The Cough Button

Teen and up · Complete · 19,437 words · 6 chapters

Warnings: No warnings apply

Tags: contemporary romance, slow burn, workplace romance, banter, interpreters, european parliament, brussels, strasbourg, belgium, deaf culture, coda, hearing loss

Fran Mulcahy speaks for other people for a living. In the English booth of the European Parliament she's a Danish fisheries hawk at nine and a Portuguese chairman by ten, and she's the voice nobody notices, which is exactly how she likes it. Then her new boothmate turns up twenty-six minutes late.

Benoît Lambotte is on loan from the French booth. He writes jokes on her notepad while she's live, and he claims he has known her voice for nine years. He talks too much. He always takes the right-hand chair. And Fran, who grew up as her Deaf dad's voice on every phone call in Stockport, knows exactly what it means when a man watches your mouth instead of your eyes.

A slow-burn romance about two people who are brilliant at saying what other people mean and terrible at saying it for themselves.

Chapters

Chapter 1: Sand Eels (3,184 words) A late boothmate, a debate on sand eels, and a joke she mustn't laugh at.
Chapter 2: Relay (2,890 words) Strasbourg week: the train, the vote, a winstub, and a walk along the river.
Chapter 3: Stenography (3,046 words) Big numbers, a Sunday in Charleroi, a slag heap and a very large dog.
Chapter 4: Off Mic (2,831 words) December in Strasbourg: mulled wine, a prize speech, and the last two in the booth.
Chapter 5: Fifteen or Fifty (2,992 words) A broken wrist in Stockport, a cod debate in Strasbourg, and one wrong number.
Chapter 6: First Person (4,494 words) A wax mask, a Deaf club quiz night, and the oranges of Binche.

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