Chapter 5: Isaac Doubts Everything

“I’ll get the article taken down,” Sean promised over the phone. “They shouldn’t have even been in the restaurant, and they can’t just print pictures of people without their permission.”

“It’s okay, I’m not worried about it,” Isaac told him. Sean had called first thing the morning after their date, before Isaac had even seen the article.

Sean huffed. “Spoken like someone not used to the media. Trust me, you don’t want the attention.”

Isaac pulled out a box of blueberry frosted Pop-tarts. “They don’t have my name or anything.”

“Yet.”

“Ominous,” Isaac said. He ripped open a pack and nibbled on a corner.

“It was a clear picture of you, they’ll find you one way or another. But I’ll handle it.”

“If you really think it’s a big deal.” Isaac shrugged again.

“You don’t understand. I don’t date, and I’ve never been caught on a date before. The paparazzi is going to go insane over this.”

Isaac still didn’t see how they’d find him. “It’ll be worse for you, I’m sure. Seriously, Sean, I’m okay.” Unless the problem wasn’t that they’d gotten Isaac’s picture, but who Isaac was. Dating some nobody like him probably wasn’t good for his image.

Sean let out a long breath. “I have a meeting with PR in twenty minutes. It’ll be fine.”

He sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. Isaac took another bite of his Pop-tart. This whole thing was less about Isaac and more about Sean. Definitely didn’t want his image ruined by going out with a retail manager.

The Pop-tart tasted like sand. “Do you want to call off our next date?”

“No! Well. I don’t know. Do you?”

He was lucky enough to have gone on one date with Sean Winters. That was more than most people could say. This way, he didn’t have to worry about the inevitable heartbreak. “Maybe it would be better.”

Sean didn’t answer for a moment. “Maybe. Let me get through this meeting, and then I’ll call you again, okay?”

Isaac smiled bitterly down at his Pop-tart. “Sure.” If Sean didn’t want to call it off, surely the PR team would.

“Okay, I need to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Talk later.” Isaac hung up and ran a hand through his hair.

It was disappointing, but what had he really expected? He didn’t belong in Sean Winters’s world.

He had a waiting message from his mom, and he abandoned his Pop-tart in the tiny kitchen and collapsed on the couch. She’d sent him a screenshot of the picture and was asking if that was him.

Draping one arm over his eyes, he held the phone up to his ear with the other and called her.

She answered on the second ring. “Isaac? Was that you?”

“Yeah, mom. That’s me in the picture.”

“Oh, my goodness, baby, you didn’t tell me you were dating again! Let alone with Sean Winters!”

“It was one date,” he said. “I ran into him last week and saved his life, so he wanted to say thanks.”

“Wait, saved his life?”

Isaac recounted the mugging and nearly losing his phone, lowering his free arm over his stomach and playing with the hem of his shirt.

“And to say thanks, he asked you out?”

“He wanted to get to know me better, that’s all. But I don’t think there will be a second date.”

“It didn’t go well?”

“No, it did. Last night we agreed we wanted to go on a second one, but then this morning…he’s in a panic about the article. I don’t think it’s good for him to be with someone like me.”

His mom took a moment to respond. “Isaac, baby, you are more than good enough for whoever you choose.”

He looked out over his apartment. It was small, all the furniture second or third or even fourth hand, and there was a weird smell he couldn’t get rid of no matter what he tried. His writing was a dead end, and his day job was a manager at a bookstore. Nothing about his life was appealing to anyone.

Even Beck—

He shut the thought down. That was the last person he wanted to have in his head.

“Isaac, you are. If Sean Winters is scared by a little attention, then he’s not good enough for you.”

“It’s the same result either way.”

“No, because if he hurts you, then I have to drive up there and hurt him.”

That startled a laugh out of him. His mother was barely over five feet and was all soft, round edges. She didn’t even kill spiders.

“I raised you and I practically raised you-know-who, I can handle a model,” his mother insisted.

An old ache bloomed in his chest. “You can say his name.”

“He doesn’t deserve it,” his mother said. “After what he did…oooh, it still makes me mad.”

Smiling, he sat up and scooted against the armrest. When the whole fiasco happened, his mother had taken his side, no questions asked. She’d always been in his corner, and he could never find a way to show her how grateful he was.

“Anyway,” his mother went on. “How are you really doing with all this? Even one date is a big step for you.”

“I’m disappointed,” Isaac admitted. “We really clicked last night, and I did want to see where things went with him.”

“You did? Does this mean you’ll be dating more?”

He snorted. “With my schedule? Not likely.” Retail didn’t leave a lot of time for a social life. His only friends these days were his coworkers.

“It’s okay to want to date, you know,” his mom said gently.

He inhaled sharply. “I know. I just…how do I trust people, after what he did? I mean, if he of all people cheated on me, why wouldn’t everyone else?”

“I knew I didn’t punch him hard enough,” his mom muttered.

“What? When did you punch him?”

“Not important!”

Isaac begged to differ. If his mother was going around punching people, he wanted to know.

She refused to elaborate, changing the subject to ask how work was going until she was satisfied she’d cheered him up.

Assuring her she had, they hung up and he leaned back into his couch.

He sat there for a few minutes, and then he opened Twitter on his phone. He couldn’t resist reading all the posts about him and Sean, going down the rabbit hole of theories of who he was and where Sean could have met him until he ended up on Sean’s Wikipedia page. Fashion seemed to be a family business for him. His father was obvious, but he hadn’t realized Sean had three older siblings.

The oldest had been an up-and-coming designer in his own right until disappearing from the news as a teenager. Sean’s sister was a cosmetologist who used to practice on her little brothers and now was Sean’s personal make-up assistant. His second brother was the only one not in the business.

His ringtone startled him, and he fumbled the phone while scrambling to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Isaac? It’s Sean.”

Isaac’s heart pounded. “How’d it go?”

Sean took a deep breath. “They said, if you’re okay with it, we can keep dating.”

Isaac’s jaw hit the floor.