I moved to the kitchen and took a bottle of water from the fridge. The walls of the open living/dining area—three times my height—were bare but for another television. The music I’d heard was playing through a sound bar beneath it. His sectional leather sofa was Pete-toned; I sensed a theme. Still huddled inside my borrowed blanket, I walked to the window and stared at the skyline in the distance. A bark echoed from below, and I looked down to see a man and dog approaching the building from the dog run on the other side of the lot.
Even without Pete alongside him, I’d have recognized Isaac’s walk—posture balanced and straight but not inflexible, bearing confident without the sort of conceited strut Joshua Swearingen displayed. Just before he and Pete vanished under the entry overhang, Isaac turned his face up and looked at the window where I stood watching him. I didn’t know if he could see me from eight floors below.
I perched on a barstool instead of the sofa to wait for him because my clothes were still damp. By the expression he wore when he came around the corner—brows lifted, eyes widened, mouth tensed—I could have sworn he believed I might not be there.
“Hi,” I said, wondering if I saw relief or resignation in his eyes just before he passed behind me.
He dropped a small stack of mail atop the closed laptop on his built-in desk. “Hi.” At the island’s sink, he filled the coffeepot.
“Are you still wet?” he asked, lifting his gaze to the startled face I fought to bring under control, lips pursed tight to stifle a juvenile That’s what he said.
He turned quickly to make the coffee, or to hide his discomposure from having read my mind. “In the breeze outside, I noticed that my clothes aren’t dry yet and thought maybe yours weren’t either,” he explained.
“Mine are still damp too.” I was chastised but still struggling to subdue a giggle.
“I can lend you a T-shirt. Most of my sweats are too big—but something with a drawstring might work.” He clicked the coffeemaker on. “C’mon. Let’s see what I’ve got.”
I followed him to his bedroom, marveling at how odd this was on the face of it, and how much odder it was that it didn’t feel odd. He opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a dark red tee with blue lettering: PENN QUAKERS.
“Quakers?” Taking the shirt, I bit my lip.
“Don’t throw shade on my school now. Your mascot is a cow.”
I gasped and laughed. “Heresy! It’s a big scary cow with long pointy horns.”
“Aiight, girl—if you say so.” He searched through neatly rolled sweatpants. “Here we go. Matching drawstring drawers.”
The sweats were blue with a red Penn crest on the front. Both were soft and would feel like heaven after spending the past several hours spent soggy and chilled.
“Thank you.” Our eyes connected. We were standing in his bedroom, alone, and he’d just spoken to me in the playful tone he’d used with Tuli. A tone that meant I was worming my way behind his wall of Erin-aversion.
My one-track brain screamed, KISS. HIM.
I screamed back, He’s my BOSS. I can’t just KISS him.
He looked down at my bare feet. “I don’t recall your being this short, comparably. I guess I’ve never stood next to you without your everyday high-rise footwear on.”
“You’re still wearing superhero boots. So we don’t really know our relative heights.”
He sat on the bed, crossed one foot onto the opposite knee, and began picking at the black laces. “Why don’t you get out of those wet clothes—I mean, get into the dry ones.” He nodded toward the bathroom, lips in that fixed line I recognized. He was determined to keep from flirting, even when it was inadvertently done. “Once you’re out, I’m going to shower off, if you don’t mind. I know I promised you coffee.”
“I’m sure I can find a mug. Also, you’re home. You should be able to relax and do whatever feels good.” I had no anti-seduction qualms. If he wanted to take what I said as legitimate flirting, I was prepared to encourage him.
Attention on the tightly laced boot, he didn’t respond.
I shut the door to the bathroom and stared into the mirror as I dropped the blanket to the floor and peeled every piece of damp clothing from my body, which had altered since my actual cheerleading years. Eating disorders had been common among the squads, freshmen to varsity, a fact that my adult self looked back on in horror. I had been rail-thin; my genes decreed it. No cheer coach or team captain or cheer mom had ever mentioned, oh-so-casually, that I might want to lay off the potato chips, sweetie, though I’d heard it done.
Gaining curves and becoming women is biologically natural; cisgender girls should be able to celebrate those changes. Instead, we went hungry all day, only to binge eat whatever was handy once our bodies—certain we were starving to death—demanded food. Meanwhile, articles in print and online warned against the deadly sins of stress eating or developing bulimia while cleverly placed ads featured photoshopped models no one could ever be, not even the models themselves.
At almost twenty-three, I was finally rocking curves of my own. I would not be my mother, submitting to anesthesia and knives and needles in an effort to preserve my adolescent body. This was the first moment I knew it, and the acknowledgment of that resolution made me feel powerful—and reckless. A precarious combination for a woman standing naked in her hot boss’s bathroom.
I pulled on the sweatpants, which were so loose and long on me that I laughed out loud. I yanked the strings tight and tied them so the waistband would sit above my hips and stay there. I rolled the bottom of each leg until my feet extended enough to walk without sliding. The cottony-soft T-shirt slid over my head and fell to my thighs. I chuckled again at the Quakers inscription while removing the oversized bow from my head and allowing my hair to fall around my shoulders and down my back.
Running my fingers through the tangled waves, I tried to view myself as Isaac might. But I couldn’t. I had no idea what he thought—or what he would think—of me. Not in my polished, professional form; not in this unembellished, shapeless configuration.
Sitting in the same spot at the end of the bed, boots now off, Isaac turned toward the doorway when I opened the door. Pete, who’d been receiving a head rub, rested his head on his master’s knee and emitted a soft whine when the hand on his head stilled.
Isaac stared, his expression poker-face blank but his eyes reflecting the light from the brighter room behind me. He cleared his throat. “Heard you laughing in there,” he said, gaze flicking to my chest and back. “Disparaging my school again, Ms. McIntyre?”
His sliding gaze was a weightless caress. A tenuous breath across my skin.
“I plead the fifth, Mr. Maat.”
“Fair enough.” He stood and took his own fresh T-shirt and sweatpants from the dresser top. “If you’re hungry when I get out, I make a mean omelet. Or flapjacks.”
My mouth watered and despite or because of the earlier barf session, my stomach emitted a yawning growl. “I guess I’m hungry.”
“Preference?”
I am hungry for all the things, I thought. And not all of them are food. “Either.”
“Cool. Be right out.” He disappeared into the bathroom and the shower switched on.
I looked at Pete. He stared back.
“I want your master,” I whispered.
He angled his head one way and then the other.
“Do you have any wise-old-doggy advice for how I can either get over myself or under him? Because this unreciprocated-crush thing is kinda grim.” Pete whined in response. “You’re right. I did bring it on myself.” He burrowed his head under my palm and leaned against my leg, his tail thumping the dresser in rhythmic commiseration.
I settled into the corner of the sectional with Pete and checked my phone while waiting for Isaac to reappear. Ten minutes later, he emerged in a T-shirt and sweats combination similar to what I’d borrowed, but on him, everything fit. Perfectly. I was well acquainted with how he looked in suits and dress shirts and a full-on Batman c
ostume. But this was something else. The knitted fabric hugged and accentuated muscular quads and shoulders. Sculpted biceps bulged from the short sleeves of his white T-shirt.
“Erin?”
“What? Huh?” Oh damn. My brain had shut down. Obviously.
“What sounds good?”
I batted several debauched responses away. “Whatever sounds good to you.”
We engaged in a brief but intense staring game, and I would have paid good money to know what he was thinking.
“Omelets it is.” He turned to remove ingredients from his fridge, bowls and pans and utensils from drawers and cabinets.
I got up and moved toward the kitchen. “Can I help?”
“You sit.” He gestured to a barstool with a spatula, and I obeyed. “I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night.”
He had no idea how wrong he was, though he bit his lip and concentrated on the task before him, too late to stop that phrase—enough excitement—from dangling like a mischievous dare between us.
“So you’re an only child?” I asked. At his confused frown, I pointed toward his bedroom. “The photo on your night table.”
His forehead relaxed. “Oh. Yes.”
“I wouldn’t wish my brothers into nonexistence, but I envy you that a little bit.”
He angled a brow, dubious. “You didn’t get sufficient attention as a child?”
“I got my share by being the only girl, but their attention was always divided, never focused, and it usually went to whichever of us was the biggest whiny-ass, or most successful, or fucking up the most. Believe it or not, I was rarely the most of any of those things.”
He chopped vegetables, beat eggs, grated cheese, and didn’t respond beyond the teeniest almost-smile that ever existed.
“Do your parents live nearby?”
He turned away to pour the egg mixture in a heated, buttered pan. “They died in a freak car accident not long after that photo was taken. A tire blew on a semi and the driver lost control briefly. They were one lane over. Wrong place, wrong time.” That he had related this story countless times over the years was evident in his impassive recounting of it.
I considered the photo from that tragic angle and my heart squeezed. “Please forget my thoughtless only child bullshit. Jesus. You were so young. I’m sorry, Isaac.”
“You didn’t know.” He was silent for several minutes, and I rested my chin in my hand, watching him cook. “I think I get what you mean about focused attention. I’d had that kind of attention for ten years. Took it for granted. Never had to compete for it. But then I was part of a new family unit, and as much as they loved me, the focus was gone.”
Comprehension dawned. “Your cousin—the one who worked her way through college—you lived with her family, after?”
“Yeah. My aunt and uncle took me in.” He slid a plate in front of me; a fluffy omelet, fat with sautéed peppers and mushrooms, oozed melted cheese. “Don’t eat more than you feel like eating.”
“I feel fine now, I promise. And this smells delicious.” I picked up my fork and ate a small bite to test my stomach. It gurgled happily, and I gave a pleased sigh. “When we run away from home, you’ll do the cooking.”
He slid an omelet onto his plate and then stared, brow arched, waiting for further explanation of that weird statement.
“Um. That was a game Pax and I used to play. When we were little, before he discovered girls. He would say, ‘When we run away from home, you have to wash all the underwear.’ And I would say, ‘When we run away from home, you have to eat all the celery.’ I hated celery. Like really, seriously, hated it.”
“Enough to consent to washing all the underwear?”
“I was five; he was nine. I was easily manipulated.”
He leaned onto the counter across from me to eat. “I take it you hate to cook?”
“No. But our assigned duties also recognized alleged strengths. Like, we had plans for making money on the streets: he would play the guitar and I would sing.”
The almost-smile returned. “Now I’ll have to hear you sing.”
I finished a bite, shaking my head. “Oh no. I’m a terrible singer. The worst. Trust me, you’d be sorry. We thought way more highly of our ‘talents’ than deserved. Pax could only play two chords. Even Auto-Tune wouldn’t have saved us.”
This confession was rewarded with the laugh that made my heart stutter. “I guess it’s a good thing you two never had to survive on the mean streets.”
“We would have been arrested for disturbing the peace, or starved to death.”
By the time I finished eating, I was so tired I could barely help dry the dishes. After reading a text from Rhys aloud, letting us know Mindi was still asleep and he wasn’t going to wake her, Isaac laid his phone on the counter and said, “I’m getting you a pillow and a fresh blanket. No way you’re driving all the way home tonight.” He wore a slight scowl, and his arms were crossed as though he expected an argument and was prepared to dispute it.
I knew that if I tried to drive home, I’d likely end up in a ditch, or worse. I was a danger to myself and others. “Yes, sir,” I said, giving a smartass salute.
His shoulders lowered a fraction of an inch, and with a ghost of a smirk at the edge of his mouth, he nodded, mollified.
chapter
Twenty
My chest hurt, like a heavy weight was pressing down, impeding breaths choked with tears.
“Erin. Erin.”
Hands gripped my shoulders and my legs were tangled, immobile. With what felt like superhuman effort, I broke free and sat halfway up, eyes flying wide. I wasn’t in Chaz’s car. I wasn’t in my bed. Gasping, I recognized Isaac’s alarmed face. Isaac. I was at Isaac’s apartment. On his sofa. Cautious, as if afraid to unsettle me further, he released his hold and sat next to me, silent. I squeezed my eyes shut and fell back, relieved and yet unable to stop my frustrated tears.
Jacqueline’s interventional pep talk had been weeks ago, and the horrific visions of Chaz’s final moments hadn’t intruded on my sleep since that conversation. Foolishly, I’d begun to hope they were gone for good. No such luck. The nightmare had returned, and what abysmal timing to stage a reappearance. One night sooner or later and I would have been at home, alone.
“I’m okay.” The words rasped from my raw throat. “It was just a stupid bad dream. Neurons firing. Something I ate. I’m sorry I woke you.” Pete appeared at my prone eye level. He rested his muzzle on my arm, his eyes on mine. “I’m sorry to you, too,” I told him.
“He tore in here faster than I did, ready to rip someone limb from limb.” Isaac rubbed the dog’s head. “You said a name. Chaz?” Moonlight streamed in from the wall of windows and lit his face clearly—the concern in his eyes and the pucker between his brows. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I closed my eyes, unable to refuse his gentle question or the empathy with which he’d asked it, unable to voice the no in my mouth. “He was my boyfriend.”
The silence stretched, and I thought that would be the end of it.
“Was?”
I took a shuddering breath and looked at him. “We broke up junior year. When he proposed. I cared about him, a lot, but I didn’t love him. Not like that. I broke his heart. And five months later—” My throat ached, straining to suppress the words. “He had a wreck a few blocks from campus.”
I would never forget my friend Maggie showing up at my dorm room with my usual Starbucks order and bad news written all over her face. In a rare blessing, Christina had spent the night elsewhere, so she wasn’t there.
“Kennedy called me,” Maggie said. “He thought I should tell you in private, before word gets out to everyone…”
“He didn’t survive,” Isaac said.
I shook my head.
“I’m sorry.”
“At his funeral, his mother told me he’d kept the ring. He was alone that night, but in my dream I’m there with him, in the car. And he tells me to lie to him. To say I woul
d have changed my mind. So I do—and I tell him I love him. And then I wake up and it didn’t happen. It can’t ever happen.” Actual vomit earlier in the evening, word vomit now.
“This nightmare. You’ve had it before tonight.”
“It’s been happening for the past year. It’s been a few weeks since last time, and I thought it was gone, but it will never be gone.” My tight fists and clenched teeth couldn’t banish the pointless tears. “I’m just going to have to live with it. Because I get to, you know? I get to live with it. Jesus, what am I even saying? You lost your parents.”
“Grief is grief. It’s not a contest, and there’s no sense comparing them.” He stared out the window, thinking. “What do your parents say about this?”
I swallowed. “They don’t know. No one knows.”
“Therapist?”
“I tried. Campus counselors were somewhat helpful, but I didn’t get to see the same person every time, so I got mixed results and I got tired of rehashing it over and over, like running in place. I saw a private therapist—once—but he blamed the universal root cause for everything when you’re female—stress.”
“As though having your sleep interrupted night after night wasn’t causing the stress.”
“You sound like you know what I’m talking about. Did you— You must have had difficulties after losing your parents. You were just a little boy.”
“I did. But I was with family. My cousins were older, but welcoming enough for a couple of teenagers.” He smiled. “My grandfather lived with us too.”
“What was that like? Mom’s parents retired to Colorado when I was young, and Daddy’s parents were hundreds of miles east.”
“Pop’s in a memory care center now, so I got to spend time with him before Alzheimer’s started stealing his stories, and his ability to know who I am. The dementia didn’t really set in until after I left for Penn. I’d visit when I was home, and he thought I was my father.”