Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
ABIGAIL
Life loved throwing me curveballs, and Isaiah was the biggest one yet.
I don’t know how he did it, managing to swoop in and whisk me away to another world every time things went wrong. But I wasn’t complaining, certainly not at the moment, as I lay in my bed with his arms wrapped around me.
After playing the most erotic game I’d ever played, he carried me to the bedroom, settled me into the covers and took it upon himself to clean me.
Then, he got us both drinks to rehydrate.
This tattooed stranger, who was the best-looking man I’d ever seen in my life, was perfect. And yet, I knew nothing about him.
“You know, I don’t make a habit of inviting random men into my apartment like this,” I said, enjoying the warmth of the covers and him.
The way his thumb kept stroking my arm made my skin prickle, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“I should hope not.” He nuzzled into my neck, trailing delicate kisses. “I’d hate to add another name to my kill list... or maybe not. I quite like toying with prey.”
“You make it sound like it’s fun.”
“It could be. We could use our skills again. Tag team. We didn’t do so badly last time.”
Him mentioning the last time made my warm fuzzy feeling ebb away and nerves started to sting inside me, as if the butterflies had been replaced by bees.
I had to change the subject. I didn’t want to go there again tonight.
“I don’t even know your name.” I lifted my hand, touching his tattooed one and entwining my fingers with his. “I mean, I know it’s Isaiah, but I don’t know your surname, and that makes me feel—”
“Don’t say it,” he cut in. “Don’t put yourself down or say something derogatory. This feels right. That’s all we need to know.” I felt his warm breath tickle my skin as he sighed, then added, “James. My name is Isaiah James.”
“Okay, that’s a good start. Is there anything else you can tell me about yourself?”
“My birthday is the fourteenth of November,” he replied.
“A Scorpio,” I stated.
“If you say so,” he said, placing a gentle kiss on my shoulder. “I’m twenty-eight years old. I’ve lived in this area all my life. No family. I keep myself to myself. And I love... true crime.”
“True crime?” I rolled my eyes, but he didn’t see. “Is that because you’re making notes while you watch?”
“It doesn’t hurt to stay ahead of the game.”
We lay in the dark for a moment, neither of us speaking.
I broke the silence first.
“That’s all surface level stuff, but what if I want to know something personal? Something that shows me who you really are.”
He pulled me closer and whispered, “Maybe we can play a game?”
“Ah yes. The Taskmaster. Because you love playing games to win.”
“This one wouldn’t be about winning. Call it a research game.”
“And the game is?” I asked.
“Two lies, one truth.”
I giggled. I didn’t expect him to come out with an icebreaker game, but I was ready to give it a go. “Go on then. You start.”
“Okay.” He took a moment to think, then said, “One, I taught myself to drive, but I don’t actually have a license.
Two, my first pet was a rat that lived in our house, and I kept him in a shoe box.
And three, I don’t actually know the exact date of my birthday, I don’t have a birth certificate, but I know my mum said it was in November, so I chose the fourteenth. ”
“Jesus, those are all pretty grim, Isaiah.” He hummed in agreement, and I frowned trying to think which would be the best of a bad lot to go with. “I think two, the pet rat.”
“Correct.”
“Thank goodness,” I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I called him Sandy. He bit through the cardboard of the shoe box one night and escaped. Scared the shit out of my mum.”
“I bet she loved you for that.”
“It was the least of her problems.” He leaned into my neck, making me shiver as he said, “It’s your turn.”
I was rubbish at games like this, so it took me a little longer to think of mine.
“Okay, here goes. One, growing up, we moved house every two years. Two, my parents didn’t let me date until I was eighteen. And three, I had an imaginary friend called Velma.”
“Really hitting me with the tough ones, hey?” he joked, and then instantly replied, “The imaginary friend.”
I slapped his hand, laughing. “How did you guess so fast?”
“I knew you’d leave the truth till last, and it sounded the most plausible.”
“Really?” My brows shot up to my hairline.
“Yeah. You’ve got a stable family. You’re not the kind of girl to be told what she can and can’t do. So the imaginary friend was obvious.”
“Hmm.” I knew he’d be competitive. “What can I say? I was obsessed with Scooby Doo and Velma was my favourite. Apart from Scooby, obviously.”
“Obviously,” he teased, and I poked my elbow into his ribs.
“Your turn, and make it juicy.”
“You want juicy? Okay, here goes. I saw my first dead body when I was three years old. I didn’t speak for four years. And... I can’t swim.”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. It was a nervous laugh. He’d just given me two pretty dark facts and then hit me with the ‘I can’t swim’.
“It’s not unusual for a little kid to be mute for that long,” I pondered. “And if you did see a dead body at that age, it would account for a lot... but... I’ve gotta go with the swimming.”
“I’m not playing this right,” he huffed, but he was loving it. Playing with me, teasing me. Sprinkling in his dark humour where he could.
“Go on, then. Give me yours,” he urged.
But I was struggling. “I can’t think of anything good.”
“Then let’s change things up. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else before.”
Even that had me coming up blank.
“Can you go first?” I asked. “I need time to think.”
He didn’t speak, and I started to mull over my answer, and then he spoke so quietly into the darkness I almost didn’t hear him.
“I wish I was normal. Like other people. That I had a job, a wife, a family to provide for. That the only thing I had to worry about was earning money, feeding them and making them happy.”
I turned to face him, feeling the honesty in his words as they pierced a little hole in my heart. I reached up to touch his face, telling him, “You are normal, and you will have those things. It just takes a little longer for some people to find it.”
If he was opening up, so would I.
“Sometimes, I get scared that I won’t ever find true love. That no one will want me, and I’ll live here forever surrounded by a thousand cats.”
“I thought you were a dog person?” he replied, and I laughed through the tears welling in my eyes.
“I am. But I went with the crazy cat lady for some reason. I wasn’t thinking.” I kept laughing, but he didn’t.
He held my face in his hands and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead.
“You shouldn’t ever worry about being alone.
It’ll never happen. You will find true love.
You’re going to have so much happiness and love in your life, you’ll be begging for some alone time with that hoard of cats you’ve always dreamed of. ”
“I like that you’ve been honest with me tonight.”
“I’ll always be honest with you, Abigail. Always.”
The way he pulled me to him and held me close, inhaling like he was breathing me in, made me feel something I hadn’t felt before. That maybe this man did understand me. He’d seen me at my worst, well, a version of it, and he was still here.
That had to count for something, right?