chapter
Twenty-one
I woke to a sunrise coloring the ecru walls a peachy pink, a low light over the kitchen stove, the drone of cars on 7th Street, and the smell of coffee. I stretched, listening for Isaac, or Pete, and heard nothing. My phone screen revealed battery life of thirteen percent, a text from a high school friend who would be in town for Thanksgiving and wanted to meet up, and the fact that I’d slept a solid four hours since my wicked, filthy, Isaac-centered fantasies.
My body tingled at the roused memory, all sensation pooling between my legs in one formidable surge. Oh. My. God. I had never been this strung out, every shred of erotic awareness on one person. One person who was having none of it. I groaned like a petulant child. If I weren’t worried that Isaac might walk around the corner any second, I could replay one of last night’s sexy-time visions or dream up a new one.
I promised my dirty little mind that it could have its treat tonight when I was safe in my own bed, and stood. Brr. The apartment had grown cooler overnight. With the blanket wrapped around me, I crept toward the coffeepot and found a clean mug and a note.
Erin,
Pete and I went for a run. Coffee's brewed - help yourself. I'll make breakfast when I get back. I assume your phone's dead or dying, so there's a cord on the counter.
Back soon.
Isaac
I plugged in my phone, set myself up on the opposite end of the sectional, and curled under the blanket, facing the engrossing sunrise view that stretched across the width and height of the apartment like Sheila Anderson’s mural, but lovelier for its ephemeral existence. Gauzy clouds hung over the horizon, under-lit by the rising sun and backed with bright blue. In half an hour, this sunrise would vanish forever. Like last night’s kiss, which hardly seemed real.
The only exposed parts of me were my head and the hand holding the steaming mug. I breathed in coffee vapors with a contented sigh and listened for the sound of the door latch turning. I didn’t have to wait long. Pete came straight to me when they entered, as though I belonged there. He snuggled his head into my lap and wagged with his whole body.
“Hello, Pete. Did you get your exercise whether you wanted it or not?” I extended my warm hand outside the blanket to scratch behind his ears, which felt like thin, flappy shavings of ice.
I heard Isaac pouring a cup of coffee in the kitchen behind me.
“His ears are freezing!” I said, turning.
He was shrugging off a hoodie. Not the one I’d puked on, obviously—he had claimed to have others. This one was a vibrant royal blue and matched the tank underneath. The combo was almost as yummy on him as his purple shirt and tie. Folding the hoodie over a barstool, he rolled his shoulders and picked up his coffee.
“They’ll warm up. It’s cool out this morning.” He sipped from the mug, staring absently out the window.
I blinked, ogling him like a sex maniac, which after last night I had to concede might be the case. The oversized armhole of his sweat-soaked tank was cut low enough to display the curve of his ribs and the rippled edges of abs when he moved. The rising sun made his perspiration-slicked skin glow golden brown, darker where individual muscles were demarcated.
I’d learned the names of fundamental muscle groups in freshman biology, but I was salivating with lust and my recall was momentarily shot. His arms were solid, defined. Biceps, my brain said, stupidly proud of itself. Biceps. Black mesh shorts exposed equally impressive, rock-hard legs. Calves.
He toed off his sneakers under the barstool and turned toward me.
My fuck-me eyes were activated, and I couldn’t flip the switch fast enough to hide them. Flustered, I rotated back toward the window like a guilt-ridden addict whose self-reproach did not extend to a resolute cessation of unauthorized fantasies. I rubbed Pete’s icy ears, pretending wholesomeness, and wished Isaac would offer himself up for breakfast.
The refrigerator door opened. “Blueberry waffles?”
I wondered if whipped cream was involved. What is wrong with me? “Yes, please.”
“I’m going to shower real quick first.”
The heavy doors to his room slid closed. The shower switched on. I fought to keep from imagining his big, soapy hands sliding over my skin and wanted to cry over the injustice of it being make-believe.
I scrambled up and out from under the warm, tempting blanket, embracing the chill like a cold-air shower. From his sunspot on the oblong rug, Pete lifted his head. “More coffee, that’s what I need,” I explained.
He lowered his muzzle back to his outstretched paws and huffed a little sigh. Even the dog knew I was full of shit.
By the time Isaac emerged, I’d rummaged through his cupboard and fridge to assemble the ingredients and utensils on the counter. The waffle mix was whole grain, the blueberries frozen, the milk skim, and everything was organic. I hadn’t encountered a single bit of junk food in the whole place—except for a half-eaten pint of ice cream. Butter pecan, my favorite.
“You make a good sous chef,” he said, pouring and stirring. He’d dressed in worn jeans, hems frayed on his bare feet, and a blood-red, long-sleeved henley. The sleeves were pushed to his elbows. For months I’d seen him in nothing but slacks, dress shirts, and ties. Now, in a short span of hours, I’d encountered Batman Isaac, sweats-and-T-shirt Isaac, sweaty-tank-and-shorts Isaac, and now this. I was being tortured.
“I’m good at all sorts of things.” I was not in the mood to be subtle.
In typical Isaac Maat fashion, he took an eternity to respond. I waited him out, because I was learning. He heated and buttered the waffle iron, folded the blueberries into the batter, and poured the first batch before speaking.
“What do you want from me?” His eyes, dark and unwavering, gave nothing away.
“I think you know,” I said, hedging.
His brows hitched, but he kept silent, taunting me to answer his question.
My heart leaped. In a futile attempt to appear composed, I took a slow, shallow breath and exhaled it in jittery stops and starts that signaled the final ineffective warning against the words about to leave my mouth. Words I couldn’t make unsaid once they were uttered.
“I want you.”
His eyes glowed like polished obsidian. “You want me to fuck you.”
Freshman-year cheer practice, I’d been dropped during a basic basket toss, landing on my back so hard that I couldn’t breathe for several seconds. That vividly graphic sentence from Isaac Maat had the same affect.
“Yes.” My face went hot. My fingers tingled because all the blood had left them to pool elsewhere.
“As we established last night—”
“I know you want me.” If he denied it, he was a liar. His kiss had lit me up like pyrotechnics gone rogue, every nerve plugging in and igniting, and he was the power source.
“Whether I want you or not is irrelevant.” He made our carnal power struggle sound like a debate over eating junk food or sleeping in.
“But you don’t deny it.”
“Regardless, any association between us beyond our working relationship is out of the question. I’m sorry if anything I’ve said or done made you think otherwise.” His eyes slid away. He was fortifying his resolve no matter his desires. “You’re just horny. It’s not me you want.”
The volatile temper for which gingers are known burst into flames in the center of my chest and snarled out. “So you think I just want to get laid?” He flinched, which was gratifying, but I wasn’t done. “I just want a dick and anyone’s dick will do?”
My conscience ahem-ed and recapped the fact that I had gone out last night with that very objective, evaluating each of Mindi’s male friends with the intention of getting laid. Clearly I was horny as hell. But if any old dick would’ve done, Boone was plenty cute, Oliver was hot enough to stuff a sock in his mouth and ride him like a living dildo, or I could have picked door number three and made that banana’s whole year.
Isaac glowered at the blameless waffle maker, which sizzled happily and was beginning to emit appetizing aromas.
I didn’t wait him out this time. “I will take your suggestion under advisement, Mr. Maat. I’m sure someone’s dick will accommodate me.” I felt like a total bitch, but that didn’t put the brakes on my mouth. “Maybe Joshua? He’s not my boss, and I don’t think he’d be afraid of my father. Or my name.”
In trying to goad Isaac into arguing back, I said the first name that popped into my head. Never mind that Joshua’s unpantsed penis would never find itself anywhere near me unless it had a masochistic hunger to discover The Lawnmower, a self-defense move I’d been waiting three years to use since it wasn’t one we could test out on the RAD coaches. Joshua would be a worthy candidate.
I wanted Isaac to vow that his was the only dick for me. Instead, he handed me the first waffle, a miniature pitcher of warmed syrup, and a can of Reddi-wip. When his waffle was done, he took his plate to his desk, sat on his ergonomic rolling stool, opened his laptop, and began tapping at it.
I finished my meal in silence, rinsed the dishes, and went to brush my teeth and wrangle my unruly hair into a knotted bun.
Not a word passed his lips until he handed me a Target bag containing my clothes from the previous night. “I looked for your shoes and found them in the trash?”
“They were covered in dirty water and I think bodily fluids.”
“Ah.” He was holding his keys. “If you’re ready then.”
I wanted to flounce back down on his sofa, cross my arms, and pout like an oversized toddler.
I wanted to put my arms around him and beg forgiveness for being the selfish, horny person he thought I was.
I did not want to leave. He stood there, waiting for me to get out of his home if I couldn’t have the decency to get out of his life.
I squatted and hugged Pete’s neck. He sat patiently and let me, like a movie dog. My parents’ dog, Jack, would have scratched up my arms, poked me in the eye with his nose, and wriggled to get loose until he peed. “Goodbye, Pete.” I rubbed his ears, which had warmed up, as Isaac had alleged they would.
I had a wayward thought as we approached the door. Without questioning the impulse, I slid my phone into my pocket and set my other things on the entry table. “I, um, need to use the bathroom first. Long drive home.” I hurried, hoping he would stay where he was by the door to the hallway, because there was no sound explanation for what I was about to do.
When I left the bathroom, I detour-tiptoed over to the framed photograph, lined it up in my phone’s display, and took the illicit shot. I would run it through filters later, adjusting the color and lighting. I dropped my phone back in my pocket and returned to gather my small purse and bag of clothes.
I felt like Indiana Jones with a stolen treasure in my pocket, anticipating flying darts and body-flattening boulders and displeased Nazis. My heart hammered at a guilty pace all the way to the parking garage, but I wasn’t sorry. I was captivated by that image of Isaac as a cheerful, innocent child with his jaunty, checkered bow tie and his attractive, ill-fated parents, and I couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing it again.
“Be careful. There could be glass or broken concrete somewhere,” he said, more mindful of my bare feet than I was.
As we emerged from the parking garage, my phone rang; Mindi’s face appeared on my screen.
“Hi, girl! How’re you feeling?” I asked, my artificially chirpy Erin voice now super apparent to my own ears. Thank you, Isaac Maat.
“Much better. I’m so sorry I abandoned you last night—”
“I’m great. Never better.” Liar, liar, everything on fire.
“Isaac took care of you, then?”
“Yes.” No. I side-eyed him. He pretended not to notice.
“He’s one of Rhys’s best friends—he’s always been really sweet.”
Sweet? Isaac? Um. “He was great.”
The hours since leaving dinner last night scrolled by: Isaac covering me with things because I looked cold. Carrying me through a panic-inducing underworld of bubbles several feet over our heads—which sounded fun but wasn’t. Feeding me and lending me clothes. Admitting that he had adopted an old dog, on purpose, because it needed a home. Keeping a photo of his deceased parents near his bed. Encouraging me to talk about my biggest failure as a human being.
Sonofabitch, he is sweet. I sighed.
“Erin,” Mindi said, “I have to tell you this before Rhys gets back with breakfast. We’re going out tonight. Alone.” The elation in her voice was palpable. She was squeaking with it.
“I take it that’s not happened before?”
“Never. I’ve been hanging out with Boone and them for over two years, and Rhys almost as long. But Boone says Rhys never really hung out with them until I showed up. I’ve tried literally everything. For a while he kept telling me I should date guys my age, until I told him what happened.”
“You told him?” That was huge.
Mindi’s parents had been perfect, supporting her through pressing charges, urging her to get counseling. With baby steps, she’d progressed past the devastating PTSD she had suffered after the assault. She’d left home again to finish college and established a new group of friends on a new campus, in a new city.
But she hadn’t dated or hung out alone with anyone, and she hadn’t disclosed her past to any of her new friends but Madison. The fact that she had confided in Rhys was remarkable. Tears blurred my vision, and I made a fervent wish that he would prove deserving of her faith in him, no matter what transpired with their potential romance.
“He was so angry and upset for me. But it backfired a little.” She sighed. “He stopped telling me to date other people, but he started treating me like I was made of glass, which is just bullshit! And then last night happened, and at one point my guard was so far down from all the throwing up that I told him to please goddammit stop treating me like I was broken.”
“Wow.”
“Hi honey, I’m home!” I heard in the background, followed by a whispered, “Oh crap, you’re on the phone.”
“It’s Erin,” she told him. “I’m just letting her know I’m alive and that I’m very, very sorry for the rancid chicken salad.”
My stomach churned resentfully. “Ugh. Please do not say rancid. Or chicken, for that matter.”
“Deal. Claire and Madison had to take poor Ava to the ER. They gave her meds to stop the vomiting and hooked her up to an IV to rehydrate her. Madison texted around six to let me know they were back home. I’m glad you and I didn’t eat much of that you-know-what.”
“Jesus, no kidding.”
She thanked Rhys for her latte and then, with the verbal equivalence of an exaggerated wink, said, “Well, Erin, I’ll, uh, talk to you tomorrow.” Subtlety had never been Mindi’s strong suit.
I wanted to laugh and say Get it, girl! but Isaac was sitting next to me.
“Yes. I’ll want all the deets.”
Isaac pulled up behind my Prius, parked where I’d left it a mere thirteen hours before. I grabbed my small handbag and the plastic bag that held my costume. He’d added my gold pom-poms, which we’d left in his trunk outside the haunted house.
“Got everything?” he asked.
“Yep. I’ll bring your clothes back Monday. Thanks for letting me crash on your couch, and the food, and… everything.”
His hand tightened on the gearshift, but he needn’t have agonized that I was going to have another go at persuading him to reconsider his Erin moratorium. After his coup de grâce assertion regarding my horniness and the myriad choices available to fix it (namely, anyone’s dick but his), my wiles were demoralized and going on hiatus.
I popped the rear of my hatchback, stowed the bag, and removed my flats, mindful of Isaac’s car idling behind me, Isaac watching me, Isaac thinking who knew what. Once I started my car, he reversed and drove away.
I clunked my forehead against the steering wheel a few times for good measure, inhaled a deep breath, retrieved my dark-lensed sunglasses from the hinged compartment over my head, and drove home.