Author Note: A big thank you to my beta (ughcharlie on tumblr) for stepping up and sorting me out!
Second chapters are for World-Building and setting the stage for the Drama. Stay tuned.
(Disclaimer: I adore Erica and Boyd. Isaac is an unreliable narrator and his interpretation of Erica and Boyd are different from my own.)
The books/authors mentioned in this chapter are:
Kathy Reichs (Author of the books the TV series 'Bones' is based on)
World War Z by Max Brooks
The rest of Isaac's Scott-less shift went by without incident. It wasn't until he made his way back to the Music & DVD department to clock out for the day that he finally got to talk to someone else about Scott—and it wasn't even in the way he wanted.
"So," Cora Hale said, her voice dripping with boredom. The occasional beep of the PDT sounded as she sorted through that day's DVD shipment. "What did my brother want?"
"Just ordering more porn for your uncle," Isaac deadpanned as he typed in his passcode to clock out.
"Yeah? Jerk didn't even drop back here to say 'hi.'" Cora frowned. She had her long brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck which Isaac was still getting used to. She never wore her hair up outside of work. "You think he'd be nice to his little sister and bring her some relief from old men who won't shut up about westerns but no." If anyone could make the beeping of a PDT sound angry, it would be Cora.
"If it makes you feel any better, I think I pissed him off anyway."
"He's always pissed about something, though," Cora shrugged. "But enough about my emotionally constipated brother. Brayden told me on her break that you were hitting on a poor, defenseless customer?" Her eyebrows shot up and waggled in a way that made Isaac wonder if it was genetic.
"Stop twisting words," Isaac corrected her, his own smile looking a bit teasing. "I was stalking him, not flirting."
Cora laughed a little too loudly and had to quiet down unless Kali came by. "At least you admit it. What was his name, detective?"
"Scott McCall. How Movie Star is that?" Isaac may or may not have sighed. He would never admit to it if he did. "I will probably never see him again."
"But at least you have some new night-time material," Cora said with a grin.
"You're on the clock, you know."
"Yeah, whatever. I'm going to live vicariously through you until Kali lets me out of this hell-hole. You'd think working in a Music & DVD department would be fun until you have to start categorizing Yoga and Pilates DVDs. Kill me, now," Cora groaned. "At least cute guys walk through your sections. Everyone our age downloads their music and movies from iTunes or something so I just get hit on by middle-aged men going through a divorce."
"The joys of the future," Isaac agreed. "I'm off, now, though. I need to stop by the store and pick up more toilet paper because we ran out of paper towels and Boyd spilled an entire two liter of soda the other night."
"Shouldn't you buy paper towels, too?"
"I've only got enough money for one and I'm not using a paper towel to—"
"I got it. Go home, Isaac."
"See you later, Cora."
Isaac didn't live very far from A&O so it was actually more convenient for him to walk. Sometimes, it felt like walking was actually faster than driving because otherwise, Isaac would have to wait for stoplights that never changed, or fight with other cars on who got to turn into what lane, first. At least with walking he could cut through lawns and parking lots.
His only stop was to the convenience store to pick up the kind of toilet paper that made him want to cry but it was cheap and he could pay for an entire pack using nothing but change, so he felt he wasn't allowed to complain.
The apartment Isaac shared with Boyd was only one step above Section 8, which society liked to call 'Student Housing.' Even though Isaac hadn't been a student for almost a year, Boyd still went to the Community College and he did enough coursework for the both of them combined. Isaac worked full-time, and took care of a slightly larger portion of the bills than Boyd did, but Boyd also took care of a bit more housework than Isaac, so they evened out. Isaac had never been more thankful for the fact that Boyd had grown up with a mother and grandmother and sister to keep him in place. It was impossible for Boyd not to have learned a thing or two about keeping a bachelor from being a total slob.
Not that Isaac was a total slob, but after he'd emancipated himself from his father's home, he never wanted to do housework, again. Boyd was a good cook, too, so Isaac counted himself extra lucky.
Boyd also happened to have some kind of heart of gold because even though he was the first one out of their tiny group of friends to turn 21, he refused to buy any of them (Read: Isaac, Cora and Erica) alcohol—despite the fact that they all had only a few months to a year until they could purchase it themselves. It may also have been because Boyd had his sights set on the Police Academy, but that wasn't a good enough reason in Isaac's opinion.
As Isaac approached their building, he dug around in his back pocket for his billfold where he usually kept the door key. Just as he had his wallet open in his hand, he happened to notice a familiar old Chevy Malibu parked under their carport.
Erica Reyes.
Isaac groaned inwardly. It wasn't that he hated Erica—it was quite the opposite. Erica was awesome. The problem was that she and Boyd recently discovered that they'd only been in love since the dawn of time and Isaac often felt like he was a third wheel or had been replaced by some kind of extensive honeymoon. He knew it wouldn't last forever, but he still wanted his old friends back.
That, and he'd had enough gossip with Brayden and Cora for one day. He needed man time. Boyd was rational enough that if Isaac even started to think about how he might never have a chance with Scott McCall, granted he ever came back into the store, Boyd would knock some serious sense into him… and then make him relinquish the controls to Assassin's Creed III as punishment.
Although, Isaac thought as he marched up the outside stairs toward his apartment, Erica's presence might also mean that Boyd would let Isaac have full control of the PS4 because he was too busy sucking face. Isaac liked that idea.
With that in mind, Isaac made no major alterations to his homecoming routine. He unlocked the door, tossed the pack of toilet paper to the side, kicked off his shoes, and made a beeline for the living room couch. The second he sat down, he could feel the muscles in his legs screaming in the kind of pain that only feels good after an eight hour shift.
It felt like Isaac barely had a chance to contemplate the whereabouts of the missing remote before he heard a call from just down the hall—not that they had much of a hall in a two bedroom apartment.
"Isaac? You home already?"
"What do you mean already?" Isaac called back. He could see the remote sitting on top of a pizza box at the far corner of the coffee table. It was too far to reach comfortably, even with lanky arms like his, so he glared at it. "It's like four thirty or something."
Boyd's heavy footsteps moved across his bedroom and a moment later, he was standing sleepy-eyed in the doorframe to his room. Isaac acknowledged his presence by completely ignoring him in an attempt to grab the remote using The Force. "I was only supposed to take a nap, man. That was four hours ago," Boyd yawned, his voice hoarse from disuse.
"Nice to know you've been hard at work all day. Can you hand me the remote?"
"Scoot over the extra ten inches and get it yourself," Boyd retorted before turning around to head back into his room. Isaac could hear him talking softly to Erica, and Erica's quiet protests for being awakened at such an early hour. Boyd was always so gentle with her, which came as a great surprise to Isaac because anyone who happened to be gentle to Erica got their ass kicked—but somehow Boyd got away with it. Then came the unmistakable kissing noises.
In a fit of annoyance, Isaac leaned over the extra few inches and grabbed the remote to the television. He quickly turned the TV on to drown out the sounds of what could only be described as cows eating grass. Isaac wanted to make sloppy kissing noises with someone just to annoy everyone around him. Why couldn't he do that? He was a good looking guy, once one got over how absurdly tall he was, or his sharp cheekbones or his hair that never wanted to cooperate. So why didn't he have anyone?
He knew the answer before he could even think of a proper question: he just didn't know anyone. Isaac refused to date any co-workers and that pretty much took care of Isaac's entire social life considering his only other two friends were dating each other.
And then there was the subject of Scott McCall, and he wasn't even a subject. He was just some guy Isaac happened to meet who coincidentally happened to be really cute and also really nice and also possibly sort of probably interested in him but only in speculation.
But then again… if Scott happened to be interested, and Isaac was able to pursue a relationship, then what? Then he'd get to make sloppy kiss noises at Boyd and Erica all day and his life would be complete?
Oh, hell yeah.
It would be like a dream come true. Isaac wondered if Scott's lips were as soft as they looked. It was eerie at how well Isaac could conjure up the beautifully perfect frame of Scott's face after only seeing it in a few short glances. He wanted to trace the curve of Scott's jaw—to see the frame of those muscles without the fashion disaster of a jacket in the way.
"Dude."
The sudden voice brought Isaac back from whatever fantasy his mind had decided to conjure about Scott, to a world where Boyd and Erica were judging him silently from across the room.
"A boner from QVC, Isaac, really? You've reached a new low," Erica teased.
Isaac hadn't realized he'd even flipped any channels at all; he'd just been staring off into space as his body subconsciously moved on auto-pilot. It could have been worse, Isaac thought as he grabbed a couch cushion to hide what was already a pretty uselessly embarrassing situation. "You can't bash on a surprise boner until you have a penis, Erica," Isaac muttered.
Erica just laughed. "Like I really care, anyway." She brushed her hair behind her ears and practically bounced toward the couch. "Hand me the remote. Judging by the cheap toilet paper by the door, I don't think you have enough money to buy a fake diamond necklace, so I'm staging a QVC intervention."
Isaac relinquished the remote to Erica, and just like that, the three of them assumed their typical afternoon ritual. Boyd made a lot of ruckus in the kitchen and complained that they didn't buy any proper food before giving up and popping a frozen lasagna in the oven while Erica and Isaac fought over Cartoon Network or a Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family. As the night wore on, Isaac thought less and less about Scott and more and more about how he was the Harry Potter to Boyd and Erica's Ron and Hermione, although that may have been because Erica's Harry Potter marathon won the Rock Paper Scissors fight.
Being part of a Golden Trio was supposed to make Isaac feel better about the fact that Boyd and Erica were sitting together on one side of the couch, their arms draped around each other. Instead, all Isaac could think about was that he finally escaped his metaphorical 'cupboard under the stairs' after the only family he cared about died and if he was going to be a true Harry Potter parallel, he'd have to marry Boyd's little sister, Alicia, and that just wasn't his cup of tea.
Feeling a little more down than he'd originally intended for the evening, Isaac excused himself to trudge awkwardly to his bedroom and shut the door.
It wasn't so bad being alone, though. Isaac actually enjoyed being alone—just so long as he had enough room to move around. He'd developed a bit of claustrophobia over the years no thanks to his father. The fear was so strong that when Isaac and Boyd went apartment hunting, Isaac made sure to find one with large bedroom windows. His room seemed to revolve around the window, with every bit of furniture pointing toward it like an altar.
Isaac curled up on a beat-up old round chair under the window and pulled World War Z, a book he'd checked out at work mostly because it was on the bestseller list, but the fact that it was about zombies didn't hurt. It was easy to lose himself in a book where romance seemed like a thing of the past and the world had been whittled down to nothing but science and survival.
He felt kind of stupid for feeling so down. He'd seen several attractive people come and go at the bookstore—he just hadn't felt like any of them were even close to being in his league. This Scott McCall resonated with him in a way that few people could. Isaac often felt like he was hard to get along with, and Cora, Boyd and Erica only put up with him because they had to. That particular feeling didn't come along often, but when it did, it hit Isaac hard in the gut.
Isaac made a sizable dent in the amount of pages he'd read before he heard the knock on the door.
It wasn't so much a knock as it was Erica rapping her hand against the wood once before opening the door. Isaac jumped a little at the movement more than the sound and shut his book quickly, effectively losing his place.
Erica grinned at him in such a way that Isaac couldn't tell if she was pitying him or not. "You gonna be somewhere tonight?" she said eventually. Isaac wondered if he detected guilt in her voice.
"No," Isaac responded. His hands itched to open his book again just to mark his place.
Erica shifted a little in the doorway. "You got headphones?"
Seriously? "Seriously?" She was asking him that now?
Erica sighed defensively. "It's been a while, okay? I thought you were working late tonight."
"Surprise, I'm not. Didn't you have all day, anyway?" Isaac didn't care if he sounded upset. He had a right to be. He worked hard for a crappy apartment and ate crappy food and felt like he had nothing to show for it. Maybe he was the one that needed all the Self Improvement books. In fact, the thought about the Self Improvement section brought up a fresh wave of Scott McCall and with it, another wave of uselessness.
"You know my work and school schedules are fucked up," Erica explained. "Nights are all I have."
"You don't even live here and you're kicking me out of my own house."
Erica frowned and pointed an accusing finger at Isaac like it was him who was being unreasonable. "It's not like that. I'm just asking a favor. Besides, you're a good looking guy, Isaac. Why don't you go out and find someone? We could double date. It'll be fun. We never go anywhere."
"Because we're broke," Isaac reminded her. "And I'm busy."
"You're reading a useless zombie book. You're not busy."
"It's for work!"
Erica rolled her eyes a bit impatiently. "When you and Boyd moved in together, you agreed there would be some alone nights. So here's the deal: I've got a friend who recently got out of a long term relationship and she's looking for a little bit of fun. Why don't you guys go on a blind date?"
As soon as Erica said, 'I've got a friend,' Isaac deliberately opened his book again and began hunting for where he left off. "Well that's a recipe for a bad teen novel."
"Just do it, okay? She's not looking for anything serious, so there's no pressure for a second date."
"I knew it. You are trying to get rid of me."
Erica's features softened from annoyance to almost pleading. "I love you, Isaac. I do. But I need to get laid, too."
"And that's why they invented motels," Isaac deadpanned. He knew with every comment, Erica was losing her patience. It was dangerous to start a fight with her, but Isaac wasn't in the mood anymore. He'd somehow gone from smiling and happy about the universe while at work to wanting nothing to do with anyone or anything once he got home. It was a dangerous mood swing.
"Just go on the damn date, Lahey," Boyd's heavy voice called out from the living room as if it were the be-all-end-all of the argument. Isaac felt the betrayal like a thousand pound weight.
Having finally found his page, Isaac stuffed his makeshift bookmark inside and sighed. "Ugh, fine. But I'm doing it for Boyd on account of his irresistible arms."
Erica just grinned and traipsed across Isaac's room to plant a kiss on Isaac's forehead. "Save those compliments for your date. I'll text her and let her know."
"If she turns out to be a serial killer and stabs me to death, I will haunt you." Isaac felt the need to inform her.
Erica just laughed and flipped him off. Somehow, when she did that, it didn't come off as condescending at all. "Seriously though, Lahey. If you're staying in tonight, get out your headphones. I'll text my friend about you and I'll let you know when she's free." She made a move to head toward the door but Isaac stopped her.
"What am I getting out of all this?"
Erica thought for a moment. "I'll never ask you to date another one of my friends again, for one."
Isaac narrowed his eyes to let her know that wasn't exactly an even trade.
With a sigh, Erica scrunched up her face. "I don't know. I'll think of something. Until then, it's an IOU, okay? Although part of me thinks we're actually doing you the favor. You seem more depressed than usual, tonight, and it's time we did something about it."
"So you're staging an intervention."
"Not exactly," Erica said with a shrug, "But if that's how you want to look at it."
"I'll go on this date, but I can guarantee you I won't like her," Isaac said.
Erica shut her eyes and steeled her jaw. "Then just be her friend," she said between clenched teeth. "One can never have too many of those."
With that final thought, Erica shut the door to Isaac's room. Her lack of presence was felt and even though Isaac could still hear the television from the living room, the silence that encased his own room suffocated him. He opened World War Z again, slowly, but the words danced around on their lines with uneven twirls. After a few moments of straining, Isaac gave up, turned the light out and curled up on his bed without bothering to change out of his work clothes.
He didn't think he was being unreasonable. He often felt like a third wheel, but he usually used that to his advantaged and sat in between Erica and Boyd on the couch or draped his hands around them or joked about being included intimately. Tonight, things were different.
Tonight, all Isaac could think about was a pair of brown eyes and the appearance and disappearance of dimples under a mop of dark hair. He didn't want to be on the other end of Erica's match-making schemes. Why couldn't the world be a little nicer to him and give him something nice? He'd lost the lottery when it came to decent living accommodations, high-paying jobs and attentive fathers. If he could just catch a break somewhere—anywhere…
When Isaac opened his eyes again, the morning sunlight threatened to break through his blinds. With a groggy arm, he searched around the covers of his bed for his phone and groaned when he realized he still had quite a while before work. He hated having too much time before his shift. There was literally nothing to do except wait.
He had a missed text from Erica, though. He groaned when he read the content.
Friday night. Mongolian Barbecue. Her name is Allison.
She had been serious about that date, after all.
The rest of the week went by without incident. Scott didn't return for his books, which wasn't a big surprise. Customers rarely came back for books they placed on hold. Either they still didn't have the money, they ran out of time, or they forgot. Either way, Isaac slowly came to terms with the fact that Scott McCall was a one-time occurrence and wouldn't be happening again.
By the time Friday rolled around, Isaac was actually looking forward to the blind date. Maybe this mysterious Allison girl would make him feel much better about himself to the point that if Scott ever did decide to grace A&O Booksellers with his presence again, Isaac would be ready for him.
In order to keep up the appearances of the blind date protocol, and because Isaac did not have a reliable method of transportation, he was going to meet Allison at the Mongolian Barbecue place.
…except the bus was late and it looked like it was going to rain.
Isaac was almost one hundred percent he'd been cursed by some angry deity because that could be the only plausible reason the sky threatened to unleash a downpour on him. After huddling under a bus overhang to keep out of the late Spring wind, he texted Allison to let her know he was going to be late.
…only to receive a text asking him where he was so that she could just pick him up.
Isaac learned a long time ago through Cora and Erica that the women in his life could probably beat him to a pulp with just their stares, so the simple fact that Allison was going to be the one driving him around on their "date" didn't even make him blink.
It was, however, embarrassing when she showed up in a perfectly clean and expensive looking car.
"You're Isaac?" Allison asked once she'd pulled up to the curb. She had to yell it across the passenger seat of her car. Isaac ducked to get a peek through the rolled down window and scrunched up his face, as if that were easier for him to see inside the darkness of the vehicle. She too had brown hair and brown eyes, but her fair skin almost glowed and her hair looked like a completely different mop than Scott's. Her jaw was square and even and military. Isaac didn't know what to think.
"Only if you're Allison," he responded.
Just before leaning over to unlock the doors, Allison gave Isaac the tiniest hint of a death glare. She barely had to change her expression at all to do it. "I have mace and martial arts training if you turn out to be a serial killer."
"Funny, if you turned out to be a serial killer, I just promised Erica I would haunt her."
Allison suddenly burst into laughter, probably relieved that the two of them had a mutual friend to break the ice. "Erica isn't afraid of anything."
"She'll be afraid of me."
"Doubt it."
"Aren't you supposed to be nice to the person you're taking out on a date?"
"I am being nice," Allison said, her eyes twinkling with some kind of laughter. "I'm driving you, aren't I?"
She had a point. A cool car certainly won when placed against the noisy horror that was public transportation. Isaac decided then and there that maybe she was going to be okay.
For the moment.
All throughout dinner the only thing Allison wanted to talk about was Isaac and his life—which was the absolutely last subject Isaac wanted to reveal. If he so much as inquired about anything in her life, she would stare at her food and change the subject. Isaac scoured his brain for a reason, but the only thing he could remember about her was that Erica said she'd just gotten out of a long-term relationship. Unfortunately, that left Isaac with more questions than answers.
As the night wore on, dinner became increasingly awkward. Isaac ate more than he ever had in weeks just so he could keep heading over to the buffet to fill another bowl with stir fry ingredients and avoid talking about his life.
The weather had seriously taken a turn for the worse. The rain pounded hard on the windows of the restaurant, that Isaac wasn't sure how much long they'd hold up against the onslaught. After Isaac shot down yet another question about his job, Allison stopped nursing her drink, stole a glance at the storm outside and sighed.
"This is going terribly. I think I've forgotten how to date." She frowned.
Isaac had been on the verge of coming up with an excuse to leave until she finally shattered whatever awkward bubble they'd created. He could have hugged her based solely on the fact that her comment was the most real thing she'd said to him all night. "I never date, so I have no idea what I'm doing."
Allison let out a small puff of laughter. "I don't either. According to a friend of mine, I'm not supposed to bring up exes or anything I ever did with an ex but…. We were together for three years. That's like trying to ignore most of my adult life."
"It's okay." Isaac waved her uncertain expression away. He was just happy to be talking about her, finally. "I don't know what Erica told you, but I agreed to this to help her out. So please don't be offended if I'm not interested in dating. On the bright side, though, if you need to talk about your ex, then that's cool."
"Oh thank God." Allison deflated a little. "It's not that I want to talk about him, it's just that avoiding the subject feels more strained than anything else. He was a nice guy, don't get me wrong. Things just didn't work out romantically. We're still friends, though."
"That's… that's good," Isaac commented awkwardly. Was there something he was supposed to say to that?
Allison looked just as lost as he did. "So… yeah, I guess I'm not interested in dating, either. I just want to get used to being on my own, again."
"It's not so hard." He shrugged. "Being alone is easy. It's making connections that's hard. Just spend a week holed up in your room and read all night, then get back to me about being on your own."
"You know," Allison said with a small snicker, "I've been doing just that, actually. I accidentally got myself into these awesome Kathy Reichs novels. My father tried coaxing me out of my room with chocolate cake, he was so worried."
Isaac wished someone would coax him out of his room with chocolate cake. Or coax him into his room with chocolate cake. So long as cake was involved, any outcome was desirable.
At the thought of Allison reading, though, Isaac's embedded bookselling program kicked into gear and he began recommending some book series to her without even realizing what he was doing. By the end of the night, Allison had filled up a napkin with names of authors and titles and stuffed it into her purse. She even insisted upon paying for her portion of the meal saying she was sorry for being so boring. Isaac refuted the comment, saying that he wasn't really helping matters, either, but the compromise remained the same. Apparently two boring people paid for their own meals. Isaac had no idea if that was an official rule of dating etiquette, but he was pretty sure they'd broken about three societal norms at least.
It wasn't until they were running back to Allison's car in the rain that Isaac finally felt like the evening was going okay.
He'd only been half right when he responded to Erica's original match-making offer. He and Allison definitely weren't going to go on another date—but they ended what could have been a potentially horrible night on a good note. In fact, when Allison dropped Isaac off at his apartment complex, he was smiling when he walked up the stairs. As it turned out, she was funny and her eyelashes were interesting to look at and when he told her as such, she laughed and playfully punched him in the arm making that the only physical contact the two of them engaged in the entire night.
Isaac liked Allison, and if he happened to be hanging out with Boyd and Erica any time soon, he wouldn't mind if Allison was invited.
He was astonished at how much he really hoped he'd see her again.
"I heard you went on a daaaate," Cora sang in her most irritating of voices. Isaac glared hard at the time clock in the Music & DVD department. He hated working Saturday. The worst people always went shopping on Saturdays. "You giving up on dream boy so soon?"
"It wasn't like that," Isaac said. "She was pretty cool, but we're not dating. You can have her if you want."
"As awesome as that sounds, I'm a Hale, and am therefore doomed."
"At least you're aware of it." Isaac shrugged. "If you want, I can get your cat collection started by buying you a kitten for Christmas."
"I'm more of a dog person, actually." Cora pointed out, while deliberately ignoring a customer as they walked past. "Besides, I'm still living vicariously through you, remember? It's a Saturday, Lahey. Go out there; stalk someone new."
"I love your opinion of me," Isaac grinned as he punched in his numbers to finally clock in. "Just for that, I'm going to make an announcement on the overhead about your Criterion DVD sale. Have fun denying senior citizen discounts."
"I take back every time I've never shown affection for you," Cora deadpanned.
Isaac laughed and made his way toward the center of the store to his spot at the Customer Services desk. He was about to make good on his threat by picking up the phone for the intercom when he happened to glance upward and catch a familiar set of eyelashes.
"Hey," Allison said, her wide smile illuminating her face. "Where's your Hunting section?"
Isaac slowly set down the phone and pointed to the left. "It's a sub-section of Sports. Did you know I would be working today?"
"Nah, lucky guess." She shrugged. "I'm actually here to pick up some books for a friend, but I thought, hey, why not get something for me too, right?"
"Yeah," Isaac agreed. His eyes shifted toward the Music & DVD section where Cora was eyeing him cryptically through the EAS scanners. Desperate to get out of her eyesight, Isaac quickly stepped away from the Customer Services counter. "Let me take you to the right section."
Once safely away from the hawk-like gaze of Cora Hale, Isaac felt like he could breath. Cora didn't know Allison at all, so there was no way of her knowing she had been Isaac's mystery date. The familiarity and smiles were dead giveaways, though, and the last thing Isaac needed was unnecessary teasing.
As soon as they reached the correct section, Allison immediately began scanning the spines of books. It took Isaac a moment for everything to register, but when it did, he raised both eyebrows. "You're into hunting?"
"Yeah, with my dad," Allison said more to the bookshelf than to Isaac. "Mostly just small game, but it's fun. My ex didn't like it, much. I figure now that I'm single, I can go on all the hunting trips I want, right?"
Isaac was saved from responding when a voice from a nearby aisle caused all the hairs to stand straight out on the back of his neck.
"Allison! There you are!"
Isaac was too afraid to turn around, in case his suspicions were correct. The look on Allison's face as she responded to her name confused Isaac a little, though. She looked startled at first, then a brief flash of pain or sadness and then finally her expression became a blank slate.
Slowly, Isaac turned around and every single internal organ in his body decided it was going to inflict pain on him all at once. Scott McCall walked toward them while talking downward at the books in his hands.
"They ended up putting my books back on the shelf because I didn't pick them up in time, but I think I got the right ones."
Allison sighed, but it sounded almost embarrassed. What did she have to be embarrassed about? "Did you try asking someone who works here? Like Isaac?"
"Who?" Scott asked, finally looking up from his books. His eyes darted from Allison to Isaac, but when brown eyes met blue, they stuck and he swallowed, hard, the bounce of his Adam's apple temporarily distracting Isaac from the awkwardness of the entire moment.
"I'm so sorry about this, Isaac," Allison apologized. She waved her hands quickly and nonchalantly, like this sort of thing was mundane and not at all a life-changing experience. "This is Scott, the friend I was talking to you about."
Scott almost flinched at the word 'friend.' Isaac caught it mostly because he couldn't keep his eyes off that uneven jawline. "We've met," Isaac said at length, but his voice sounded scratchy, like it didn't want to work properly.
Isaac didn't know what he was expecting. Maybe he wanted Scott to be as astonished as Isaac was to see him again. Maybe he wanted them to hug dramatically and give heartfelt confessions to each other. Either way, every scenario that flashed through Isaac's mind had a happy ending.
What he didn't expect was for Scott's once dimple-dotted smiling features to disappear and be replaced with an unreadable expression. "You're Isaac?"
Isaac was taken aback. "I—what?"
"Mongolian Barbecue Isaac?"
"Scott," Allison interjected. "Please, it wasn't like that and you know it."
Isaac half expected a punch to the face for some reason, but nothing came. Instead, when Scott put out his hand, it was for Isaac to shake. "Thanks for the books, man," he said.
"Any time," came Isaac's confused voice. He took Scott's hand in his own, but instead of getting to relish in the fact that he was actually touching a man he never thought he'd see again, he was overcome with trepidation.
With a firm nod to both of them, Scott held up his books. "I'm going to pay for these. Allison, I'll meet you out front, okay?"
"Okay," came Allison's voice. She sounded sheepish. Guilty. It completely confused Isaac to the point that he almost wanted to shout at the ceiling.
"Is he okay?" he asked her the moment Scott was out of earshot.
Allison gently placed the hunting book she'd been holding back on the shelf like someone who'd lost their appetite. "We're trying to be friends, but it's taking some getting used to," she explained. "Scott is actually… you know…"
Isaac swallowed, hard. He got it. He understood even though the knowledge poked about a dozen holes in all of his unspoken fantasies. "The ex."
"Yeah."
Fuck.