“My younger self would beat the fuck out of me,” Luca murmured, sounding as exhausted as Sebastion felt. “He’d get me right in the balls.”
Squeezing his husband’s hand, Sebastion let out a contented sigh. “Don’t worry. I’d stop him.”
Twisting at the waist to work out a couple kinks in his back, Sebastion reached for the chart on the wall and gave it a quick once-over. It was a standard eye-exam with none of the additionals tacked on. She was a young woman who was coming in for her first exam ever, and he had to assume fear had everything to do with the fact that she’d never had an exam done before and why she said no to all the other tests.
He glanced around for his tech for any other info the chart might have missed, but he could see her talking to a patient at the front, so he knocked on the door and pushed his way in. The lights were very dim so the patients wouldn’t have to take long to adjust during the exam, and he blinked against it before he offered her a smile.
She looked small in the chair, her dark hair in curls around her face, and she was staring at him with wide, nervous eyes.
“Hi,” he said, pitching his voice as soft and calming as he could make it. “I’m Dr. Makris. Do you want to tell me what brought you in today?”
Her eyes went even wider, and instead of answering, she scrambled for a piece of paper that was sitting on the counter, shoving it at him. My name is Charis, and I’m Deaf.
He smiled wider and set her chart down before lifting his hands. He had quite a few Deaf patients—more than any other in the city because the word had spread years ago he was a native signer. But he hadn’t had a new one in so long—and very few were under the age of sixty.
‘Do you sign?’
Her face brightened. ‘Yes! You sign?’
He frowned a little as he inched his chair closer. ‘Most people in the Deaf community book with me because I’m CODA.’
She looked even more surprised. ‘I had no idea. I just moved here, and I saw your ad on the side of a bus.’
He couldn’t help his laugh. ‘Lucky you, though any other doctor would have told you to book with my office. It’s nice to meet you, Charis. I’m Dr. Makris.’ He offered her his sign name, and she quickly gave hers. ‘Do you want to tell me what brought you in today?’
She swallowed. ‘Things have been getting a little blurry lately. Not bad, but enough that I think I might need glasses. You should know I’m terrified of eye exams, though.’ Her sign for terrified was so exaggerated, he knew it was probably a phobia.
He held up his hands, then leaned over his knees and offered her a calming look. ‘I understand. All the equipment looks like something out of some old sci-fi movie, right?’
She looked a little embarrassed as she nodded her fist.
‘Today, we’re just going to take a look at your eyes and see if you need corrective lenses. That’s it. Nothing else.’
She let out a full breath and sank back. ‘Okay. You don’t have to touch them?’
‘The first thing we learn in school is how not to touch them,’ he told her, then grinned widely as he reached for her chart and a pen, lying them across his lap.
She looked at him for a long moment, and he knew he’d won her over when her shoulders relaxed and her mouth softened. ‘Okay,’ she said, and there was no longer a slight tremble in her fingers. ‘Let’s do this.’
After that, the exam went off without a hitch. She had a slight astigmatism that was probably going to get worse, but he assured her glasses would always help. She skipped off to pick her pair while he shuffled back to his office, and he sat down to heat up his lunch and stare at the airline website, looking for a flight that didn’t make him want to cry.
The symposium was in San Francisco—a bullshit series of classes on the latest tech and equipment mostly run by manufacturers and insurance companies. He didn’t think anything was going to sway him this year, but he knew it was wise to go at least once every few years just in case.
It helped that they always put him in a hotel with a