Chapter 32
ISAAC
Echoes of his kisses lingered on my lips, which were currently spread into a beaming grin.
I floated on dreamy clouds, wondering if it really happened. If I’d really tasted him, experienced him inside me.
Of course it happened. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be worrying about him calling it a mistake.
Please don’t…
That’s why I left, to avoid a major comedown in my euphoria. I wanted to hold onto this delusion a tad longer. Anyway, I had a little brother to talk to.
Ugh. Reality slithered back in, making my head spin and my emotions churn. I’d wanted to stay with Ollie, to bask in the afterglow for a while.
I need more of you, Ollie Lovell…
With a quick shower and an outfit change into some comfy jeans and sweater, I left my room to knock on my brother’s door. But the chime of an email notification and the shrill cry of a phone call stopped me.
I held up the device, hoping to see Helen’s name on the screen. Instead, my brother’s name flashed there for the first time since Christmas.
Adopted brother…
“David?” I answered.
“Mum and Dad want to talk,” he responded curtly. No ‘how are you?’ or any hint of kindness.
It got my back up. “That’s nice,” I answered sniffily. “I’m kind of busy right now.”
“Being The Sun.”
“Yes.”
His sigh sent a crackle down the line. “They’re sorry they never told you. How could they? No one ever expected your kind to return.”
“My kind?”
“You know what I mean.”
David. The guy with many opinions, especially when it came to my sexuality, my job, and my whole life in general.
And it wasn’t just him, but my parents too.
Always happy to take money from me, but not happy with me being gay.
After years of snide comments, everything came to a head at Christmas, dragged out by the lip-loosening effects of alcohol.
Mum started it with some vile homophobia, then Dad picked up the torch in an attempt to scorch me with shame. He failed because I didn’t feel ashamed of my sexuality. I loved being me.
David thought he’d come in with the finishing blow, spewing some repugnant, bigoted filth at me.
In response, I’d rebutted with, “I can’t believe I share blood with a family of potatoes. What is this? Shit in the mouth that feeds you? Fine. I’m done with you, and you’re done with my money.”
With that trigger pulled, the insults followed, my parents playing victim. Somehow, I was the bad guy, the one they hit with most extreme verbal poison. And I wasn’t made of stone. Words did hurt me, breaking my heart.
I’d been bullied at school, made to feel like dirt, always on the receiving end of some form of bigotry. I’d wanted my family to be the safe space away from the pain. But they weren’t, no matter how much I loved them.
My fame was a fuck you to hate, my money two middle fingers and a shit load of scorn to go with it.
No one got to bully me anymore. No one got to own me or leave me sobbing myself to sleep every night. I’d come too far, endured too much to let anyone get the better of me.
Ollie came down the stairs from the third floor.
“Isaac?” David said. “Are you still there?”
Ollie mouthed if I was alright.
I nodded, so happy to see him. “I’m here,” I responded to my brother.
“Come and see us,” he carried on. “We’re all at the Cheshire house. We need to talk about everything.”
If he was looking for forgiveness, he could forget it. I didn’t have much capacity for forgiving bullshit.
Ollie moved closer to me.
If it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t be two houses for my parents to move between in Cheshire and Los Angeles.
“I’m busy,” I retorted.
“Too busy for your family?”
Trigger pulled. “Fuck you, David.”
“What?” he growled.
“Don’t talk to me about family. Forgotten about Christmas, eh? Left your memories in the toilet along with rest of that shit dinner?”
“You f—”
“Shut your mouth, prick. No one wants to hear it.”
He laughed. “What a pompous cunt you are. You don’t want to talk? Good. Rot. I hope you fail at being The Sun, you little pussy.” More laughter. Loud, mocking laughter. “Isaac Davenport is The Sun? What a joke!”
I hung up, throwing my phone at the wall.
Hands balled into fists, I screamed at it, rage boiling over my sides.
“Isaac?”
My face blazed with fury, my jaw clenched. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but seethe and stare at the phone. Wishing it would become a portal, its destination the Cheshire house so I could beat the shit out of David.
Like when I was fourteen and he’d slapped my face in front of his friends in our backyard. Thought he was so funny, him and his hog friends laughing at me for loving The Spice Girls.
I hated the laughing.
Losing my shit, I punched him so hard in the gut he threw up. Their laughter stopped then, and mine kicked in, not stopping for hours.
After that, he never touched me again.
Prick.
“Isaac?”
Ollie’s voice cut through suddenly, my rage taking an immediate pause. I looked at him, my eyes hot.
“That was my brother,” I said.
Don’t you dare start crying.
“Are you alright?” he asked, moving closer.
I barely managed to hold the tears back. No crying now, no tears spent on David. Too many had fallen over that fucker. I’d suffered too much heartbreak from his hate when all I wanted was for him to say he loved me.
Darn it. Craving love seemed to be my weakness.
“It’s never fun dealing with him,” I said to Ollie. The anger might be on hold, but my hands were still tight fists, the rest of me so tense I might explode.
“Can I hug you?” he asked.
The question scrambled my circuits. “What?”
“Can I hug you?” he repeated.
“Hug me?”
“You look like you need a hug.”
Was he really asking me this? Was Ollie seriously offering me a hug and not here to tell me we can’t ever get down to sexy business ever again?
No, he really wanted to hug me, inching closer.
And I let him.
He wrapped those arms around me, his presence a balm to my senses, everything about him radiating shelter. My tensions unknit as I hugged him back, leaning into him.
It took substantial effort to keep a dam up against the waterworks.
He stroked my back, saying nothing, being the rock I’d been looking for all my life. I hated to admit it, but it was true.
We hugged for ages, until the murk cleared away enough for us to finally move into my room. To talk about the phone call initially, but then I kept going, spilling details on my past, on the things that hurt me, on the strength I’d summoned to forge my path to fame and fortune.
Ollie listened, so kind, so lovely. A far cry from the ice cube I thought he was.
We’d both misjudged one another massively.
When I stopped waffling, I apologized and leaned back on my hands, head titled to the ceiling.
“Talking is exhausting,” I said.
“Thanks for telling me,” he answered. “I’m sorry you endured so much crap.” He shook his head. “How could they say those things to you?”
I sat forward. “Because I let them. I never really pushed back as hard as I should. Even the Christmas blow up wasn’t as nuclear as it should be. And this might sound crazy, but I do miss them. I still love them because they’re…family.”
I couldn’t shake off twenty-five years of them being a part of my life as easily as I’d like.
There was a lot to work through, a lot to talk about.
And that fucked me off because they didn’t deserve any of it, especially David.
I should burn the bridges, leave them in the past. I’d done it with others who’d sold stories about me, those I thought were friends.
So why not the Davenports? They hurt me, and I was an Aurora, never truly one of them.
Yes, because life is so easy breezy and not complicated at all.
I rolled my eyes at my internal voice and got to my feet. “I guess we both know what it’s like to be rejected, eh?”
I paced, scratching at my left arm.
Ollie pushed himself off the bed and took my hands. I stopped pacing, catching my breath.
“I’m sorry I thought the worst about you,” he said.
He looked so adorable. “Don’t be. Like I’ve never judged anyone before. That’s what we do as a species, isn’t it? No one is innocent of passing judgment. If they say they are, they’re a liar.”
He smiled, keeping hold of my hands. “We need to talk about us.”
The warmth remained in his face, which I took as a good sign.
“Okay.” I licked my lips. “You start.”
“I—”
A knock sounded on my door, cutting him off.
Someone’s timing was super shit.
“Isaac?” Riley called from the other side.
Okay, he always got a pass.
“Excuse me a second,” I told Ollie.
“No problem.”
Still warm, no return of aloofness.
I opened the door and—
I staggered back from an assault of dizziness, grabbing the door for purchase.
“Whoa…” I rasped. “What—”
Shadows, shadows, shadows.
They walk here and there, not dark. Not dark but made of light. Full of light, full of sunshine.
Solar shadows.
I saw Tony’s face, the gold tooth melting, metal spilling over his lips.
Solar shadows dancing. Blazing, blinding. Waiting, pressing against the doors of their prison. Strange and scary and inside me.
Let me take control, Tony’s voice purred in my head.
There is fun to be had here, a job to be done.
I stumbled straight into Riley as I left my room, yanked out of whatever that just was.
“Isaac?” He held my arms. “Are you okay?”
Tony? Tony was here inside me? Magically?
No. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be.
“Isaac?”
I blinked, coming around to myself. “Shit.” Haziness passed through my skull, my vision blurring for a moment.
“You don’t look good,” he said. “You’re burning up.”
Him before me, Ollie behind me, my legs about to give out.
“I need to sit.” I went to the bed, aided by both guys.
Let me take control…
Tony grinning, liquid gold dribbling down his chin.
The gold tooth! There must have been something about it. Right? Oh, fuck! I didn’t know.
I felt squirming in the pit of my stomach, like a ball of snakes. Making itself known, a lurker out in the sunshine, an invader who escaped celestial rejection.
Something with a touch of Tony.
Tony…
Tony…
Tony…
“He’s in me,” I wheezed, my throat burning like it did when I’d been on the bed in that darn house. “Tony’s inside me…he’s—”
I collapsed.