11. Brinn
Chapter 11
Brinn
Firm hands grab my shoulders and turn me suddenly.
“You’re okay? You’re okay. Oh, thank god,” Isaac says as his eyes scan me before he’s pulling me into his strong chest.
He’s warm, and the ever-present pine-and-sunshine scent that seems to cling to him smells delicious. I’d be able to smell it more if he wasn’t squeezing the air out of my lungs.
“Isaac,” I wheeze. “I’m fine.” I pat his back, both to soothe him and signal that I need air.
“Sorry,” he says, releasing his strong, constricting arms. “Sorry,” he repeats. His hands are still holding my shoulders as he gives me another panicked look over. “You’re okay?” His cheeks are ruddy with embarrassment.
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “I’m sorry I worried you. I suppose I should have clarified when I said I needed help.” I cringe.
“We’re in the town square,” he says as if it’s just registering, even though I told him to meet me here. “We’re in the town square!” He says it like a cheer as he pulls me into another tight, but less potentially fatal, hug. “You made it to the town square,” he says into my neck.
“I made it to the town square,” I say. I made it here by myself this afternoon. After the forest, Isaac and I started venturing towards the boardwalk. We’d made it to Cup of Nick, with a clear view of the cove and the ocean beyond, with little incident.
Emboldened by that, I’d made it a goal to go on walks without Isaac and Pork Belly. They won’t always be there to go with me. Some days were easier than others, but I was doing my best to set goals and be gentle with myself when I didn’t quite make it. It made trying again a lot easier.
Today, the goal was the town square and the Calysto’s Cove Pet Shelter. And I’d done it. I am filled with pride as I watch the splashing fountain. A woman smiles at me from where she eats her lunch on a bench, and for the first time, Calysto’s Cove feels welcoming.
“I’m so proud of you,” he says, and I swear I can feel a kiss press into my shoulder as he releases me. My mind plays tricks on me around him.
“Thank you. I’m sorry I bothered you. It’s not an emergency.”
“No, it’s fine. I was wrapping up anyway,” he says. “But what do you need help with?”
“I need a reference to volunteer at the shelter,” I say and gesture to the building behind us. I catch the eye of the receptionist, who winks at me through the window. “You got PB here and attend their classes, so they know you. They said you would be a great reference.”
“You want to volunteer at the shelter?” he says slowly, like he’s trying to solve a complex math problem.
“Yeah,” I say sheepishly.
Over the past few weeks, I’d made it a point to take photos every day. Pork Belly had often served as the subject. Finally, picking up my camera didn’t seem like a herculean task. It was once again as natural as breathing. It turns out that pictures of cute animals are a powerful motivator for most things.
“I saw on social media that they were looking for a volunteer photographer to take pictures for the adoption profiles. I thought....” I shrug self-consciously. Maybe this was a bad idea. Isaac’s slack-jawed expression is making me nervous.
“Brinn!” His face is instantly jubilant. “That’s an amazing idea,” he says. “Come on.” He grabs my hand and pulls me through the door to the winking receptionist.
Over the next 30 minutes, the blood in my cheeks betrays me as Isaac pulls out his phone and shows them every single picture I’ve sent him of Pork Belly, going on and on about how amazing I am. I know it is all hyperbole, but he is selling it to the receptionist and shelter manager like it is genuine gold.
“Normally, we would want a reference from another community member, not a boyfriend, but Mr. Wells is a valued donor and client, and Pork Belly is thriving. We’d be happy to have your help, Brinn,” Susan, the shelter manager, says when she can finally get a word in.
I didn’t know if my cheeks could get hotter, but it turns out they can. “Oh, we’re not—he’s not my—we’re just neighbors,” I stutter out. Monica, the receptionist, and Susan both give us a skeptical look. Isaac must be regretting this, but I am too afraid to see his reaction. “I’m so happy though, thank you!” I remember to add. “My schedule is flexible, so let me know when would be best to come.”
“We set aside Fridays as our adoption profile admin days,” Monica explains. “If you could come on Thursdays or Friday mornings, that would be amazing. We could even have some of the volunteers bring our sprier dogs to your studio on slow weeks. We have weeks where we only get a couple dogs instead of the whole arc,” she says. She points to the wall of photos behind me of dogs, cats, even a few reptiles, rabbits, and rodents.
“I don’t have a studio; the pictures of Miss Belly were in my backyard, but I am happy to host if that’s still agreeable,” I tell them.
“Even better,” Susan says. “It’s great to have pictures of them looking at home.”
I finally hazard a glance at Isaac, and he’s beaming so brightly he rivals the sun itself.
“You don’t have to walk back with me.”
Isaac shrugs. “I have to go home too, Brinn.”
I had assumed he drove to the shelter. While I have made a lot of progress, getting in the car still seems too hard. I managed to sit in my car in the garage, but that was enough for now. A moving car still sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.
“How did you get downtown so fast?”
“I was at Cove College talking to a colleague.”
“About your new collection?” I ask excitedly. The pieces I’d seen him working on were gorgeous. They are a departure from his work that I am familiar with, but I can’t wait to see the final results.
He nods in confirmation. “I was asking about gallery spaces around here. It will be a while, but it is always worth starting a list. Anyway, he picked me up this morning on his way to work since one space I wanted to look at was the college’s gallery.”
“That’s great!”
Besides being genuinely happy, I am thrilled that this isn’t some pity walk home. While I’m sure pity is the major factor in our friendship, it’s nice when we spend time together.
The not-so-tiny crush eating me alive is not nice, and it is continually fed and growing from our time together. Not that it had ever left.
Who am I kidding? I’ve tried enough to fool myself. It’s beyond a crush.
I think I am falling in love with Isaac. Sweet, gentle, outrageously hot, incredible dog dad Isaac Wells. I’m in love with the way the sun catches in his golden hair. I’m in love with his gentle laugh. I’m positively enamored with the way he looks at Pork Belly. I am in constant awe of his patience and kindness.
And I fucked it up. There’s no way I can ever act on it. The gnawing guilt of standing him up on our almost-date lives alongside that not-so-tiny crush, chewing away at me.
The awkward guilt of the shelter admin thinking he was my boyfriend only added to it. He must have been mortified.
“Did you prepare your garden beds for the storm?” he asks as we pass a woman pulling flower pots into her garage. A tropical storm is heading to town, and everyone is flitting about to prepare.
“I’m not sure what to do,” I say. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.” I’d done nothing to prepare for the last couple of years and don’t know where to start.
His eyebrows rise in skepticism. “You didn’t do all that hard work planting just to watch them ripped up by a storm,” he says. “Consider it a dress rehearsal for an actual hurricane. I’ll help.”
I try to argue with him, but he continues walking and talking.
“I think there are some garden stakes and canvas in the garage. Uncle Rob had a garden when we were kids. Do you know if the garden beds have adequate drainage?”
“Uhhh?”
“I think I remember seeing drainage holes. You probably would have had problems by now if you didn’t have them. I’ll grab my drill just in case,” he says as we reach our block. “I need like a half hour, and I’ll be over.” He glances towards the darkening horizon as we stop in front of my house. “We should have plenty of time. It’s not supposed to hit ‘til later tonight.”
I agree, knowing that any more protests would be pointless in the face of the infallibly neighborly Isaac.
I’ve never had a particular attraction to “manly men.” I do, however, have a thing for capable people. When Isaac shows up half an hour later with a tool belt slung across his hips and a tattooed arm full of tarps and garden stakes, I almost faint.
Just when I thought he couldn’t get any hotter, he seems determined to prove me wrong. How hot he looks with tools shouldn’t surprise me, considering his medium of choice until recently is metal work, and he’s spent the last couple of months remodeling his house. He obviously knows his way around power tools and machinery, but seeing him in action has me panting.
He helps me set up chicken wire to stop the tarps from crushing the plants before we cover them. I try not to stare at the way his muscles ripple as he hammers stakes into the ground, but the thin t-shirt he changed into makes it impossible to focus on anything else.
“Brinn?” he says, and I realize I missed whatever he said to me.
“What? Sorry,” I say, glancing away as he stands up and turns around.
“I was hoping for a glass of water,” he says, laughing a bit. I can’t tell if he caught me staring or thinks I was spacing out.
“Right away!” I scuttle into the house. One of these days, he’s going to catch me staring and call me on it, and it’s bound to get awkward.
There was that moment in the forest a couple weeks ago when we were taking a picture together, and I almost kissed him. And for a moment, I thought he might kiss me, too.
Sometimes, I think there might be something there when we hold hands a little too long after I don’t need the support anymore, or he calls me “sweetheart,” or he hugs me tightly. But he steps away, and I can feel an invisible barrier shutter over any chance I once had.
I worry he’s going to feel the way my heart races when I’m close to him. I worry he’s going to see that I can hardly contain my attraction to him. That I am constantly tempted to just close the distance and kiss him.
Isaac is finishing up with the last of the garden beds when I step back outside with his drink. “Thank you,” he says as he takes the glass and polishes it off in a few large gulps.
“I should thank you,” I laugh. “Thank you, by the way.”
“No problem at all,” he says with a humble shrug of the shoulders.
Thunder rumbles in the distance as we gather his tools and carry them back to his place. A gust of wind carries the scent of rain.
“I should get a quick walk with PB in before the storm starts,” he says as he surveys the dark clouds on the horizon. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No. I didn’t even think to do the plants, but I think I’ve got everything else under control.”
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything tonight, okay? I don’t think we’ll lose cell service, even if the power goes out. Call me if you need anything,” he says. His eyes search me, no doubt to see if I’m already freaked out by the impending storm. And given how he found me during the last storm, I can’t blame him.
The gratitude consumes me. “Okay,” I assure him. “Thank you again, Isaac,” I say. “You do so much for me. I’m really grateful.” I’ve felt alone for so long, I want to say. I am in awe of you. You make me feel brave. The words are in my mouth, but I don’t know how to bring them to life. “You’re a great friend.”
The world seems to stop as a small, tired smirk appears on his face, and his shoulders shake in an imperceptible laugh. The words hang in the humid air around us as he looks at me.
“Friends,” he says quietly. “Is that all we are, Brinn?”
What?
My mouth falls open as I gasp for a response. “Isa—” Pork Belly’s bark from inside cuts me off, and Isaac’s eyes leave me as he looks over my shoulder.
“I have to get PB out,” he says, voice and face back to friendly neutrality. “Call me if you need anything,” he says as he goes inside.
Is that all we are? Is that all we are? Is that all we are?
The words echo in my head as I shuffle back to my house.
He never asked me out again after our ill-fated date. Beyond that moment, he’s never made a move. We’re friends. Just friends.
Friends show up for each other like Isaac shows up for me, right? I certainly have and would drop everything if he needed something from me.
But you like him more than a friend, don’t you? A little voice in my head supplies unhelpfully. I shake away the thought.
There’s no way someone like Isaac would like someone like me. He’s so put together; he’s successful. I’m a mess. He’s shown no interest since he found out about, well, everything.
Friends hold hands, right? He’s just helping me. Isaac almost kissing me was in my head, right? It’s because I wanted to see it. Isaac didn’t act awkward when the receptionist called him my boyfriend, but I was also avoiding his reaction, so maybe he did. His reaction to thinking something was wrong was totally normal, having found me in distress more than once. We’re just friends.
Is that all we are?
Oh.
Oh shit.
I think we might be more than friends.