Lovers & Monsters, page 14
They waved and Isaac took Sidney by the hand and led her back to his car.
He had just pulled the car out onto the road when Sidney turned to him.
“So. What did you really see when you touched Bree’s belly this morning?”
The words felt like icy fingers clutching his chest. The frosty pinpricks shot through his skin and turned his insides into a frozen tundra of dread. This woman really did see him, didn’t she?
He glanced over at her, quietly clearing his throat.
“Was it that obvious?”
“Only to me,” Sidney said with a shrug of her shoulder. “I think Adam and Bree were both only too eager to believe you when you said you saw Bree cooking. Nervous first-time parents and all.”
Isaac sighed and nodded his head. Idly, he wondered what the odds were that she would let the matter drop if he offered up no further information.
“Well?”
Her tone was slightly impatient, and a rueful smile graced his lips.
Slim to none. Those were the odds.
“Oh, no!”
It was an alarmed groan, and Sidney’s expression told him she was truly concerned.
“They weren’t right were they? Is there something wrong with the baby, Ike?”
He closed his eyes for a second in a silent sigh. He was annoyed with himself for repeating the same tired lie over and over, but he felt he had no choice.
“I don’t see the future, Sidney.”
“Well, you did today when you touched Bree’s belly. I know it.”
Her words were matter-of-fact, and her eyes said there was no way she would be fooled by that line anymore. She was onto him.
“And also when those two boys collided with us on the dock this morning. Whatever you saw then saved that little boy’s life today, Isaac. It avoided a tragedy. You knew exactly where to reach him in that water. You didn’t even attempt to go for where all the action was. You went straight out to where you knew that boy was going to drift.”
Her words felt like an accusation and Isaac was winded, like she had taken a meat cleaver to his stomach with a solid whack.
He pulled the car to a stop at a red light and looked over at her. She was staring right at him.
“How the hell do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“That. This…” Isaac gestured with his hand, pointing to the two of them. “How do you read me with so little effort? It’s like you see through me or something. This connection that we have after such a short time, it… it boggles my mind, Sidney. Aren’t you thrown by it too?”
The light turned green and he turned his eyes back to the road even though his attention was still fully focused on her.
Sidney slumped back into the seat and stared at him.
“Yes, I am. You’ve described to me the pain that you feel when you have these visions with other people, and yet you claim not to have any pain at all when it happens with me. I’m not sure what to make of that. I guess I know it must mean something, but I have no idea what.”
Several minutes passed in silence and Isaac drove on, contemplating their odd connection. It wasn’t simply that he experienced no pain during the flashes with Sidney. It was also the strange and wonderful way her touch seemed to soothe him.
When they had sex she made him feel amazing, but that was to be expected. Today after the incident with the two young boys, and even a couple of times before that, he had been keenly aware of how her touch affected him. Just the simple act of holding her hand, or her touching his arm could change his entire circumstances for the better. Calm him. Adam was right, she mellowed him out somehow. Why was that?
He could feel her looking at him, and he realized she was most likely still waiting for an answer to her earlier question. He licked his lips.
“I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with the baby or not. What I saw wasn’t that.”
“What did you see?”
He took a deep breath and sighed, his grip tightening around the steering wheel as though he were trying to brace himself for the memory.
“I saw Bree in labor. I was there.”
Sidney’s brow crinkled. “You were there? You mean like you were in the vision you saw?”
“Yes.” Isaac nodded. “And so were you.”
He glanced over at her and saw the frown on her face deepen.
“We were there, but not Adam. And I think…” He hesitated for a long moment, trying to decipher his vision. “I think we were all in danger somehow.”
Just saying it out loud made his stomach tighten, but he couldn’t deny the images he’d seen.
“We were in danger and Bree was in labor, and Adam was nowhere around.”
Sidney stared at him in silence, her expression registering horror and confusion. He could see there were questions she wanted to ask, but she kept them to herself. Maybe because she realized that he wouldn’t have the answers.
The rest of the ride back to his apartment was subdued, and Isaac thought about that vision and wondered what it meant. If it was true, if he really was seeing glimpses into the future, then the biggest question he had was why?
Why the sudden change? His scary weird abilities had never worked in this manner before, so why was it suddenly happening now? He couldn’t explain it.
Hell, he couldn’t explain any of this. In fact, he had spent his life avoiding the need to find explanations because deep down, he believed that doing so made it all real. Looking for answers and reasons and explanations meant that he had made the decision to accept the monsters as part of his life, as part of him, and that was something he’d never wanted to do.
That was the thing that Adam and Sidney couldn’t understand.
He didn’t want any of this, and trying to learn how to control this thing or harness it or whatever they were suggesting, was like saying he was embracing it.
The very thought of that filled him with so much dread.
Sidney folded her arms around herself and watched the passing scenery as they drove on. The late afternoon sun seemed to give everything around them a hazy yellow-orange glow, like a shimmer before twilight.
When they finally made it back to Isaac’s place and he took her hand to lead her inside the building, she could tell that his mood had changed. He was quiet and contemplative, and she wondered what was going through his mind.
She let go of a heavy sigh when they walked through the door. It was strange. This place was so not him. With it’s four small rooms — three if you considered the living room and kitchenette one space — it was a sad, stifling little cracker box of a place.
No color, no flavor.
No hint of Isaac’s charm or his warmth or his humor anywhere, and she wondered for about the hundredth time how he had ended up in such a stifling environment. She wouldn’t dare ask though. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
She pictured him somewhere with much more light and bright colors. Lots of windows and personality galore. Some place that felt welcoming and friendly, just like him.
Isaac’s keys clanked when he plopped them into a small metal dish on the counter, dragging her attention back to the present.
“Well, I think I’m going to get a shower if you don’t mind.” She gestured toward the bedroom. “Wash away the windblown feel.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course!” He nodded. “You don’t have to ask my permission, Sid. Make yourself at home. Hey, how about some popcorn and the classic movie channel when you’re done, huh?”
He smiled at her, and Sidney could see that he was still in that distracted headspace he’d been in on the ride home, but he was trying. She smiled back at him.
“Sure.”
She walked past him into the bedroom and pulled a comfy pair of sweats out of her luggage before drifting into the bathroom and turning on the shower. While she was waiting for the water to heat up she took a moment to pin up her hair. Then she stepped into the shower still thinking about Isaac.
He kept insisting that he wasn’t a psychic and he didn’t see the future. Yet he admitted to seeing exactly that in the car just now. It was confusing.
She understood that he didn’t want to be able to see the future. Heck, she understood that he didn’t want to see anything at all — not the past, not the present. But he did. Now he had to find a way to live with it, but so far he seemed more than reluctant to do that.
She didn’t get it. How do you see a vision of something that had yet to happen and just ignore it? Like that vision of Bree in labor. Shouldn’t he tell Adam and Bree about that? If the powers were hers, that’s what she would do. Maybe knowing what Isaac saw would help them somehow. Help them avoid the danger he sensed or something.
The hot water pelted down on her skin and she sighed in momentary contentment. It felt good after a long day on the lake. She closed her eyes and let the memories play in her mind, smiling when she thought about Isaac teaching her to drive the boat.
Her eyes suddenly popped open.
“Has Isaac ever had a vision of the future when he’s touched me?”
She asked the question out loud, talking only to herself and the steam. And she wondered again how it was possible for him to experience no pain when his superpowers kicked in when he touched her. Why was that? What made her so special?
She closed her eyes again and pondered that more closely. Was her skin somehow different from everyone else’s? Did she have some rare medical condition that made it possible?
The light touch of Isaac’s fingers ran down her wet arms, and she jumped slightly. She turned around to see him standing there, completely naked.
“I hope you don’t mind.” His fingers continued to trail up and down her arms. “The thought of you in here naked and wet was driving me a little bit crazy. I tried to make myself be a gentleman and stay out, let you have your privacy. But I have clearly failed.”
His expression was a genuine mixture of truly troubled by that knowledge, yet unapologetically aroused, and Sidney felt the smile her lips couldn’t control.
“Well, if you ask me, you have way more important things to fret about than torturing yourself over this one minor indiscretion, Ike.”
He tipped his head in a manner that said he wasn’t sure he agreed with her.
“Oh, you are being far too easy on me, darlin.” His slight southern accent thickened like gravy as he turned on the charm. “You see, I am obviously a pervert.”
Sidney giggled at him, and Isaac grinned.
“Now, you think I’m joking. But I came in here to ask if I could wash you. And I don’t mean just your back, honeybee, I mean all of you.”
His gaze roamed slowly down her body and back up again, and Sidney felt herself blossom like a flower beneath the weight of his appraising stare. He made her feel sexy and desirable, and her breath hitched just thinking about his proposition. Without a word she held her washcloth out to him.
He took it, neatly folded it, and set it aside.
“I’d rather use these if you don’t mind too much.”
He held out his hands, palms up, and looked into her eyes. Sidney cocked an eyebrow at him, and he grinned.
“Hey. Now I just told you that I’m clearly a pervert. You chose not to believe me, but the truth’s the light of the world.”
Sidney’s laughter filled the little shower. She loved his playful attitude so much, and she took hold of his hands and stepped into his embrace, closing his arms around her and standing on her tiptoes to kiss him.
The temperature of the shower rose a few more degrees.
Isaac reached for her body wash and squirted some into his hand.
“So am I allowed to wash you too?” she asked.
“Oh, God yes. Please do.”
He smiled and took her hand, squirting some of the body wash into her palm.
“You don’t want me to use your soap instead? You’re gonna smell like honeysuckle and ginger if I use mine,” Sidney teased.
“I don’t give a shit. Just touch me, woman.”
They laughed and reached for each other.
The sheets were a tangled mess beneath them.
After their fun shower time they had fallen into bed and continued exploring one another’s bodies for a couple of hours. Now they lay facing each other in the dim light, classic R&B slow jams playing softly in the background. Isaac’s left hand roamed slowly over Sidney’s skin, his fingertips gliding from her collarbone to her shoulder, down her arm, around her breast and down her side, over her hip and down her thigh — reluctant to give up the expedition. Not that she minded.
“Thank you.”
Her voice was soft, and she stared at his handsome face.
“For?”
“It was a perfect day. I had a lot of fun with you.”
Isaac grinned and his gaze lifted from his hand’s actions up to her eyes. Sidney felt the impact of his piercing grey peepers somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.
“I had a lot of fun with you too. Adam and Bree both loved you.”
“I really liked them too. They’re a great couple. Fun and easy going, crazy about each other. And they both love you a lot.”
Isaac smiled at her assessment of his brother and sister-in-law.
“It was nice getting to see that side of you.”
“What side?” Isaac frowned.
“The family side. You and your brother are obviously very close. It was great getting to see that family connection between you. I liked hearing Adam’s stories about when you two were young.”
He grew silent for a moment and his gaze drifted back to his hand, watching intently as it moved slowly over her skin. Then he sighed and met her gaze again.
“What you saw today was the best of my family connections, Sid. Adam and I are tight. We always have been. He is without a doubt my best friend in the entire world.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Yeah, well… unfortunately, I can’t say the same for me and my parents. I’ve told you that.”
“What about your other two siblings?”
The question evoked something in his eyes that Sidney tried to place. Resignation maybe? Regret?
“My relationships with Emily and Oliver aren’t much better. Growing up, they both teetered back and forth between pity and resentment, and I can’t really blame them. It wasn’t easy growing up related to the town freak, you know?”
He shrugged his shoulder like it was no big deal, but Sidney suspected otherwise.
“Adam managed okay.” She couldn’t help but feel slightly indignant on his behalf.
“Yeah, he did. But he also had to throw more than his fair share of punches along the way too.” Isaac sounded truly sorry about that. “I appreciated all of his efforts to stand by me and stand up for me. That meant the world to me back then. But Em and Oli… they were younger. More susceptible to peer pressure; more ashamed of who their brother was. Adam’s a different kind of person than the twins are. Stronger character. More sure of himself. It’s not their fault.”
“Back then, maybe not. They were children. But they’re not children anymore. Neither are you, Ike.”
She wasn’t trying to lecture him or to chastise him for not mending his family relationships. But she saw a defensive gleam spark in his pretty grey eyes.
“I’m not going to beg them to be part of my life, Sid.”
“No, I’m not saying you should beg. But maybe you should give them an invitation, you know?”
His brow folded up like an accordion as though he were trying to understand her strange language.
“What I mean is, have you let them know that you’re interested in being part of their lives?”
Isaac stared at her for the longest time, his expression unchanging.
Sidney’s tone softened when she said, “I’m just saying how do they know that you want them in your life if you don’t reach out? That’s all.”
Isaac finally looked away, his gaze going back to his hand on her body. He didn’t say anything in response, but she could tell he was mulling over the things she’d said very carefully. His gaze was glued to the motion of his hand, watching every glide it made over her skin. Sidney smiled at him.
“You’re like a kid with a new puppy, you know?”
Her voice held a good measure of amusement and sassiness, and Isaac looked up at her with a puzzled expression.
“Always petting it?” she finished.
He smirked at her observation, but he didn’t stop what he was doing.
“More like a starving man who’s finally been invited to a feast,” he mumbled.
His hand suddenly stilled, and his gaze shot up to her face.
“Does this bother you, Sid? Is it too creepy?”
He lifted his hand altogether and it hovered over her hip.
Something about his question and the tortured look in his bright grey eyes tugged at her heart, and Sidney smiled. She ran a single finger across the stubble on his chin.
“No, it’s not creepy at all. It feels nice.”
Isaac flashed her a relieved smile and lowered his hand to her hip once more, resuming its travels over her skin.
Sidney shook her head as she watched him. There was actually something very dear about the way he needed to touch her. He was right. He was like a starving man. A man who had been deprived of physical human contact for far too long. She made up her mind right then that there was no way she would ever deny him access to her body when he needed to touch her.
“I’m glad you think so,” Isaac said softly, watching his hand roam over her waist and down to her belly. “Feels nice to me too. Real nice.”
He seemed to be completely fascinated, and Sidney placed her hand on his bare chest, lightly running her fingernails through the short blond chest hair.
“How is it possible for someone so strong to be so incredibly soft?”
Sidney laughed. “I don’t know if strong is a word I’d use to describe me.”
