Chapter Ten
Izzy
I carried in the pizza, my stomach empty of food but also filled with butterflies. Because— holy crap —Mr. Chest was sitting on my couch with the Darkling in his lap.
He looked like the centerfold of a hot-guys-who-like-cats calendar.
He had on jeans and a black sweater that just hugged those impressive pectorals, and I had to clear my throat and focus on shutting the door behind me, because my cheeks were suddenly burning.
Be cool, you loser.
But being cool was difficult when the universe was messing with me. This man, this incredibly charming and attractive man, kept getting thrown in my path. It was bad enough when we were just randomly running into each other in public places, but when he’d shown up on the side of the freeway in the midst of my meltdown, I almost hadn’t believed my eyes.
Because at first, when my car died, I’d been calm. I tried calling my cousins, and when none of them answered, I decided to just wait it out. Surely a cop would pass by eventually, see my flashers, and rescue me.
But then my flashers quit working and my phone battery dropped down to 2 percent. That changed everything. Suddenly I was imagining all the things that could happen: a car slamming into my car, a serial killer happening upon me, lightning striking, water rising enough in the ditch beside the shoulder to submerge my car. I’d started to panic, ultimately deciding to get out and walk.
And after five minutes of stumbling through the downpour, I knew I’d made a huge mistake. I’d been bawling and panicking when Blake literally rescued me from the thunder and lightning. So if I believed in fate and that sort of meant-to-be nonsense—and I so did not—I’d be freaking out right about now.
I had no idea what to say as I set the pizza box on the coffee table. His unwavering gaze all but penetrated my soul, so like the coward I was, I went into the kitchen to grab the plates. I felt like I needed to address the whole what are we doing? elephant in the room, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to do it.
But by the time I pulled myself together and walked out of the kitchen, Josh was there. He was sitting next to Chest, shoving half a slice of pizza in his mouth while he told Blake about Billboard Assholes.
“Oh, look—it’s you. Quit taking my beer and also put on a shirt.” I set down the plates and rolled my eyes as Josh ignored me and kept talking. Blake was grinning as he listened to my idiot cousin expound upon the rules of his ridiculous game, so I helped myself to a slice.
I was too hungry to wait.
“Okay, that sounds hilarious,” Blake said to Josh, and I was surprised he could look so fun. He’d been so hard-core businessy in the conference room, and flirtatiously hot at Scooter’s and in the elevator, but I never would’ve guessed he’d be laughing like he thought the made-up game was genuinely funny.
“Good, because you’re playing,” Josh said.
“Dude, no,” I said, shooting Blake an apologetic look before telling Josh, “he just came by to save me from drowning. He’s not really a Billboard Assholes kind of guy.”
“How would you know?” Blake asked, giving me a questioning look.
“Because I know. Stakes are high, and you won’t win.”
“Whoa,” he said, scowling. “What makes you think I’d lose?”
I pulled a piece of pepperoni off my pizza and said, “You’ve never played—just trust me. You’d lose.”
“I think you could totally win,” Josh said, rolling his eyes like I was absurd.
“Will you stop,” I said as I popped the pepperoni in my mouth. Then I said to Blake, “Come here.”
I went into the kitchen, and he followed without question, thank God. Once we were out of Josh’s earshot, I told him, “You’re right. I don’t know you. And I’m sure you win at nearly everything you do. But not this game.”
He was so tall that he towered over me—I guess I forgot. I suddenly felt fidgety and frazzled, but surely it had nothing to do with his attractiveness, and everything to do with human survival instincts.
Riiiiiight.
An amused look crossed his face, a slow smile, and it looked ridiculously good on him. “I’m sure I can—”
“You’re not listening.” I cut him off because he needed to understand. “You’re an AVP who wears suits that probably cost more than our rent every month. Billboard Assholes is not for you.”
“Well, I’m in,” Blake pronounced, giving me bossy eye contact that made me a tiny bit more flustered. Is it hot in here? He was standing close enough for me to smell his cologne and stare directly at his throat, which was, for a throat, remarkably appealing. “And you’re going to be my partner.”
“You guys were talking about team-play Billboard Assholes?” I shook my head and said, “No way, that’s even worse. I can’t let you play.”
“What are you—”
“Shhh.” I cut him off again. He had no idea what he was dealing with. “These guys live by the motto that it’s not fun unless someone loses, so they play for high stakes. If you lose, there’s no getting out of paying the price.”
“Are you trying to protect me?” he asked, his eyes narrowed marginally.
“Kind of.” I cleared my throat and said, “See, Josh and his friends bought a few billboards around town as an investment package a few years ago. But there’s one billboard that’s in a terrible location so they can never lease the space.”
“So…?” he said, his eyebrows cocked together.
“So they use it for their own entertainment.” I tucked my wet hair behind my ears and said, “The loser of Billboard Assholes gets their face put on the billboard for an entire month.”
“No shit?” he said, his mouth slowly sliding into another grin. Wow, there really was a mischievous side to him that I wouldn’t hate exploring if he weren’t my boss and I weren’t a corporate minion. He asked, “What does the winner get?”
“To write the caption.”
He started laughing, which made me smile, but he still didn’t get it. “No, no—it’s hilarious. But now you can see why someone like you can’t play.”
His smile flatlined. “Someone like me.”
“My face was up on the billboard in August 2021 with the caption ‘The face of herpes can take any form—get tested.’?”
He looked horrified for a moment before he laughed. “Dear God.”
“Very not vice presidential, right?”
Blake seemed to consider that for a moment before saying, “Well, I’m not going to lose.”
He wasn’t going to listen, but I repeated, “No, you totally will.”
“How could you know that?”
“It’s a very complex game,” I said. “You should trust me.”
“Hey.” Josh came into the kitchen and said, “In or out? We want to get started.”
I looked at Blake, who winked at me— dear Lord— before saying, “We are so in.”
···
“Wrong.” Kyle, Josh’s best friend, smiled from across the kitchen table and said to Blake, “Haribo eventually found success with gummy bears, but Hans Riegel’s first product was actually hard, colorless candies.”
“Damn it,” I muttered, impressed by Blake’s knowledge of trivia but irritated by his unwillingness to consult his teammate before just blurting out an answer.
“That means the point goes to us,” Kyle said, looking smug as he put the card back into the box. “Unless you want a physical challenge.”
“We’ll take the physical challenge,” Blake said, looking unfazed. He probably assumed it was something easy, a random athletic task that someone fit like him could do in his sleep.
“No, we won’t,” I corrected. “We’re only down by one, no need to panic.”
“Too late—he said it,” Kyle said, reaching into the red box for a card. “Physical challenge it is.”
I groaned.
“I’ve got this, no worries,” Blake said.
I just shook my head and sighed. Typical man, assuming he knows something about something he knows nothing about.
Kyle said, “Your challenge is as follows. The two of you must crab walk down the stairs, side by side, without falling. You must have hands and feet on the same steps at the same time. For example, four hands must be on the same stair at all times, as well as four feet on the same respective step. Also, you may not speak to each other during the challenge; nonverbal is the only acceptable form of communication.”
Blake asked, “Did you say crab walk down the—”
“Also,” Kyle continued, ignoring Blake, “you must sing ‘Someone like You’ by Adele throughout the entire challenge. Any questions?”
Blake looked speechless, which made me want to scream, I told you!
Blake asked, “What if I don’t know that song?”
“Only one team member has to sing. But how do you not know that song?”
Blake looked at me and asked, “Do you know it?”
“Of course I do. How do you not?”
Josh started singing the song at the top of his lungs, and everyone else who wasn’t Blake or me joined in. There were a total of ten people playing—I knew four of them—and they’d definitely all hit the booze harder than Blake or I.
“Can we have a one-minute conference before timer?” I asked.
“Forty-five seconds,” Kyle said.
“Can you show us the crab walk?” I knew what a crab walk was, but hopefully this was some sort of forward-facing derivative I was unfamiliar with.
Josh dropped to the floor, propped himself up on his arms, and started moving backward. He looked ridiculous, pale and shirtless and crab walking around the living room, and if I weren’t so tense at the idea of Blake’s consequences, I’d be cracking up.
“You’re going to die,” Ella said, shaking her head. She was Kyle’s girlfriend, and usually stayed home on game night. “There’s no way you can do it backward down the stairs.”
“Her legs are so much shorter than mine,” Blake said, as if that would matter to any of them. No one even responded, because the game was all about having to do the impossible.
“Okay,” Kyle said. “Ready for your forty-five?”
I said to Blake, “We have to talk fast, all strategy. Got it?”
He gave a nod, looking as serious as he had in the boardroom.
“Okay, we’re ready,” I said.
Josh set a timer on his phone, and Kyle said, “Forty-five-second strategy starts…now!”
“We go slow,” I said quietly to Blake. “I’ll nod every time we should move down a step.”
“ I’ll nod,” Blake corrected, and for some reason, I trusted that it was the right call. “And we rest our asses on each step—that’s the only way not to fall.”
I verified, “So hands down, ass rest, feet down, and so on?”
“Bingo.” Blake flexed his jaw before adding, “And total eye contact—only look at me—so we don’t get dizzy.”
Like looking at you doesn’t already make me feel a little dizzy.
“Okay,” I said. “And I’ll sing super slow to set the tempo.”
“If you start to fall,” Blake said, “forget about the game.”
“Ditto.”
“Time’s up,” Kyle said.
The entire party left the apartment, leaving the door wide open, and stood on the landing to watch the event.
“It’s only one point,” Josh said to us, looking serious for a second. “You sure it’s worth it?”
“Every point counts,” I said, focused and ready. I couldn’t let Blake end up on the billboard, even if he deserved it for being overly ambitious.
“Agreed,” said Blake, giving another quick nod.
We looked at each other, and I wanted to laugh because it was obvious that he was just as stupidly competitive as I was. For someone wildly unathletic, I had a hard time ever saying no to a challenge.
Hence the herpes billboard.
We sat down at the top of the stairs.
“The challenge starts…NOW!” Kyle yelled.
“ I heard ,” I sang, looking at Blake. He gave the nod, and we each propped ourselves into position before moving our hands down to the first step. “ That you’re settled down .”
He gave another nod, and we both slowly moved our hands down yet another step. I felt like I was going to topple ass over feet down the stairs, but I kept my eyes on Blake’s and focused on our synchronized movements.
He was so much bigger than me that I barely had any room on the step. I had like an eighth of the space, and my entire right side was glued to his left side.
I continued singing, and the group at the top of the stairs started singing along with me, which wasn’t surprising because Josh and his friends went to karaoke nearly every weekend.
Blake nodded again, and we slowly moved our backsides to rest on the next step. Another nod, and we slowly moved our feet.
“ Old friend ,” I belted out, “ why are you so shy? ”
I looked at Blake, but instead of nodding, he grinned at my song, a full-on smile that showed all of his teeth and those gorgeous dimples.
Dimples so gorgeous, in fact, that my cheeks warmed and I laughed, which made my hand slip, and then in a split second, I was falling rapidly backward down the stairs.
“Izzy!” I heard Blake yell my name— has he ever said my actual name before? —just as I fell to a stop against the door at the building’s entrance.
···
Thankfully, Blake was good at trivia. After losing that point—and stopping the game for ten minutes so the entire group could tend to the cut by my eyebrow—we got back into it. Blake sat next to me at the kitchen table, and we proceeded to win the next eight points.
Team Bliz—my brilliant name choice—was surprisingly in sync. Every time we got a question, we put our heads together and quietly conferred for our full fifteen seconds. Of course, the more I drank, the more aware I became of the size of him, the smell of him, and the deep, rumbly sound of his voice.
And more of that shockingly playful side.
I was having fun with my sort of boss—who I didn’t really know, like, at all , and it felt like we were actual friends.
Weird, right?
When we landed on Ted obviously he could handle it.
“It’s totally unfair,” Josh said to his friends as they reloaded their Nerf guns, “that this particular challenge was drawn when Izzy brought the fucking Witcher to our party.”
I kept my concentration on the tennis ball, but I was impressed as hell as he pounded out the push-ups. When he reached forty, I started getting excited. Holy shit—we’re going to win a physical challenge! The group started counting loudly, shooting faster and directing their aim at my face once it became clear that Blake wasn’t going to make a mistake.
I was the weakest link.
When we hit fifty, Blake collapsed face down on the floor with me lying on top of him. I started laughing and said into his ear, “You’re a damn hero, Mr. Chest. Now say my name.”
He started laughing, still face down, and groaned, “ Izzy! ” at the top of his lungs.
I smiled and nodded. “That’s right, baby. You say it.”