it up. It worked. People came here to get away from places that were too quiet. Then when people started using all the speaking apps, they turned it down again, but I had to walk back out after five minutes.”

“Yeah?” They were standing inside the doors, out of the way of foot traffic. Jemma scanned the room and settled on one of the empty tables against some sort of decorative pillar. As they sat, Jack continued.

“All the different electronic voices clashing, people turning up their devices to be heard over everyone else’s? Almost as soon as it started, it ended up with everybody having their phones or tablets at max volume, and it was just a cacophony of sound. A hum, okay, I can deal with, but that was too much noise. At some point between that visit and my next, they’d cranked the music up loud enough that nobody would try to type over it. Now that people can Talk, the volume doesn’t seem to matter.”

Jemma realized that he was right; despite the excessive volume over which they should be shouting, Jack was speaking at a normal, conversational level, and she could understand him fine.

“I haven’t found any studies or anything, so this is just a guess,” he sent, “but I think it’s because it uses a different part of your brain than the music. You can still hear while staring at the sun, so why not?”

She nodded, her thoughts slowed some by the music. She looked around the room again and noticed that almost nobody had come alone. People were in groups of two or three, most with expressions on their faces that clearly indicated they were Talking to somebody, some moving their lips, others not.

“Anyone who’s watching can probably tell we’re Talking,” she sent.

“That’s true.” He thought for a moment. “They’ll probably assume we’re dating, or maybe related. Hopefully not both.” He winked. “I highly doubt anybody will assume we started Talking before we knew each other well and that we can Talk over long distances.” When she didn’t immediately respond, he continued. “We can pull out our phones if you’d feel better about pretending to type.”