A Love Like the Sun

Chapter 14 Warnings and Things

I should be sleeping. Instead, I spend six hours in an airplane attempting to drown my anxious thoughts by alternating between e-books and an assortment of Drake and Taylor Swift songs. But truly, who could blame me when I’m traveling to see my best friend for the first time now that we’re a couple?

My stomach is a wreck while exiting the plane. I convinced Issac to let me take an Uber to the condo he’s staying at for the month so he can avoid the airport. And, if I’m honest, so that I can avoid reuniting with him in front of an audience. I’ve never been good at acting, I’m positive Issac got secondhand embarrassment that one time I performed in a school play, but I need to get good at it. This isn’t hometown shoppers with their phones—this is celebrities, the media; this is a different level of pretending. And LAX is busy compared to T. F. Green, people push past me like I’m not even here. Someone cuts right in front of me at the baggage claim, and I shoot them a look so fierce they push their glasses up, apologize, and move aside. But right as I grab my suitcase, my breath gets caught in my throat at the sight ahead. Issac’s height helps him stand out in a crowd, but there will always be something else. Something that makes it easy for me to find him in a sea of other people.

Bernie is beside him with the body of a guard and a balding head. He blocks people from approaching Issac with an obnoxious shoo of his hands.

And there’s no warning for the way my nerves spike. They bubble under my skin and bring pinpricks with them. My mind takes me to a time where everything was simpler: just me and Issac, two people with big dreams and a few dollars in our pockets, who couldn’t afford plane tickets to travel across the country and little Rhode Island was all we’d ever known. But at least we had each other. The loneliness of reality hits me like a wave and brings me back to the present.

Will I ever stop missing the way things were before?

He turns his face the moment I think it, just enough for his eyes to find mine, and it takes all of two seconds for him to excuse himself from his fans to get to me. The windows from above douse his skin in sunlight, and his smile is lopsided like he just finished a plate of warm chicken parm. He’s excited, I deduce.

But there’s something else in his eyes too. A flicker of nerves. A thread through his voice when he says, “Hi.”

I tilt my head to search his face. “You didn’t listen,” I say.

He scratches the back of his neck, his smile growing wider. “You knew I wouldn’t.”

“If you always do whatever you want, how will I ever trust you to do what I want?” I hear myself ask, but his smile is contagious. It’s so damn obnoxious.

“That’s unfair. I care about what you want. I’ll listen when I think you’re right,” he says.

I laugh. “That’ll be about never.”

“You’re right. Sometimes.” He shrugs. “But you weren’t right about this.”

Then, just like that, no one is staring or taking pictures. It’s just us. In a bubble where everyone and everything else fall to the background. The worry sinks under the surface, and I’m in his arms and he’s wrapping his around me tight. We don’t need to make a show for the public because the love we share is authentic enough.

And…he doesn’t pull back the way he did when he surprised me on my porch.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he whispers into my hair. “Thank you for coming. I know you’re nervous, but I’m with you.”

I breathe in the scent of him: something like the ocean and firewood, forever changing a little, but always familiar like home. “I think I’ll be okay,” I say.

“Not if we don’t get you out of this crowd,” Bernie’s voice comes from behind.

Issac’s sage-green Oldsmobile pulls up in front of LAX, and Bernie gets in the front seat while we slide in the back. It’s a pretty ride. Reconstructed from the engine up. The night he got it he FaceTimed to show me little details, but they were lost to the darkness. He used to dream of rebuilding an old car when he was driving a hooptie with a hole in its muffler around Providence, and now he’s done it. I’m sure neither of us imagined it would look this good.

“For a while there, I wondered if you’d only drive cars fresh off the lot,” I say, nudging him with my elbow.

He laughs. “Not as humble as J. Cole riding a bicycle around the city with these long ole legs, but I’m also not too bougie for a used car…shit, I’ll even take the bus again.”

It’s my turn to laugh, and I’m not the only one. The driver, who Issac introduced as Tom, chuckles from the front seat, and Bernie says, “Ha. I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Let’s pretend you’re not even in this car,” Issac jokes, “sound good, Bern buddy?”

I’m guessing Issac tried to come to the airport alone but Bernie decided to join for damage control. He grumbles something from the front seat about how Issac’s worse than his two kids. I watch him put his headphones on and I try to picture him with children. Does he bring the grumpy face from Issac duties home with him?

“Pure nonsense,” I agree, smiling at Issac. “You’re definitely too bougie for the bus.”

Issac sucks his teeth. “You’re gonna diss me all weekend, huh?”

“Only half the time.”

The rest of the way to where Issac’s staying we talk about the bumpy plane ride and joke about what he wishes he would’ve eaten for breakfast instead of what Bernie made him eat. It’s so regular, I almost can’t tell there are nerves still buzzing between us because of a situation that’s hard to forget with Tom glancing at us from the rearview like he’s wondering why we’re not doing whatever Hollywood couples do in back seats with a built-in audience up front. When we pull up to the house, Bernie and Tom both stay in the car, and Issac takes my bag from the trunk, then leads us up a small path toward the house. It’s white, a vintage-style home with terra-cotta-colored stucco stairs and black metal railings along a patio. It’s bigger than the one he stayed in when I came to visit a year ago. And this time, we aren’t going to be playing video games and eating our weight in chicken wings while staying out of the public eye. Now, I’m going to get a front-row seat to what Issac’s life is really like.

The house is immaculate, stainless steel in the kitchen and wood everywhere else, oversized monstera in corners, open with white walls. If Issac wanted to settle, I could see it being somewhere like this. The last one was sleek and black and looked very designer. It had palm trees in the kitchen, which were a little over the top, even though they were pretty.

“I can’t believe the owners let you stay here,” I say.

Issac shrugs. “Bernie makes the short-term arrangements, and it helps that I showcase the houses on my socials. Gets the owners more interest, but don’t be fooled. They cost me big.”

“I bet, Mr. Showcase.”

He rolls his eyes, I poke him in the ribs.

“What’s it going to be? A few weeks until you get bored and hop around to the next? Wouldn’t it be easier on your pockets to just buy something? You can have whole rooms dedicated to your art.”

He starts climbing another staircase, and I’m still trying to catch my breath from the first. “Do you like it?” he asks, ignoring my question.

“It suits you. The wood, the green, how open it is.”

He puts down my bags between two doors upstairs and smiles. “Sounds like it suits you.”

I bite back a smile, but my mind wanders a little. Issac treats his living situation the way he treats his dating life. “Aren’t you tired of not having a place to call home? I mean, at least you’ve graduated from the expensive hotels you were staying at. But I’m worried about you not having somewhere solid.”

What’s his reason for not wanting to put down roots?

He examines me as if he was the one to ask the question, then says, “I’m hoping I figure all of that out soon.” He nods his head toward one of the rooms. “That there is where I sleep…” He trails off, then touches the door in front of us. “Didn’t know if you’d want to stay in this one?”

I think it’s a joke, but he looks serious. “Wait,” I say, clapping my hands together and trying to play it cool, “you get to sleep in my bed and hog the covers and drool on my pillows when you’re home but I have to kick it in the cold guest room when I visit? Since when?”

His laughter can shift the walls, but there go those nerves in his eyes again. For a second, I imagine he stole a peek into my mind and found out about the sexy dream I had. Now he’s feeling uncomfortable to share a bed with me. It’s a wild thought, but I think it no less. Anxious until he snatches my bag off the floor, says, “You know what, you’re right. Please drool on my pillows and leave me cold at night.”

His words should ease the tension, but I quietly follow him, hoping I didn’t just impose.

The room he’s staying in has a skylight in the ceiling, and the balcony puts my front porch to shame. His tripod is set up by the dresser for filming, and one of the walls is covered in collages. There are plants hanging from the ceiling, candles everywhere. But the bed is simple, an oak platform like mine with a white down comforter folded up at the bottom.

“I mean, if you’re uncomfortable with me sleeping with you now that we’re a couple,” I say, running my hand over the softest gray sheets in existence, “the other end of the bed is far enough that you can pretend like I’m not even here.”

“You talk so much shit. And I missed it. I missed you, Ni.”

A relieved sigh escapes me. “It’s only been a week, but I missed you too, big head.”

He grins. “I know that. And you’re the one with a big head.”

I pick up a pillow, throw it at him. He ducks the first one but not the second before escaping to the bathroom. “Why are you hiding from me?”

“I gotta pee, woman!”

While he’s in there, I search the room for hidden gems. He usually has books stacked on the floor, little findings on the nightstand: bottle caps with quotes he loves, notes Mom wrote him, things he collects for collages. Today, I find a ceramic jewelry dish on the nightstand and pick up the small gold ring sitting at the center. It’s antique with a green stone and very familiar. I’m pretty sure Melinda was wearing it in a picture Katrina sent me once. I wonder why he still has it and if it means something that he keeps it this close to him. Does he miss her? A tight, fleeting feeling crosses my chest at the thought, and I reach up to touch the ring I’m wearing on a chain around my neck. A memory starts to form: me and Issac, this ring, a name bracelet, but before I can be swept up in it, someone clears their throat and startles me.

“Laniah,” Bernie says, simply, nothing else. A warning or an announcement of his presence? Probably both. He sees the ring in my hand and a curious look passes over his face.

I put it back in the dish and open my mouth, but then Issac comes out of the bathroom.

“What’s up, Bern? Told you to take the day off,” he teases. “I don’t need secondhand hate from your wife. She knows it’s you who won’t leave my side, right?”

“My wife knows there are no days off when it comes to you.” Bernie doesn’t sound bitter; he sounds like a parent proved right. He holds his phone out, and Issac takes it. Tension clouds the room. There’s a frown on Issac’s face while he reads.

Several seconds later, he passes the phone to me.