I towel-dried Isaac's hair before combing through it and sectioning it into neat segments. I stepped on the hydraulic lift, forcing the chair to sink to its lowest position so that I could reach the top of his head.
I went to work on his haircut. I began cutting, giving him nothing more than a trim just like we had discussed. The haircut he came in with was good, so I trusted the shape of it and, again, went to work on autopilot—going section by section and snipping a half-inch off of everything.
"I'm sorry you didn't get to try my granddad's ribs the other night," I said. "They were really good."
"I ate some ribs just now at Rendezvous."
"Aw, really, just now?"
"Yep. Right before I came here."
"Was today your lunch with the mayor?" I asked.
"Yes."
"How'd that go?"
"It was fine. He's a nice guy. He knew everyone. He introduced me to about thirty people."
I laughed, shaking my head as I imagined it. Mayor Bennett was a talker. He came into the station quite a bit, and we could always hear him coming.
"I'd still like to try your grandpa's ribs, though. If the offer is still open."
"Oh yeah, I'm sure he'd love to make you some. He's been super into it lately. His got this big smoker contraption. I actually like his better than The Rendezvous. You'll have to get Courtney to take you over there for dinner."
"Or you could," he said.
When I didn't say anything right away, he added. "I meant since we're friends now and they're your grandparents, too. I'm not trying to get you in trouble with your boyfriend or anything."
My gut clenched and my heart began beating rapidly at the fact that he would even say such a thing. I had to remind myself to focus on breathing and keep cutting his hair. His light brown locks were darker when wet. His hair was thick, and the loose waves wrapped around my fingers as I cut. I did my best to ignore my attraction toward him, but it was impossible.
I went through about three different options of things I could say, but what came out of my mouth was, "What boyfriend?" It sounded cheesy, even to my own ears, but that's what I said.
"The gentleman sitting across from you at the restaurant the other night," he said. "I assumed he was your boyfriend."
"Liam," I said, still combing and cutting. "He's my brother."
"Your brother?"
"Yes."
"We had just finished looking at a building he bought for his girlfriend. They'll be getting engaged soon. She's in L.A., but she'll be moving here, and Liam's buying a place for her to open a store."
"What kind of store?" Isaac asked.
"She's a tailor. She makes suits—nice, high-end stuff."
Isaac let out a long, slow sigh. "That actually makes me feel a lot better."
"Why? You need a suit? I doubt she'll have it open by the time you leave Memphis."
"No, I don't need a suit. I only own two of them, and I do everything in my power not to put them on. They're really uncomfortable. That's not what I was talking about. I meant I feel better knowing that guy is your brother. I was really torn up over that."
Again with my heart pounding.
I felt as if it might jump right out of my chest.
I still pretended not to be affected, though.
"You sure know how to flatter a lady," I said.
"No, I honestly don't. I'm really bad at it. I don't really date women. I mean, I guess I kinda do, but only when they approach me. And I certainly don't go around getting jealous over women I just met and telling them about it."
"Maybe I got a little ahead of myself when I said you knew how to flatter a lady," I said in a hesitant, sarcastic tone that made him laugh.
"I really don't," he said. "I usually steer clear of women. I have some things in my past that still haunt me and… I don't know, I just don't usually get into relationships, let me put it that way. I have a female friend back home who likes me and wishes we were together. I go to events with her when I need a date, but I definitely don't get serious, and she knows that."
I slapped a hand to my forehead. "Why in the world are you telling me all this?"
"Because I literally felt like a weight was lifted off my chest just now when you told me that guy was your brother. I honestly felt like I wanted to fight him the other night when I saw you two together. I don't know what came over me."
My heart was officially hammering in my chest, but I continued cutting his hair and trying to pretend that I was not losing it.
"Well, just so you know for the future, when you're trying to impress to a lady, Isaac, there are certain topics to avoid. You probably shouldn't bring up that you have a sordid past with women that still haunts you or the fact that you have a willing and ready female escort on call back home."
"She's not an escort, and my past isn't sordid. Well, maybe it is. I don't really know what you would define as sordid."
"Well, now you've got me curious."
He let out a long sigh. "I guess I might as well share since this conversation is shaping up to be an epic failure, anyway."
I laughed and bowed my head as I held my palms up, asking him to please continue.
"Can we just start over and forget I said any of that?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Too late," I said. "You've already got me curious. Now I'm assuming the worst."
"What's the worst?"
"Dangerous stalker? Obsession, kidnapping, arrest?"
He breathed a little humorless laugh. "No. Nothing like that."
"Just tell me."
"I regret saying anything," he said. "I really do wish I could just go back to five minutes ago before I messed everything up. It's just that I haven't been interested in anyone in so long that I—"
"I don't date either," I said cutting him off. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm as inept with dating and relationships as you seem to be. The bad part is, I didn't even know I had a problem. At least you realize you have issues. I thought I just hadn't met the right person. I was content with my life just the way it was and didn't think anything was wrong until I overheard my family talking about my trust issues the other day."
"You have trust issues too?"
"I guess so. But not because anyone hurt me or did anything dramatic."
"Why else would you have them?"
"I don't even know that I do. I just never really had the desire to settle down with a man and have a baby or whatever. My mom did that. She got married and pregnant with me, and then my dad ran off and joined the Army and got himself killed, and she was left being a single mom."
"I'm sorry," he said after a few seconds.
"It's fine. I didn't even know him. He died when I was in infant. Gray, my dad, the guy who raised me, has been around since I was really little. I know him as my father, and I think of him that way. He's wonderful. It's not like I was missing anything in my life. I'm not even sure that's the reason why I don't date. I just heard my family talking about it, and since that's what they said, I assume they were right."
"I don't think they were right," Isaac said. "I think you were right. That you just haven't found the right guy."
I shrugged.
I felt ever so vulnerable sharing that with him, and it caused me to wrinkle my nose and pop him on the head with my comb. I did it in a playful way that made him laugh.
"How'd you get so cute, Shelby?" he asked.
His question made my stomach clench. "Stop sweet talking me," I said. "I shared my demons, now you have to share yours."
"Yours aren't like mine," he said. "Mine are different. Mine are my own fault."
"You have to tell me, you know."
"I know I do," he said. "I just need a second to work up the nerve because I seriously never say this to anyone. I don't know why I even brought it up. I don't know how I got myself into this mess."
I could tell he was sincerely reluctant.
"You don't have to do it," I said, feeling bad.
"Then you're gonna know I'm holding something back."
"What's it matter?" I asked. "We hold things back from people all the time. That's life. Most of the time, we hold back more than we actually say."
"I guess that's true," he said.
"So just don't tell me," I said. "Let's just pretend that we never had this conversation, and we can be friends and start over, like you said."
"I never said I wanted to be friends with you."
My heart stopped at his words.
I dropped the comb.
I was so shaken up, that it just jumped right out of my hand. I stooped down to pick it up and set it on my station, taking a clean one out of the drawer before going to work on his hair again.
"You really don't have to tell me if you don't want to," I repeated. My words came out weak and unconvincing.
He took a deep breath. "I was pretty wild when I first went to college. It was my first time in New York, and I thought I knew it all. My parents have money, and I grew up having things handed to me. I made good grades without much effort, and I thought I was a real genius—smart, rich, talented, good-looking, whatever. I really thought I was hot stuff back then. I'm embarrassed just thinking about how I must have acted. Anyway, I was dating this girl. Jillian. I was a sophomore and she was a senior."
I felt sick at the mention of another girl. I should've known where the conversation was headed when he told me the story resulted in him not having relationships, but it still made me feel nauseated.
"We were together my whole freshman and half of my sophomore year." He sighed. "She was a big deal at the school—a cheerleader and the homecoming queen and everything, so she expected me to understand and be there to comfort her when she came to me saying…"
He trailed off, staring straight ahead and taking another deep breath.
"Apparently, she had gotten pregnant," he said solemnly. "She came to me crying and saying she took care of it."
His words caused chills to cover my body. I could see how very affected he was even after all this time. We were both quiet for a minute. I stopped cutting his hair and just stood there, not knowing what to say.
"It was really hard for me at first, but it's been a long time since then." He gave me a little forced smile. "It just really stuck with me that there was a part of me being formed for a while, and… I don't know. There was nothing I could do by the time she came to me about it. She had already put a stop to it." He sighed. "The bottom line is that it was my fault. I shouldn't have been intimate with her if I wasn't prepared for that sort of repercussion. I know that now. It's easy for me to see now that I shouldn't have been sleeping with her, but back then, it was just something I did, you know?" He let out another long sigh. "I was really devastated about it. More than she thought I would be, for sure. Jillian thought I would be happy and thank her for doing it, but that's not how it went. It changed things. We broke up, and she was mad at me for the way I reacted, but I couldn’t help it. It was a defining moment in my life. It changed everything for me. I guess maybe in some ways, there was a silver lining to the whole thing because I got really focused and stopped messing around so much. I vowed to never let that happen again, and I've kept my promise."
"So you're celibate now?"
"Yes," he said with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever. "I had this one friend in high school who was really old school. I can remember him telling me not to have sex until I got married, and I thought he was ridiculous… until that happened. Now, the other point of view seems ridiculous to me. Sometimes, my friends will try to set me up, and I'll go out with a woman, and she will literally throw herself at me on the first date. It's unbelievable, honestly. Now that I have a personal rule against it, it seems crazy to me that people are so willing to have sex willy-nilly with no regard of the effects or the consequences."
I started to feel jealous or offended that Isaac would say women threw themselves at him, but then realized that he was trying to tell me that it didn't appeal to him at all. He was a good man who still felt hurt by something that had happened a long time ago. He had put himself out there, made himself vulnerable to me, and I knew I needed to say something to let him know I appreciated it.
I swallowed. "I grew up really old school, too," I said, since that was a point that stuck with me. "And for what it's worth, I agree with you."
"I suppose next you'll tell me you're a virgin," he said. His tone and expression were serious and unreadable, and I had no idea what he meant by that.
"Why do you say it like that?"
"I'm just kidding," he said, cracking a little smile.
"Why are you kidding?"
"Because nobody does that anymore. Especially, not someone who looks like you. I don't expect you to tell me you're perfect just because I told you I'm scarred."
"I'm not perfect," I said. "I'm not even close. But I am a virgin."
Isaac and I had been staring at each other through our reflections in the mirror and not directly at each other, but when I said that, he turned in his chair to face me. He locked eyes with me for several long seconds, his soft greyish green eyes somewhat confused as if he was beseeching me to stop kidding around and tell him the truth.
"What?" I asked.
"Don't lie."
I made a face at him showing how offended I was. "I'm not," I said. "And don't accuse me of it."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-nine. How old are you?"
"Thirty-one."
He held my gaze, staring at me sincerely. I honestly felt connected to him. The tension between us was thick and heavy. My heart was beating a thousand miles an hour, like it might hop out of my chest at any moment.
"We need to finish your haircut," I said reasonably.
My words broke whatever trance we were in, and Isaac turned to face the mirror again. I sighed and numbly continued combing his hair. I was only a few minutes away from being done by that point, which was a relief because I was a complete mess. The way he looked at me like that with his green eyes and damp hair was just too much.