Page 126 of In Harmony

Why not?

You know why not.

Just to sleep.

I want to, he wrote back.

I don’t want you to be alone tonight.

Another long pause, and then, OK.

A knock came at my back porch twenty minutes later. I deactivated our alarm system and opened the French doors. Isaac stood there, hunched over, hands jammed into the pockets of his hoodie. Looking so young, my heart ached. It was easy to forget he was only nineteen.

“I parked on the street behind this one,” he said. “No one will see.”

My heart ached at that too. Another slap to his face, to the shame he carried through no fault of his own. I opened the door wider to let him step inside. He looked like a thief in a diamond store. His gaze darted all around, certain my parents would jump out and catch him.

“You have a nice house,” he said, as I led him through the kitchen to the family living room. His gaze roamed around once more, then came back to me. Some of the tension slid out of his shoulders as he took in my short pajama shorts and baseball-style sleep-shirt, white with pink sleeves.

“I shouldn’t have come.”

I didn’t say anything but took hold of him by the front of his hoodie and pulled him to me. He wrapped his arms around me and we held each other for a long time.

“I needed this,” he said finally. “You.”

“Are you hungry?” I asked against his chest. “I have pizza.”

He shook his head. I followed his gaze to the fireplace mantel and a service award my dad had received: a large glass Wexx symbol.

“I should go,” he said.

And I should have let him.

“Stay,” I said. “Talk to me. What happened with the Wexx people?”

Isaac hesitated, then slumped on the couch and rubbed his eyes.

“They gave me the ‘big picture,’” he said. “My dad hadn’t been paying royalties on the logo, and he was in debt up to his ass with the gas supplier. But I already knew that. What I didn’t know was how much he owed in back taxes. There’s a lien on the property. And because of the nature of the explo

sion, they suspect arson. Some kind of fraud, I guess, or willful negligence. What kind of person tries to commit fraud by blowing up his business when he’s standing right in the middle of it?”

“You said you don’t think it was an accident?”

“I don’t know that he did it on purpose, but if he did, it wasn’t to get out of debt. It was to get out of living.”

I pulled Isaac to me and pressed my lips to his chin. “I’ll talk to my dad. He has to help you.”

“Willow…”

“I know, but I have to try. I can’t let you take all of this on. It’s too much.”

“What will be the price I pay for his help? I can tell you right now, it’s you. You’ll be the price I pay.” He shook his head slowly back-and-forth. “It’s too much. I can’t lose you on top of everything else.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m so tired.”

I stood up and took him by the hand. I led him through my big, beautiful, cold house. Upstairs to my room, where his eyes immediately found the bundle of blankets on the floor.