Then I noticed one thing that should have been questionable all along: was he really a teenager? He didn’t go to school and was apparently older than Zia, but I really had no idea....
“Did you graduate already?” I said, taking a sip from my straw. The drink was surprisingly good.
“Graduated last year,” he said.
“So...you’re like eighteen now?”
“Turned nineteen in July.”
Two years older than me, that was good. Older, which was kind of mandatory in my book, but close enough to my age I didn’t feel like I was infatuated by a pervert. I began wondering how Beverlee and Uncle Carl would take this, since he was officially an adult.
Isaac raised the coffee mug to his lips and blew away steam rising from the rim before taking a sip. When he placed the mug back onto the table I reached out and touched his hand. “Where did you get this scar?” I said, turning his hand over, palm down. The scar had been deep, cut straight along the top of his hand between two knuckles. But then all of the visible scars he had seemed to be deep.
“That one and these here,” he said as he pulled the neck of his shirt down. “I got from falling through a sliding glass door.”
I winced. “Oh god, I can’t imagine what that was like.”
“Excruciating.”
He pulled up the sleeve of his left arm. “And this one I got in a motorcycle accident.”
“One of those,” I said smiling.
He smiled right back at me, which was quite charming. I had never really seen him smile before. Not like that.
“One of what?” he asked.
I played around with him first, taking a longer than usual sip from my drink and then fingering the straw, sloshing it around in the blended ice.
“Come on,” he laughed impatiently, “one of what?”
“A scar junkie.”
“Never heard that before.”
“Some guys think scars are their battle wounds. They sit around in circles comparing size with other guys and showing them off to girls.” I really didn’t think of Isaac that way, but it was fun to harmlessly tease him about it.
Isaac laughed again. “Well, you asked me about my scars, so that label doesn’t fit me, does it?”
“Nah, I guess you’re safe.”
A quiet moment passed between us. I think maybe we both knew that getting the obvious out of the way first would be the best way to go about things.
I sloshed the straw around in my drink some more.
Finally, Isaac spoke up.
“The girls that live in my house,” he began, looking right at me, “they aren’t all that bad, just...young.”
If you say so, I thought.
“My sisters would never treat you the way Rachel did, but the rest of them, they’ll get over it.”
“Get over what exactly?”
I pulled my legs up and sat cross-legged in the booth, my hands folded together atop the table.
“You,” he said.
I glanced up at him, feeling a sudden nervous sensation swimming around in my chest.
“They could just sense it,” he went on, “before I could I think, that...well, they could sense the attraction.”
It was my turn to speak, but I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. If I misunderstood what he was trying to say, I wanted to be the only one of us that knew it.
I needed a quick diversion.
“I’m not trying to be nosey,” I said, taking the topic slightly off course, “but why do so many people live in your house anyway?”
“We’re a large family,” he said. “I have five blood sisters and three blood brothers. Each of us has a friend, or girlfriend, or whatever, who my father has allowed to stay with us.”
“And who does Rachel belong to?” I said, as if she were a stray pet.
Isaac laughed a little and sipped his coffee. “Definitely not me,” he clarified. “I think my sister Shannon brought her in.”
“Then who did you bring?” I regretted the inquiry, fearing it would be a girl.
“Zia,” he answered.
That definitely caught me off guard. It made me feel good though that since it was a girl, that it was Zia. On the other hand, it worried me more. The last admission I wanted from Isaac was that he and Zia used to have a thing. Zia was my best friend, other than Harry, and I wouldn’t know how to deal with that.
“We met in New Hampshire,” he began, “she was homeless and I talked my father into letting her stay with us.”
“So, you two weren’t...,”
“No,” he laughed, “we’ve always just been friends. Anyway, she brought Dwarf and Damien in and Dwarf and Damien brought Cara and her sister in. You get the idea.”
“Well, your dad must be a really caring person to take so many people in like that.”
Isaac rolled my straw wrapper into a tiny ball between his index finger and thumb. “Truth is,” he said, “my father could do without so many being around all the time, but...well, it’s just the way of things.”
“The type that can’t say no,” I said.
Isaac shrugged.
“Hey,” I continued, shifting my body to sit more upright instead of so slouched, “where is your dad, anyway? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him around.”
Isaac slowly took another sip of his steaming coffee and set the mug softly onto the table.
“Very busy man,” he replied. “He’s in and out, but has too much to deal with to be hanging around here.”
I didn’t sense any animosity for his father’s constant absence, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“Does he even live here?”
“Oh, yeah he lives with us,” Isaac said, “but even when he’s here he keeps to himself. Aramei needs a lot of care and he’s the only one she fully trusts. Or, I should say; he doesn’t trust many to take care of her.”
Aramei. I remembered that name from my first visit. Zia had left me with Isaac to help take care of her.
“Is she...” I paused, hoping to find the way to ask without offending Isaac, “...sick, or handicapped? Is she your sister?”
“No, no she’s—Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. We really shouldn’t talk about her.”
I left it at that, but really I was so curious that I squirmed anxiously inside my skin.
I was surprised how easily the conversations came and how natural it felt to be around him.
Customers came and went, but we hardly noticed. In my mind, we were the only two people in the world. I loved the way he smiled, the way he laughed, the way his dark gaze met mine, which made me feel like a little girl all over again. I felt on air with Isaac, like I could do anything and he’d be right there with me.
Normally, I never liked to be alone with any guy, or in the company of one even with Alex close by. I wasn’t scared of them—that would be ridiculous—they just made me uncomfortable. Usually they read into things the wrong way, or assume too much. Like the time in seventh grade when I offered Blake Sooner a pen in English class because he didn’t have one. Next thing I know, he’s asking my friends personal things about me. Then there were always those guys too confident for their own good. Smile once just to be friendly and instantly they think it’s an invitation.
All my friends were into boys long before me.
It was true that I was what my mom called ‘a late bloomer’. I was born one week late, decided I wasn’t ready to walk until I was over a year old, got my first bra when I was fourteen (and still can barely fill one) and had my first kiss just last year.
Around Isaac, I felt like a new girl. I kind of hated it, but that was just my pride screaming at my happiness. And for the first time in my life, I was ignoring the pride and letting life happen.
Gotta let the walls come down sometime.
“So where’s your mom?” I said.
His charming smile faded and the mood grew dark.
He wasn’t going to answer at first. I sensed a major urge to withdraw completely.
“I don’t have a mother,” he said with a secret harshness.
I should have let it go right then, but I was too slow to realize such things.
“But everyone has a mom,” I said, urging him on teasingly.
Only after I said that did I understand how much Isaac did not want to talk about this.
“Her name is Sibyl—haven’t spoken to that woman in years.”
“Sorry I brought it up,” I apologized. I put my lips to my straw this time only to look as though I was doing something.
“No, it’s okay,” he assured me. “Sibyl made her own choices.”
I heard him say then, “Traitor,” under his breath.
Like the subject of Aramei, I knew it was best to leave the one of his mother alone too, but I was frustrated with my inability to avoid seemingly hazardous topics. I was learning little about Isaac Mayfair and raising even more questions. One day soon I would need the answers, but now wasn’t the right time.
“Isaac,” I said, changing the subject, “why didn’t you talk to me before? I mean, about what happened with Rachel?”
Another customer entered, letting a cool blast of air fill the space around us.
Isaac shook his head, smiling very faintly at me. And then his eyes met mine, making my heart lock up in my chest. “I tried; remember? But you didn’t want to talk to me and I respected that.”
“But you could’ve come over,” I said, “instead of sending Zia.”
He slid the half empty mug away from him and crossed his hands upon the table in its place. I loved his hands; so strong and persuasive. I imagined my dainty hands enveloped by them, protected by them.
“I could have, yes,” he said and I looked back up at his face, “but Rachel would’ve put up a fight and I thought it was better she didn’t know where you lived.”
Isaac sighed and reached his hands across the table then, palms up. Gently, he slipped them underneath mine, uncurling my fingers with his own and brushed his thumbs across the sensitive skin above my knuckles. It was exactly as I had imagined it just seconds ago, that just his hands could make me feel utterly protected. I looked down at them; the warm blush in my face forcing my eyes to stray from his gaze.
“I never expected this when I came here,” he said. “That I would meet you.” He was still looking right at me, but it was difficult for me to see his eyes, as if I were nervous about the unfamiliar world they would surely pull me in to. Though, I wanted to be in that world, no matter how nervous the thought of it made me. I tried to find a worthy response; one that might make me seem more confident than breakable, but I could think of nothing.
“Tell me about your family,” he said suddenly, and finally I could look at him for a longer time. “Tell me about you.” He was beaming; eager for me to begin.
I smiled softly and felt his fingers slip away from my palms as he leaned back into the booth seat again.
“Not much to know about me, really,” I began, “but what do you want to know?”
“Everything.” His close-lipped smile was more eager; his irresistible eyes, brighter. “Where were you born? Where have you been? What makes you tick?” He laughed. “I don’t care; anything you tell me I know will be interesting.”