3. Brinn
Chapter 3
Brinn
“That’s the last of it,” Ezra, the delivery man from Morrison’s Flowers, says as he sets the new gardening tools next to the bags of soil, neatly labeled trays of seedlings, and pots of flowers. “You’re going to be swimming in home-grown salads soon.” He looks fondly at the rows of budding leaves of Swiss chard, lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, and cucumbers. “Jude picked out some lovely marigolds for the front of your house, too.”
“Thanks again for delivering.”
“Anytime,” he says before waving goodbye.
Doctor Christina said I should practice being outside. It sounded so foolish when she recommended it—who needs to practice being outside? However, she might be right. The only time I’ve been outside since Isaac and Pork Belly stopped by was to pick up debris from the tropical storm that blew through town last week.
I carry the delicate seedlings to the backyard. It hasn’t been a frequent hangout spot for me. The abandoned garden beds remind me a bit too much of grave plots. But it seems like a good place to practice, and the plants will help motivate me to be there.
I dig through the dirt to pull out the weeds by the root. Some of them put up a fight, desperate to cling to what they know. While I know I’ll spend the next couple of seasons fighting their progeny, the cleared beds are satisfying. There’s a chance for life in the emptiness, no matter how messy it is right now.
I’m halfway through settling my radish seedlings into their new home when I hear Isaac’s back door open. The thick row of lilac bushes between our yards provides an impromptu fence. It blocks the view but does nothing for sound.
“Okay, PB, ten minutes of ball time. We have to finish setting up the studio. We can go on a big walk later.” Pork Belly’s delighted ruff makes me smile. I listen to Isaac laugh as he lobs the ball, and Pork Belly chases it in delight.
The sounds of joy have been so absent from my life. I close my eyes and revel in them. The sound of the birds chirping. I can hear children laughing faintly in the distance. They join the summer breeze blowing and the scent of freshly tilled dirt.
I used to love being outside. Hiking through the Pacific Northwest, getting dirty and sweaty. Lugging my camera in my backpack to capture the sights. I used to love walking along the beach, watching the waves break in the distance.
Now, the smell of the sea makes me gag, and my hiking boots sit in a box in my closet, collecting dust next to my camera. I don’t even know where my hiking pack is.
Suddenly, the grit of the dirt under my fingers becomes a distraction from the breeze. I can feel the spot on the back of my neck where I didn’t apply enough sunscreen. A horn blares. The sensory overload makes my chest tight and—
“Pork Belly, stop!”
My eyes pop open just as Pork Belly tears through the lilac bushes to chase the wayward ball sitting in my yard. Spotting me, she trots over with a wagging tail and her ball, now triumphantly back in her possession.
“Oh god,” Isaac says as he maneuvers through the gap Pork Belly carved in the bushes. “I’m so sorry.” Pork Belly does not look sorry as she waits for me to throw her ball.
“It’s okay,” I say, patting the dog on the head. “Pork Belly is welcome any time she wants to say hi.”
Isaac stares at me for a moment, and I realize I am covered in dirt and sweat, and I’m almost certainly sunburned in more places than the back of my neck.
Isaac, in contrast, looks like he’d be in a mechanic shop’s ad if it were in Vogue . Something I can appreciate now that I’m not distracted by all-consuming terror. He looks like he could work on the docks in a seaside Hallmark Channel movie.
His sturdy muscles are under a perfect patina of late-thirties comfort. His golden hair is highlighted with sunshine, long enough for a lock to fall over his forehead. Tattoos swirl up his forearms, dipping under the sleeves of the thin t-shirt, which stretch over his biceps in a way that borders on obscene. There’s a blue paint smear on his arm, a stark contrast to his black and white tattoos. Sawdust clings to the creases in his shoes.
After a moment, his frozen expression breaks into a cringe. “Sorry about the bushes.” He winces, looking over his shoulder at the thinned-out space.
“I’m sure they needed some pruning anyway.” I shrug, trying to get my bearings again. “It’s okay.” Despite the surprising interruption, the backyard is less overwhelming with them here.
“Still, sorry for interrupting. PB, come on—Brinn’s busy.” Pork Belly looks up sadly from the final tray of plants she’s been sniffing.
An idea hits me. “Not to be weird, but I heard you saying you were going back inside soon,” I say sheepishly. “I have some more planting out here and some flowers to put in front. She could hang out with me if you’re okay with it?” We both look to Pork Belly, who has given up her plant inspection in favor of flopping on a patch of shaded grass.
He takes in the pile of various planting materials and tools strewn across my backyard. “Do you want some help?” He notices my hesitation in answering. “PB is right; the weather's too nice to go back inside. She loves gardening, see?” Pork Belly lets out a happy sigh from the shade behind me. “This looks more fun than what I was doing.”
“You don’t have—” I protest, but the mellow smile he gives me stops me in my tracks. Doctor Christina has tried to encourage me to make friends. Isaac is friendly. “Yeah, help would be nice.”
His smile morphs into something marvelous. “I think Uncle Rob kept some tools in the garage. Be right back.” He leaps back through the gap in the lilac bushes faster than I can respond.
He returns donning leather gardening gloves and toting some extra tools and gardening gloves as I come back outside with some water bottles for us and a big bowl for Pork Belly.
“Do you want to start on that last bed while I finish this one?”
“Aye-aye, ma’am,” he says, giving me a lazy, smiling salute.
We set to work silently. I’m aware of every movement he makes. The way the muscles in his arm shift as he pulls the gardening fork through the dirt captivates me enough that I forget I’m supposed to be doing something. He catches me looking at him, and that mellow expression returns. At least he can’t see me blush under the layer of sweat and dirt on my face. Hopefully.
“So, do you do a lot of gardening?” he asks as he layers new soil into the garden bed.
“I was part of a community garden in Portland.”
I’m frozen for a second as the memories flood in. Why I’m not in Portland. Why I’m alone in my backyard.
Pork Belly lets out a large snore from her napping spot, and Isaac chuckles. I can feel him turn to me, and I think he might say my name, but I’m not sure I hear it.
I close my eyes. I breathe in the smell of the dirt, the greenness of the seedlings, the heat of the sun. I’m not alone. I’m not in danger. I’m practicing being outside, like Doctor Christina said. I’m okay. It’s okay.
“Brinn?” Isaac says softly from his spot.
“Yeah, sorry.” The words are watery. “Sorry, I spaced out there for a second.” I give him a half-hearted smile.
His mouth and brow curve downwards. “Why don’t you take a break in the shade with Pork Belly? It’s hot, and you’ve been working hard.”
“I’m okay,” I tell him. He stands and holds his hand out to help me up, anyway.
“Let all that nice cool water get tepid?” He tries to sound jovial, but worry still creases his face. “Just for a minute, okay?” I agree and take his hand.
I’ve been kneeling too long, and the sudden shift has my head spinning. I brace myself on the closest thing to keep upright. That thing is Isaac. When I get my bearings, I realize his hand is still holding mine, and my other is on his chest.
“Brinn?” His hand squeezes my hip. When did that get there?
“I’m okay, just a little head rush.”
This close, I can smell the sun and sweat on his skin. I can see the perfect walnut color of his eyes. The striations are like a rich oiled wood grain. His eyelashes are the color of caramel. I think I might swoon again for a different reason.
“Let’s get you some water, yeah?”
He leads me to a lawn chair in the shade. This is very familiar, but at least this time, I’m not shaking. I take off my gardening gloves, and he presses one of the perspiring water bottles into my hand. The coolness of it brings me back to reality, my eyes focusing on the world instead of only on Isaac.
Isaac smiles at me. “There she is.”
I can’t believe this happened again. “Oh, my god.” This time, I’m sure my flush is visible through the grime. “I’m sorry.”
His brow wrinkles in confusion. “For what?”
“This is the second time you’ve had to lead me somewhere so I don’t pass out like a frail octogenarian.”
He shrugs. “Kindness isn’t transactional. There are no tally marks in helping a friend.”
“I’m not—” I want to say, “I’m not usually like this,” but I think that might be a lie now. “I’m usually better at hydrating,” I say instead.
“It’s hotter than it looks.” Isaac takes a sip of his own water. “Sit with PB for a few minutes. I’ll finish up this bed, okay?” I open my mouth to protest. “If it makes you feel better, you can buy us pizza later.” He turns back to the garden beds before I can say anything else.
Pork Belly wiggles her way over to me, placing her soft, fawn-colored head on my lap and looking at me like she’s never known kindness in her life. Her wagging tail betrays her desperate eyes, but I give in regardless. The weight of her head and her soft hair under my hands help calm my still-racing heart. Though one look at Isaac’s back muscles shifting under his thin t-shirt sends it racing again.
After the garden beds and the flowers in front are planted, Isaac, Pork Belly, and I sit on my front porch, enjoying pizza in the evening sun.
“You mentioned earlier you lived in Portland. What brought you out here?” Isaac says, sipping his beer.
I hesitate for a moment. I could tell him the truth, but I don’t want to bring that dour news into the nice evening. “Moved here for an opportunity that didn’t work out,” I say. I take a huge bite of my pizza so I don’t have to elaborate.
“Ahh, I’m sorry to hear that. What kind of work do you do?”
The nice thing about vague answers is that people often fill in the blanks with whatever truth suits them. A work opportunity makes more sense than a relationship opportunity. And if I want to split hairs, I moved here for Josh’s work opportunity.
“I was a photographer. I do graphic design work now, though. I like working from home,” I tell him. “What do you do?”
He sips his beer as if he’s trying to be casual about it. “I’m an artist, too. I mainly work in sculpture.”
An inkling of recognition hits me. “What’s your medium?”
“Metal, mostly. Though I’ve done glass work and clay.”
My eyes widen as he pointedly does not look at me. “You’re that Isaac Wells?”
He stifles a sigh. “I take it you’re familiar?”
While Isaac is a couple of years older than me, he made a name for himself early in his career with several high-profile installations. It was hard to avoid knowledge of his work if you were tapped into the art world at all.
“I had a professor who might be your biggest fan,” I laugh. “He had several photographs of your work in his office and used you as an example a lot.”
Isaac looks bashfully at his feet. “Ahh, well...” He trails off.
I never expected someone with this much renown to avoid talking about his work. His work had always seemed so passionate, which is something that can only come from love and authenticity. “Would it make it less awkward if I say I never particularly cared for metal as a medium?” I ask him.
He laughs, some of the awkwardness dispelling with the breath. “Yes, also, if you told me which of my pieces you hate the most.”
“That one with the helix pattern,” I say. I can recall the image hanging above my professor’s head in his office while he explained a correction to my paper condescendingly. “Was it supposed to be a statement on the flexibility of human nature or sad genitalia?”
The tension in his body vanishes as he smirks. “Yeah, that definitely wasn’t my best work.”
As our laughs suffuse the twilight, happiness fills a hollow space in my chest.
Okay, Brinn. You’ve got this. You’re only ten yards from the end of the block. That’s what, twelve steps or so? Come on, we’ve gotten so far.
I’m so close. I am the farthest I’ve been away from my house in more than two years. It’s only four blocks, but that’s a block farther than I’ve gotten before. I’m at the edge of the neighborhood where it bumps up against a river and a footbridge across it. A beautiful meadow lies on the other side, the grass waving at me gently.
The river is going to rush up the bank and wash us away! my brain screams at me as I’m about to take another step.
No, it’s not. Come on, Brinn. If we do this, we can order noodles from High Thai-d.
Noodles are always a great self-bargaining tool. My foot leaves the sidewalk with the weight of an ocean liner, but somehow, I move it in front of me. My other foot joins it.
There will be noodles if we do this. The sidewalk is going to collapse into a sinkhole. We can watch that season of Bake Off we haven’t watched yet. There are going to be cannibal mutants in that sinkhole, like in that movie. Underground cannibal mutants aren’t real, don’t be silly.
I realize when I hear the burbling river that my eyes have been closed. When I open them, I stare at the trail that leads down to the river and bridge.
I did it. I did it!
The river is not rushing up to sweep me away. No cannibal-filled sinkholes. The sky is not falling. All I have to do is turn around, and I can go home to my noodles and Bake Off .
Perhaps someday, I’ll make it across the bridge. Not today, though. I’m exhausted, and the warring sides of my brain are both urging me to go home.
“Brinn!” a familiar voice calls. Isaac’s handsome face bobs into my vision from the bottom of the hill. Pork Belly lets out an excited bark and bounds up the trail towards me.
“Hey, girl,” I say, giving her a head pat as she nuzzles my leg. Her full-body tail wags never cease to make me laugh.
Issac makes it up the trail a moment later. My mouth goes dry at the sight. His shirt is slung over his shoulder instead of on his body. The sheen of sweat across his chest and abs, mixed with a light smattering of blonde chest hair, is enough to make me forget everything I was worried about a minute ago. I can’t decide whether to curse or praise the hot day.
I pull my eyes away from the tantalizing expanse of skin to his face. I’m met with his wide smile. “Hey, you. Are you on your way to an adventure or on the way home from one?”
“Home,” I say, and it sounds almost normal.
“Can PB and I walk with you?”
My smile now matches his. “Absolutely.”
“Okay, PB. You know the rules,” he says as he grabs Pork Belly’s leash from its place on his shoulder. She gives him a big, sad expression as he clips it to her harness. “Between leash laws and your new habit of solo adventuring, we have to.” He scratches her ears, and she seems to forgive him before forging ahead. “What kind of adventures were you on today?”
“Oh, you know, just going for a walk. It’s nice out.” I leave out the part about it being the furthest I’ve been from my house in an embarrassingly long time and the crippling fear that threatened to swallow me whole minutes ago. “You?”
“PB and I were hiking along the river. There’s a lake a few miles into the woods. I decided it’d be better to hit it up on a day when I didn’t sweat through my shirt in a half hour, though,” he says.
The woods are beautiful. I’d walked along them in the weeks after I moved here, before the accident. Some locals say the woods are haunted or magic, and while I don’t believe in magic or anything, their ancient energy was palpable even from the forest’s edge.
“You’re not scared of the lurking monsters?” I laugh.
He gives me a wry look. “Nah. I’m never scared with PB there.”
As if on cue, the tawny dog’s head lifts, ears perked. Her pink nose sniffs the air. Moments later, a seagull swoops past us, and she takes off in the opposite direction, back towards the river chasing the bird. Isaac spins before his arm is wrenched back.
“Pork Belly!” he shouts, but the rambunctious dog follows the path of the seagull, now arching back around. “PB, stop!”
Pork Belly winds around us, leash coming around my waist. The seagull lets out a mocking caw before flying back the way it came, Pork Belly in its wake. The leash pulls me straight into a fumbling Isaac. Pork Belly finally comes to a stop at the end of her taut tether, staring wistfully at the escaping bird.
For the third time in a few weeks, I find myself pressed against my incredibly attractive neighbor. Maybe the world really does have it out for me. Not that I mind being near Isaac. It’s starting to seem intentional and has become incredibly distracting.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about his hands on my hips for days. Or how he smells so good. He smells like pine, sun-warmed skin, and Isaac. Normally, I’d be less than pleased about being shoved into a slightly sweaty man’s chest, but the heat and scent of him are overwhelming and soothing me all at once.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” Isaac’s voice is a low chuckle. The arm holding Pork Belly’s leash is wrapped tightly around my waist.
Every time I accidentally end up in his arms, I notice one more stunning thing about him. Today, it’s how that laid-back smile makes his lips curve so deliciously. The perfect cupid’s bow on top flattens with the motion.
“Sorry,” I croak out. The anxiety about my state is seeping in. The hot day had urged me to wear some shorts and a thin tank top that barely reaches the top of them. Had I known I’d be pressed up against an unwilling man, I would have tried to cover up a bit more. My plump thigh is pressed between his muscular ones. If we stay like this much longer, I am going to find out exactly how much this bralette can keep my stiffening nipples in check.
Pork Belly tugs on the leash, ready to move on now that the seagull has escaped. The motion makes me gasp a bit as it pulls us imperceptibly closer, and Isaac’s eyes tip down to my mouth.
Isaac looks away quickly and clears his throat as he begins untangling us. I’m sweating, and it’s not because of the unrelenting UV rays. “I’m sorry, Pork Belly is going through a phase. I need to get her signed up for some training classes at the shelter,” he says as he steps back. “She’s normally not so excitable, but I think being back in Calysto’s Cove has her....” He waves his hands in an erratic gesture as a replacement for words.
“It’s no problem,” I say, trying not to sound like I had the wind knocked out of me by the sheer proximity of an attractive man.
His eyes roam over me for a moment before the delightful but slightly unruly dog lets out an exasperated huff. Isaac gives me a tight nod and shifts awkwardly before we both turn back to Pork Belly and start walking.
I try to shake off the feeling that he’s disgusted with me. Isaac looks like a model, and I’m a plus-size, thick-thighed, wide-hipped, small-chested, run-of-the-mill thirty-something woman. He was clearly unhappy about being forced to touch me yet again.
“So, what are you up to this afternoon besides enjoying the sunshine?” Isaac says after a block. Walking with him has distracted me enough that moving towards home hasn’t felt as arduous. While my house is my safe place, it’s also my prison. Going back to it is as hard as leaving it sometimes.
“I have some work to finish up later, but nothing that interesting,” I say, shrugging. “What about you?”
“I’m almost done setting up my studio. I installed some custom shelving, and it took a little more time than I thought,” he says. That would explain why I could hear power tools running in his backyard throughout the last few days.
The words slip out unbidden. “I always wanted my own studio.”
“For your photography?”
“Yes,” I admit bashfully.
“What kind of photography do you do?”
“My favorite thing to shoot was portraits. Many people think they’re not artistic, but there’s nothing like working with someone to capture their true self. If I had a studio, I’d make half of it look like a cute and comfortable space for the standard family photos to pay the bills.” He hums in understanding. Full-time artistry necessitates funding. “But the other half would be a space I can do whatever I want in.”
Our houses are in sight now, and my chest is tight. Pork Belly slows her pace, equally reluctant to go home.
“That sounds like a great idea.”
I huff out a derisive laugh. “It’s doomed to stay an idea. I don’t think I could ever make it a reality.”
“And why is that?” he asks gently.
Another set of words leaks through my lips unbidden. “I think the version of me that could do that died.” I wince at my admission—I have got to work on my filter.
The Brinn with dreams and aspirations had stayed in that car, filling with seawater. This new Brinn left her there as she swam through the broken windshield.
“I’m going to say something cliché,” Isaac says after a moment. We’ve walked past his house, stopping in front of mine. “Please don’t discount it. Promise?”
“I promise,” I half-lie.
“Dreams don’t die. They can be sidelined, they can be changed, but that dream—the dream of doing something that brings you joy—can’t ever die.”
I can’t have a studio if I can barely leave my house. I can’t have a studio if I can’t pick up my camera. I can’t take pictures if I can’t talk to anyone without making myself look like a fool. I can barely function at my boring job; I could never run a business.
“Thank you,” I say, but it’s hollow.
“Dreams also wait for us,” he adds, obviously sensing my hesitation.
“It might be waiting a while.” I shrug.
His voice is soft. “That’s okay.” There’s something in his eyes that makes me squirm. The last fifteen minutes have gone from silly to steamy to serious in rapid succession, and I feel like I have whiplash.
“Have a good afternoon, Isaac.”
“You too, Brinn.”