In Harmony(82)

Everything I could want in a two-mile radius.

I stopped in front of one of the cottages. A sweet little blue one with white trim. It had a For Sale sign in the front yard that looked as old and faded as the house. The real estate market around here wasn’t great, but I was glad this one hadn’t closed.

Someday, I thought.

I rode back to town and stopped in the bookstore to pick up a comic book for Benny. Isaac mentioned he’d been doing well in school. I’d yet to meet him, but Isaac spoke about him a lot and with warmth. I figured Benny deserved a reward, not just for his schoolwork, and for being important to my boyfriend.

Boyfriend?

The word had crept in, shooting a thrill across my heart. And though it was probably foolish, I kept it there.

A few minutes after four, I rode to the hedge maze, and set my bike against the informational placard out front. Isaac’s blue Dodge was parked at the far end of the lot already. The sun was bright and warm, thickening the air toward summer humidity. I held out my hand to shield my eyes from the glare. Beyond the hedge maze was a field of tall grass and trees. We’d had to sneak there a few times when other people came to wander the maze.

I navigated the hedges easily now, and found Isaac sitting in the windmill, a script on his lap and a pen in his hand. The end of the pen was mangled—he chewed it to keep from smoking when we were together.

I stopped and watched him for a moment, my eyes drinking him in, my body taking note of every detail. His long legs in denim, a black T-shirt that highlighted the broad planes of his chest. The bulge of his biceps and his tanned forearms, one bearing the tattoo, I burn. I pine. I perish.

He’d told me it was from The Taming of the Shrew, and that he’d chosen it because that had felt like the entirety of his life. Burning talent, endless want for a better life, and the fear he’d never reach it.

He’s going to reach it. But right now he’s mine.

Isaac’s face was hard-angled and unsmiling above his script. But I knew the man beneath the stony expression. He was brilliant and poetic and protective. He’d been hardened by his experiences but they hadn’t broken him. He showed all his soft to no one but me.

He looked up. A tilted smile came over his lips. “Hey.”

“Hi.” A longing stirred deep within me. It had been waking slowly over the last few weeks, my body thawing from its freeze under Isaac’s hands, though he’d never done more than touch me over my clothes as we kissed.

Or maybe because he’d done nothing more. Never pressured me, verbally or physically. He kissed me and the kissing was perfect. He touched me gently, until my body understood the difference between his hands and the shadowy phantom of X.

Now I wanted more.

Isaac got to his feet and crossed the short space between us. At six foot two, he towered over me and I loved how protected I felt standing beside him.

“I brought something for Benny,” I said, my heart pounding. “For acing his science test.” I showed him the comic book. “According to Angie, Luke Cage is a serious badass.”

“According to Benny too,” Isaac said. “I’ll take it to him tomorrow morning.”

“How’s your dad?” It was Monday, which meant Isaac went to the trailer yesterday to give his father money for the week.

Isaac’s eyes darkened. “Not good,” he said. “I think he’s drinking more. I tried to talk to him about a treatment facility, but he won’t go and I can’t afford to put him somewhere nice. Not yet.”

“You will,” I said.

He bent to kiss me softly, but I deepened the kiss immediately, pulling him to me and exploring his mouth with mine until we were both breathless.

“Okay, I’m ready to work,” I said abruptly, and moved to put my bag down. Isaac stared, his smile stunned, while I floated light above a heavy, warm stone of desire between my legs.

I want him.

The truth of it shocked me, crackled down every part of my body like electricity. I shook out my trembling hands.

“I’m really nervous about opening night. I’d like to work my last monologue in Act Three.”

“Okay,” Isaac said. “Whatever you want. Though after a kiss like that, you ruined my concentration.”

A high-pitched laugh burst out of me. “I’m going to walk the maze.”

“Go for it.”

I went to the beginning of the maze and sucked in a deep calming breath. I tried to ignore the strange feelings pulling beneath my skin, but they were a magnetic force that wanted only Isaac.

I needed to put myself in Ophelia’s place at that moment in the play: the beginning of her spiral into psychosis and sorrow. But at that moment, standing at the start of the maze, I was stepping into something good and real.

“Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!—

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword…”

I recited my lines as I walked through corridors of hedges, spring-green and buzzing with life. By now I knew the path perfectly. Likewise my lines came to me by rote; I didn’t have to think of them anymore. They came to me like song lyrics, and I added my own little tune to them.

I emerged from the maze. Isaac waited on the bench. My brooding Dane. Dark and dangerous to everyone in the world but me.

“Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; that unmatch'd form…”