Untouchable (boyxboy)

Chapter 5

"So, Belle tells me you're a musician," Isaac comments as we walk down the long, sloping street towards the beach. "What kinda music do you play?"

"Classical, mostly," I answer. "Some jazz now and then."

"Oh, cool," he says. "I play guitar. Well, I know a few chords, anyway." He laughs. "What's that?" He points to the case in my hand. "A violin?"

"No, it's a ukulele."

"You mean the tiny gay guitar thing?"

He laughs. I don't.

"It's for my dad," I say.

He looks over at me and something catches his eye. "Hey—you got a thing there, like a smudge or something."

He reaches towards my cheek, the spot where the fading mark of Dylan's anger still shows faintly on my skin, and I jerk away from him reflexively. He withdraws his hand with a slight frown.

"Oh yeah, I forgot. Isabelle told me you don't like to be touched."

"Sorry," I say, dragging my fingers through my hair. "It's not that I can't be touched. I just have to be ready for it."

"That's what she said," he quips, laughing.

I can't help making a face. Either he's as awkward as I am, or his sense of humor needs some help.

"Seriously though," he goes on, "that must make it hard to date these days. No fast girls for you, huh?"

"No girls at all, actually," I say, the words leaving me before my brain catches up with my mouth.

He halts in his tracks and I shut my eyes, waiting for something awful. Dylan met Isabelle through Isaac after all, and if they get along, they must have similar opinions on some fronts. I keep walking, pretending I don't realize he's stopped, but a second later he catches up with me again.

"Shit. You're gay?" he asks, sounding nervous. "God, I'm so sorry for what I said earlier."

I cast my mind over our brief conversation. "About what?"

"The tiny guitar thing. I shouldn't have said it was gay."

I can't help laughing. It feels like we're running a three-legged race, and neither of us can get the rhythm right. "Don't worry about it. I've heard worse," I shrug.

"Really? Who from?" he asks, indignant.

I blink at him. "Uh...society? Homophobes? Dylan," I add.

"What? Dylan's a 'phobe? Naw," Isaac scoffs. "Isabelle wouldn't marry him if he was. He probably just teases you 'cause you're his brother."

"Yeah, probably," I mumble.

"Oh, there are the guys! Come on." He throws his arm around my shoulders, apparently having already forgotten the no-touching rule, and I cringe.

On the other hand, I'm glad he does. At least in one regard, it seems that Isaac and Dylan aren't cut from the same cloth.

'The guys' turn out to be a pair of somewhat generic frat-boy types named Spencer and Mike. They both attend the nearby state college where they're in their final year. Mike is working on a double major in Asian  Studies and Political Science, while Spencer studies Engineering. Isaac, I learn, is almost done with his EMT certification, having dropped out of college after his second year.

What brings them together, though, is surfing. Spencer and Mike are both dressed in black wet-suits, boards in hand when we join them on the edge of the sand. After introducing me, Isaac jogs over to an old Ford Explorer parked nearby, opens the back, and starts to strip out of his own clothes.