The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix) Read Online Free

meant stupid, although it didn’t stop them from hanging all over me, wanting me to do sign language on their bodies. But this girl—she was different. And I didn’t want to make myself look any more of a jackass in front of her than I already had.
    “Didn’t mean to,” I signed. “I was trying to catch you before you got out of sight.”
    Her dark honey-colored skin blushed a bright pink. Something inside me—deeper than any other girl had ever reached—stirred. I read her delicious, plump lips as she spoke to the bartender, changing my words from catching her specifically to catching someone who’d walked by. I held up enough euros to cover my bill as well as all the tables surrounding me to show I hadn’t meant any harm. I did a lot of stupid things, but running out on my bill wasn’t one of them. Not in recent years, anyway. The bartender glared at me for a long moment, then snatched the money out of my hand, spun on his heel and marched back to the bar.
    “Thank you,” I signed to the Beautiful Girl. Her eyes narrowed as they traveled over my face, then down my arms, taking in all the ink. I couldn’t tell if she was impressed or appalled. For a moment, I was glad I’d had to take out my piercings for security, then I berated myself for caring so much what she might have thought. She was one girl of thousands. We were in an airport, each of us headed to other cities.I’d never see her again, so why did I care what she thought?
    Her fingers moved as she used Signed English, not ASL. Which was good, because I never did catch on to ASL and its grammar any better than I’d been able to learn Spanish in junior high school.
    “You’re welcome, but I only did it because you obviously had the money to pay up,” she said with a saccharine-sweet smile. “And because I was raised well, I’ll forgive you for using me.”
    “How did I use you?” I asked, honestly perplexed. I’d already thanked her for translating.
    “You were trying to catch me?” she asked with another tilt of her head.
    I nodded. “And?”
    Her smile wavered, and she blinked. “Why?”
    I didn’t answer at first. I really didn’t know why. I’d seen her, remembered her from last night, and my body had pretty much reacted on its own.
    “I recognized you,” I signed, feeling like a lame-ass. But it was better to be lame than to tell her the truth—that I hadn’t stopped thinking about her since last night. The look she gave me told me she was about to leave. I’d become very good at reading faces and body language since the accident. My hands moved quickly. “Don’t go. Let me buy you a drink. Please.”
    She looked down at the coffee cup and the brown liquid pooled at her feet, then up at me, then over my shoulder. She rolled her eyes.
    “I doubt your girlfriend would like that,” she signed.
    My girlfriend? I glanced over my shoulder to see what she was talking about, and there was the dark-haired model I’d been about to hit up in the club room before goldie-locks here sauntered by. Okay, so there were a few minutes I’d stopped thinking about this green-eyed babe in front of me, but now I’d already forgotten about the model who glared at us with fire in her eyes.
    “I don’t know her,” I said. “Just met her. Definitely not my girlfriend.”
    Green eyes looked over my shoulder then back at me right as my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked down at the text from the model behind me: “Club room in 5 mins. right?” Goldie-locks glanced at the screen, then gathered her bags and walked off.
    Her body mesmerized me as she seemed to glide across the floor. Her long, hippy-like skirt and loose pink top hid what I’d seen last night at the show. She didn’t have a traditional dancer’s body—her arms weren’t long and spindly, and her legs were thick with muscle, but shorter than most dancers’. And, although softer than it should probably be, her body curved in all the right places. I knew