“Isaac.”
“All right, then.” He rises from the table, and I walk into his arms. He wraps them around me, and he smells like cologne and soap and him. I breathe it all in.
“Bishop,” he murmurs. “If it ever gets too much, any of it, my work, a party, someone’s comments… tell me. I’m on your side, you know. Only on yours.”
I close my eyes against the burning behind them. “I’m on yours too,” I say. “Okay? We play sets together.”
He chuckles. The sound reverberates through the chest I’m pressed against. “We do,” he says, “though it’s hard to concentrate when you look so hot doing it.”
I laugh. “You’re laying it on thick.”
“Just being honest.” His free hand curves around my waist, pulling me tighter against his body. “Tell me, does this tennis skirt have those little built-in shorts too?”
I lean back and meet his brilliant dark brown eyes. “Come home with me,” I say, “and I’ll let you find out.”
30
SOPHIA
A month later
“They’re going to open a new Salt,” Isaac says. He’s leaning against the headboard of my bed, propped up by two pillows, and has theNew York Globespread out on his lap. “One that focuses on brunch? Jesus.”
I put down my book. “You’re not a fan of brunch?”
“No, even if I understand that others are.”
“The Ivy’s Sunday brunches are legendary,” I say.
He gives me a crooked smile. “They are, aren’t they?”
“Definitely. So you can profit from it, but not enjoy it?”
Isaac reaches between us to run his hand over Milo’s striped back. My cat turns onto his side and stretches in pleasure, his paws kneading the cover.
“Yes,” he says. “That’s just good business. But it’s never appealed to me. It just takes up such a large chunk of the day. It’s not breakfast, but it’s not lunch, nor is it dinner. It throws off the entire schedule.”
“Maybe Sundays are for not having a schedule at all?”
He smiles and lets his warm gaze trace the length of my body. I’m wearing his button-down, thrown on to avoid giving my neighbors an eyeful when I’d made us coffee. “Well,” he says. “Not usually, but if they’re like this? I can get on board with that.”
I prop my head up on a pillow and watch him in return, bare-chested and tousled-haired and here, in my apartment. He’d flown in from LA late last night and came straight here from the airport. Our schedules aren’t the easiest to fit together, but we’ve managed. The past month has been one of the greatest of my life.
“I told Jenna and Toby on Friday,” I say.
He chuckles. “Do they think we’re the most indecisive people to ever date?”
“Probably,” I say. “But they’re happy for me, weirdly enough.”
“Weirdly?”
“Maybe it’s not weird, but it does feel new, having people so invested in your relationship.”
Isaac raises a dark eyebrow. “I know the feeling.”
“You’re getting comments from people as well?”
“Yes, including some of my employees.”