Chapter 11: Sorting DVDs and Feelings
1039 Words
Isaac's Barnes and Nobles was one of the few that still had a dedicated music and movies section. One of the outer dividing walls displayed their overflow bargain kits, and calling the handful of disorganized shelves a music selection was generous, but they had a decent selection of records and movies.
The best part: this section was deserted most of the day. When Isaac didn't want to deal with his coworkers or the customers, he'd find a project to do back here.
He'd spent the better part of the last two weeks reorganizing the DVDs and marking the new sale prices. Today he had new shelving to put away, and he sorted the genres on the counter next to register.
“Excuse me?" a customer asked.
He looked up in surprise; normally he noticed when customers entered the department, but this one snuck up on him.
Then he saw who the customer was and he flailed, trying to put the DVD in his hand on the stack, missing, and knocking the pile off the desk entirely. “Sean!"
Isaac couldn't face Sean in a text, despite the other man trying desperately to hear from him. He should have expected Sean to come in to the store, but somehow he'd gotten it in his head that if he never responded, Sean would give up and they'd never see each other again.
Whether or not that was what Isaac wanted…he was too coward to figure out what he wanted.
Sean winced and kneeled down to pick up the DVDs. He was in plain jeans and a gray hoodie, sunglasses pushed up into his hair. For Sean, it was an outfit that made him invisible in the crowd. He hadn't wanted people to know he was here.
“I'm sorry," Sean said. “I know I shouldn't bother you at work, but I didn't know what else to do."
Isaac dropped down to clean up his mess. “No, I'm sorry. I should have handled that better. I have a habit of running away from my problems." It had yet to work, but old habits die hard.
Sean stacked a DVD on his pile and looked up at him. “I don't want to be a problem for you. Can you tell me what I did?"
Oooh his stomach felt like a beehive. He'd been a massive d**k to Sean, so wrapped up in his own head and fears he hadn't considered how Sean would feel.
Or, he had, but it was the Sean he expected a famous supermodel to be, not the real one who constantly acted in complete opposition.
“God, I really screwed this up, I'm sorry," Isaac said. He clutched “The Sandlot" until plastic creaked.
Sean eased his fingers over Isaac's. “I…I talked to my sister, about what happened at the shelter. She said it sounded like I scared you, talking about the future. If I did, I apologize."
“No, it's not your fault." Isaac shook his head. “That's the whole point of dating, to see if you'd be a good fit in the long run, and just because I'm terrified of what could happen before then doesn't mean you should be."
Sean furrowed his brow. “I'm not sure I follow."
Sighing, Isaac sat cross-legged. He kept his focus on the DVDs, resorting them by genre as he talked. “I was in a long-term relationship, before. Beck was my first boyfriend, and I thought he'd be the only one." His hands shook, and he could hardly swallow past the lump in his throat.
“I'm guessing it didn't work out," Sean stated.
Isaac laughed, dry and humorless. “No, no it didn't. I caught him cheating on me, and…" He swiped at his eyes. “Damn it. It's been two years, you'd think I'd stop crying over it."
“Two years isn't that long at all, really," Sean said. He took over sorting the DVDs.
“I don't think you want me crying over my ex," Isaac said.
“Preferably, you wouldn't be crying at all. But I'm not going to tell you how to grieve. You lost more than just a boyfriend when he cheated on you."
Sean didn't even know how true that statement was. Isaac had lost the future he and Beck had planned together, and a lifetime of friendship. Since Isaac still wouldn't go home on the off chance he ran into Beck, he'd lost that, as well.
“It hurt, what he did to me. I missed my own college graduation because I was such a mess, and my mom has to come here for the holidays because our families used to celebrate together." His mother was a saint for doing what she did for him. “You're so incredible, I can't see how anything between us will end any differently. It still baffles me that you want to be around me, and then you said you wanted something permanent like the animal sanctuary. I realized we're already deeper into this relationship than I ever thought we'd get, and the deeper we go, the more it's going to hurt when you want to end things."
His vision was blurry again, and he rubbed at his eyes.
Sean took his time answering. “You seem pretty convinced that I'd be the one who wants to break up with you."
“Well, yeah," Isaac said. “You're…you. You're sweet, and you have a hilarious sense of humor that no one else knows about. You've read more books than I have, you're graceful. You do all kinds of charity work, which is why I know you're serious about the sanctuary thing, because that sounds exactly like something you'd do."
He'd done the research before they'd gone to the shelter, surprising himself by learning Sean participated in as many charity events as fashion shows.
“I'm not like that. You'll get bored dating someone like me, and I'm scared of how much it will hurt."
He couldn't meet Sean's eyes. Picking up the stacks, he started putting them on the counter again.
Back to Sean, he finished with, “It's better to just end it now, right? Before things get worse."
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