Isaac flushes hard, but he recovers enough to retort, “So you should be just fine, then.”
“I can bedelicate,” Lumi combats.
Todd is looking between us all again. “Is it, like, sex poetry?”
Isaac groans.
His mom politely pretends not to have heard as she pulls a steaming casserole dish from the oven, setting it atop the stove to cool. She pops the breadsticks in and sets a timer. “Ten minutes, and we can eat.”
“I’ll go wash mydelicatehands,” Lumi says, dropping her feet to the ground and striding from the room. It’s clear she loves giving Isaac shit, the same as he does with her.
They really are like siblings.
“Bathroom?” I ask Isaac.
He nods, standing and motioning for me to follow him. At the stairwell, he directs me up. “First door on your left. Can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.”
He hesitates for only a moment before nodding and walking back toward the kitchen. I take care of necessities and return downstairs within a couple minutes, where I find Lumi looking at a picture of Isaac on the living room wall.
“This is his graduation picture,” she says, motioning to it.
I walk her way, getting a better look at Isaac in his graduation cap and robes. He’s smiling wide, looking proud, his mom’s arm around his shoulder and a matching smile on her face.
“There’s something I’m going to tell you,” Lumi says, her voice quiet. “Because I know Isaac won’t bring it up himself. And he likes you, Trevor. A lot.”
“Okay…” I say hesitantly, wondering if whatever this is is something I should be hearing from Lumi in the first place.
But she doesn’t give me even a second to contemplate it. “I like you, too, you know. Which is why you should know Isaac’s dad paid his last boyfriend to get lost.”
Lumi must see the shock on my face because she continues quickly.
“We don’t have proof. But Isaac suspects it. The guy just…dropped off the face of the planet where it concerned Isaac. He broke things off, and not a week later, he was posting pictures from his dream European vacation. He didn’t have that kind of money, Trevor. Not even close.”
Lumi sighs as my brain runs overtime, the conversation Isaac and I had during our bookstore date starting to make a lot more sense. When he brought up my jobs, asking if I resented him. Saying that money matters.
Lumi’s voice is soft as she turns to face me fully. “Isaac’s dad doesn’t want to see him happy because he doesn’t want his son to be gay. I really, really hope I’m right about you. Because money can sway a lot of people.”
With that, Lumi leaves me alone to consider her words. I hear the timer going off in the kitchen, but I stand in front of Isaac’s picture for a minute longer, looking at the twin smiles on his and his mother’s faces.
His dad isn’t in the frame. Nor any other on the wall.
He’s not in Isaac’s life, at least not in the way Isaac needs him to be.
And I’m starting to understand why.
Chapter 23
Isaac
Trevor walks back into the kitchen just as I’d started to worry he may have gotten lost.
He shoots me a smile that seems off. But then he takes hold of my hand and lifts it, placing a short kiss over a freckle on my wrist, and my thoughts scatter to the wind.
The twitch of Trevor’s lips tells me he knows exactly how affected I am, but his touch doesn’t linger. He retakes his chair at the table as I follow, everyone else already seated.
Todd dives into his lasagna first, immediately making ahashafashashasound as he tries not to burn his mouth. “Good sausage,” he manages, shooting my mom a thumbs-up.
