Page 52 of Isaac

Why the fuck would you need to get close to him, Isaac?my inner voice of reason says in my head.

And I realize that I have no clue.

"Isaac," Ricky says sometimes later when I demand yet another shot. His tone is low and cautious as he leans closer. "You sure you're good for it?"

"Why wouldn’t I be?"

"Alright, if you say so," Ricky relents, pouring me another shot. As the whiskey flows, my vision blurs further, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish individual faces amongst the sea of familiar voices.

"Damn, Isaac." Hector chuckles somewhere to my left. "You're really putting them away tonight. You trying to forget today’s clusterfuck?"

"Who isn't?" I retort, the words slipping from my lips before I can fully process them. Frankly, I’m trying to forget the last fifteen years of my life. Everything that happened before prison and most of it that happened during my first years there. And I don’t know if the alcohol is even working. All I’m feeling is… lonely. I can’t talk about it. Can’t scream in frustration. Can’t just pour my heart out in a therapy session to some stranger. I’m to carry all these nightmares with me for the rest of my life, like a shelf in the back of the store filled with old horror movies no one ever wants. The owner of that store is the only one watching them on repeat.

"True enough," Hector agrees, clapping me on the back.

The room swirls dizzyingly around me as laughter and the clink of glasses meld together into a contorted cacophony. I’m dancing a perilous waltz on the brink of self-control, teetering on the edge, my grip on reality slipping with each drink.

"Isaac," Marco interjects, severing the threads to my spiraling thoughts. "You're done for tonight. Let me drive you to your place."

I squint to focus on him. "Wha–" I start to slur out an objection. "No, no. I'm good. Just gonna crash in one of the rooms here." My words come out gibberish, and I realize that I'm far more drunk than I thought. Which is dangerous. I push myself up from the couch with a groan, balancing on unsteady legs like an acrobat.

Jeremy raises an eyebrow at me in disbelief, his arm instinctively reaching out to keep me steady when he thinks that I might topple over any second now. But I wave him off assertively. "Fuck off, man. You’re making me look bad."

"You sure you don’t need help?" Jeremy asks.

"I’m fine," I insist, trying to maintain some semblance of supremacy.

As I stumble toward the door, I hear Ricky ask Hawk if he needs help getting home.

"I'll manage," Hawk replies, his voice steady and focused in contrast to my own. Ah, right. He didn’t drink as much.

For some reason, even in this intoxicated haze, drawing Hawk along appears important to me. The alcohol surging through my veins is orchestrating some illogical puppet show using my body and mind alike as their unsuspecting marionettes, leaving no room for questions.

I glance back at the room stretched behind, a blend of muted light and shadows, and find myself motioning for Hawk to follow me.

"You don't look too sharp," I mumble at him vaguely gesturing somewhere in the general direction of the upper floors of Eclipse. "You can sleep in one of the rooms upstairs."

Hawk hesitates for a moment, his gaze darting around the room as if looking for answers.

"It’s all good, man," Seven tells him. "We sometimes crash here at the hotel. Going back home tonight might not be the best idea."

Hawk’s attention returns to me. He looks at me from across the room with those blue eyes before nodding and following behind and I’m feeling fucking fuzzy on the inside.

What the actual hell?

Ah, fuck it.

"Boss?" Jeremy calls out after us, disapproval seeping into his voice. But any argument he might have put forth gets lost in the clamor of the ongoing party just as Hawk and I disappear on the stairs.

The hallway sprawls out before us, its expanse swallowing the noise from the room we just departed.

I stumble along, a thin cloud of drunken confusion shrouding my thoughts. The alcohol has left me disoriented but also sharpened a curiosity that I can't shake.

"Hey." Hawk's voice cautiously breaks the silence from behind me. "You holding up alright?"

"Y-yeah," I manage to stammer out, my eyes flickering in his direction as I look over my shoulder. Our gazes lock and my heart races in my chest. I try to ignore this strange growing tension between us that always happens when we get close. But tonight… Tonight it feels even more overwhelming.

We continue down the hall and toward the casino, the air charged with an energy neither of us is willing to acknowledge.

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