Hold Me Closer | Stisaac (Serendipity, Book 1)

Chapter 30

Oh, I miss talking for hours until we both fell asleep
I've been taking melatonin at 6 pm to numb the loneliness
You say you need time to figure you out
Oh but I'm ready to love you right now
- Grant Knoche, 'Please Hurry'

"Earth to Isaac! Hello? Isaac?"
Bang.
Isaac whirled around in the swivel stool so quickly that he nearly tumbled out of it as two of its metal legs lifted from the floor.
"What? Jesus, what?"
A photo book of Seattle scenery thicker than Isaac's head now lay on the floor at his feet, likely dropped there by the short-haired brunette man that stood before him.
Arms crossed, Jordan Parrish stared at Isaac with an exaggerated frown to cover up the amusement in his twinkling hazel eyes. Isaac scooped the book up and plopped it onto the desk behind him.
"I pay you to do more than stare into space, you know," Jordan said.
Isaac rolled his eyes. "Don't be dramatic. I was just..."
Jordan raised an eyebrow. "Exactly."
"There's not even anyone here. What else would I do?"
"Edit the photos from the Clarkson shoot last week. Work on outreach. Reach out to clients on the waiting list."
"I get it, I get it. I'm doing all of that."
Jordan moved past Isaac to scoot himself up onto the desk from which he was supposed to be working. Isaac rotated in the stool to face him.
"What's going on?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean what do I mean? Something's going on up here." He tapped Isaac on the top of the head. "You've been distracted for days."
"I'm still getting my work done, I promise."
"I know you are. I don't care about that. Are you okay?"
Isaac closed his eyes with a sigh and rubbed his face with his hands, hoping it would prevent the tears that suddenly burned his eyes from falling. "Define 'okay.'"
"So that's a no."
Isaac met his gaze, but didn't respond.
"Did something happen with Sti—"
"No."
"So that's a yes."
"No."
"Isaac—"
"I'm fine."
Isaac turned his attention back to the desktop computer that sat on the desk, the screen of which had long ago went to sleep when Isaac had abandoned it to check his texts with Stiles, hoping that he'd see a new message.
He hadn't.
After a moment, Jordan sighed, jumped off the desk, and walked away. Once the footsteps faded to the other side of the room and he heard Jordan's chair squeak from inside his office, he dropped his head to the desk. The tears fell, and he was powerless to stop them.
Days had passed since that night at the club. The night that had fucked everything up, and torn Stiles away from him with such sudden and devastating force. He had nobody to blame but himself. He'd pushed too hard, too fast, too much. If only he'd bitten his tongue just a little while longer...
Isaac's chest ached as he remembered Stiles's tear-streaked face, remembered his hands sliding away, remembered the feeling of his skin, of him, in his arms. If he'd known the last time he'd touched Stiles would be the last time, he would've held him harder. He didn't want to forget how Stiles felt, and never wanted to let him slip away. It was, perhaps, more terrifying and painful than still feeling as if Stiles was on his skin, though he wasn't there.
And he was there. Isaac couldn't escape it. Even now, sitting here, he could swear that Stiles's hands were on his shoulders, could swear that Stiles's weight was beside him in his bed at night, that the scent of Stiles drifted to his nose at random times because he was close, not because Isaac just wanted him to be.
Isaac's phone dinged. He snatched it up, ignoring the pain in his fingertips as he slammed them into the desk in his haste. Stiles?
No.

LYDS 👑
1:03 P.M.
Are we still on for tonight?

ISAAC
1:03 P.M.
Do I have a choice?

LYDS 👑
1:04 P.M.
No ❤️

Isaac used the little bit of strength he could muster after work to throw jalapeño poppers and pizza into the oven. Combined with two half-empty bottles of vodka, that was all Lydia and Scott were getting from him tonight. He'd avoided them since the breakup, and even more so after he'd had to tell them about it.
Breakup...Could there even be a breakup if he and Stiles had never been in an official relationship? That was a question he wasn't sure he wanted an answer to, so he shook it out of his head.
He laid on the couch in silence and waited for the food to finish cooking. Accompanied by only the steady ticking of the rooster-shaped oven timer his grandmother had gotten him years ago, he forced his mind to focus on nothing. No thoughts of Stiles, no thoughts of work, no thoughts of the deep empty pit inside of him that wouldn't go away.
A sharp rapping on his front door startled him. He hurled himself off the couch and raced to the door. Stiles?
Yet again, no—not Stiles.
Isaac fought the urge to slam his own head in the door as Scott, arms full of paper grocery bags, blurred by him and into the kitchen. He closed the door and followed.
"What is all of that?" he asked.
Scott tossed an empty bag over his shoulder, nearly launching it directly into Isaac's face. "I brought things."
"Things such as...?"
"Well, I figured you wouldn't be up to doing much, so I stopped by the store."
Along with copious amounts of junk food, Scott also unloaded several bottles of various types of alcohol. Surrounded by the discarded bags, he paused and sniffed the air. He twirled around to the oven and yanked it open.
"Oh, fuck. You're already cooking."
"It's poppers and pizza, I'd hardly call that cooking."
Scott shut the oven door and went to work organizing his grocery haul in whatever haphazard fashion he seemed to think was best. "I guess it doesn't matter. Just means we'll have plenty of food to soak up the lethal amount of alcohol we're about to consume."
"I actually plan to be alive for work tomorrow, but feel free to host your funeral in the bushes outside if you want to."
"You need to drink more than I do, I'll take nothing less than room-spinny-toilet-huggy."
"Settle for room-spinny and we have a deal."
Scott held out a fist. Isaac bumped it. "Deal."
Isaac leaned against the refrigerator and crossed his arms. "Do you think Lydia's going to let it go?"
"You mean, is she going to not harass you about Stiles? Doubtful. Once there's alcohol in her, she's unstoppable."
Isaac groaned. "But I don't want to talk about it."
"Just because you don't want to doesn't mean you shouldn't."
"Okay, Lydia. Look, there's just no point to talking about it. It's done."
"What happened anyway?" Isaac narrowed his eyes. Scott held out his arms. "Well, what do you want us to do, Isaac? You haven't told us anything. What are we supposed to think? We can't help if we don't know what we're helping with."
"You can't help. No one can."
Isaac thanked the universe for having the oven timer go off at precisely that moment, startling the tears back into his eyes before they could fall. As Isaac pulled the food out of the oven and dropped it to the stovetop, the front door whooshed open and slammed closed. Heels clacked over the hardwood floor.
"Dun-dun-duuunnn," Scott sang under his breath.
Isaac swatted him with his oven mitt and turned as Lydia strode into the kitchen, two bottles of tequila clutched in her manicured hands. She spotted the array of alcohol on the counter, stared at them, and shrugged, placing hers within the mix.
She dropped her purse to the floor and immediately pulled Isaac into a hug amidst a cloud of peach-scented perfume. He returned the embrace. Although he didn't want to deal with her inevitable inquisition regarding Stiles, he had missed her, and the love he had for her was keeping him together.
"How are you doing?" she asked as she pulled away.
Isaac swallowed. "Fine."
She clearly didn't believe him, but evidently decided that it was not the time for questions. Instead, she plucked three shot glasses out of the freezer door.
"Let's get this little party going, boys."
Four hours later, Isaac lay on the floor, wedged between the couch and the coffee table, his legs slung up and propped over the arm. Lydia sat on the end of the couch, sprawled over Isaac's legs, a tall glass of tequila in her hand. Isaac, himself, had become permanently attached to his own personal bottle of blue raspberry vodka, which he hugged to his chest. Scott had traded alcohol for a mixing bowl full of the various treats he'd brought, topped off with a generous helping of jalapeño poppers.
Some time ago, Lydia had turned on the stereo and played one of her many specially-curated playlists. Their 'party' had turned into more of a chill gathering where they talked, laughed and didn't do much of anything else. Every once in a while, a song would inspire a random uptick in energy that had them all doing a myriad of colorfully strange dance moves. They were currently deep in a recovery period from the last energy upheaval.
Lydia tapped Isaac's ankle with her forefinger. He craned his head to look up at her. "I'm glad you didn't try to weasel out of tonight."
Isaac smiled. "I am too. I'm glad you guys are here."
Until tonight, he hadn't laughed or smiled since the last time he'd seen Stiles. He'd started to think he wasn't ever going to smile again, but he was blessed to be surrounded by people who always drew the light out of him, even when he was full of darkness.
"It's going to be okay," Lydia said. "You know that, right?"
Isaac forced himself to hold her gaze instead of looking away. He swallowed hard as tears stung his eyes. "I'm glad you're so sure."
"You aren't?"
He shook his head. "I'm not sure of anything anymore."
"So let me be sure for you. It will be okay. One way or another."
Scott let out a loud groan. They turned to him as he rolled his eyes and heaved himself out of the armchair he'd nestled in, discarding his bowl of treats onto the table as he stomped over to the stereo system. "Who put this song on? Killin' my buzz."
Lydia frowned and grabbed her phone from the cushion beside her. "I don't remember putting it on the playlist. Must've been drunk." She shrugged, punctuating her point with a small gulp of her drink.
Isaac hadn't noticed it until Scott pointed it out, but the night had previously been a steady stream of upbeat pop and rock with a splattering of R&B. Now, a mournful, stripped-down piano ballad filled the room. The high, despaired vocals drew him in and forced him to pay attention to the lyrics.
Instantaneously, a chill rocketed through Isaac's chest and slithered into his veins.
Stiles's face filled his vision and his mind. His beautiful, honey-gold eyes that were positively luminous in the sunlight. His long, slender fingers that caught his breath every time he saw them slide over anything, especially if it was him. The sensation of Stiles's breath ghosting over his face as they kissed goodnight. The maniacal, musical tone of his laugh when something was just too funny, and how it twisted Isaac's guts in the best of ways. How Stiles's skin felt beneath his shaking hands as they came undone in a harmonious rhythm of moans.
A harsh gasp tore itself out of Isaac's throat. He bolted upright so quickly that the room turned white for a moment before it started to spin. Salty tears ran into his mouth. A consuming ache shot him in the chest and spiderwebbed out into the rest of the body, into his fingertips, his stomach, his toes, his bones.
"Turn—turn it o-off," he ordered. "Please—"
He couldn't finish the sentence. A sob stole every ounce of oxygen and strength he had. He knew that Lydia was moving, tripping over herself and him to slide to the floor beside him. He also knew that Scott had unplugged the stereo with a curse and stubbed his toe on the coffee table on his way to them. A tangle of limbs encompassed him as his friends pulled him close. He knew it, saw it happening through the blur of his tears, but it felt like it was happening to someone else. Like he wasn't there, like it wasn't him, like nothing was real—not even him.
All that existed was the pain.