A Love Like the Sun

Chapter 33 Defining Messy

Back at home, we silently water the plants on my porch while waiting for Bernie. Issac’s tall enough to trim the dead leaves off the morning glories without fuss. A monarch butterfly lands in a flower above his head, and I raise my finger at it slowly: a motion for him to be as still as possible until it’s gone. After we’re done, Issac walks down the stairs and sits in the grass. The weather is perfect for grass sitting, not humid, a warm wind rustling the leaves in the tree to our left, but I don’t know if he wants me to sit with him.

I do it anyway. “Do you want to talk about the visit with your foster parents?”

He plucks grass, shakes his head. “Not really.”

“Do you want to talk about me? What happened?”

“Do you?”

“I think we need to,” I say. “Your silence is painful. I hate walking on your eggshells. I know I probably embarrassed you by the picture being leaked. Hurt your reputation but—”

His head snaps up, he looks at me and laughs a little. “That’s what you think is bothering me? You really walk our world oblivious.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I…,” he starts, trails off. “Forget it.”

“Nope. You haven’t been acting like yourself. You’re keeping things from me. You—”

“Care about you,” he cuts in. Not gently, his tone is sharp. “I care about you, and sometimes I’m not sure if you even know me. Do you really think I’d be embarrassed because of this? Do you really think I give a damn about my reputation because people are sharing a picture of you, without your consent, on the internet? Knowing how private you are, knowing you already struggle with the internet. And that’s after already considering that Darius violated your trust. I’m worried about you, Laniah. Not me.”

“Well, you didn’t—”

“It’s always what I didn’t do. But you don’t realize as soon as I heard, I dropped everything to call you, I took the first flight out. I…” He exhales. “You’re oblivious as hell. You can’t even see that I’m hurting because I’m hurting you.”

His words catch me off guard. I can’t fully process what he’s saying until he gestures between us.

“This? This isn’t good for you. I knew I should’ve called it quits last week. Maybe if I had, that asshole would’ve left you alone.”

“Or he wouldn’t have,” I say, raising my voice. “He’s pissed, his ego is hurt, and neither of us is responsible for his actions.”

“But I came up with this plan. And a shot at fame can make people do reckless things.”

“He was already reckless. And I’m a big girl, Issac. I made the decision. If you feel guilty, talk to me like you usually do. Don’t shut me out and make me feel…insignificant.”

His face falls, a small sound escapes his mouth. We stare at each other, the tension thickening the air between us. Finally, he says, “There’s no one in the world more significant to me than you.”

The heat between us cools to something warmer, and suddenly looking at him hits differently. He’s always been beautiful, gorgeous, but right now he’s infuriatingly fine. His facial hair and the sharpness of his bone structure, his thick dark lashes and full lips, the way the sunlight gives his skin a godly glow. His round sleepy eyes set solely on me.

My heart races when he lies back on the grass. I want to be closer to him. I ache for it. I lie back without another thought. The sky is cloudless and there’s nothing to concentrate on besides consciously working to slow the muscle beating behind my breastbone.

“Ni, look at me.” Issac’s voice is jazz music and whispering wind. I tilt my head to face him. “I like being like this with you,” he says. “I don’t think I was clear enough last week at Beavertail that doing this with you is my favorite thing of all. We were sitting quietly under the Jamestown sky, and it just felt right. I’m so busy, things are unpredictable, my work schedule is chaotic, my whole world feels chaotic sometimes. But being with you under a sky, all my stress, my fears fall away. It’s just me and you, and a comforting quiet that I don’t get anywhere else. From anyone other than you.”

If my heart was beating wild before, it’s no longer a thing in my body. It gravitates between us. Floats somewhere over our heads. He could reach up and grab it if he wanted to.

My face flushes with warmth while thinking of telling him he does the same thing for me, and wanting to say the words as eloquently as he just did. But then his bare arm grazes mine and the small touch feels like static. He must notice too because he clears his throat and moves away.

“Which is why we’re ending this in a week,” he says.

I blink, my stomach sinking while fighting the urge to stand up. “What?”

“We’ll have to do it carefully,” he continues. “I’ll put out a statement, say the pressure of our relationship being public knowledge got to both of us and we think it’s best to be friends for now. I can talk about how I didn’t want you to be hurt by being connected to me anymore. Maybe even make it look like I need to keep testing the waters to find the right person for me and I rushed things with you because I love you as a friend and was confused.”

The right person.I flick my tongue over my lips, all I taste is bitterness. “Or maybe you can tell the world you want to be with Melinda and made a mistake. Then you won’t have to worry about sneaking around with her anymore.” As soon as the words leave my lips, I wish I could take them back. Where did that come from?

I’ve never seen so many creases on Issac’s face. He’s confused. Maybe he didn’t realize I’d seen her name pop up on his phone. “Melinda? You don’t know what you’re…” He stops, exhales sharply, and looks away. “I just think ending things soon makes the most sense.”

Part of me is relieved he ignored what I said, part of me aches to know what he was going to say before stopping himself. Was he going to tell me I’m wrong about him and Melinda? Do I want him to tell me I’m wrong?

“I’m not sure it does,” I say. “Why end things early when I’ve told you I can handle the trouble that comes with it? When Bernie is taking care of the Darius thing? You’re going to put your art career in jeopardy; you’ll look horrible in the papers. And…after everything you just said about being around me, this is what you want?”

The last question feels delicate and heavy all at once. We aren’t together, but I made it sound like a real breakup.

“I said all of that so you know why this is the right decision. I don’t want to ruin you as a person. And I can’t lose you as a friend. I can’t. Like you said, being with me is trouble.”

“Neither of those outcomes are even a possibility. And I didn’t mean it that way,” I say.

But how did I mean it? And haven’t I been worried about our chemistry creating a mess and possibly ruining what we already have? That beautiful, comforting thing between us?

Issac sits up, leaves me breathing heavy in the grass below. “I can’t promise that.”

My throat hurts with threatening tears. I swallow, count to ten. Hating how out of control I feel.

Why would I even cry over this? What’s wrong with me?

“You aren’t going to ask me what I want?” I whisper.

Suddenly, Issac shifts onto his knees and towers above me. I’m no longer breathing when he braces his hands on either side of the grass at my feet. With the sun pouring down, it’s like he’s paying a penance, a tribute, as he stares down at me.

“What do you want, Laniah?”

My nipples harden, warmth pools in my panties at how perfectly we’re positioned. I open my mouth, start to stutter something unintelligible before he brings his body down between my thighs and brushes his lips against mine. It’s barely a kiss, just the softest sweeping touch, a tease that has me arching against him to try to deepen it.

But he pulls back, leaving me at a loss, and says, “Tell me what you want.”

It’d be easier for me to lean forward and show him, but he has a hand on my stomach now, and my brain is hazy with the wish that he’d let it travel lower. He’s waiting for me to speak, and better words are at the tip of my tongue, but what comes is this: “I…I don’t know.”

He shutters out a breath, his hand leaves my stomach. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and I feel the world around us when he moves away. The wind when he stands. The earth vibrating when he puts distance between us. My heart somewhere beside me on the grass. But then he holds out his hand. Like I’m weightless, he pulls me up, and tilts my chin. I’m shaking at his touch, trembling. Did that really just happen? Could I call it a kiss?

“We promised we’d end it if it got messy. Between Darius and how badly I want you…” He trails off, eyes dark, inhaling like it’s torture to be this close and not have me. Doesn’t he know I’m filled with need for him too?

The questions are at the tip of my tongue. I want to ask how far wanting me goes. If what he’s feeling is only sexual. But I’m not sure I’m prepared for an answer, I wouldn’t know what to say if he asked those questions of me. So I nod in defeat. Issac drops his hand from my face. The rental car pulls up while we’re both still breathing heavy. Bernie doesn’t get out right away. Probably to give us privacy.

“What about the art exhibition?” I ask, then watch something shift in Issac’s eyes. “Do I fly back with you, we put on smiles for the weekend, then that’s it? The last time we’re seen together as a couple?”

He frowns like he hadn’t considered it yet. “I should go to the exhibition alone,” he says. “But I promise I’ll come visit you as soon as the attention after the breakup dies down.”

When he first asked me to go, I was nervous that it would be different than Shida’s party, requiring acting abilities I lack, but now I can’t imagine not being there with him to see his dreams realized. At his side for this big shift in his career focus, the way he was there for the shop’s grand reopening. My heart aches something awful when the worst thought comes: he’s okay with unveiling his Secret Sun, his most precious work, without me?

Bernie clears his throat from behind, and I flinch in surprise. I wonder how long he was standing there and how much he heard. Issac seems eager for the report, but I’m already feeling like the wind has been knocked out of me. What if Bernie has something bad to say too?

What Bernie has to say: Darius accepted an offer. (Bernie does not answer when I ask how much money he’s taking from Issac’s pockets.) He agreed to factory resetting his phone, even though Bernie couldn’t find anything other than what Darius already posted on there. He signed a contract and an NDA. I won’t have to worry about Darius anymore. (Are you 1,000 percent positive? Issac asks more than once.) They need to go, or they’ll be late for their flight back to Cali.

What Bernie says while Issac uses the bathroom: “Laniah, if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call.”

He hands me his business card, and whatever bad thoughts I had about him get buried beneath the appreciation I feel that he cares about how this all affects me too.