Page 30 of Quiet
He sighed heavily. He wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to dial anything back any percent—let alone fifty. His newfound realization had hit him like a freight train, and it wasn’t letting up.
He pulled a pencil out of his pocket and began to twirl it between his fingers. Stimming usually gave him a modicum of comfort, but it only took ten seconds for him to realize it was doing less than shit against the buzz growing in his mind. He shoved the pencil back in his pocket before he broke it.
The situation was entirely out of his wheelhouse.
Fuck.
He needed a plan.
Chapter12
Isa
Mister or Miss Duck—Isa hadn’t checked—was quacking up a storm when Isa woke up. He checked his phone. He’d only been asleep for three hours.
God, last night had been a long one. After a very long shower, Isa had tossed and turned, memorized all of Benedick’s lines, tossed and turned some more, and done Tai Chi until finally falling back into bed exhausted.
He sat up and his muscles protested loudly. Exercise had been the coup de grâce to his insomnia, but now he was paying the price.
“What is it, Mx. Duck?” Isa asked, going with a nice, gender-neutral term. “Are you feeling better today?”
Isa opened the cage, and the duck waddled out, looking incredibly put out by the whole situation, and forced him to chase it around the room, quacking loudly the entire time. By the time Isa caught the duck, he was completely winded and ready to go back to bed. But he had a responsibility, and he was going to fulfill it or die trying.
Isa gave the duck a thorough check-up.
“Hey, your injury looks pretty good. I think you can go home today. What do you think?”
The duck quacked loudly in Isa’s face, and he took it as an affirmation.
He threw a pair of sweatpants on over his boxers, jammed flip-flops onto his feet, pulled a hoodie over his bare chest, and zipped it up. He only needed to be decent enough to get to the pond and back again. He doubted anyone would see him. It was still early.
“Come on, duck, let’s go!” He spent another ten minutes getting the duck back in the cage and set off.
He stepped out into the hallway, closed the door, and nearly dropped the cage when he stumbled backward into the wall after seeing Briar leaning against the opposite wall, sketchbook in hand.
He stopped drawing when he saw Isa and put the book back into one of his many pockets.
“What are you doing here? No, don’t answer!” Isa said desperately. Briar’s voice had been his undoing last night, and Isa hadn’t gotten enough sleep to deal with anything. Especially not the Briar situation.
Briar reached into a pocket and pulled out a can of Monster Energy—Isa’s favorite drink in the world. He took the cage from Isa and handed him the can, wordlessly.
“Uh, thanks.” Isa reached out to accept the drink, and his fingers brushed against Briar’s by accident. The zing of energy that shot through him had him snatching his hand back hard enough to make him hit himself in the chest with the can.
His bare chest.
He hadn’t zipped his hoodie up far enough, and what had seemed acceptable a moment earlier, now felt downright indecent. He tugged the zipper up to his neck.
Briar held up the cage and asked, “Where are we going?”
“Ah!”
Briar’s voice hit Isa like a shot of liquid sex and woke up a part of himself that had taken nearly an hour in the shower to appease the night before. The young man tilted his head slightly and stepped closer. His eyes held all the intensity he had while drawing, but there was something in their depths Isa hadn’t seen before.
“To the pond!” Isa took off down the hallway, somewhere between a brisk walk and a run.
Briar followed him to the elevator, and Isa realized his mistake right when the doors closed.
Briar leaned against the back wall of the elevator and let his arm rest against Isa’s. The heat from his body seemed to burn right through the thin material of Isa’s hoodie.
