Chapter 1: The Stalker and the Savior
The bass was a physical thing. It punched up through the soles of Gavin’s sneakers, a deep, sub-aural throb that made his molars ache in time. The air in the living room was a soup of humid breath and spilled beer, the ceiling hazy with smoke that caught the strobing red of a lone LED strip. He leaned against a doorframe, the wood vibrating against his shoulder blade, and nursed his third beer. It was warm.
He watched the sea of people churn. A girl in glitter cried on the stairs. Someone was trying to start a karaoke queue by the TV, shouting over the DJ’s relentless techno. It was all background noise.
His focus was on the black-clad figure cutting a path through the chaos like a sleek, annoyed shark.
Issy. He didn’t know her, not really. He’d seen her at The Widow’s Son a few times, watched her wipe down the bar with a kind of grim, efficient grace. Here, she looked profoundly out of place. Her dyed-black hair, that severe fringe, her boots—they were anchors of sobriety in a room drowning in neon and desperation. She was moving with purpose, heading for the hall.
And behind her, a sweaty shadow.
Benny Crumb wore a Hawaiian shirt covered in psychedelic parrots over a faded X-Files tee. The clashing patterns were a visual assault. His round face shone with perspiration, his patchy beard damp. He was talking, his hands moving in eager, expansive gestures, his eyes fixed on the back of Issy’s head with an intensity that made Gavin’s skin prickle. He was too close. Always a half-step into her personal space, forcing her to twist her shoulder away as she walked.
Gavin took a long pull of the warm beer. His knuckles were white on the bottle.
He saw Issy’s mouth move, a flat, one-word response lost in the noise. She didn’t turn her head. Benny’s face lit up with a manic smile, as if her dismissal was a thrilling challenge. He lumbered closer, his elbow bumping a passerby, sloshing gin and tonic onto the already-sticky floor.
Gavin’s gut twisted. It was a familiar, sour feeling. Not jealousy. Recognition. He’d seen that brand of oblivious, hungry persistence before. It was the look of a guy who’d decided a woman’s ‘no’ was just a puzzle to be solved, a test of his special, nice-guy dedication.
Issy reached the narrow hallway leading to the bathroom and bedrooms. She glanced back over her shoulder, not at Benny, but scanning the crowd. Her grey-green eyes, cool and sharp as flint, locked with Gavin’s for a single, suspended second.
It wasn’t a plea. It was an assessment. A flick of data-point intake. Then she was gone, slipping into the bathroom and shutting the door with a firm, final click.
Benny skidded to a halt outside it, like a dog confronting a shut gate. He rocked on his heels, adjusted his shirt, then leaned against the wall opposite, clearly settling in to wait. He pulled out his phone, thumbs flying, probably posting some inscrutable conspiracy theory to his three followers.
Gavin pushed off the doorframe. The warm beer in his stomach had fused with the buzzing in his veins into a single, low-grade charge. He didn’t think. He just moved, weaving through the crowd, the noise receding to a muffled roar in his ears.
He stopped a few feet from Benny, who didn’t look up from his screen.
“She’s gonna be a minute,” Gavin said, his voice pitched to carry over the music.
Benny’s head jerked up. His eyes were a little too wide, a little too bright. “Oh, hey. Yeah. I’m waiting for Isabelle. We’re having a conversation.”
“Looked like it.”
“She’s really insightful, you know? Most people, they don’t get it. The depth.” Benny pocketed his phone, puffing his chest out slightly. “You need patience with a woman like that. A delicate touch.”
Gavin almost laughed. “Right. Delicate.”
“She’s playing hard to get. It’s a sign of high value. I respect it.” Benny nodded to himself, as if confirming a profound truth. “Once she sees I’m not like the other guys, just trying to get in her pants, the walls will come down.”
Gavin’s smile felt thin and brittle on his face. “The walls aren’t coming down, mate. She’s just not into you.”
The bathroom door opened then, slicing a wedge of yellow light into the dim hall. Issy stepped out, her expression flattening further at the sight of the two men blocking her way. She looked from Benny’s eager, sweating face to Gavin’s tense posture.
Before Benny could inhale to launch another monologue, Gavin spoke. His voice was calm, low, but it cut through the sludge of the music. “There you are.” He directed it at Issy, then turned his head slowly toward Benny. “This guy giving you trouble?”
Benny spluttered. “We were talking!”
“Yeah, I saw.” Gavin took a single, deliberate step forward, putting himself slightly between Issy and Benny. He kept his hands loose at his sides, non-confrontational but firmly present. He looked Benny dead in those fever-bright eyes. “Here’s your chance to fuck off. She’s with me.”
The words hung in the humid air. Issy went very still beside him, but she didn’t contradict him. Benny’s face cycled through confusion, indignation, and a raw, wounded bitterness.
“With you?” Benny sneered, though it wavered. “She didn’t say that.”
“She doesn’t have to.” Gavin didn’t move. “I’m saying it now. This conversation is over. Walk away.”
Benny’s jaw worked. He looked past Gavin to Issy, seeking a denial, a sign. She met his gaze blankly, offering nothing. With a final, petulant glare, he shoved his hands in his pockets and stomped back into the pulsing crowd.
The hallway felt suddenly, starkly quiet. Gavin let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He turned to find Issy watching him, her head tilted, one black eyebrow arched.
He turned to find Issy watching him, her head tilted, one black eyebrow arched. Her lips quirked, not quite a smile, as she assessed him in the vibrating hallway. The bass from the living room felt like a second pulse here, muffled but insistent.
"You collect strays or something?" Her voice was dry, cutting through the thrum.
Gavin let out a short laugh, the adrenaline from facing Benny still humming in his veins. "Just hate seeing predators circle," he said, then immediately wished he hadn't sounded so earnest.
Issy's gaze softened a fraction, but she just nodded toward the front door. "Need air." She didn't wait for a reply, turning and pushing through the bodies toward the exit. Gavin followed, the crowd parting more easily for her scowling certainty than for his polite nudges.
The night outside was a blanket of cool silence after the sonic assault inside. Streetlights painted the overgrown front yard in orange pools, and the air smelled of damp earth and jasmine. Issy leaned against the rusted railing of the porch, pulling a crumpled packet of cigarettes from her jacket. She tapped one out, offered the pack to him with a raised eyebrow.
He took one, though he didn't usually smoke, just for something to do with his hands. The match flared in her cupped hands, illuminating the sharp line of her cheekbone before she lit hers, then his. They smoked in silence for a moment, the embers glowing like tiny warning beacons.
"Thanks," she said eventually, exhaling a plume of smoke that hung between them. "But you didn't have to do that."
Gavin shrugged, the motion casual even as his mind scrambled for the right tone. "Figured it was a public service," he said, aiming for light. "Saving the party from his shirt alone."
Issy snorted, a genuine, unfiltered sound that surprised them both. She took another drag, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she looked at him, the streetlight catching the silver in her septum ring.
She took another drag, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she looked at him, the streetlight catching the silver in her septum ring.
“You good?” he asked, the words coming out quieter than he intended.
She nodded, tapping ash onto the dewy grass below the porch. “Just another Tuesday.” Her gaze drifted past him, back toward the thumping house. “You here alone?”
“Came with some film school guys,” he said, shrugging. “Lost them a few hours ago.”
She flicked her cigarette into an empty beer bottle on the railing with a sharp ting.
The sudden silence felt heavier than the noise. He studied the profile of her face, the stubborn set of her jaw. She wasn’t just avoiding Benny; she was marking time, waiting for something. Or for the party to die so she could leave.
“You need a walk?” The question left his mouth before he could vet it. “A real one. Away from this.”
Issy turned her head slowly, her grey-green eyes searching his. He saw the calculation, the risk assessment. She was deciding if he was just a different kind of problem. "I'm good."
He nods, accepting that. She asks him plainly if he wants to fuck.
The question hung in the jasmine-scented air, blunt and solid as a stone. Gavin froze, the casual facade he’d been maintaining shattering into a thousand sharp, buzzing pieces. He stared at her, searching for a joke in her flinty eyes, but found only a flat, weary challenge.
"I, uh," he stammered the words leaving his throat raw, because anything else would have been a lie.
She watched his struggle, her expression unchanging, then took a final drag before grinding the cigarette out on the railing. "How?" she asked, her voice low and practical. "If you were going to. How would you do it? Let's game plan it." She turned fully to face him, crossing her arms, a general assessing a dubious recruit. "Start talking."
He took a needed drink from his beer, the lukewarm liquid doing nothing to settle the sudden riot in his chest. “I’d find a room,” he started, his voice lower now. “With a good bed. Not a squeaky one. Lock the door.” He paused, watching her watch him. “We’d undress. But not all rushed.” He hesitated, thinking, the words feeling both too clinical and dangerously intimate. “I’d go down on you,” he admitted, the statement bald and quiet in the night air.
Issy didn’t blink. Her expression was unreadable, a closed book written in a language he was desperately trying to decipher. The faint flush on her pale skin could have been from the cold, or the smoke, or something else entirely. The distant thump of the bass from the house felt like a failing heartbeat.
He laughed softly, nervously, feeling on the spot. He closed his eyes, trying to get the right words, the cool night air doing nothing to clear the static in his head.
“I wouldn’t know if I’d be good at it,” he admitted, the words scraping out. “If you’d be bored.” He opened his eyes, meeting her unwavering gaze. “But I’d do it anyway. I’d want to see you.” He took a shaky breath, the admission feeling more dangerous than any physical detail. “And after, I’d probably just… crawl up. Face to face. Just... fuck.”
He stopped, the confession hanging between them, absurd and terrifyingly honest.
After a moment, she laughs earnestly without any sense of humiliation or ridicule. He laughs, face burning red. She laughs louder.
They felt like two kids sharing a dirty secret.
The sound of it was unexpected, a rusty, real thing that broke the sharp-edged tension on the porch into something softer. Gavin slowly opened his eyes. For the first time all night, as she crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the railing.
"My money’s on bored,".
"Oh, cheers for the vote of confidence."
"Earlier, sure," she said, a genuine warmth in her voice that hadn’t been there before. It was immediate, settling in him like crushed glass, and for the first time being interesting meant more than just being clever.
The chaos of the party was a distant, muffled thing now, another world behind a wall. He watched her chew on her thumbnail, no more performing. "Okay."