Chapter 5 – Gabby
Chapter Five
Gabby
Ihop up on the bar stool next to the giant man allegedly named Isaac with the nickname “Ghost” and his friend leaves the two of us alone, patting him on the back with a grunt before disappearing to one of the pool tables where I guess some type of gambling must be going on.
Isaac looks so much bigger than I even realized when I sit next to him. His shoulders are broad and firm, like solid boulders rather than rocks. Sitting so close to him fills me with the natural nervousness that comes from being too close to an animal that could realistically break me in half.
“I’m in town handling some family business,” he says. “But there’s nothing about me that’s interesting.”
I don’t believe him. There’s something about Ghost that makes me want to get closer to him even when common sense should cause me to run in the opposite direction from a man this large, burly, and seemingly dangerous in his appearance.
“There has to be something.”
“My kids are the best thing about me.”
Woah. Kids. His hand grips his beer bottle a little tighter after he finishes his sentence.
It’s not that surprising that someone his age would have kids, but Isaac doesn’t look like a stereotypical television dad with all the leather and tattoos.
Also, kids imply he has a wife or a girlfriend, which makes me want to get up off this bar stool immediately.
The last thing I want after what I’ve been through is to help some guy cheat on his wife. Gross.
“Are they in Boston too?” I ask casually, prepared to ditch the situation and grab my sister if I hear a single thing that makes me uncomfortable. He didn’t hide the kids, so if he’s hiding a wife or a girlfriend, that would be… exactly what I would expect from a man.
“No,” he says, the grip tightening. “They’re with their mother.”
“Your wife?”
Isaac looks over at me with wide eyes that have no business being that gorgeous. And why do the most masculine men always have those long, dark fluttering lashes? I feel mesmerized by the tragic expression on Isaac’s face.
“We’re in the process of getting a divorce.”
“So you’re married.”
A patch of redness spreads over the tops of his ears and across his cheeks.
“I do not wish to be married. Listen, if it bothers you–”
“Why would it bother me? We’re just talking.”
“Right.”
“And I’m not going to sleep with a married man.”
He grins and looks over at me with a grin that would melt me in any other situation.
“I like that.”
His response both frustrates and surprises me because he doesn’t sound like a man who just faced a hard rejection.
“Like what?”
“A woman with morals.”
“I’m sure your wife has morals.”
“She would be my ex-wife if I knew where she was.”
Now I really wish I hadn’t had that much to drink. He has a missing ex-wife, he’s hundreds of miles away from where he came from, and the guy looks like he breaks necks for fun.
“Is she alive?”
He laughs. “Yes. She’s alive. That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”
I don’t find this joke very funny. He can tell.
“Didn’t mean to scare you. But I promise, ma’am… Tylee is very much alive. She’s somewhere out there with my kids and I’m… here.”
“That sounds very interesting to me.”
“Only because you think I’m some kind of monster.”
“I never said that.”
“Fuck it,” he says. “I can’t keep talking to you without screwing up. You know this song?”
Is he seriously asking me if I know Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker? Everybody knows that song and if they don’t know Darius Rucker’s version they know the Old Crow Medicine Show version. I nod with confusion which Isaac acknowledges with a smile.
“Perfect. I’m a terrible dancer.”
No more time to argue with him or explain that while I might be a decent dancer, this isn’t exactly the type of song I’m used to shaking ass to. What We Doin by the City Girls, maybe, but not this.
Isaac takes my hand and we get up together, walking to the dance floor as our bodies slowly come together. It’s been a long time since I’ve been close to a stranger. It doesn’t feel as weird as I expected. Isaac’s body feels right for mine, even if this isn’t part of my usual musical repertoire.
The music gets louder as the chorus starts and Isaac twirls me around before placing his hand on my waist and we start moving in a basic dance step to the song.
He’s so handsome. Huge arms, silver hair streaking through the brown hair on his head.
Once his arms reach for mine, my heart races out of control.
There’s just something about a man with a powerful set of hands and a massive chest that gets me going.
I take another ginger step closer to Isaac.
He has the sexiest dad bod I have ever seen.
His hand reaches lower, finding a good spot on my lower back as we move together.
There aren’t that many couples dancing, but it doesn’t matter.
Dancing with Isaac blots out of my view of everything else.
Heyyyyyy, mama rock me
Isaac spins me around and dips me, which causes me to let out a little shriek of surprise. Especially because of how easy it is for him to hold my weight up like it’s nothing. And trust me, my weight isn’t nothing.
Yeah, rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a southbound train
The guitar solo starts and Isaac steps up his game a bit.
He’s not a bad dancer. At all. He moves me around the dancefloor precisely on beat and when we get to the second verse of the song, I watch him mouth the words along and it’s impossible not to feel this contagious sense of freedom and happiness from dancing with him.
The alcohol doesn’t hurt either. And suddenly the country music that I’m not even that fond of becomes the best sound in the world and I feel at home in the arms of this man that I barely even know.
When the song ends, I expect Isaac to let me go but he spins me around one more time and holds me so close to him that I can smell the beer on his lips.
And the beer smells good on his lips. The song changes to Country Girl (Shake It For Me) by Luke Bryan.
I haven’t heard that song since college, but Isaac clearly knows it.
He sings to me: Shake it for the birds, shake it for the bees, shake it for the catfish swimming down deep in the creek, for the crickets and the critters and the squirrels, shake it to the moon, shake it for me girl…
It’s easy to get into the song with Isaac egging me on and within a few seconds, I’m shaking ass to Luke Bryan while Isaac claps his hands together and whoops with delight at my foolish ass moves.
If Averie hasn’t abandoned me yet, I’m sure she’s clinging to the wall at the back of the bar, wondering how the hell people so different from each other ended up as siblings.
When I’m done with the solo part of my dance, Isaac takes my hand and spins me around the dancefloor again until we’re in the middle surrounded by other couples who took the risk of joining us on the dancefloor.
The next time Luke Bryan sings the chorus, Isaac and I drunkenly sing every word at each other before our bodies cling to each other and we rock sideways across the dancefloor.
By the time the song fades and the two of us are close to the back wall of the bar, I wonder if I should slip away to find Averie, but I just can’t.
Isaac looks down at me patiently, waiting for the first few chords of the next song and I’m totally weak at the knees when I hear the familiar sound of Chris Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey.
Isaac grins. I think he mouths, “I love this song.”
It feels wrong to dance to a slow song like this with somebody else’s husband.
Isaac reaches for my hand and I want to pull away, but his hands are so large and wrap around mine with such firmness that I just look into his eyes and let him guide me.
His eyes never leave mine as he eases me away from the wall and dangerously close to his body.
There won’t be all those spins and ass shaking with a slow song like this one, but that makes it even scarier to get close to Isaac.
His arms move again and as the words to the song start, I can’t help but rest my head on Isaac’s chest. I don’t know where the craving comes from, but something tells me to put my head right up against his strong chest and just let this happen — whatever this is.
Isaac’s chest vibrates as he sings quietly. I don’t move my head, nor do I move his hands from the sides of my hips.
You’re as smooth as Tennessee whiskey…
You’re as sweet as strawberry wine…
His voice sounds good and reminds me of Johnny Cash more than Chris Stapleton.
I can’t move my head from his chest, even if we’ve been dancing so closely that it almost scares me.
This is the first time I’ve been this close to another man in years.
My break up is still so fresh that this feels wrong.
Except — we’re broken up. There’s no going back. Even if I wanted our relationship to be the way that it was, those good memories could never be the same again. If Derek treasured the love we had, maybe it wouldn’t have died.
But it’s gone now. So I’m dancing in this country bar on a stranger’s chest and I feel the strangest sense of relief and safety from letting him hold me. It’s not fair that he’s a stranger. A married stranger, at that. It’s not fair that nothing can happen between us.
But at least we have this song — Tennessee Whiskey, by Chris Stapleton.
I can hear the guitar chords slow down as the song nears its end.
Isaac’s grip doesn’t let up as he holds me closer to him.
I look up at him with curiosity, desperate not to seem too attached to dancing with him or holding him.
Isaac doesn’t budge, doesn’t seem to feel smothered at all by my closeness the way most men would.
His eyes bore down into mine. Landslide by Fleetwood Mac starts and everybody else in the bar cheers. He doesn’t want to move. I know that much. And maybe he’s thinking about more. I can’t tell.
“I want to kiss you so fucking badly right now,” Isaac growls. “But I don’t want to scare you off.”
“What about your wife?”
I’m afraid of changing, ‘cause I’ve built my life around you.
But time makes you bolder.
Even children get older.
And I’m getting older too.
“I only have a wife on paper,” Isaac says. “Tonight, I’m alone.”
Grief twists him up behind his gaze. I see it because I feel it too. I’ve been there. Too afraid to let go, too afraid to screw up, too sad to do anything but cling to the first person I find.
“I don’t want to complicate things.”
“It won’t,” Isaac says. “I promise.”
His thumb gently strokes the outline of my lips.
I know what’s coming, but that doesn’t change how intense it feels when Isaac kisses me.
Holy shit. His lips are warm. Soft. He knows exactly what he’s doing and I realize once he starts that I never stood a chance against this.
My body shudders against his, but I can’t bring myself to pull away.
I kiss him back. Of course I kiss him back. He’s a hot biker in a dive bar and we just had the most romantic dance of my life to Tennessee Whiskey. And that Fleetwood Mac song in the background is making me feel both nostalgic and reckless with Ghost.
I hope he doesn’t live up to his name and disappear.
My fingers find the collar of his leather jacket as if the thought of him escaping is enough to make me cling tighter.
Isaac grunts and grabs my ass once I pull him against me.
He wants me just as badly as I want him.
But there’s only so much kissing we can do in the middle of this dance floor in front of everyone.
He doesn’t stop too soon. I’m thankful that we get to keep kissing.
The song takes a chaotic turn back to Fancy Like by Walter Hayes.
Everyone in the bar is too drunk to care about the vibe shift and judging by the way Isaac kisses me, he likes the song too.
Before I know it, he sneaks me across the dance floor and back against the wall where our kissing gets to the point where I hope my sister isn’t watching.
His hand moves to the front of my shirt and I know we shouldn’t, but I want Isaac to escalate things so badly it hurts.
My hips buck forward slowly with desire for him as I gyrate my body closer to Isaac’s, silently pleading with him to take advantage of me while he has me pinned up against the wall.
He peels away from kissing me with an expression on his face that startles me with its intensity.
“I need to take you home tonight, Gabby.”
I’m too surprised to respond right away as all the logistics and reasons why I can’t go home with Isaac shoot through my mind. It doesn’t even matter. There’s a loud electric sound in the bar and then — all the lights go out and the power in the bar shuts off. It’s dark.
It takes everyone a beat to realize what happened. There’s one whisper. Two whispers. Then all hell breaks loose.