Defiance (New Adult Romance) (Isaac & Maya) (16 page)

21

Maya

Isaac said not to worry about him, so I refuse to classify these racing thoughts I’ve been struggling to suppress all day as actual worrying. The fact that I’ve chewed my fingernails down to nubs doesn’t count either. At least I’m not pulling out my hair.

It’s 6:30 and he’s still not home. The appointment was at 1:00 and he didn’t say when he’d be back, so I guess it’s not that bad. I wish that Piper’s dad was there, I don’t understand why he isn’t. Even if Isaac is in more trouble than he realizes, or than he’s letting on, they can’t risk actually arresting him yet. Right? I can’t let my thoughts keep spiraling out of control like this. He’s fine. I should just work on my thesis.

Yeah, right. Another hour ticks by and there’s no sign of him. I
am
calling Carl if he doesn’t show up tonight, I don’t care if I’m not supposed to. God, where the hell is he? I’d cook dinner to distract myself, but then he’ll feel obligated to eat even if he’s too stressed out.

The scratching metallic noise of a key sliding into the lock catches my ear as my heart starts pounding. He’s home. The door opens and I grin at him, resisting the urge to jump into his arms. He smiles back, but it’s a tiny smile and there’s nothing relieved about it at all. Somehow I manage to let him put his stuff down before I run over to him and throw my arms around his neck.

“Hi, baby,” I whisper soothingly into his ear as he nuzzles into my shoulder, his hands resting on my hips. I’d ask him how it went if I needed an answer, but I don’t. Isaac doesn’t say anything for a while, just holds me closer and breathes deeply until he finally chokes out a sob. “Isaac…”

“I was going to tell my father,” he murmurs against the square of my jaw.

“Tell him what?”

“Everything. That’s why I was so sure that we’d be okay, that we could stay together. I’d tell him about the investigation and he’d get out of it somehow like he always does. Then he’d be grateful and I’d finally be free. It was the smartest move, even though it was also the shittiest. A sure thing.”

“Oh.”

“What the fuck kind of person does that make me? He buys
people
. And all I cared about was saving my own ass.”

“You weren’t thinking about yourself, you were thinking about us,” I assure him, even though I’m rather shocked that his conscience would even let him consider doing that.

“Yeah, I was.” He hugs me tighter, still keeping his face buried in my hair as he breathes shakily for a few silent moments. “It would have been my only option. They had so much more on me than we expected. A lot fucking more. They had pictures of me... being me,” he spits in disgust. “I’m pretty sure that Diego is their informant.”

My stomach drops, but he’s still mostly speaking in the past tense, so I’ll let him finish before I let the fear take over. “Are you in a lot of trouble?”

“I was, but I think my name got moved from the criminal list to the victim list,” he says, finally letting me see his tortured face as he rests his forehead against mine. “And it turns out I’m one quarter Afghan.”

“Tell me what happened, baby,” I say, wiping a tear from his scalding hot cheek. This frantic, heartbroken look in his eyes is so unnerving. “Isaac… just tell me. What happened?”

“Glory. That fucking bitch Glory happened. Again.”

Holy shit. Isaac just said the B word and he totally meant it. His face contorts and he hides it in my neck again, sobbing loudly and shaking as his hand cups the back of my head. I’ve never heard him weep like this. There’s always a bone chilling undercurrent of rage whenever he loses it, but it’s not here now. The cries are so mournful and full of despair, it hurts to listen and not be able to stop them. My fingers tracing circles in his hair, I just hold him while he unravels like he’s done for me so many times, but I’ve never fallen apart quite like this before.

He falters, the full weight of him bearing down on me so hard I won’t be able to stand. I use all my strength to control the fall until we’re crumpled on the floor. Then he starts babbling about how he killed his real mother between the sobs. It’s hard to understand him at first, but he’s so incoherent and distraught that he starts repeating the most disturbing parts of the story over and over again until I eventually piece it all together.

“How do push bad thoughts out of your head when they won’t stop, Maya?” he groans, his hands making fists in the back of my shirt as he squirms to get closer.
The only way I’ll get as close as he wants me to be is to crawl in his lap, so I do, wrapping my legs around his waist.

“You have to make yourself think about something else.” That’s my only trick.

“I can’t,” he squeals. His breathing is way too fast, edging on that dangerous zone where there’s no coming back. “I just keep seeing him climb on top of her. She must have been so tiny and so fucking scared. I hope she was so wasted out of her mind that she didn’t know what was happening and it didn’t hurt that much.”

“Shhhhh...”

“He’s so heavy. It’s so hard to breathe and he doesn’t care.”

“Isaac,” I whisper into his ear, trying to be comforting and firm at the same time. “It’s over. It’s been over for a long time.”

He nods into my neck, exhaling deeply. It takes a few minutes, but he starts to calm down. “Sorry I’m crying like this,” he mumbles.

“Why? Because you’re a guy?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

“Well, I don’t think any less of you,” I inform him, kissing his temple.

“I thought about staying somewhere else tonight so you didn’t have to see this shit,” he says, sitting upright but keeping his eyes down.

“Never stay away when you need me.”

That corner of his mouth lifting slightly, his eyes dart up to meet mine for a fleeting moment. “I really do need you. I’m not taking my benzos anymore,” he confesses.

“At all?”

“Just enough to stay alive, but it doesn’t do anything.”

“Should you take something now?”

“No,” he insists. “I’m fucking done with that shit. You make me feel better than they ever could. I just need to be with you.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not going anywhere,” I assure him. He finally makes lasting eye contact and I watch as the pain grabs hold of him again, his timid smile twisting into shaking lips that need to keep letting it out. “Hey. Let’s go to bed, Isaac. You’ve had a long, horrible day.”

Despite my reservations, I let him carry me into our room because I think he’d appreciate one last display of strength before he completely falls apart. And he does, shuddering and sobbing for hours in my arms with his face hidden in my chest until he finally drifts off.

Isaac doesn’t wake up the next day until noon, but he isn’t well rested at all. His eyes are dull and bloodshot, but there aren’t any more tears. I don’t have any classes on Friday, a fact he refuses to accept at first, but once I convince him, the only thing he wants to do is stay in bed with me. He’s so blank and broken whenever I manage to get a look at his face. He might not be crying, but he’s certainly not doing any better.

I watch helplessly as he slips away. Not eating, barely drinking or speaking, just lying there, shell shocked and miserable. Normally when Isaac paws at my body and drags it closer to his in the middle of the night, he wants me for something else, but he’s certainly not in the mood for sex this weekend. He needs a different kind of comfort and I give it to him, kissing the top of his head as he wraps his arms around my waist and refuses to let go. I don’t bother trying to cheer him up, I just stay close to him and hold him through the anguish.

He isn’t any better by Monday morning and I can’t bear to leave him alone like this. Luckily, he doesn’t fight me on it, but I don’t think he realizes what day it is. I’m glad that I stayed home because he finally gets up after sunset and wants something to eat. Around bedtime, I get a smile and a real kiss. Isaac’s trembling hands still reach for me in the dark when we drift apart in our sleep, but he’s the one holding me this time. I know he’s almost back to normal when he grinds against my butt as the alarm goes off in the morning.

“Are you aware that it’s Tuesday, not Monday?” he questions me when I get home from school that afternoon.

“I am.”

“So, not only did you skip school completely yesterday, you also ditched your afternoon class today.” Is that a hint of his chastising voice? If so, it’s a good sign.

“Maybe I did,” I answer, biting my lip.

“Thanks.”

“For skipping school?”

He nods. “Don’t get used to it, but yeah. I missed you,” he says, pulling me into is arms for a hug. “I was going crazy, it felt like you were gone for a year.”

“I might get used to this super clingy boyfriend thing, you know.”

“Me too.” He covers my face in a thousand kisses, his gentle pecks getting a bit more excited and hungry once they’re on my neck. This is definitely a good sign.

“Did you have a good day?” I ask.

“Not really,” he admits. “I talked to my lawyer.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

“I think so. Can we talk about it later?”

“Of course.”

“Nothing bad happened. I’m just really fucking horny,” he explains, nipping my earlobe and grabbing my ass. But he’s nervous, I can tell.

“Me too.”

His lips meet mine, softly at first. It doesn’t take long for things to heat up. He’s a little off his game, but even a fumbling, rattled Isaac is still Isaac and he could not suck at sex if he tried. There’s an excessive, frantic element to the snuggling afterward that concerns me and I know it will take a long time for him to get over this, if he ever does.

Gloria has the nerve to call him
a week later. Of course it had to be a few hours after he got rough with me for the first time since his world collapsed, so he was already shaken up as it is. He doesn’t pick up, calling his lawyer instead.

It’s not the best news. Nigel stalled them for as long as he could so Isaac could have some time, but the time has run out. He isn’t really in trouble anymore because there’s no way they’ll bring him up on charges, but now that they know the real story behind where he came from, his legal status as a citizen could be up for debate if they decide to press him. It’s unnecessary pressure, he wants to help, but he just doesn’t want to see Glory again and that might be unavoidable.

I don’t know what to think about that. My heart breaks for him, but I’m also so relieved. Even thankful. She didn’t have to come clean. It would be convenient to write her off as a monster but if that were true, she would have stayed silent and let them rip his life apart. Then he would have done the unthinkable and had to carry the weight of it forever. Instead, she saved him and might have sacrificed herself in the process. Isaac can’t say it out loud yet, but he’s thankful too and the gratitude has to be infinitely more confusing for him than it is for me.

22

Maya

My phone buzzes and I try to suppress a huge smile. It’s a pic of his abs, all chiseled and shadowy. The photo truncates with his thumb tugging down at the belt loop of his jeans to reveal his hip bone and my mouth literally waters as my clit thumps. I’ve been getting naughty sexts all day and I can’t wait to get home. Isaac has a lot more energy lately, almost too much, but I’m up for the challenge.

At first I blamed it on the lack of benzos, and I’m sure that has a lot to do with it, but really I think it’s the weight that’s been lifted off his shoulders. He’s still stressed, but he’s not hopeless and depressed anymore. Or maybe he is and he’s just using sex as a distraction. Either way, he’s smiling a lot. I went to school a little sore today and I can’t wait to get roughed up again tonight.

It’s been over a month since that first meeting with the investigators and there’s been several more since. Each time he comes home, he seems less worried about it. He hasn’t had to see her yet, which I know helps.

My phone vibrates toward the end of the lecture. That’s weird, Isaac never interrupts me during class.

Heads up. Piper is waiting for you outside.

Seriously?
I text back.

Yep. I hope you end up canceling on me.

You don’t care?

Of course not. My dick on the other hand…
he responds.

Lol

He’ll get over it. Have fun.

I’ll make it up to you tonight. With my mouth.

I might have other plans for you. ;) xoxo

Heat crawls across my skin as I wonder what that means. The carnal excitement doesn’t last for long, because now I have to face Piper. It will never be the same between us and that realization is starting to eat at me. I tell myself that I’m giving her space, but at this point I’m probably flat out ignoring her. I just don’t know what to say.

“Hey,” she mumbles when I walk out of class.

“Hi.”

“You don’t seem surprised to see me. Did your
bodyguard
let you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you know that I have one now, too?”

“Um… yes. Your father mentioned it. Do you know why?” I ask her, hoping that I don’t have to fill her in.

“Yeah, I think I’m all caught up. Your genius boyfriend almost killed Luke in the middle of this big ass sex trafficking investigation and now there’s danger lurking around every fucking corner. That’s not why I’m here. Let’s go get some lunch while they follow us. Maybe we’ll be able to ditch ‘em.”

“I have absolutely no desire to do that, Pipes. We could get a ride with mine.
Lisa. I like her.”

“You have the same one all the time?” Piper asks.

“Yeah, don’t you?”

“No. Every week it’s a brand new asshole. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care.”

“Then let’s go somewhere within walking distance.”

“Pipes, it’s freezing out here,” I whine.

“Too bad. You kind of owe me. By the way, you’re buying. I quit my job.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Since I’m going to get treated like a kid either way, I demanded my fucking allowance back. But I’m saving it all.”

“I’m really, really sorry,” I say, trotting after her.

“It’s not your fault.”

“This entire disaster is my fault, Piper. Believe me, I know that.”

“Well, that’s not how I see it.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. What the hell were you supposed to do? Tell my parents who
obviously
wouldn’t have helped,” she says, holding the door open for me. “I don’t think so, buddy,” she snaps at her body guard. “You’re sitting over there. Out of earshot.” He mumbles something under his breath and she flips him off.

“You know, you probably wouldn’t have so much turnover if you were nicer to them.”

“They are totally ruining my life and can fuck right off.”

It’s not my place to correct her, considering. There’s a little bit of an awkward silence after we place our order, so it’s time to initiate some small talk. “How are you adjusting to life at the
River Houses?” I ask.

“It sucks. And my father is absolutely thrilled about it, of course, so that makes it suck even more,” she grumbles. He always wanted her to live there, everybody does, it’s part of the Harvard experience. A part she gave up to live with me instead. “Those people just don’t get me. I feel like I don’t have any privacy at all,
which I clearly don’t,
” she says loudly, glaring at her security guy.

“I’d say that you can still come stay with at my place—”

“Don’t you mean
our
place?”

“But then I’d have to indirectly mention him,” I finish.

“About that…” Piper’s eyes drop and she starts pushing a cherry tomato around in her salad. “This whole not talking about Jace and Isaac thing isn’t really working out, is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not. We talk about bullshit on the phone for about five minutes before it gets awkward because there’s this huge issue hanging in the air. We refuse to have this big conversation that we obviously need to have if we’re ever going to get back to anything that remotely resembles normality.”

“Yeah…” I guess that means we’re having it now.

“Did you know?” she asks quietly, her mouth tightening into a hard line.

“About what?”

“Cut the shit, Maya. Did you know that Jace wasn’t just a friendly neighbor?”

“Not right away. That day we met him for the first time… I had no clue. I swear.”

“Did Isaac set that up so that Jace would be conveniently walking by our door when Luke decided to bust through it?”

“Yeah. He couldn’t do anything about it himself…” I resist the urge to tell her how impressed I am with the way he handled such a crappy situation.

“When did you figure it out?”

“I started to
suspect
something that day those two freshmen brought you home drunk,” I confess. “You said Jace was teaching classes at a martial arts studio. Back when we were at the apartment, Isaac had mentioned his friend owned a gym like that. So that was my first clue.”

“Jace ditched me that night right after we made out for the first time. That’s how I ended up all angry and drunk at that frat house.”

“You said he was hot and cold for a while in the beginning.”

“He was.” Piper looks so sad. I can’t believe I let this happen. “What was your second clue?”

“There wasn’t one. I just told Isaac that he better not be doing what I thought he was doing and didn’t want to know anything else.”

“Typical,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes.

“He says they got in a big fight about it. I didn’t know for sure until Isaac disappeared after we went away for our birthday. You were in the shower. Jace told me Isaac hadn’t contacted him for two days and that we should be worried.”

“Wow. So you knew that my boyfriend was a fucking fake and you didn’t say anything to me for over a month.”

“I didn’t think he was fake, I just knew he was there to protect us.”

“Were there cameras in our house?” she asks.

“One in the living room, which they were supposed to keep off while we were home.”

“Yeah, right.”

“And audio in my bedroom, but Isaac thinks Jace put a mic in yours too even though he wasn’t supposed to.”

“God, what an asshole. I can’t believe I fell for his bullshit.” Her eyes start to water and she tries to
eat a spoonful of her soup, but she can’t. “You should have told me.”

“I was scared.”

“You still should have told me,” she snaps.

“I thought about it. Really hard. But you would have freaked out and then they would have left, or got in a lot of trouble. I was just too scared to be alone, especially once Isaac wasn’t around at all. Nobody would have been there the night that Luke…”

“I know,” she says, reaching across the table to grab my hand.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Pipes.”

“I know you are. I keep trying to stay angry, but I can’t hold onto it. Every time I start inwardly lamenting about how unforgivable it all is, I just see you laying on the floor, naked with your hand over your face where Luke hit you and all I can think about is how glad I am that Jace was there. It’s so fucking frustrating. I’m used to being pissed off for no reason and now I have, like, this amazingly good reason and I’m just… not that mad. Well, I am, but not like I should be.”

“Not mad at who?”

“At you and… at Jace,” she murmurs. “I miss him. I’m around all these collegiate douchebags and they’re nice enough, I guess, but I can’t click with any of them. It’s not the same. He understood me the way you do. It was so much fun having him upstairs.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I can’t. He still calls at least three times a day and every fucking time I almost answer because I want to
so bad
, but I just can’t bring myself to speak to him. I’ve broken down a few times and picked up just so I could hear his voice.” Poor Piper. I can’t even imagine what she’s going through. “I’m not falling for his bullshit again.”

“You didn’t fall for it in the first place, Piper.”

“They are good fucking actors Maya. All four of us would hang out once in a while and they just played the barely know each other thing way too realistically. It’s fucking creepy. And Jace was
watching me
. Like, recreationally, not for protection. He knew shit about me before I told him and I never could figure out how. I’d drunk dial him or knock on his door wasted sometimes, so when he told me that’s what it was and I didn’t remember, I believed him.”

“But—”

“It’s over. I’m moving on. God knows he already has.”

“No, he definitely hasn’t. He still calls you three times a day. He still lo—”

“Don’t you dare,” she cuts me off. “It’s done. That part
was
unforgivable.”

“You love him,” I say boldly because she needs to hear it. “He loves you.”

“We never got that far.”

“No, you just never said the words out loud.”

Piper starts to shoot back with something, but then she chokes a little and one of those tears she’s been suppressing trickles down her cheek. “Your purse looks
very
expensive,” she mentions casually, wiping her face. That was probably a permanent subject change, so I’ll just go with it.

“It is.”

“How expensive?”

“I think it was around $2,000.”

“Geez, Maya. That’s a little excessive.”

“Excessive is the idea. I’m pretty much always wearing five grand now.”

“What the hell happened to geeky chic thing?”

“It was never all that chic, Piper, and it didn’t work anyway.”

Piper takes a big drink of her soda and rolls her eyes. “Isaac just wants to show off.”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “I think he does.”

“He’s the one, isn’t he? He’ll always be a part of your life.”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll try to get over it. It will probably take years, but I’ll try. I mean… it’s not like it was completely unnecessary.”

“Yeah, and neither are your bodyguards, Piper.”

Sighing, she chomps a bite of her sandwich loudly and glares at him. “So… I think I’m going to be one of those hippie attorneys that works with nonprofits.”

“You will never be classified as a hippie. There’s nothing peaceful about you.”

“Then I’ll be a radical or something. I’m not cut out for politics.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do. There’s a reason I didn’t want to live with these people. They’re fucking drones. All they care about is money. It’s so cliquey, it’s all who knows who. I don’t want to spend my life playing that fucking game. I just want to do something fulfilling and help people.”

Fulfilling. Helping people. That’s how I feel about tutoring. “Maybe something good came from this move after all.”

“Yeah,” she grumbles. “I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to think it did. Anyway, that’s enough about me. How are you coming along on your thesis?”

“I’m a little behind for an over achiever, but probably right on target for a normal person.”

“Well, that’s understandable.”

“Not to Osbourne.”

“Doesn’t he know that you had pneumonia?”

“He does, but I don’t think he really cares.”

“Do you still want to be his assistant?”

“I’m not sure. I feel like I need to say that I want it, but I’m not sure that I really do. I hate to change my mind yet again, but I’m seriously considering becoming a teacher.”