"Isaac, I'm not worried. Trouble comes even if we plan for it. It comes when we don't."
He shook his head, smile sweet, those amber-glinted eyes sparkling like he thought I was naive or simple or a dreamer who wouldn't be told to give up. Isaac gave me one last kiss, the first of what I prayed would be a thousand more, a million more, and then he pressed his lips to my forehead.
"Come on then, I'll walk you to your dorm and make sure you get inside safe."
And for the first time in hours, right then with Isaac, that's how I felt-safe.
Isaac and Riley cleared from my head as the fog of meditation ebbed until I realized where I was and what I was doing. Then, the realization hit me hard, a slap of comprehension and clarity I hadn't felt before. I could still feel those broad hands against my back, those thick, full lips working hard over mine. Isaac had felt so familiar. He'd felt so real.
He'd felt just like …
"Oh my God," I said, pulling Effie from her own thoughts, spurring her loud shudder and gasp with one loud oath.
"What now? Man, I was in a good place … "
"I'm sorry," I told her, jumping up from the floor to rummage around for a jacket. "I've got to find Nash. I have to tell him."
"What?" Effie said, following me as I found my tennis shoes and slipped them on at the same time. I was to my door, had it flung open before she stopped me. "Tell me. What do you think you discovered?"
"I know why I feel something between us. It's the past, Effie. Nash and me, I'm sure of it-we knew each other in another life."
Nash
Roan had a limp, something I knew had gotten worse since I first met him as a punk kid at Howard trying to pass Chem 101. He'd taken time from his teaching duties to tutor me and something had clicked. He became the cool cat too old for students to notice, but to me, he was a man without limits. The kind of man I wanted to be. I kept in touch with him even after he retired, and he stayed my mentor through the years. It was Roan, in fact, who given me the push to plant roots in New York. "Opportunity," he'd said, "lives with the masses."
I'd listened and while I waited for Nations to make a little noise, Roan kept his birds, spending most of his time on top of the pre-war building he owned downtown. It was a run down, shabby place that he hoarded, didn't want company or tenants, preferring some quiet and solitude after years in academia, so I knew where to find him when my life was turning to hell.
The pigeons cooed and sang like it was Showtime at the Apollo and Roan was Steve Harvey, laughing at their noise like it was the sweetest music he'd ever heard. He was somewhere upwards of 6'2, a wiry old man who wore his salt and pepper beard a little long, a little unkempt, but his clothes, which reminded me of some once-was player still keeping himself sharp and his swag on point, were pristine, ironed jeans with starched creases and a designer sweater, wool pea coat and a page boy pulled low over his busy eyebrows.
"Nephew," Roan said, laugh low, amused at the small tease he'd shot my way. I wasn't his kin but he still liked to call me that and when he did, the word always made him laugh. Roan waved me onto the roof when I peeked out of the stairwell door. "Come on."
"My man." I greeted him with a quick slap of our palms touching before he gave me a one arm hug. "How those feathery rats of yours?"
"Watch your tongue." He still smiled despite my insult, those light eyes of his, almost green, lighting up as he messed with one of the cages; two pigeons jumped on the railing in the center, flying closer to the other side. "What's up? You lost? Haven't seen you in going on two months."
"Been trying to perfect the code. Duncan is getting restless."
Roan nodded, one corner of his mouth twitching up as he continued to adjust the broken side of the pigeons' cage. "Seems to me, from what you say, that Duncan is always restless."
"He's ready to start making money." This time Roan shook his head, nibbling on his bottom lip like he had to fight to keep something rude from coming out of his mouth. That never lasted for long. "Go on," I told him, laughing as he shrugged.
"It's not my business … "
"That's never stopped you before."
He smiled outright then, pulling off the gloves he wore so he could push his hands into the pockets of his coat. Roan leaned against the low brick ledge that divided the roof into sections. All around us that brick was covered in graffiti, artwork from gang members or punk kids he'd scared off some years back when he bought the building. He'd never bothered fixing the place up and now, if I came here to see him and that paint was gone, it wouldn't seem like Roan's place at all.