Chapter 31
ISAK
Lachlan’s riding with me to school on Monday morning.
He smells like he just took a shower and brushed his teeth.
It’s pretty overwhelming. Having him this close but not being able to touch him is a challenge.
Lachlan’s big and muscular, and his cheekbones are sharp, and his forearm has this sexy little vein that runs down it.
His shirt sleeves are pushed up, and he’s wearing an Albrecht College baseball cap.
I want to fuck him.
But I heard his family yelling last night, so I’m not sure what to say. We get a few blocks without talking much, and it’s weird. Lachlan’s an extrovert. I don’t want him to be sad or quiet.
I frown. He stares out the window.
Ignore those muscular thighs within reach of my hand. Those tense shoulders. That finger tapping on his knee.
I clench my jaw. Fuck it. If I’m driving Lachlan around every day for the foreseeable, I’m going to engage in normal conversation.
“Did you get your car dropped off?” Not the most interesting question, but given that we’ve rarely had a conversation this year that didn’t revolve around arranging where to get off, it’s a place to start.
Lachlan’s shoulders ease, and he nods a few times. “Yeah. Left the key in the box they have for after hours. Brennan at the shop called me already.”
“How long is it going to take?”
“He didn’t know.” He grimaces. “One of the ‘benefits’ of a classic car is that it can be hard to find replacement parts.”
“It’s still a cool car, though.”
“I guess.”
Trees and houses pass by as we make our way to downtown. The radio is off. I gesture at my plugged-in phone. “Um, what kind of music do you listen to?”
“Oh, anything,” Lachlan says.
I wrinkle my nose.
“What?” There’s a laugh in his tone. “Not a good enough answer?”
I signal to change lanes. “It’s kind of generic.”
“Well, I like Top 40 and rap. And Julian Hill. Because everyone loves Julian Hill.”
“True. What about—” I list off a few other bands I’m sure he’s never heard of.
“I should listen to those,” he says, and it warms my cheeks. “Put one on.”
I unlock my phone and hand it to him. “I’d rather hear my Julian Hill playlist. Can you find it?”
He cues it up, then sets down my phone. “So, Isak. What’s your favorite color?”
I laugh for real. “Are we playing twenty questions?”
“I mean, kinda?”
My chest feels light. Lachlan wants to get to know me. More than just a mouth to use while I kneel on the floor in a dark room. “Um, my favorite color is black.”
He snorts. “Coulda guessed that.”
“I like red, too. What’s yours?” I ask, genuinely wanting to know.
“Silver.”
I think about that for half a block. Do I know anyone else whose favorite color is silver? But now that I think about it, it’s a pretty amazing color. It’s the color of his car and the shiny bellies of fish and stars and machines and all kinds of mechanical things. And the rock he gave me.
A memory comes to me, perhaps because I’m thinking of machines and spending time with him. “Do you remember when we went to the pumpkin patch in third grade?” I ask.
Lachlan squeezes my shoulder, then pulls his hand back and stares down at it. “Oh yeah. They had that pumpkin chucker?”
I shrug, my cheek making contact with where he just touched me. Like I can prolong his touch. Transfer it from a squeeze to a caress directly on my skin. “Right, a trebuchet. You could make it hurl the pumpkin to the next field.”
We both laugh.
“Best thing ever,” he says. A moment later, he adds, “I think that’s one of my favorite childhood memories.”
We both get quiet. He’s likely thinking of the other things in his childhood that he’d like to put in a pumpkin chucker and throw far, far away.
Cold water fills my veins. Is there any way to talk to him about anything without stumbling into a conversation we shouldn’t have? “Cats or dogs?” I ask quickly.
“Probably dogs,” he says, and I don’t imagine his relaxation at the change of subject. “But I like both.”
“Yeah, me, too, although I’d probably pick cats. What do you do for fun?”
“I act.” He grins.
“Same.” I high-five him. He hits my palm hard, and it stings in a good way.
Now I’m picturing him smacking my ass like that as he fucks me— Change the subject. We pass by Emmanuel’s Deli, and I moan. “That place is so good.”
Lachlan turns to me. “Right? Everyone loves Manny’s.”
I nod. “There’s no better place. I dream about a Manny’s Original.”
He gives me a weird look. “That’s what you dream about?”
“Well, I dream about you, too.” He’s not the only flirt in this truck.
Lachlan doesn’t know if I’m kidding or not. I grin at him, and he shoves my upper arm. “You had me going there for a second.”
We pull into the school parking lot.
At rehearsal that afternoon, when we get to the kiss, Lachlan leans in and puts his thumb on my lips. I grip the back of his neck. He lingers a beat longer than usual before we break apart. Then he winks at me.
I forget my next line.
When we finally leave the theater for the day, it’s dark.
“That was a good rehearsal,” I say, trying not to think about what it feels like to have Lachlan sing to me.
I mean, to my character. Lachlan, as Billy, is singing to Forest about how in love with him he is.
How he doesn’t want him to disappear, but there’s a computer virus that’s wiping out all the digital evidence that Forest exists.
“Yeah.” Lachlan stares out the window. The closer we get to home, the more he tenses up.
I liked how we were playing twenty questions on the way to school, so to distract him, I ask, “What kind of movies do you like to watch?”
“Action. Or sports. I like Rudy. I watch it every August before football season starts.”
“That tracks.”
“What do you like?” Lachlan asks.
“Foreign films, mostly. Old, new. Color, black-and-white. From anywhere, although I tend to like French and Japanese ones the best.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a French film. What’s one that you like?”
“I really like an old one. It has a few names. In English they call it Purple Noon. It’s the original movie version of The Talented Mr. Ripley.”
“I think I’ve heard of that. The Ripley one, I mean. Why do you like it?”
“For starters, the main actor, Alain Delon, is so fucking handsome. They redid the movie with Matt Damon and Jude Law, and there have been other adaptations, too, but there’s something special about Alain.
He looks so perfect it’s hard to believe he’s real.
The story is bonkers. He’s a drifter who’s hired by a rich kid’s dad to take the kid back home to the US from Italy, but he ends up killing the kid and assuming his identity. ”
“What the fuck?”
“He’s not happy with his life and wants to be someone else.” That gets a nod from Lachlan. It figures he, of all people, would understand. “It’s very morally ambiguous.”
“So are we going to watch it together, or what?”
Something very fragile starts forming inside me. A bud of hope that Lachlan wants to be with me for more than … the production. That he likes hanging out with me, and I’m not just an excuse not to go home or a shameful secret.
“Maybe,” I say. “Yeah. We can watch it.”
On the way to school on Tuesday, Lachlan asks me more questions, this time about books.
“There’s this, um, erotic author I like,” I admit. “W. G. Ansky.”
Lachlan makes a noise. “Huh. Um, well. I know her.”
I almost slam on the brakes in the middle of the road. “Wait, what?”
He nods. “I work for her. She sells signed books and swag on Ad/VICE. Stickers, postcards, stuff like that. I package it up and print out mailing labels. She does shipments a few times a week, so I’ll go and help her on weekends and when she asks.
She pays me a percentage of the sales or minimum wage, whichever is more. ”
This is the first I’ve heard about him having a job. And the fact that he works for her? “No way,” I say, amazed.
“So what do you like about her?” he asks.
I give him a ten-minute lecture about all the finer points of her writing while he smiles at me. I do my best to ignore the way my body feels when I’m around him.
Lachlan flirts with rocks. He flirts with things that move and things that don’t. Him listening to me means nothing.
We get to school and nod to each other in class. In rehearsal, he smirks before he kisses his thumb. His eyes are looking less sad.
This time I don’t forget my next line. But it takes me a beat too long to recite it.
On the way home, Lachlan asks, “What kind of sports do you like? Do you like any?”
“I like open-wheel racing. You know, like Formula 1. And, of course, Royce High’s football team is great.”
“I’ve seen you in the stands.”
“You have?”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Who are your favorite racing teams?”
This time, the lecture is on why SC Racing is better than Lighthouse.
Lachlan listens to me and then starts looking up things on his phone.
My heart hammers in my chest. This is bad.
He’s a flirt. He doesn’t mean it. His way of communicating is to show interest. He makes whoever he’s talking to feel like they’re the only person in the whole world.
Right now, I get to bask in his gaze—but I won’t have it forever. I intrigue him because we’re in the musical together. He’ll figure out soon enough that I’m not really all that interesting.
I think that’s why I like acting so much. I can put on another person’s skin and see what it’s like to live as someone else. To have things happen that will never occur in real life.
Like falling in love with the person who’s perfect for me.