Infinite Us by Eden Butler (13)

There were baking dishes littered around my small kitchen and the entire apartment smelled like cupcakes and the sweet, decadent flavor of frosting and dark ale. I’d attempted Irish Car Bombs again and had spilled have a bottle of Guinness on my floor, the sticky mess collecting to pool into the grout line on my tile floor.

The oven had sounded ten minutes ago, five minutes after I should have opened the door and the latest batch was a burnt mess.

“Stupid Guinness,” I called to the oven and the dark brown cupcakes that had cost me ten bucks to make. That definitely wouldn’t make the cut. I pulled on the room temperature beer, letting the half-empty bottle empty down my throat. “Stupid me.”

My sofa was large and comfy; a hand-me-down piece Effie had given me when her second job as a spa owner had finally turned a profit. It seemed everyone wanted to meditation and get a facial on the same day. My friend capitalized on it. But me and the cupcakes? No. Today wasn’t a good day for my little business and I thought about my great-grandmother just then, wondering how many burned batches of cookies and brownies she had to go through to get her recipes perfected. I wondered if she liked the weight of her life keeping her from concentrating on getting the job done.

At my right, on the hall table that led out of the front room, sat a picture of my great-grandparents on their wedding day. Their smiles were bright and lit up their entire faces and I glanced between that picture and my own reflection in the mirror above the mantel. My face was shaped precisely like my great-grandfather’s, but my eyes, they belonged to her. I tried to smile, thinking of the cookies I’d delivered to the homeless shelter a few blocks down from our building. The director had been kind, had thanked me over and over and I watched myself in the mirror, gaze shifting back to my grandparents’ picture and back to the mirror as I thought of that day at the shelter. But my eyes didn’t gleam quite as bright and my smile, no matter how closely it resembled my grandfather’s, didn’t seem as wide.

I kept watching, zoning out, forgetting the shelter, forgetting that picture and Nash’s face slipped to my conscience and stayed at the front of my mind. His mouth, his smile, that sweet, beautiful smile, the sound of his laughter and the rich, full sound of his voice. Before I knew I’d done it, my face ached a little with the smile that wouldn’t leave my features and I shot my gaze back and forth from the picture and the mirror and slouched against the billowing pillows arranged around the sofa.

Nash. He was the only thing that made my eyes sparkle like my great-grandmother’s. He was the only thought that made me look exactly like my grandfather.

I turned on my side, stuffing the pillow against my chest as I recalled the precise arc of his face, the exact bend of his mouth and the soft brush of his tongue. It was only then that I let the day go from me. I put away thoughts of burnt cupcakes and smiles that didn’t match my great-grandparents’. It was only with Nash’s face frozen in my thoughts, that I thought my dreams would stay in the present.

I was wrong.

* * *

We existed in our own world. Away from my classes, from my family, from his friends, Isaac and I became an island, distant, exotic and wholly decadent. There were moments when just the stretch of his smile would send a thrill to my stomach, to other places tantalized by that look and I was left breathless and weak. Other times I nestled against his chest with those wide arms around me and his mouth at the shell of my ear whispering promises that we pretended were real and honest and true. They felt that way, in those stolen moments.

I met him every night after his shift ended with Lenny keeping watch and the library free from anyone who’d care what we were up to. The curve of his top lip and the tiny space between his front teeth were small imperfections I found delicious, irresistible and Isaac knew it. He knew me, in just those few short weeks, he had discovered how to hold my neck so that our mouths met at the perfect angle. He knew that a kiss on the base of my throat would have me frantic and eager and desperate for his mouth. Isaac knew that I didn’t like being called “baby” the way Trent always had. He knew my brother was my best friend and that in my eyes, no one’s father was better than mine.

And that’s where the problems started to surface.

“No matter what you say, no man is gonna be too happy about someone like me…”

“Don’t you finish that sentence.” My face was flushed and my lips still swollen from his kisses when I pushed him back. It was the same argument we’d had for a week and it stemmed from my parents wanting details about why I’d broken up with Trent.

“Someone like me coming to knock at his front door telling him I’m there for his little girl.”

“You don’t know him. My family isn’t like that, especially not my Dad.”

But he hadn’t believed me, not then, not even when I told him my brother had come to see me, not batting an eye over why I’d decided to remain on campus during the summer break instead of staying with our family at the lake house.

Ryan had come to my dorm, a care package from my mother under his arm, and had gotten downright nosey about how I’d been spending my time.

“It’s a man.”

“What?” He watched me shove the box into my room and waited in the hallway to walk with me to the park. “You’ve been drinking, right? Long night at Gadsby’s that you haven’t recovered from? I know how the ice well fascinates you.”

“Listen to me, little sister, I know you better than anyone. If you were just busy with studying and school projects you wouldn’t have missed Sunday out on Lake Deer Creek. Not with the Crafts joining us. You love Joanie Craft and haven’t missed a chance to race her to the pier since you were twelve.”

“I’m not twelve, Ryan.”

“Obviously,” he said holding the door open for me as we left the building, “but that whole not being twelve thing didn’t stop you last summer. She complained the entire weekend about not being able to have a rematch.”

He hadn’t been wrong. No amount of studying could quell my competitive nature, especially not against Joanie Craft. She was a sore loser and I’d wanted to beat her two years running. But then Isaac borrowed Lenny’s Bel Air and we drove down the G.W. Parkway for hours. The roads twisted into loops along the backdrop of lush green forests that seem to stretch on for acres and hilltops that billowed up and down among all that thick greenery. They were supposed to be building a state park in the area, but the day had been a little overcast and the road was nearly empty. It had been a perfect afternoon. Isaac parked along a dip in the tree line, hiding the Bel Air behind thick-hanging limbs that brushed the ground. I blushed to think of how we spent those next few hours hidden behind the greenery, with the birds serenading us and the breeze blowing through the open windows.

I hadn’t thought about Joanie Craft or our swimming races all afternoon. There had been Isaac kissing my neck, quoting Zora Neale Hurston, telling me with his mouth and fingers what he thought it felt like when “love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” He loved her work, so did I and we got drunk on Hurston’s words, on the slow, honeyed sound of Billie Holiday working her own poetry on the radio, on the scent of sweat and sweetness of each other in that car. There had only been Isaac and me and the sound of his heartbeat against my ear as we watched the purple sky becoming inky black.

“So?” Ryan had said, the question hidden in the inflection of his voice.

“So, maybe there’s a guy.”

There was a little tease edging around his laugh and I knew I’d be harassed relentlessly. We cleared the main campus water fountain and neared the park benches, a row of thirteen to symbolize Lincoln’s greatest accomplishment. It was on the last bench that I sat with Ryan’s focused stare waiting on me to elaborate.

“Do I know him?” Ryan stretched an arm behind me on the bench and I concentrated on two pigeons flying between the spray of fountain water across from our seat. The day was warmer than it should have been for early summer, but there was a breeze that made it bearable.

“Not unless you’re familiar with the cleaning crew in the library.”

Ryan’s smile dimmed, and an eyebrow shot up. “Cleaning crew?” I nodded, silently inviting him to ask the accusatory questions. “As in, janitor?” Another nod and my brother went quiet.

He knew what that meant. There weren’t many white men doing service work at the university. As part of their cultural policy, the university had made work-study enrollment possible, had even offered audited classes to their employees who wanted to improve well enough to become full time students. Students of any race could subsidize their tuition with student worker jobs. Lenny was one of those students and Isaac was working toward that as well, aiming to start at Lincoln the next semester. He just needed to perfect his application and work on his admissions essay. But it was common knowledge that many of the student worker service positions were held by black students.

It was one thing for my family to champion equality—they had, my entire life. My Jewish mother had seen her entire family wiped out in concentration camps; my father had been one of the soldiers liberating her camp. Intolerance wasn’t something they forgave easily. It’s why they had devoted themselves to working towards Civil Rights. But their only daughter, their little girl, falling for a black man? In D.C. at the height of the Civil Rights movement? Well. I wasn’t sure how they’d react. The longer Ryan's silence stretched, the more uneasy I felt with my belief that who I loved, no matter who they were, didn’t really matter to my family.

After what felt like hours, Ryan sat up, joining me in my distracted focus on the pigeons and their fountain diving. When he spoke, his attention stayed on the birds. “Is he a good man, Riley?” Then he held up his hand, stopping me before I could answer. “What am I saying? Of course he is. You wouldn’t fall for a jerk.”

“No,” I said, coming close to admitting what had pushed me and Isaac together, but that would bring Trent’s obnoxious behavior front and center right at a crucial time for the Voting Rights Act. “No, I couldn’t be with anything but a good man.” I paused, turning to face my brother and he glanced at me, his face relaxing when I smiled. “He…he makes me feel safe, Ryan. He makes me, just so damn happy.”

I didn’t have the words to explain to my brother the thousand small things that Isaac did that made me laugh, made me think. I only knew that our conversations went on for hours, even before he first kissed me. I only knew that he asked me what I thought about issues and actually listened to my answers, that he would tell me what he honestly thought, and didn’t try to change my mind when our opinions differed. We read together at the library when there was no one around. Sometimes he read pages and pages with that rich, booming voice and it sounded like heaven to me. Isaac liked to hold my hand even when we walked down the street, even when his pinky curled around mine drew the attention of total strangers. He made me laugh, he made me think and I liked to believe I did the same to him. But Ryan didn’t seem to need to know any of that. Ryan loved me. He was my best friend in the whole world and he likely could see that I was truly happy. The rush of it colored my face.

“Well then,” he finally said, smile wide, eyes brightened with laughter again. “That’s all that matters, isn’t it?” The pigeons flew off and my brother ignored them, took to shaking his head as though the questions he had didn’t matter in the least. Ryan nudged my arm, a playful gesture he’d always done when he wanted to tease me. “Imagine that, my kid sister in love. Wonders never cease.”

“Very funny.” He stood, lead me away from the bench and past the fountains. “You never know, maybe you’ll luck up and find someone someday,” I quipped.

“No way, sis. One O’Bryant in love is more than this city can handle.”

* * *

The phone had not stopped ringing for a solid week. The summer still moved on, but Trent hadn't moved on with it. As August approached, word was the President was about to sign the Voting Rights Act. That meant Trent would lose the leverage he had that kept me from announcing to my family and the world the reasons why we had broken up. It had been nearly a month since he'd hit me. A month since the first time Isaac kissed me. It made no sense for Trent to be so relentless, but then, Trent wasn’t used to being denied anything. His image was more important to him than anything, and like most bullies, he didn't mind who got hurt as long as he got his way. I very well might have been the only one who’d ever told him no, and I was pretty sure his vanity hadn't accepted it, even a month later.

“I’m going to take the phone off the hook,” I threatened Trent when I finally answered the phone after an hour had passed and he kept calling with no let up. I didn’t much worry about him coming to my dorm; Mr. Thomas, an older Texan around my father’s age who took shrapnel to the knee in Japan during the war took his security guard duties seriously. He wouldn’t even let Ryan sit for too long in the lobby unless I was with him.

“You’re being a little ridiculous, Riley. This childish behavior of yours has gone on too long and Senator Mansfield is sponsoring an important dinner. I’m sure your father has mentioned it.”

“He might have.”

“Of course he has.” There was a confident ease to his tone that made him sound too familiar, too sure of himself. “I’ll need you to accompany me. My father doesn’t know that you and I have quarreled and he’ll expect you there with me.”

“You and your father can expect all you want Trent. I'll be there, but I won’t be with you.”

I hung up before he could make a complaint, in a hurry to meet Isaac at the library after his shift. He’d gone to see his sister, up from Atlanta, in Richmond while she visited friends and I’d not seen him in nearly two days. My fingertips tingled the closer I came to the library. I’d missed touching him, kissing him. I missed everything that only Isaac could make me feel.

It seemed like the silence was exceptionally heavy around the library when I entered, though I wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with Trent’s call, or just my missing Isaac.

We’d spent almost every day together over the past month—at the library, necking in the stacks, sometimes taking Lenny’s Bel Air to New York to attend poetry slams or hear really good jazz. Isaac came alive in New York where there wasn’t nearly as much attention given to us. We were one couple among many that looked a little out of place, who came and went as they pleased regardless of their surroundings.

Now though, something odd and unsettling buzzed around my stomach as I moved through the silent lobby. I spotted Mr. Welis reading a paper as he leaned against the front desk, a small mug of coffee on the desk top.

“Miss O’Bryant, good evening.”

“Hi, Mr. Welis.” We rarely spoke, Mr. Welis and me, only a handful of times when he’d ask what I thought of Isaac’s chances of getting into Lincoln. The older man wasn’t a stranger. To my surprise, the older man never glared at me the way Lenny did sometimes.

“You looking for someone, Miss Riley?” He had a nice smile and beautiful eyes, nearly green, which looked nice against the dark complexion of his skin. He was lighter than Lenny, but not as light-skinned as Isaac, and handsome for an older gentleman.

The question threw me off a bit. Generally, Mr. Welis would smile a little when he spotted me and Isaac together. Mostly, though, he just ignored us altogether.

“Uh…no,” I said, listening to my gut to keep Isaac’s name out of our conversation. “Just going to study a little before the library closes.”

He nodded, his smile a little bigger than I thought it should be but before I could give it any consideration at all, he turned back to his paper like we hadn’t spoken.

I moved further into the library, expecting to hear some noise, anything to lead me to wherever Isaac was, but all was quiet. Lenny mopped the second-floor tiles but he didn’t hum or whistle like he normally did while he worked. And Isaac wasn’t anywhere to be found—not on the first-floor kitchenette or by the elevators where he usually met me when I arrived.

Something felt wrong, off somehow. For the first time since I’d began hiding out at the Lincoln University library, it didn’t feel like home. As I moved back toward the sound of Lenny's mop moving, I realized the reason the place didn’t feel like home was because Isaac wasn’t there.

“Lenny?”

He didn’t stop his work, instead focusing even more intently on the movement of the thick mop head smearing water and foam across the marble tiles. His back was facing me and I noticed for the first time that there was a long scar that ran down his neck and disappeared into the starched collar of his blue button up. There was no telling how he’d gotten it. Isaac had told me the most awful stories about his childhood in Georgia—how he and Lenny had both struggled growing up in the south.

“Lenny?” I tried again, this time loud enough that my voice bounced on that marble and back against the floor to ceiling windows around us. He turned, frowning a little before he forced a nod in my direction. “Where’s Isaac?”

“Couldn’t say.” He lifted his shoulders, shrugging like he didn’t believe I had any right knowing what had happened to Isaac. “Best you go on out of here before I have to close up.”

He was dismissing me. I’d spent the past month falling in love with his best friend, laughing and joking with both of them and Lenny was dismissing me like he didn’t know me?

“Hang on just a minute.” He stepped back when I faced him, glaring, my growing fear and anger at being disregarded getting the better of me. “Don’t do that, Lenny. Don’t you talk to me like I’m nothing. He was supposed to meet me here.” He moved and I followed, step for step, until he gave up trying to get back to work. “Tell me what happened.”

Lenny was good at guarding himself. Isaac said it came from years of getting out of trouble anytime Lenny disobeyed his mother or acted out at school and didn’t want to get lashing for it. But there was something hiding behind his bored, practiced expression that made me even more worried, because he was doing such a good job of it.

“Lenny…please, tell me. What happened to Isaac?”

He pulled a folded handkerchief from his back pocket, rubbing it along the back of his neck, though he didn’t sweat and I suspected he only did that out of habit, as some odd way to help him think. His face was pinched tight and the muscles around jaw flexed and moved as he continued to work that small fabric along his neck.

“He’ll whop me for sure, but damn if I can’t stomach seeing him so out of sorts.” He glanced at me, forgetting the handkerchief when I narrowed my eyes. “Mr. Welis said someone had reported him. That he was…ah…well, that he was following after some of the students and making them uncomfortable. Said some fella told him Isaac had been seen following his girlfriend back to her dorm. So they canned him. Didn’t want there to be no ruckus.”

“Oh for Pete’s sake.” Trent. That bastard. He just couldn’t stand the thought of not getting what he wanted, and was willing to ruin lives to get his way.

When I glanced back at Lenny, I could see that he knew. That he and Isaac and even Mr. Welis probably knew exactly who had made the report and why, but there was nothing they could do about it but follow procedure. My blood went from icy cold with fear to a rising anger in the space of a few heartbeats. “This is my fault,” I told Lenny, livid that Trent had orchestrated this. “Trent…my ex…whatever he was. I know he did this.”

“That’s what Isaac reckoned too, that it was that fella…the one you used to go around with. He’s got a far reach, that one.”

“Lenny, where is he?” He automatically started shaking his head, even picked up his mop as though he’d determined to ignore me. “Please, I just want to check on him.”

“He’s fine. Just waiting out the end of the week and trying to head off to New York and see if he can’t…”

“Head off to New York?”

Lenny paused, cursed to himself as though he hadn’t meant for the slip of information to worm its way from his mouth. “You didn’t hear that from me.”

“Lenny, please. Just tell me where he is.” He rolled the mop and bucket away from me, starting on a new section ten feet away, throwing up his hand to stop me when I tried walking across the wet time. I like to think of myself as a strong woman, someone who may look fragile and be willing to act the part of a polite, well-bred young lady. My go-to way of dealing with horrible things was to keep smiling, to always have a kind word, to look for the good in things even when they were rotten, but still one who could hold her own in a storm, or not fall apart if the unexpected happen. But right then, I felt all hollowed out, empty. I could only stand there and stare at Lenny and that mop of his moving across the floor, to devastated to even cry.

Finally, when I didn’t move, he looked back at me, and I must have cut a pretty pathetic figure because suddenly his resolve splintered. “Oh, hell, Miss Riley, I can’t stand that look.” He held the mop handled between his fingers, head shaking as he watched me. “That little cottage out on Lakeside? I reckon he told you about his uncle’s little camp out there?” He had. Isaac promised to bring me there one weekend when he wasn’t working so hard, but we’d never found the time. I nodded, walking backward as Lenny continued. “Fools, the pair of you. And don’t you go telling him I told you all his business.”

“I won’t!” I turned, started to sprint away and slipped a little on the wet floor, laughing at Lenny’s loud curse. “Sorry!”

“And don’t you be driving out there by yourself!” I threw a wave over my shoulder and heard Lenny continue. “I mean it! You get a ride or you take the bus but don’t go off on your own!” His voice got fainter and I doubted Lenny believed I listened to his warnings as I took the steps two at a time, my mind set on one goal and my heart feeling like it might leap from my chest.

* * *

Ryan didn’t question anything I said because that’s what family does—stands with you and helps you when you need help. He sat next to me in his Impala, twisting his fingers on the steering wheel like he hoped the small distraction would keep him from speaking.

He lasted a whole two minutes.

“Speak.” It was all the permission he needed.

“I’d say this no matter what guy was in there, sis.”

“Uh huh. I know you would.”

To my left Ryan’s stared glassy-eyed, as though he was willing me to stay put for fear of what waited for me in that small cottage on the lake. Isaac was there. There was a shadow blocking most of the lamplight from the side window—I’d know that shape anywhere. Those shoulders I’d touched and held half a dozen times. That strong, wide back I’d run my fingers over. That thick, long neck, I’d kissed and cradled until the sun dipped low onto the horizon.

“I just…” Ryan’s breath was warm, fogging the windshield when he exhaled. “You’re my kid sister.”

“Ryan, we’re not kids anymore.”

“Yeah, well, to me you’re still that soapy-faced two-year-old jumping out of the tub when Mom went to answer the door.”

I smiled, remembering how often Ryan loved to tell that story. He came off good in it. Me, not so much. “Here we go again…”

My brother ignored me, grip loosening on the wheel. “You slipped on the floor, nearly knocked your head on the tub.”

“But you caught me.”

Ryan nodded, looking out beyond the windshield and I wondered if he watched Isaac like I did. “I caught you.”

He moved his hand onto the seat next to mine and I looped a finger around his, same as we’d always done when we were kids. It never got old, the closeness you feel to a sibling. It never was enough.

“I can’t stop you if you want to…”

“It’s too late, Ryan.” I tightened my finger around his. “I already fell.”

He waited to start the engine until I was on the porch with my arms around my waist and my nerve slipping between weak and endless as I decided if I wanted to knock. Isaac had to have seen me leave the car. The Impala had thick doors and closed with a thud that ricocheted around the lake. My approach wasn’t silent and neither was the sharp tap against the door when I knocked. The strong scent of roses blew through the air when a breeze moved the fallen dry leaves from the oaks around the porch and I tightened my sweater closer to me, not sure if it was fear or the chill in the air that made me cold.

I counted my breaths as I waited for the footsteps on the other side of that oak door to quiet and when they did, I stopped breathing altogether. Would he be angry that I’d found my way here? Did he blame me for Trent’s lies? Would he send me away?

There were bright lights and colors swirling in my head that felt like something I forgot and couldn’t quite place. There was music lost in those small seconds as I waited on the other side of that door; like something I loved had been stripped from me and I’d never be rid of the loss, or perhaps the edge of possibility. Everything held and waited with those footsteps and when the door opened, when Isaac’s impassive, steady expression shifted, even minutely, I believed that what I’d lost stood right in front of me. It was the strangest sensation—he was there, inches from me and it felt something like longing and need and long released hope had just all vanished from me in an instant. He was here.

I couldn’t wait for him to touch me. I didn’t want to. He’d been mine, a long time ago and here he was again. It was stupid to feel that way, I knew. It made no sense, but seeing Isaac after just two days apart had felt like years, decades and I wanted to smash the time between us. I wanted to forget it had ever been there.

“Riley…”

I wouldn’t let him send me away. I couldn’t. Isaac’s body went stiff when I lunged at him, grabbing onto his neck with no intention of ever letting go. It took him three of the longest seconds of my life before he surrendered his fight and held onto me, those massive arms around my waist, the sensation of him inhaling my hair and my feet coming off the porch as he held me close.

Isaac set me down and looked over my shoulder, pausing without moving his hands from my waist and I followed his gaze, smiling at Ryan as he watched us.

“He’s waiting to see if you’ll send me away.” Just then, Isaac’s grip lowered, resting on my hip, as though he had me, like he had me and had no plans of letting me go. His breath was warm against my neck and I glanced up at him, my body feeling buzzed by the look in his eyes, how he didn’t seem able to keep from looking at me like I was real and there and his.

I waved to Ryan and Isaac offered him a nod before he opened the door and led me inside. I heard the car pull away, and then there was only us.

The cottage was nothing more than one large room with river stone fireplace and hand scrapped hardwood floors. There was a small kitchen tucked away in the back of the cottage, and the rich scent of coffee percolated from the back of the room. Two large chairs were situated in front of the fire that crackled beneath a thick wood mantel holding several small picture frames, each one with the thinnest layer of dust. A large bed was pathetically hidden behind a thin curtain. I did my best not to stare for too long at the mattress or think of the untucked blankets and how the entire place smelled of sandalwood and shea butter soap.

“You…you were fired,” I looked up at Isaac as he leaned against the largest of the two columns, thick masses of hand-sawed beams that held up the entire cottage. His gaze was heavy on me and I fiddled with my hair, pulling it over my shoulder to braid it absently; an unconscious habit. Isaac only nodded, watching with his mouth tight and drawn, like he wanted me to say my piece uninterrupted.

“I guess you figured it was probably Trent.” The name came out low, like a curse, and I couldn’t keep my lip from curling a little when I spoke it. “I’d bet anything it was him.” Another nod and I stepped closer to him. “Are you…” My tongue felt thick and knotted. “Do you blame me?”

“Riley,” he finally said, standing away from the beam. “Come here to me.”

I didn’t hesitate and his arms were around me, my face against his chest before anything else could pass between us. This was where I belonged—safe, protected, loved. The idea shocked me, made me huddle closer to him. Did Isaac love me? He’d never said it, but I felt it just then, in the fierceness of his arms, in how tightly he held me, as though he wouldn’t let go. As though he would never let me go.

“You think I blamed you? You of all people?” His voice rumbled against my ear and I hummed, loving the feel of it. “How is it your fault when that dog runs his mouth?” Isaac pulled back to look down at me but kept me in the circle of his arms. “That bastard hit you. He hurt you, body and soul. No one deserves that, least of all you. I wanted... I wanted to....but you wouldn't let me. Your heart is too big. I don’t know if you were protecting him or me, but you wouldn’t let me take out how angry I was on him, even though he deserved it. And I figure if you can let go of what he did to you, then who was I to hold a bigger grudge? So I did what I could to be there for you when you were down. And soon, all I saw was you.”

“But if it hadn’t been for me…”

“This is what I’ve been telling you, Riley, for months. This is the world we live in. It’s the way of things.” He said it so simply, not as something that was a sad, pathetic thing; just a statement of fact.

“But that’s not…it’s not right.”

“Maybe it ain’t, but that don’t change it. Maybe nothing will. Maybe time will, who knows? But in my gut I know who I can trust. I know who looks at me and sees me, not some damn idea they have in their heads.” He moved his hand, running a finger along my bottom lip. “This thing we got…I told you, it won’t be easy.”

“Nothing good is ever easy, Isaac.”

There was a pause as unasked questions hovered around us. I considered what life would be like with Isaac, that no matter how committed we might be to our relationship, we could not exist in a vacuum. Struggles would follow us wherever we went, and would spill out to our families, our loved ones, our friends.

He waited. Although Isaac was the one who moved with caution, the one who refused to assume that the easy road would be ours to travel, he waited for me to come to a decision. He wanted me to say yes, but wouldn’t ask the question. He would not lead me anywhere, but would be waiting for me when I arrived—if I didn’t turn back.

“Isaac?” He nodded again and brought me closer. His cheeks were wide, his features strong and he closed his eyes, as though he relished the feel of my fingertips over his face. “Will you love me? No matter what happens?”

Isaac pulled me around him, holding me against his large body, his hand around my waist. His voice was quiet, but filled with strength, with conviction. “Always.”

No one had touched me like Isaac. He had a way about him, something real and honest that was assured by his long, perfect fingers down my back and the slip of his tongue inside my mouth. There was no fear, not when those fingers gripped me tighter, when he slowly lowered my zipper and held my hand as I stepped out of my dress.

He watched me then, and even though a different Riley might have been shy, I liked the way his stare felt against my bare skin. It was me he wanted, only me; only I could sate his hunger, redeem that desperate look that had caught him in a silent pause.

Isaac still held my hand, arm extended with that hard, greedy gaze working over me. He made me feel needed, wanted, he made me feel necessary. And when he pulled my hand to rest it against his heart, I held my breath, waiting to hear what he thought, hoping he wanted me as much as I wanted him. “My sweet…my beautiful Riley.”

He stepped back, my fingers trailing away from his chest, and tugged off his shirt, dropping it to the floor, instantly forgotten. Isaac picked me up and carried me to the bed, divesting me of everything that kept me covered, and everything that kept him hidden from me.

I had never seen a naked man before. I’d never been naked with a man before. But there I lay on Isaac’s large bed covered by his long legs and muscular thighs, my small frame underneath him, open to him as he took control and showed me what it meant to be loved.

“You and me, Riley, there’s nothing but this. Nothing else but this, how we are right now.”

Isaac never spoke much of his feelings, the things that rocked his soul, the many worries that kept him up at night. Maybe he didn’t know how to say he loved me, but just then, with Isaac’s warm, solid body right against mine, skin to skin, touching me like no one ever had before, I decided words weren’t all that important.

“Nothing else, my love. Nothing else at all.”

And then he came to me, and took possession of me, and moved so deeply and so fully in me, that there was nothing else at all.

Later, when even the crickets had set their song to something low and tired, I lay next to Isaac feeling boneless and surreal. He felt like a mountain against me, the hard planes of muscle, the sharp twist of ligaments and bone that pressed into me, hard where I was soft, but tender and sweet. His breath had gone slow and even, and I knew he slept, the quick movement of his eyelids fluttered as he dreamed. Yet even while he slept, he held me, set me to fit just under his chin with the slick feel of his sweat moving with mine. We’d moved together like a dance, bodies gliding to fit a perfect rhythm, a perfect life that once again made me feel a loss that was not mine. Next to this man, my man, there was only peace, only the sense that we were beginning…we had only started to know what that meant.