Infinite Us by Eden Butler (5)

“When do you think Mickey will be back?”

“It’s bingo night, remember? He doesn’t ever call it early on bingo night unless he wins and he never wins.”

I liked Nash’s place almost as much as my own, and that was saying something because I had totally fallen in love with my apartment. I still couldn’t believe my luck when one of my Mom’s old university buddies needed someone to take up the place when he decided to retire to New Hampshire. Rent control in Brooklyn? Hell, yes. I was never going to leave, unless forced to. I suspected Nash wouldn’t either and with how clean and comfortable he had made his place, I couldn’t blame him.

I had no idea who some of the posters on the walls were, except Gaiman, of course. Everyone knows Gaiman, and I guess I knew Einstein and Dizzy, too. I didn’t mind that many of the other faces were unknown to me. It was like walking into some post-modern techie world that itched to be explored.

There were framed posters of musicians and writers, scientists; beautiful men whose faces told stories, said things with one look. They contrasted against the utilitarian feel of the rest of his place—the clean, mint scent that wafted from his kitchen and the books organized on black metal shelves by color and size. There was very little in the way of personal items, only a few pictures of Nash and a girl who looked so much like him that she had to be his twin. They couldn’t be more than eight in the picture, but there was a smile on his face, honest and open, his hazel-glinted eyes sparkling when he smiled at her. No photos of parents or friends. I couldn't help but wonder why only his sister warranted a frame on the center console of his entertainment center, but I didn't feel like I could ask. Not yet.

The last time I’d been here there’d been little time for exploration. Nash had been sleep-deprived and worn out. My focus had been on centering him and getting him to sleep.

Now though, I was stuck here, at least until the Super came back from bingo. “I can’t believe I locked myself out.” Another stupid sneeze. At this rate I’d pass out from lack of blood to my heart. Did you know when you sneeze, all your working parts, just sort of stop? No heartbeat, no nothing. Sneezing is hazardous to your health.

“Here,” Nash said, handing me something that smelled like the whiskey my great grandfather used to drink, but it steamed like hot tea and felt good against my cold fingers.

“What is this?”

“Hot toddy. Old family recipe.” He pulled the towel from my shoulders and started to dry the ends of my hair, all familiar and sweet. Definitely not like him at all. I liked it—Nash Nation, tough-looking, techie guy taking care of me like he wanted to.

“Mmmm.” The small, satisfied noise slipped out, without my permission, but I didn’t try to cover the slip. It felt nice to have Nash fussing around me, in this quiet, almost but not quite intimate way. It felt…familiar and I wasn’t sure why that was.

“Drink,” he said when I stared off into space, humming like an old woman when he worked that towel through my wet hair.

I listened to his demand, making a deeper, more satisfied noise when the toddy warmed me from the inside, a sensation that left me a little punch drunk.

“It’s good, right?” he asked and I could hear the humor in his voice. I must have seemed ridiculous to him, needy and pathetic, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Willow?”

There was too much sensation and my head felt fuzzy; a fog surrounded me, and now Nash combed his fingers through my hair, sweet and soft, too tender and yet welcome. What was in that drink anyway? I stifled a yawn, but Nash caught me up, tugged me onto the sofa with him and I let him, liked how it felt to be tousled around because I felt weak and helpless. I never had let a man do that to me before, but just then the warmth that surrounded me made me careless, left me stupid to warnings that might normally come into my head when I was alone with a man I didn’t really know.

“Is Mickey back yet?” I said absently through another yawn, but Nash shooshed me, pulled me to the cushions with his arms easy around me. The room became silent in that space between fever and rest, right in the center of dreams and alertness. I nestled there, comfortable, free, and wondered where I’d landed; I wondered how long I’d stay there. It felt safe. It felt so familiar and so, I let the dream take me.

* * *

There were two spots on my new flower-print dress. I wasn’t sure if it was ketchup from the burger I’d scarfed down on my way to the library or maybe droplets of blood from the straight pin I’d used to separate my thick lashes after I’d spent nearly an hour on my face this morning. It had pricked my finger when I’d gotten careless and those tiny blots of blood remained on the fabric.

Red against pink. Stupid really, but it reminded me of Jackie Kennedy’s bloodied pink suit the day President Kennedy had been assassinated. God, had that only been four years ago? The thought came from nowhere and I returned my attention to the small droplets. The spots were obvious and I tried to keep Isaac from noticing. He sat next to me huddled over the paper on the table in front of us, the long paragraph written in a neat, precise penmanship that reminded me of typewriter font. He leaned on one large arm as he wrote slowly, knocking his elbow against the worn copy of Countee Cullen’s “Any Human to Another” I’d borrowed from him and returned when we met tonight.

“You think I should mention the work I did at my church? We had to rebuild after that first fire and I got the pastor thinking about a library. I built the bookshelves and even stacked the books when we got them in. Think maybe that will make me seem like more of a…what’d you call it? ‘Viable candidate’ or whatever it was you said.”

“I think it couldn’t hurt.”

He smiled when I nodded and not for the first time my gaze stuck a little on his full mouth and the dimple pushing in his right cheek. “You really think so, Miss Riley?”

“I do.” I touched my palm over my heart, an exaggerated oath, and instantly wished I hadn’t. It brought Isaac’s gaze to that red stain. “And I wish you’d stop calling me Miss Riley.”

He looked down at my face, the light gold in his dark amber eyes seeming to sparkle a little, but then that could just be my imagination. I’d gone a little stupid over this man and was always inventing fantastical things that his eyes did or how his voice, so deep and sultry, spun its own sort of magic anytime I heard him hum or sing something under his breath.

“Some habits are hard to break.” The easy smile my silent complement brought onto his mouth slipped a bit, but Isaac kept watching me, eyes alert as though he wanted me to understand some deeper meaning.

“You know that’s not something that’s expected here…”

The smile left him then and he glared a little at my gentle admonition. “Here?”

“In. D.C. This isn’t…you’re not in Georgia anymore, Isaac.” I moved my chin toward him, hoping I wasn’t crossing any lines. He knew who he was and where he’d come from. The habit was a hard one, it seemed, since I’d been asking him to call me “just” Riley for over two months.

“Hmmm.” It was an odd little noise, something strange and quiet that seemed to come from his throat without his permission. It was all the agreement I thought I might get.

“I just mean, around here, that’s not how…”

“It’s not?” He sat back then, leaning an arm behind him on the empty chair at his side, seeming to want to put some space between us. It had taken all my skills to get him to sit next to me, even at the same table. Isaac was big on how things would look, no matter that I was helping him with his admissions application to Lincoln University. No matter that it was nearly ten at night and aside from his friend Lenny, we were the only ones left in the library. He’d still been skittish.

“No.” I turned in my seat, facing him. “Of course not.”

Isaac wasn’t like other men I knew, aside from my Dad and brother Ryan. Most boys my age thought it was perfectly reasonable to talk down to me, as though a little simplification was required because I had breasts. Isaac wasn’t like that. He didn’t try to simplify anything for me, especially what he thought. He treated me like an equal. “Well, why don’t you tell me all about it.”

But lord above he was fiercely stubborn.

“Are we going to have the same debate again?”

“Maybe we are, Miss Riley. Maybe it’s a good plan seeing as how you don’t seem to get that you and me, we’re different.” I opened my mouth, the regular argument tickling the tip of my tongue but Isaac cut me off with a shake of his head and the flick of his hand. “And before you start in on the same mess about your daddy being a civil rights lawyer and how you and your whole family have gone to marches and sponsored black students and how that somehow makes things all level like, I’ll remind you again that while that’s mighty generous and much appreciated, it still don’t mean that the whole world, even here in D.C., sees things the way you do.”

“I realize that. I’m not simple, you know.” I hated the petulant sound of my voice, how Isaac’s assertions were likely correct even if I didn’t want them to be.

“I know you’re not. You’re a sight more…” There was a lull in his voice, something that brought my attention to the way he held his breath, how he seemed to think on what he said, picking his words carefully. “Well. You got smarts, Miss Riley. I know that sure enough.”

“And so do you, Mr. Isaac.” He liked that, I saw it in the way the smile came back onto his face and how gentle that expression was.

Isaac was beautiful. There was no other way to describe him. He was tall, taller than even my Dad who stood well beyond six feet. Isaac, though, was broader, with the shoulders of an athlete and hands that were large, fingers slender and big knuckles that made three of his fingers slightly crooked. I suspected this was why he always popped his knuckles and stretched out his fingers after he’d worked for more than an hour on his application essay. Thinking of it reminded me of the first few times we’d met, how just a half hour of writing long hand had made a heavy line dent between his eyes. It had hurt him to struggle so, but was too proud to mention it.

“How’s your hand? You’ve been writing a while.”

“I’ll survive.” To demonstrate he picked up the pencil, twirling it between his fingers like it was nothing. “Fit as a fiddle.”

I didn’t buy it. Dad had spent a good part of his childhood down South too, and the stories he told of how black and impoverished white kids were treated, gave me nightmares. There were frequent beatings in front of the entire class, many meted out to left-handed students who were being forced to write with their right hands. I was pretty sure Dad had been one of those kids and I suspected Isaac had dealt with a similar issue.

“My…my dad still has problems because of the awful school teachers in the South when he was a kid.” Isaac stopped twirling the pencil and sat up straighter, like he was gearing up for another round of me acting like I had any idea what his life had been like. “Not saying I understand anything about your past, but Dad still does these exercises to stretch the ligaments and bones in his hands. I thought they might help you.” He kept watching me closely, a doubtful expression on his face that I wasn’t quite sure how to read. I shrugged, pulling the pages of note paper together as though it didn’t matter to me at all if he wanted to go on hurting without at least trying to release some of the pain.

“I mean, if you want to try it, I could show you, maybe tell you about the massages my mom does to help when his arthritis is really painful.”

The attention he gave me then was a little unsettling and I didn’t know what to make of it. There was a smile, though it was a little forced and a fire lit in his eyes, the means of which I couldn’t quite make out. As habit, I slouched a little and rested my elbow on my bag while Isaac kept on watching me. Suddenly the bag slipped from the table, and I nodded a thanks to Isaac when he grabbed it for me, our fingers touching for a second before he handed it over.

Every move I made was a weak attempt to distract myself from how closely he watched me, how I must have seemed like the oddest person in the world to him. He’d only been away from Georgia and all the realities of that life for a year. I’d overheard Lenny pleading for Isaac with Mr. Welis, the cleaning crew manager. He’d fussed at Isaac being late, something Isaac swore had happened because he’d gotten the bus schedule wrong. Lenny promised their boss that Isaac was still adjusting, still trying to figure out where he fit in here in D.C. or if he fit in at all. Mr. Welis was a nice man and hadn’t been too irritated by Isaac’s tardiness. He’d even been the one to ask if I could help Isaac with his application despite how loudly Isaac had complained. It had taken a solid month for Isaac to return the “good afternoon” or “have a nice night” greetings I sent his way. It had taken another month for him to give me direct answers when I asked them, trying to start up our first real conversation had provoked a response under his breath containing an insult I was sure he didn’t mean for me to hear.

“Damn woman could talk the devil right out of hell.”

“Well, that’s true, I guess, but I wouldn’t want him following after me.” That little unexpected come back had actually made Isaac smile and gave me my first full glimpse at the way his face would light up and how his odd eyes sparkled when he wasn’t sullen and ignoring the world around him.

“You think that would help me?” he asked me now, wiggling his hands to remind me of the offer I’d made. “That is, you don’t think it would be a waste of time?”

“Not at all.” I twisted around in my chair, abandoning the task of packing away my things to face him. Our knees almost touched and I pushed down the hem of my skirt more closely to my knees before I held out my hands. “Extend your fingers, as far as they can go, just like this.” I stretched my fingers until the ligaments felt tight, then balled them into little fists that whitened the tips of my knuckles.

Isaac made an effort, covering a wince with a half-smile when he tried mimicking my stretching movement. Then that half-attempted smile disappeared and two of Isaac’s fingers locked up, making him curse low under his breath.

“You okay?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. I didn’t do much thinking at all. I only reacted as how my parents had taught me. You see someone in pain, anyone at all, and you do your best to help them.

Isaac froze, body utterly still when I grabbed his hand. His fingers did not relax, neither did any other part of him as I held his hand between my fingers rubbing out the joints and knuckles, focusing on the movement of my fingers as I kneaded his brown skin with the pads of my thumbs. He didn’t try pulling away from me, but he also didn’t seem too eager to relax under my touch, something that caught my attention when I turned over his hand, working the massage on his palm. A long, deep exhale went from him then, gently moving the hair along my forehead. It was only then that I looked up from my work, coming to myself with a small shock at what I was doing.

“Miss Riley…” he finally said, glance moving over my face like he was trying to map my features, to gauge the slightest hint of warning or caution that might have surfaced. But there was nothing there, I knew that, nothing but surprise at how forward I’d been, at how many assumptions I’d made without his permission.

I eased his hand down, laying it on the table before I swallowed and pulled away from him, unable to keep the shaking from my fingers or the tension from my belly. It was an awkward, strange moment, one that I’d never had with Isaac since I’d barged my way into his life with stupid smiles and dumb questions about the weather and what he used to clean the floors.

“Isaac…I’m so sorry. That was forward of me, and I don’t usually…”

“I…I think maybe I liked it.” His expression was a little amused, the corner of his mouth twitched and he lifted the massaged hand up, stretching the fingers and knuckles as though my brief touch had done some good at least. “Fact, I’m sure I did.”

“Oh…”

The air in that small room went a little still, like nothing else moved around us, not the flickering of the lights overhead or Lenny’s low humming a floor below where he was mopping the marble tiles around the Reference section. The sound was soft, could be plainly heard from the open balcony below.

In that moment, I could only look at Isaac, a million thoughts and wishes floating through my mind, pumping the blood thick in my ears. Hopes too, those came rushing to the surface, silly, stupid things I knew would never happen, like Isaac telling me who we were didn’t matter or, better still, like him taking my face between those big palms before he moved close, close enough to level his mouth over mine.

“I know…I mean, it was rude…”

“It feels better.” He stretched his fingers again, ignoring my apology as he leaned forward, sending a jolt of surprise through my body when he got close enough that I could see just how thick and long his lashes were and that he had the faintest scar along his left cheek. He reminded me of a feather floating from the sky on a still, cloudless day where no wind rustles the trees and the air is thick with heat. Isaac moved in that same, minutely still movement, fractions of inches that made up the single stroke of his thumb over my cheek and the slow, smooth sweep of him touching my face like I was something unusual—an alien he thought he’d never see up close.

I wanted to melt into that touch. I wanted him to stretch those fingers again, rest his palm against my face to have the smallest hint of what his touch would do to me; if it would cool or heat me, devour me with sensation.

“Isaac…” It was the smallest whisper of word, something that felt like a promise I wanted to make, but he blinked at the sound and his face shifted to an amazed, shocked wonder as though he’d only just realized what he was doing. When he pulled his hand away, I wanted to stop him, bring back that touch without him arguing. But Isaac was stubborn and there were those hard-lost habits he held onto like beliefs he’d never give up.

“I appreciate you helping me ease the pain and with my application essay, Miss Riley.” He stood up, backed away from the table and my chest ached, Isaac’s dismissal a real thud of pain inside my heart.

“Isaac, wait a second, please.”

He’d nearly made it to the stairwell, tucking the rolled up Cullen paperback into his back pocket. He didn’t turn, not right off and let me come a little more than ten feet from him before he faced me.

“You got a fella, don’t you Miss Riley?”

That stopped me cold and I did my best to ignore the flush I felt warming my face. “How...”

“Folk talk around here. Folk who see you smiling at me, the same folk that tell me I need to steer clear of you, especially since you got that Trent fella picking you up most Saturday nights, taking you to places I could never go.” He took a step closer, but if felt likes miles from me, those passive accusations that were nothing more than the truth thickening the space between us. “Lincoln ain’t that big of a campus, Miss Riley. Janitors like me and the fellas who trim the hedges at your dorm, their cousins and women who clean out the bathrooms, they all talk. They all tell me about you because they know we here, all alone, so you can help me get into Lincoln.”

“I…I don’t care what people say.”

He moved his jaw, working his teeth together so that the muscles along the side of his face flexed. “Sometimes, you got to. Sometimes what people say are the things that get the wrong people moving toward something stronger than words.” Isaac tapped his finger to his temple before he frowned, making me feel, for the first time, like I was the one who needed lessons. “It’s like I always say, we don’t live in the same world. We won’t ever.” When I only stared at him, unable to keep my eyes from glassing over, Isaac lowered his shoulders, giving up something—a small, nearly insignificant thing he wouldn’t be sorry to see go—that softened his features and took the snap from his tone when he spoke. “I don’t say these things to be mean…”

“I know you don’t.” Those weren’t just words spoken to ease the guilt he might have felt with his small rejection. But that didn’t mean my chest had stopped aching or that I’d rush to explain myself. Trent wasn’t my “fella”. Not like he pretended he was, and I knew people would gossip about me and Isaac up on the fifth floor organizing his letters of recommendation, trying to make his essay seemed eloquent and appealing to the admissions board. We’d done that away from the gossip I knew circled around campus, just the two of us, cloistered from anyone who’d interrupt.

It would likely be best to walk away, free him from his worry that those gossiping people would go on fussing at him for the company he kept. But something inside my brain niggled fierce and persistent; it was the constant refrain that this man needed me, and louder still, that I needed him. Something beyond a whim, something familiar, something deep beyond reason.

“Well, then, Miss Riley, I suppose I’ll see you next week, if you still want to meet with me.”

He nodded when I smiled, taking two steps back to watch me before he moved down the stairs and I watched him a good thirty seconds longer, until I couldn’t hear his boots on the marble steps anymore; until I knew it was safe enough to sit back down at that table and let those poorly disguised tears fall.