8. Isaiah
Isaiah
December, Oxford
Isaiah was not in the right frame of mind for a fucking heartfelt apology from Chris fucking Green.
What did he even think he was playing at?
As if he hadn’t already been fragile enough with Christmas speeding towards him.
Green had to go and twist the knife deeper, bringing up every feeling about his parents that he’d pushed down over the past few months.
He’d known, on an intellectual level, that Christmas would be difficult for him this year.
The thought of not being there with the fire crackling as the wind howled across the loch was filling him with melancholy and regret that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel since his parents had tossed him out.
He’d toyed with the idea of staying at Oxford and doubling down on his reading, but Carl had insisted he join their family Christmas in Loughborough at Jackson and Elliot’s new place.
He sat on the train, flicking between old photos and Green’s stupid message.
He’d typed out about twenty different replies and deleted them all, each one seeming more pathetic than the last.
As the train pulled into the station, he finally hit send.
To: c_green_run@
From: isaiah.owens@
Subject: None
Don’t pretend you give a shit, Green. That isn’t what we’re doing here.
Happy Christmas or whatever,
I.Owens
Isaiah arrived by taxi at Jackson and Elliot’s door in the early afternoon, with a bag full of gifts his friends had helped him pick out and a desperate hope that he hadn’t forgotten anyone. Jackson’s family was big. His hands tensed around the handle of the bag as he rode the lift up.
“Isaiah!” Jackson exclaimed after he flung the door open. “You’re early.”
Isaiah bit his lip, feeling heat creep up the back of his neck. He hadn’t thought he was that early.
“He’s not early,” Elliot shouted from inside the flat.
“He’s on time. A concept that you have yet to fully grasp.
” His cousin joined them at the door, kissing his boyfriend on the cheek before pulling Isaiah into a hug and stage whispering, “He comes by it honestly. You’re the first one here, and I even told them all an earlier time to try to trick them into not being late. ”
Isaiah laughed, something loosening in his chest as he hugged his cousin back, tighter than was probably expected.
Carl and Melinda arrived next, looking more relaxed than Isaiah had seen them in the few months he’d been growing closer to the family. Even Melinda was smiling and leaning into Carl as she passed their bag of gifts over to Jackson to put under the tree.
Carl paused to murmur to Isaiah, “Any news from Green?”
Isaiah froze. His recent emails had hardly been the level of professionalism his uncle likely expected, but something about Green made it so much harder to keep his walls where they belonged. Melinda tutted.
“Sorry.” Carl leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You know I want him to sign again. It’s personal.”
She sighed as if this were a conversation she’d had a hundred times. “Still, no business now, Carl. It’s Christmas.”
Carl smiled at his wife and Isaiah was off the hook. For now.
“Has Noah arrived yet?” she asked. Isaiah shook his head, also looking forward to meeting Jackson’s four-year-old nephew.
He’d had a blast with Jake and Mal picking out superhero toys in town after a few hints from Elliot on the kid’s current interests.
Though it had been hard to explain the way he’d choked on his tongue when Mal handed him a Flash action figure.
If he’d gone back later and bought it for himself, that was nobody’s business.
It was fucking mad, but it was nobody’s business.
When the Jennings family arrived, the flat erupted with noise and cheer.
It was obvious where his cousin’s boyfriend got his gregarious nature from; the lot of them were loud, brash, and more tactile than he had ever seen a family be.
The hollow feeling in his chest was starting to ease, filled in by the laughter around him.
Melinda made a beeline for Jackson’s sister Anna and her son, seeming closer to both of them than Isaiah would have expected.
He didn’t have time to wonder on it as he was swiftly pulled into conversation by Jackson’s eldest sister Katie and her wife, Amelie, who lived in Germany and worked in law.
Apparently, Chris Green’s case, which they’d likely heard of through Jackson, had caught their attention.
Melinda eyed them, but Isaiah found he actually wanted to talk about Chris.
He was proud of the work he was doing, putting his education towards something so practical.
If he took a step back from the Chris Green of it all, it was interesting—the whole idea of agency as an athlete, where responsibility started and ended.
32 He couldn’t help but compare it to his own side hustle.
Isaiah swelled with pride as Amelie complimented the speed with which they’d pulled the defence together.
“Jackson said you’re at Oxford as well as working for Carl?” Katie asked.
Isaiah nodded as he sipped the mulled wine that had been thrust into his hands by Jackson’s mother, Ellen, who had commandeered the kitchen almost as soon as she stepped into the place.
“Isn’t it difficult balancing that with your coursework?”
A loud curse sounded and they all whirled around to see a sheepish Jackson with a box of Celebrations chocolates fanned around the floor in front of him. Isaiah bent to help him pick them up.
“It’s not too bad,” he replied, looking up at Katie. “Carl knows school is my priority. I’m aiming to start my DPhil next year, so it needs to be my main focus.” Even as he said it, the reality of how thin he’d stretched himself between camming, coursework, and the agency weighed heavily.
“Just don’t burn yourself out,” Amelie replied. “I was put on forced sabbatical a couple of years back for burning the candle at both ends. I was lucky I had Katie there to pull me back from the brink, and an understanding boss.”
Isaiah swallowed hard as Katie rubbed her wife’s back.
It was such a simple, intimate gesture. He loved that his cousin had found a place in this warm, open family.
From the looks of it, it had even helped Carl and Melinda.
Their smiles were wider and easier than Isaiah could have imagined anyone related to his own parents could manage.
“Do you have your thesis planned?” Katie asked.
Isaiah hummed. “I’ve got the beginnings of something. I did some work on control and agency in the arts last year, and I’d love to expand on it.”
“What about looking at something similar in athletics?” Jackson interjected as Isaiah tossed chocolates into the box he held out. “You have great access, and first hand experience now.”
His words almost seemed to echo Isaiah’s thoughts from when he’d first started working with Carl. It could work. He certainly wasn’t wrong about the access he’d have for primary research.
“Your hair is pretty.” The small voice came from beside him as he continued picking up the fallen chocolates and passing them to Jackson.
“Thank you.” Isaiah grinned at Noah as the kid joined him on the floor.
“Did you have pink hair when you were a baby?” he asked. “I had orange hair when I was a baby! Lots of it!”
Isaiah laughed. “No, I made it pink myself. I like to change it a lot because it’s just white, not pretty and red like yours.”
Noah’s eyes were shining. “Is pink your favourite colour? Uncle Jacksy’s favourite colour is rainbow and Uncle Elly’s is red.”
“And what’s yours?”
A look of pure concentration came over Noah’s face as he thought through his response. “Green,” he declared.
“Oh, Isaiah just looooves green,” Jackson said.
The smirk on his face showing he meant a very different Green than Noah did.
Isaiah threw a chocolate at his head, then glared at Elliot.
His cousin had clearly been gossiping to his boyfriend about Isaiah’s ongoing battle to get Green to participate in his own salvation.
Noah’s eyes were shining. “Can you make your hair green?” he asked. “That would be pretty! We’d look like Christmas!”
Big brown eyes shone up at him, and Elliot and Jackson watched with matching smirks as Isaiah immediately caved.
“Why not?” he laughed.
“Really? Can you? Now?” Noah asked, his excitement infectious.
“I can, it will take a bit of time though.” Isaiah looked at his cousin. “Give me a lift to Tesco’s?”
Elliot nodded, biting back a grin as Jackson swept Noah up in his arms and took him to help make Christmas cookies.
In the car with his cousin, Isaiah was immediately struck by how silent it was compared to the noise inside the flat.
“Don’t feel too bad,” his cousin said as he started the car. “You aren’t the first to cave to Noah’s sweet puppy eyes.”
“He’ll be an absolute menace if he ever learns how to weaponise that.”
“Naive to think he hasn’t already.” Elliot laughed.
Isaiah grinned as he let his body relax into the heated seats of Elliot’s SUV. “It suits you, you know. Happiness.”
Elliot didn’t respond, eyes fixed on the frosted road, but he did tilt his head in acknowledgement, a soft smile on his face.
“Back when we were kids…I thought we’d stopped seeing you because you’d moved,” Isaiah said, not looking at his cousin. “I missed you, you know. I looked up to you so much back then, and then you were just gone. We didn’t even visit, despite driving hours to see mum’s family.”
“I’m sorry,” Elliot said. “At the time I was so broken up about the move, about so many other things that I didn’t even think…”
“No, I don’t mean—I kept up with you; watched your races, interviews. You always seemed so angry, but with Jackson now…” Isaiah trailed off. “It’s nice, is all.”
“It is nice. I’m… Fuck, Zay, I’m honestly so happy.”