Embrace

by Cherie Colyer

  “Where’s your room?” I asked.

  “Downstairs. Wait till you see it.”

  His bedroom only added to his mystique. The basement door was common wood, but the passage beyond was far from ordinary. I ran my hand along the rough brick wall where a railing would normally be and made my way down the curved stone stairs. Every couple of steps, there was a nook in the wall and a half-burned candle to occupy it. Dried wax dripped from a few. Musk and spice beckoned to me, pulling me forward.

  “It needs a little work,” Isaac admitted.

  The basement wasn’t big. The walls were the same brick and the floor the same stone as I’d seen on the way down. An iron ring the height of a chair rail wrapped its way around the circular room. Isaac had his bed pushed against the far wall, the black comforter thrown on it haphazardly. There were several boxes cluttered in front of a low black bookshelf and more in front of a rectangular nook that looked like the closet. The only door, this one with iron hinges and hardware, belonged to a small bathroom. A wrought iron chandelier—the old fashioned kind with candles instead of light bulbs—dangled from the ceiling. Add shackles and bars, and you’d have one hell of a dungeon. Despite the obviously dark tones, his room was cool in an unusual way.

  “I like it,” I said.

  Isaac used his foot to push a few boxes out of his way. “I couldn’t have designed it better if I’d tried.”

  I wondered if he would have seriously designed his bedroom with stone floors and iron accents and somehow doubted it.

  I hooked my fingers through my belt loops. “So, where do you want to start?”

  “Over here.” Isaac used his hand to clear away a large cobweb that blocked one corner of the rectangular nook, wiping the thin strands on the bottom of his jeans afterward. “I want to put up a bar so I have a place to hang my clothes.”

  He gave me four screws.

  “Are these iron?” I asked, surprised at the weight of them.

  “Matches everything else.” He picked up a bracket and a cordless screwdriver. “Don’t ask me where my dad found them.”

  My job was to hand him the screws, which left me plenty of time to watch the muscles in his back and arms flex as he forced them into the stone wall. Once the first bracket was in place, he set up a step stool.

  “I’ll need you to help hold the bar so I can make sure it’s straight.”

  “Sure.” I climbed the three steps up the ladder.

  Isaac had just lifted the bar in place when a large black spider spun down from the ceiling and landed on my shoulder. I screamed and, forgetting I was on a ladder, jumped backward. Before I fully knew what happened, I was on the floor with my right arm twisted under my body.

  Isaac put down the bar and hurried to my side. “Are you okay?”

  I was mortified, sprawled across his floor like a clumsy child. I wanted to disappear, but that wasn’t an option.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I tried to push myself up, but as soon as I put pressure on my right hand, pain shot through my wrist and triceps like a million needles stabbing me, and I fell back down. “Ouch!”

  Isaac wrapped an arm around my waist and helped me into a sitting position. He gingerly took my forearm in his hands and frowned.

  “I think I may have broken it.” I bit my bottom lip to keep from cringing in pain.

  He ran his fingers from my elbow to my fingertips as he examined my wrist closer. The warmth of his touch was soothing in a maybe-something-good-can-come-out-of-being-a-klutz sort of way. After all, it did give me Isaac’s undivided attention. He was so close I could smell vanilla and spearmint—his shampoo, I guessed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, like it was his fault I had forgotten I was standing on a ladder. “I should have got the vacuum like my father always does and made sure I got the spider too.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Isaac continued to rub my arm with long strokes from my elbow to my fingertips.

  “I may need to go to the hospital.” It was the last place I wanted to spend my Saturday, but with the amount of pain I felt when I tried to get up I was sure I’d broken something. I would have wiggled my hand to see if I could move it if Isaac hadn’t had it in such a vise grip.

  “That’s not necessary,” Isaac replied, a strange edge to his voice. After what seemed like several long minutes, he then eventually asked, “How’s it feel now?”

  I moved my hand up and down like a hinge. Surprisingly, my wrist didn’t hurt as badly as when I’d first fallen. It was like his massage had eased all the pain and soreness away, or I was in too deep a state of shock and embarrassment to feel pain right then. I was sure it was the latter and I’d be begging my dad to take me to the emergency room when I got home.

  “Better. Thanks,” I finally replied.

  He helped me stand. “Do you still want to help me unpack, or would you rather I take you home?”

  I didn’t hear him at first. I was too busy looking for the spider. Then the words take you home bounced around my head. Weird, but I had a hard time thinking straight with him standing so close to me.

  “No. I’m good.”

  Isaac’s mouth perked up into that crooked smile of his. He removed a pile of jackets, clothes, and I’m not sure what else from the sphere-shaped chair and insisted I sit. He finished putting up the bar by himself.

  I curled my legs under me and watched him work. A silver chain slipped from beneath his navy blue T-shirt. From it hung a charm about the size of a quarter with an image of what looked like an old man’s face. I cocked my head to the side and squinted as I tried to get a better look at it.

  “That’s an interesting necklace.”

  “It was my grandfather’s. He gave it to me before he died.” He tucked the charm back under his shirt before opening one of the boxes and grabbing a stack of socks from inside it.

  “What’s on it?”

  “The Green Man.” The socks went into the top dresser drawer. “According to my grandfather, it represents birth, death, and rebirth.”

  I nodded, understanding the importance of an item like that. My mom had never made it out of the hospital after my brother had been born. And I think she’d known she hadn’t had much time left. One day, when I’d been visiting, she’d patted the bed, indicating for me to sit next to her. She’d removed the diamond journey necklace my dad had given her for Christmas and fastened it around my neck.

  “So you remember that I’ll always be with you, no matter where life takes you,” she had said.

  The chain was so delicate. I had been afraid I’d lose it, and while I know it’s silly, I had been afraid that if I did lose it my mom wouldn’t be able to stay with me. So, after her funeral, I had hung the necklace from the top of the lampshade near my bed. It’s been there ever since.

  Most of Isaac’s clothes were still on hangers or folded and separated by the dresser drawer they went in. He was surprisingly organized for a guy, and I wondered if his mom had packed his stuff. The closet was filled and the dresser full in no time.

  “It would have taken my dad a week to unpack that many boxes, and he wouldn’t be able to find anything the next day,” I commented when he had finished.

  “I was kind of anal when I packed,” he admitted with a shrug.

  Isaac really didn’t need my help, but when he reached the boxes near the bookshelf, I got up and knelt on the floor next to him.

  His gaze moved to my arm.

  “I’m fine.” I rolled my wrist to show him and astounded myself when there wasn’t even an inkling of pain. “It’s not even sprained.”

  Satisfied, he let me organize his movies and music while he hooked up the stereo.

  He had a large mix of alternative and rap music, and mostly male singers, so when I hit a country CD with a blonde on the cover I held it up.

  “Taylor Swift?” I asked.

  “What?” A red flush crept into his cheeks. “I had a crush on her.”

  I looked at the cover. Maybe that was his secret. M
aybe he was into blondes. What if I was an experiment to see if they really did have more fun? My dark chestnut hair was about as far from Goldilocks as it could get.

  He reached for the CD, but I raised my arm over my head before he could grab it.

  “I was young,” he said, lunging forward and missing my hand.

  “And you’re so old and wise now,” I teased, moving the CD behind my back.

  He grabbed for it, his body practically on top of mine as he tried to catch my hand. I leaned back, laughing.

  “Maybe we should play it,” I said, squirming to keep him from being able to reach it.

  He wrapped an arm around my back, pulling me closer. “Let’s not.”

  We were a jumbled mass of arms and legs. His belt buckle rubbed the bare skin of my stomach, and his neck was in perfect kissing distance. My gaze traveled to his lips. His close proximity had me forgetting I was winning the game of keep-away until he snatched the case from me.

  We both laughed as we disentangled ourselves. He tossed Taylor Swift over his shoulder, and the CD conveniently landed on the bed.

  “You can tell me the truth.” I went back to his collection, hoping to find something else incriminating. “You’re a little bit country.”

  He gave me a sidelong look that said, Puh-lease. “What do you listen to?” he asked as he plugged cables into the stereo.

  “I like a mix of music, really. Except heavy metal and rap. R&B’s cool.” I held up a couple artists as examples of my taste.

  “Eminem is rap,” he said, looking at the cases in my hand.

  “But this one features Rihanna, and she’s R&B.”

  “That doesn’t make the song R&B.”

  I shrugged. “Sure it does.”

  He smiled, shaking his head. “Admit it, you like the bad boys.”

  When he took a CD from the selection I held, it was a rock band. He popped it into the player, and “So Much to Say” drifted out of the one speaker he had connected.

  It was after three in the afternoon when I placed the last DVD on the shelf.

  Isaac broke down the box I’d unpacked as he confessed, “I’m glad my mom hated the paint.”

  There was something in the way he’d said it that sent an elated shiver through me. Not because I was nervous to be alone with him, but because I had a sudden urge to cover his mouth with mine. That would be so unlike me, but at that moment I wanted to grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer. It took me a second to compose myself, and I had to focus on my words to get them out in something that resembled a calm tone.

  “Oh, really?” I glanced around his dungeon-like room. I’d happily be his prisoner.

  “Really.” Isaac crouched down, one hand resting on the floor on either side of me, his smile devious. “Aren’t you in the least bit curious why?”

  My pulse raced in a mix of excitement and longing. His cologne combined with the scents of his room and made my head spin. My reply came out weaker than I meant it to.

  “Why?”

  “First, it gave me an excuse to get you down here.” He ran his hand over my ponytail, giving it a gentle tug before placing his hand back on the floor next to me. He was enjoying himself. “And second, now I can do this.”

  His lips brushed mine in the softest kiss I’d ever felt. Then—too soon for my racing thoughts that urged me to reach up and run my fingers over the muscles in his arm—he broke our kiss and fell back on his butt, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles.

  I didn’t move. Couldn’t, really. I was mesmerized by his feather-soft kiss. He fought back a smile, and I hoped I didn’t have a stupid expression on my face.

  “Josh was right about you,” he said.

  “You talked about me?” That snapped me out of my stupor. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised since it was Josh and Kaylee who had set us up. “What did he say?”

  Isaac shook his head. “I can’t tell you that, but I can say it was nothing bad.”

  I stuck my bottom lip out to pout. I didn’t like it when people talked about me, and I had no idea what Josh would have said. I crossed my arms over my chest, which made Isaac laugh.

  “Okay,” he said through his laughter. “If it’s going to eat at you, I’ll tell you this. He said there was something special about you, and he was right.”

  I opened my mouth to reply but didn’t really know what to say to that. Josh was my best friend’s boyfriend. He wasn’t supposed to think there was anything special about me. Nothing.

  Isaac cleared his throat in an effort to stop his guffaw. It took a minute, but he managed to rearrange his face to be more serious. “You’re cute when you’re being all righteous.”

  “I’m not being—”

  He leaned in closer to me. His eyes were a shimmering, deep brown, but there was a speck of ocean blue at the edge of his right iris. I couldn’t remember what I was about to say. My heart did a pirouette in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat. I closed the distance between us. His lips were firm and warm, and I wanted to kiss him forever.

  Until my stomach interrupted with a loud rumble, protesting that I hadn’t fed it anything that day. I cursed its timing.

  Isaac sat back; a look of concern took over his expression. “Maybe we should eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.” But my stomach made another embarrassing growl that said otherwise.

  He stood and offered me his hand, which I took. He pulled me to my feet. “It’s my treat.”

  Chapter 3

  The Grill

  ISAAC PUT ON A CLEAN pair of jeans and a collared shirt before driving me home so that I could change. My dad and Chase were in the family room when we got there.

  “Do not do anything to embarrass me,” I half ordered, half begged my dad before introducing Isaac to him and Chase. I knew my dad well enough to know that if I didn’t say anything and if he didn’t like Isaac he’d pull out my grandfather’s old hunting rifle and start to clean it hoping to scare Isaac off. And if my dad did like Isaac, he’d be asking him what he planned on doing with his life.

  The fear of what they might talk about while I was gone caused my adrenaline to take over. I took the fastest shower in my history of showers, towel-dried my hair, dressed in jeans and a sweater, and made it back downstairs in less than fifteen minutes. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do that again.

  Dad and Isaac were sitting on the edge of our worn leather couch watching football when I checked on them. Chase was driving a shiny black Porsche through his Matchbox carwash, glancing up at the television every now and then. Seeing them absorbed in the game helped me to relax, and since it seemed like conversation wasn’t top priority for Dad or Isaac, I took a minute to call Josh and Kaylee and ask them if they wanted to meet us at The Grill.

  When I got off the phone, I watched the back of Isaac’s head from the doorway of the family room. Perhaps Kaylee had been right when she’d said it was time to put Kevin in the past and move on. Maybe I had been holding on to what we had because it was easier than putting myself out there and giving someone else a chance to get to know me.

  Isaac was easy to talk to and fun to be around, and I was dying to know what his arms would feel like wrapped around me. I mentally rolled my eyes, thinking that I was a little pathetic. But then again, I didn’t care. If I was going to start fresh, I could be anything I wanted to be, and right now I was okay with giddy schoolgirl with a crush on an older man. Besides, if I had to jump back into dating, why shouldn’t it be with the hot new mystery guy?

  I cleared my throat. Isaac and Dad looked at me.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Isaac got up and faced my father. “It was nice to meet you.” He patted Chase on the head as he walked by him. “Later, dude.”

  “See ya,” Chase replied in a tone that told me he hoped he did see Isaac again.

  “I won’t be late.” I grabbed my purse.

  Dad nodded and told us to have fun.

  Isaac followed me o
utside.

  “Your family’s nice,” he said when we got in the Jeep.

  “Thanks.” Then, realizing a comment like that would mean some conversation had to have taken place while I was in the shower, I asked, “So, what did you talk about?”

  “Gloucester and your mom, mostly.”

  “My mom?” Of all the things they could have talked about in the few minutes I was gone, I didn’t expect it to be her.

  “I was looking at the pictures on the mantel; you have her smile.” He took a left out of my neighborhood. “Chase mentioned she passed away. I’m sorry.”

  I knew the picture he was talking about. I was ten, and my mom was pregnant with Chase. It had been taken in our backyard a few months before she died.

  Isaac placed his hand over mine and gave a squeeze. A tingling sensation drifted through me. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It was a long time ago.” My mom was not a topic I discussed with many people, and I certainly didn’t want to be spilling my life story to the guy I’d just met.

  Isaac nodded and changed the subject. “Are Josh and Kaylee meeting us at The Grill?”

  “They’ll probably beat us there, actually. They said they’d save a table.”

  The Grill was a small restaurant in a renovated house along the main road. It was crowded, like it was every night. Both pool tables were in use, and every stool in front of the soda bar was taken. The jukebox rang out over the hum of voices. I scanned the tables to the left looking for Kaylee.

  “There they are,” Isaac said, pointing to our right. “In the back.”

  We made our way around half a dozen small square tables.

  “Hi.” I took a seat next to Kaylee.

  “How was your day?” Kaylee then lowered her voice so only I could hear her. “It had to be good or you wouldn’t still be hanging out with him.”

  “It was fun.” I knew I was smiling like the Cheshire Cat in Alice and Wonderland, but I didn’t care.

  It was hard not to inhale my burger, something I would have done if it were just Kaylee, Josh and me. Halfway through my meal, Kaylee grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s pick out some music.”