Chapter 6
Trevor
My spirits lift when I spot Isaac sitting at our table in the library on Monday morning, his bright red hair curling over his ear in a way I find charming.
It makes him seem…human. Vulnerable, in a way. As we all are.
He stiffens when he hears me approach, but then his shoulders relax. “You need a bell.”
“You want to put a collar around my neck?”
His head whips my way, surprise coloring his features. “Uh… No. Of course not. That’s…not what I meant.”
I hum, setting my bag down as I take a seat. Isaac’s eyes are back on his textbook, but a flush is brightening his cheeks in a wave.
I wonder what he’d say if I brought up that mine note he wanted me to keep.
“Have a good weekend?” I ask.
“Yes. Fine,” he mumbles, his gaze flicking my way. “You?”
I shrug slightly, my own weekend marred by the shiner I got Saturday evening at the bar. Isaac must notice that very thing because, suddenly, there are wild blue eyes in front of my face and hands moving my head side to side.
“Jesus,” Isaac hisses, his concern making me feel a whole lot better about the deep purple bruise beside my eye.
He examines every inch of my face, his hands soft on my cheeks.
He seems to realize how intimately he’s touching me—how close he’s moved—because he sits back quickly, his touch feathering away.
“Please tell me you made the guy regret it?”
I raise an eyebrow slowly. “What makes you think I didn’t start the fight?”
“Because you’re not that guy. What happened?”
I try to keep my smile in check, preoccupying myself for a moment with setting my laptop up. “Bar fight. Guy clipped me when I broke it up.”
Isaac whistles lowly. “And his face?”
“I didn’t hit him back. Didn’t need to,” I tell him. Violence isn’t in my nature, a fact Isaac himself seems to have picked up on.
I’m glad for it.
Isaac shakes his head, the weight of his stare a palpable thing. “I’m not going to lie. I wish I could have seen you in action.”
My lips quirk at the admission. “Is that so? Careful, Red. I’ll think you’re warming to me.”
He scoffs, although amusement dances in his eyes. “I tolerate your presence.”
“Mhm. How very magnanimous of you. Should I get down on my knees to offer my thanks?”
His eyes widen before he clears his throat. Hard. “A bell and a muzzle,” he declares.
I bark a laugh, and Isaac takes a sip of his coffee, hiding his smile with the cup.
By unspoken agreement, we both fall silent, trying to focus on why we’re here.
Which is our schoolwork. It’s hard with Isaac sitting at my side, his aura as bright as a supernova.
He seems to have trouble focusing, too, his hands twitching more than usual, his leg bouncing.
“Okay, why poetry?” he asks in a rush, shifting minutely my way. “You clearly like it. Why?”
If he were anyone else, I’d answer the way I always do. I like reading.
But I can tell Isaac isn’t asking in a surface way. He truly wants to know. And, as an English major, I think he might understand.
“Poetry is honest,” I answer.
There’s a flash of intrigue in Isaac’s eyes. “How so?”
“Words have…weight. They can be heavy or light. They carry intent, and when put together, they have the capability to make us feel. A few words can draw up memories of taste, smell, touch. They can make our pulse race. Or slow. They can hurt. They can heal. That’s poetry, and it doesn’t come from a place that’s analytical. It’s an expression of the heart.”
Isaac is quiet for a moment. “You think hearts are always honest?”
“Yes. I do.”
“What about the saying a fool in love?”
My shrug is slight. “Is love not the most honest thing we can feel? Regardless of whether or not it may be smart, it’s still true.”
Isaac hums. “You’re a romantic.”
I don’t argue the observation. “As are you.”
He scoffs. “Right. And what gave you that impression? My sunny disposition?”
I meet Isaac’s gaze steadily, the blue of his irises reminding me of how light cuts through the water, streaks of near white fanning out from his pupils like a sunburst, the halo of dark around it all keeping the radiant glow contained.
“What would you call your relationship with literature if not a love affair?”
Isaac blinks at me, seemingly shocked. “Yeah, but that’s not…”
“Romance? Why not?” My eyes ping to his hair, his freckles, back to his eyes. “You carry flames, Isaac Newport. And words are your oxygen.”
He sucks in a small breath, the red rising on his cheeks proving my point. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Utterly shameless?”
I huff a small laugh. “Is it shameless to speak the truth?”
“You and your questions,” Isaac says, sounding as if he doesn’t mind them one bit. “I need to get back to work.”
“Sure.”
“So stop…” He waves a hand chaotically my way.
“Existing?”
Isaac groans. “What’s up with the turtlenecks, by the way?”
“Don’t like them?”
“No, I do,” he says quickly before seeming to catch himself. “They’re fine. They just…don’t show anything off.”
By anything, I assume he means my tattoos. “And you think I should be showing off?”
He looks heavenward for a moment, exasperated, I’d guess, by how much he’s incidentally revealing. “I think you must have put a lot of time and effort into your tattoos. So I don’t understand why you want them covered.”
“It’s not that I want to hide them. But at the same time, my tattoos are for myself, not others. They’re not a showpiece. They’re…”
Something catches in Isaac’s eyes. “They’re love,” he fills in. “You said your uncle did most of them. He’s an artist?”
“He is.”
“And this is how he shows his love? This is how you share your own with him in return? By wearing his art.” Isaac looks rather proud of himself for coming to the conclusion on his own, and I find I like him wearing that expression almost as much as his blush.
“Quite perceptive of you, Red. Considering you used to think I hunted people for sport.”
He sputters, looking amused. “That was, like…a whole week ago.”
“Five days,” I correct.
“You’re keeping count?”
“Would that bother you?”
“What am I even supposed to say to that?” he asks. “You’re just so—”
A loud shhh has the both of us jerking around to find a librarian with a cart full of books nearby. There’s a disapproving look on her face, but she doesn’t chastise us further for being so loud inside the library.
“Sorry, Bev,” Isaac says quietly, the librarian walking away.
I keep my own volume low. “You’re on a first-name basis with the librarians?”
“I spend a lot of time here. My own place…sucks. Apart from Todd. He’s all right.”
“How many people do you live with?”
“Four,” he answers. “Everyone else is an undergrad, including Todd. I’m the only lifer.”
I roll that information over. The confirmation that Isaac is in grad school. The implication, even, that he plans to stay. “You want to teach?”
“I hope to,” he says, tapping his highlighter against his textbook in a rhythmic back-and-forth motion. “But there’s no telling if I’ll be able to get a position anywhere around here.”
I hum. “I’m sorry, you know. For being snarky with you the first time we met.”
Isaac stops his tapping, an eyebrow raised. “That was you being snarky?”
My huff is small. “It was. I thought, well… I’m used to people judging me, and I went on the offensive. I could have just moved tables.”
“Or you could have told me to fuck off, but you didn’t. Why would I judge you?”
The genuine confusion on Isaac’s face has warmth blossoming in my chest. “Most people judge me, Red. The size. The tattoos. They form opinions fast.”
Isaac’s gaze lingers on the back of my hands. “I thought you might have been a jock.”
“I remember,” I reply around a chuckle.
His eyes lift to mine. “But my hang-ups were my own. They had nothing to do with you.”
“I know,” I say softly.
Because yes, Isaac was prickly when we first met. I wasn’t much better. But he’s never once shied away from me. He doesn’t look away from me, not the way so many people do.
Isaac regards me now, unguarded in a way he hasn’t often been. “‘The question is not what you look at, but what you see.’”
My lips pull into a smile at the corner. “Thoreau.”
“I’ll stump you one of these times,” he says, clearing his throat.
“I doubt it. But you can try.”
Isaac scoffs, but there’s a smirk on his face as he uncaps his highlighter, his eyes back on his textbook. I’m tempted to ask what he sees when he looks at me, but I know I won’t get an answer right now.
That’s okay. I’m patient.
By the time my alarm goes off, I’ve barely gotten any work done.
Isaac sips his coffee as I pack up my things. “Will I see you on Wednesday?”
“Would you like to see me tomorrow?” I counter. “I have some time in the afternoon if you’re free.”
“To…study?” he asks, that blush starting to rise on his cheeks.
I swallow down the many things I want to say about the heat pooling on his skin. “A date,” I answer, fairly sure he knows as much. “I want to take you out.”
“Where?”
The question has me chuckling, Isaac’s perplexed expression matching his tone. “Is where the important part?”
“I mean, it’s not unimportant,” he says. “If you want me to meet you out in the desert, I’ll have to assume you’re planning to work on your bow-and-arrow skills.”
I snort.
“If it’s at a restaurant,” he goes on, “that means food. And if it’s back at your place…”
He peters out, but the insinuation is clear.
“Food,” I clarify. “Sunset Sandwiches. What time?”
“Um. One-thirty?”
“That works. You’ll be there?”
“Apparently,” he says, trying and failing to look indignant. “Although when I actually agreed, I’m not sure.”
“I think it was right around the time you started staring at my mouth.”
His eyes fly back up to mine.
“For the record, Red? I’m very good with my mouth.”
He swallows hard enough for me to follow the motion, but he doesn’t say a word.
I lean closer, putting us a couple inches apart. “I’m talking about my conversational skills.”
“Right,” he says roughly. “So about that muzzle.”
My laugh has Isaac’s eyes dipping to my lips again before he glances quickly away. “Tomorrow, Red. See you at one-thirty.”
Isaac mutters a quiet goodbye as I swing my bag over my shoulder and stand. I can feel his stare on my person until I turn the corner out of sight.
It feels like stepping outside of a bubble as I pass into the main area of the library, the quiet din of conversation steady here. Students are clustered in study groups or working on their own, but it’s nothing like the quiet corner Isaac and I have claimed.
If I’d never encountered him past that first day, I might feel guilty for unintentionally invading his solitude when we met. As is, I can’t find it in me to regret a single thing. Not that encounter. Not the days since.
I have to hustle to get to my class on time, having spent an extra few minutes securing a date with Isaac. I make it before the metaphorical bell, finding a seat in my usual area of the lecture hall, my mood high until my professor takes one look at my face and scowls.
I almost forgot about the massive bruise beside my eye.
Keeping my head down is par for the course. But today, my focus wanders away from financial management and risk-return trade-offs. Instead, I see two halos of burning blue.
And I welcome the blaze.