Chapter Twelve
Blake
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket.
Izzy: Running late—SO SORRY!
I wanted to laugh as I responded with Yes, I’m aware. We were supposed to meet fifteen minutes ago .
When I’d arrived at Scooter’s, I briefly considered ordering a latte for her but thought better of it. The whole point of this meeting was to discuss whether or not we could be friends outside of work, so buying her things probably wasn’t a good idea.
Izzy: I thought I could ride a bike faster than I actually can. be there in five.
I set my phone on the table and took a few swallows of coffee. In the short time I’d known her, Izzy had consistently surprised me.
And that was putting it mildly.
Less than twelve hours before, when I’d called her after our batshit-crazy night, she’d ignored my call and sent me a text instead.
I picked up my phone again and scrolled through the exchange as I waited for her.
Izzy: I’m not answering because I need to think.
Blake: Um…?
Izzy: Imma b honest w/u. I like u and want 2 b ur friend.
Blake: What happened to your texting? Are you a middle schooler now?
Izzy: I’m trying to jot down some ideas before I lose them so that was my attempt at quick texting.
Blake: So I repeat my original Um…?
Izzy: I’m preparing some notes on how we can be friends without jeopardizing our careers. Would you be interested in meeting at Scooter’s tomorrow morning to review?
Blake: 8am?
Izzy: Perfect. Our Scooter’s?
I set my phone down again. Our Scooter’s.
At that moment, I saw her through the front window. She was bent down, locking up a bike that looked to be a child’s bike, wearing a black pullover and black leggings with a messenger bag slung across her body.
When she straightened and took off her helmet, the sight of her face made me feel something in my gut.
Holy shit, were those fucking butterflies? They were. They were fucking butterflies.
God help me, I was now the equivalent of a hormonal adolescent.
Izzy
I could barely walk as I entered Scooter’s, my legs like jelly. Since my car was currently at a county impound lot because the city towed it before I’d had a chance to remember its roadside existence, I was currently carless.
I’d foolishly thought, No big deal, I’ll borrow Daphne’s bike. I ran five miles every morning, so in theory, leisurely riding a bike to Scooter’s would be easier .
Right?
Wrong.
I wasn’t sure whether it was the bike, the hills, or my pathetic thighs, but I almost gave up three times during my wayward journey. It was only Blake’s villainous eyes and hilarious texting that forced me to power through the wicked leg shakes.
I was excited to see him again.
I ran a hand over my ponytail and ordered a latte, refusing to search for him until I had my drink. I needed to focus on my goal and not be distracted by his ridiculous good looks.
Side note: Blake had been in my dream last night , wearing long, flowing robes and a dangerous vibe that made me wake up empathizing with Bella Swan’s vampirious propensities.
That wasn’t concerning at all , the way he was infiltrating my brain even while I was sleeping.
And my goal that morning, for real, was so lame.
Sad, really.
Because my goal, in a nutshell, was to convince him to be my friend.
That was it: Please be my friend.
I was like first-grade Isabella all over again. Some things never changed.
“Izzy?” the barista yelled, reading the label.
“Thank you.” I grabbed my drink and immediately saw Blake, sitting at a table in the back.
He was wearing a black hoodie, which should’ve made him look casual, but something about him just screamed IMPORTANT. The watch, the clean haircut, the big hands—well, okay, the big hands didn’t make him important, per se, but my eyes sure enjoyed them; the whole package just shouted SUCCESSFUL.
“Good morning.” Blake smiled up at me in a way that made me smile back, and I was glad he wasn’t one of those guys who stood up when a woman approached. I knew it came from a traditional, respectful place, but it always made me feel awkward and like I was a little less of an adult than the man rising to his feet.
“I am so sorry I’m late.” I pulled off my bag, set it on one of the extra chairs at the table, and sat down. “As it turns out, I’m a terrible cyclist.”
“I could’ve picked you up,” he said, his dark eyes warm as he wrapped a hand around his cup.
I really had to force myself to stop thinking about those big hands on my face and on my waist as he’d kissed the ever-loving shit out of me mere hours before.
“Nope,” I managed, reaching over to unzip my bag. “Against the rules.”
“We have rules,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
“The most important part of my plan,” I explained as I took out my laptop and turned it on, “are the rules.”
“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asked.
I looked up from my computer, shocked by how concerned he sounded. And dear Lord, he looked concerned, too. He was watching me like the last thing in the world he wanted was for me to miss out on a good night’s sleep, and it was too much.
Questions like that—from him—could totally destroy me.
I returned my focus to my laptop, feeling shaky. “Yeah, I only need four hours, so I’m good.”
Blake
She wasn’t wearing any makeup.
For some reason, as I watched her clicking into files on her computer, I loved that she wasn’t wearing makeup. Not in a sexist she-doesn’t-need-it or I-like-the-natural-look way—hell, I didn’t care who wore what—but I was glad she didn’t feel compelled to put it on in order to meet me at Scooter’s.
It felt like she was comfortable with me.
“Okay. So.” She turned her laptop so I could see the display, and said, “Scooch closer.”
I followed her order, moving my chair closer, and wanted to laugh when she muttered under her breath, “Good boy.”
She opened a PowerPoint and immediately started talking. “As we both know, you are above me on the Ellis org chart, which means we cannot have any sort of romantic relationship—or contact—whatsoever.”
“Correct,” I agreed, even though I didn’t like the way it felt in my mouth. It was a thousand percent accurate, but acknowledging the fact out loud was depressing.
However, I did like the big red X she’d put over our names on her slide; that was pretty funny shit.
“Since that is nonnegotiable,” she said, clicking on another slide, “we can never be alone together.”
“That seems a little overdramatic, don’t you think?”
I regretted it the instant I said it, because she looked embarrassed. But before I could backtrack, she said, “Would you trust us to finish this meeting in your car? Or at my apartment?”
Our eyes locked, and holy shit, she was right; we could never be alone together. I’d been staring at her mouth since the minute she sat down, remembering the way it’d felt to kiss her.
“Touché,” I said casually, as if it didn’t matter. “You’re right.”
She nodded very seriously. “So rule number one: We’re never alone.”
“Agreed,” I said, wondering if that fruity smell was her hair or her perfume.
“I read the entire handbook last night,” she continued, rubbing her lips together like she needed Chapstick, “and there is no rule that says an executive cannot be friends with a subordinate outside of work.”
I watched her resolute face. I read the entire handbook.
“So if you’re interested in pursuing a casual friendship—and it’s totally fine if you’re not—I have some ideas on how we can keep it entirely separate from work.”
Her blue gaze moved from her computer to my face, and I wondered if it were possible for me to say no to her. Something about her eye contact, the directness of her pretty gaze, made me want to give her every single thing she needed.
Fucking dangerous, that.
Izzy
I was such a loser.
There I sat, at a table in our Scooter’s, essentially begging him to be my friend.
But I knew I’d regret not throwing it out there.
Because the truth of it was, I didn’t know how to make friends. Maybe I had at one time, but I had no idea how to do it as an adult. Like, I felt I’d missed a class on this or something.
In high school, I had the friends that I’d always had, since kindergarten. In college, I immediately started hanging out with my dorm-assigned roommate, who’d been my bestie for all four years.
But when I moved to Omaha after graduation to take a grown-up job, things were different. I had a lot of nice coworkers, but I’d never put myself out there to make those relationships anything other than workplace acquaintances. Like, how did that work? Hi, can I play with you guys? The idea of doing that made me too anxious, so I’d just said goodbye to those people every day at five and then I’d gone home.
Rinse and repeat until now.
Thank God my cousins were fun. It was pathetic that at the moment they were my only friends, but that was, in fact, my reality.
Which was probably why I was so desperate to hang on to my new friend. I’d connected with Blake in such a natural way, especially when we were texting. I was somehow totally myself with him, and I didn’t want to lose that.
His eyes were on my face, intense enough to make me nervous, and then he said, “Keep talking, Iz.”
Iz. Oh, God.
I cleared my throat and said, “I come to this Scooter’s every morning at seven. So if you ever want a coffee on a weekday and happen to be here, and we run into each other, it’s totally acceptable to sit down and have a coffee together, right?”
His mouth twitched, like he wanted to smile, but he gave a nod instead.
“Now,” I said, encouraged that he was staying with me. “I go to the Bookworm after work every Tuesday to look at new releases. If I ran into you there and we happened to chat while book shopping, well, that would be absolutely aboveboard.”
“Agreed.”
Agreed!
I sounded calm and casual when I explained, “This way, nothing is a lie. If we see a coworker, we actually did run into each other, so it’s completely legit.”
Blake did grin then and said, “They have an incredible happy hour at Upstream that I often hit after work on Thursdays. I usually belly up to the bar and have a pizza for dinner, and if you happened to show up on the stool beside me, also eating, that would just be a wild coincidence.”
I couldn’t be cool—I beamed at him, my gorgeous new friend. “I love Upstream!”
He grinned back in a way that made me need supplemental oxygen. “Same.”
We spent the next ten minutes sharing our habitual schedules, tossing out a handful of occasions where we might possibly run into each other. I added them all to the spreadsheet and emailed a copy of it to Blake (his personal email, of course), just in case he wished to reference it at a later date.
“So we should probably cover texting next,” I said, taking a drink of my latte.
“You have texting rules. Of course,” he said, and his small smile reminded me of Edward in Pretty Woman when he was negotiating Vivian’s payment.
“Well, I think that if we both agree to never discuss work, never discuss people from work, and never text during working hours, then texting is probably a feasible form of communication.”
“And phone calls?” he asked, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement.
Have I mentioned how gorgeous this man is? Like, I want to take Polaroids of his every expression and catalog them with perfect adjectives.
Yes, I am aware I sound like a creeper.
Totally Blake’s fault.
I was happy he was the one to ask about calls, because I really liked talking to him on the phone. Which was weird because I was usually an avid hater of phone talking. “I think the same rules would apply, don’t you?”
“Same rules,” he agreed, nodding yet again.
“So,” I said, shutting my laptop and resting my chin on my hand. “Did we just become best friends?”
“Depends,” he said, giving me a smart-ass little smile.
“On?”
“On what it means to you.” His hands were wrapped around his cup, and I noticed he had nice fingernails. “If you want someone to bail you out of jail or be your blood brother, I’m not the guy.”
“I’m not the guy, either,” I agreed.
“But if it means I’ll come get you when your car breaks down in the rain, then yes, we are.”
“Nope, sorry, buddy,” I said, shaking my head. “Can’t be alone together.”
“Come on—there have to be exceptions,” he said, his eyebrows furrowing.
“I just don’t think that’s wise,” I reiterated. “We need to keep that Pandora’s box closed.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, mimicking me by putting his chin on his hand. “Because a best friend who can give you and your bike a ride home would be pretty handy right about now, wouldn’t it?”
Dear Lord, those words were verbal seduction.
Blake
I watched as her eyes got soft, as she smiled a dreamy little smile. “That would be nice, but I think we have to keep these lines clear.”
“You’re telling me that if I called you, stranded on the side of the road, you wouldn’t save me?”
She rolled her eyes and said, “You have a very nice car, Blake. You don’t need me, because you have roadside assistance.”
I tried again. “If I called you because I was too drunk to drive…?”
“I’d get an Uber for my bestie Blake.”
“Fine,” I said, irritated even though I knew she was right. “You can ride all four miles home on that toddler bike.”
“You saw it?” She sat back in her chair and gave me an embarrassed grin. “It’s pretty bad, right? I’ll probably walk it halfway back, to be honest.”
“Izzy—”
“Nope.”
I wasn’t used to feeling powerless. I wasn’t a fan. “There’s no convincing you?”
She shook her head and said, “Afraid not.”
“Well, what if I drive your bike home and call you an Uber?” The obsessive part of me that always needed to find the solution to a problem was spinning in circles.
She looked like she wanted to say yes. She asked, “Would you mind dropping the bike at my building and I’ll just run home?”
“Deal.”
“You’re such a great best friend,” she said, grinning, and I had no idea why I was playing with fire like this. Toying with the line wasn’t my thing, yet I found myself utterly incapable of stepping back.
“Oh, I know.”
We relaxed a little after that and had another coffee, discussing the NFL matchups slated for later that weekend and our potential fantasy trades. Izzy spewed data and statistics like she was a game-day analyst, and I was genuinely disappointed when it was time to leave.
“Izzy, what if you sit in the back seat?” I asked as I loaded her bike into my trunk.
“What?” She set her messenger bag next to the bike, since she couldn’t run with it, and gave me a look. “What do you mean?”
“If you sit in the back seat, nothing can accidentally transpire between us.”
She furrowed her brows and tilted her head, considering the idea. “Hmm…I’m not sure.”
“For the love of God, Iz,” I said, slamming the trunk closed and looking down at her like she was a child. “Get in the damn back seat.”
Her eyes narrowed, and I thought she was going to debate yet again and make me lose my mind, but then her mouth—goddamn, that mouth— slid up into a sexy grin. She gave her head a shake, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “My best friend makes me sit in the back seat of his car like I’m a little bitty baby child. Nice.”
She walked around me, opened the passenger-side back door, and climbed into my car.
I had only one thought as I got in and buckled my seat belt: I fucking love my new best friend.