Chapter Twenty-Three
Izzy
“Obviously you’re close with your brothers. Is it like that with the rest of your family?” I asked, breaking my roll in half. “I’m picturing an entire clan full of bearded Jasons.”
“That is a terrifying thought,” he said, picking up his lowball glass. “And Jason and AJ are the exceptions in my family, actually. I don’t talk to my dad, and my mother passed last year. I’m pretty close with my grandparents on my mom’s side but only talk to my dad’s parents on holidays.”
“So you are an American family,” I said, picturing Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in a bookstore.
He raised an eyebrow. “Did you seriously just throw a You’ve Got Mail quote at me?”
“Did you seriously just recognize it?” I said around a laugh. “That is crazy impressive, Phillips.”
“Not in the slightest,” he said, and he took a drink of his Scotch.
“I’m sorry about your mom, by the way,” I added, hating the thought of him ever being sad.
He shrugged. “Cancer sucks. Next question.”
I was glad his face was soft, because if it wasn’t, that answer would’ve made me feel like a prying ass.
“Okay, next question,” I repeated, trying to come up with a good one. “Um, have you ever been in love?”
He set down his glass. “No.”
That surprised me. “Really?”
He gave his head a little shake. “I was engaged not that long ago, but after the fact, I was able to see that it wasn’t the real thing.”
“Really?” I grabbed my wineglass, fascinated by the thought of Blake with a ring. “What happened after the fact?”
He stared at me for a long minute, like he was weighing his thoughts, and then he said, “I realized that I had stronger feelings for one of my friends than I ever had for her.”
“Oh.” I stared back at him, my heart beating in my throat as I tried to sound calm. “Is that right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Interesting,” I managed, feeling so flustered I didn’t even know how to string words together. It felt like he was saying something huge, but what if that was just my brain shorting out from being in such close proximity to him? What if I was absolutely inserting myself into his conversation because I was drunk on his face? I cleared my throat and said, “Well, you must’ve thought you were at the time.”
“I did.” He looked directly at me, not evading my gaze whatsoever, and laid it all out there. “Skye and I got along great and it felt right, but then things changed. I don’t want to get into the details of a past relationship, but I guess you could just say we had different values in the end.”
“Values,” I said, nodding. “Like, she was super into NASCAR and you’re an F1 guy?”
He smiled and leaned a little closer. “Like, she was super into lying a lot and I was not.”
“Ah.” I was dying to know what she looked like. “Please tell me it wasn’t in an I’m-in-a-hurry-so-I’m-stealing-a-latte kind of way.”
He did a little eye roll that was adorable. “No, it was in an I-text-and-hang-out-with-my-ex-but-lie-about-it kind of way.”
“Oh.” I swallowed and felt bad for prying. “Did she cheat?”
He shrugged and said, “No idea. The lying was enough to kill the relationship.”
“I see,” I said, mostly because I didn’t know what else to say.
“My turn.” Blake leaned forward a little, the light from the table’s candle reflecting in his dark eyes. “Have you ever been in love, Iz?”
That was an easy one. “Nope. Never. Not even close.”
He raised his eyebrows, waiting for a story, and I wished I had one. Somehow, a tragic tale of heartbreak would feel like more of a success than the truth. “I’ve never even gone out with someone more than twice since high school, so I’m—as Halsey would say—bad at love.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Halsey,” I replied, taking a bite out of my roll.
“Is that a friend of yours?”
“Oh, my God, she’s a singer,” I said, trying to politely talk with roll in my mouth. “You’ve seriously never heard of Halsey?”
“Does she sing anything I’d know?”
“Um, ‘Bad at Love,’ for starters.”
That made him smirk as he watched me chew. “Which is your theme song. Full circle right here, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Cute,” I said.
Then he asked, “Why don’t you date?”
If this little speed-round game wasn’t my idea to begin with, that question might’ve felt intrusive. I shrugged and said, “I’m not big on talking to people I don’t know.”
“But you never shut up.”
“Because I know you.”
“Online dating?”
“I’ve got the apps but I’ve never done more than scroll.” I felt like a loser, like it was obvious I was a total loner, so it was time for the next question. “My turn. Kids and marriage—in or out?”
“Are you trying to tie me to the altar and baby me up, Shay?”
“I don’t think that expression is right,” I said around a laugh.
Which made Blake laugh, too, and I loved that it was like that with us. So strangely comfortable, when I was rarely comfortable with anyone.
“I mean, I guess I’d like to have kids and a partner someday,” he said as casually as if I’d asked him how spaghetti sounded for dinner. “I’m not in any rush, but I fucking love Jason and Kylie’s kids.”
“So you’re saying as long as your kids are as cool as theirs,” I said, trying to picture Jason as a dad.
“Then I’ll totally be all in,” he finished with a grin. “But if they suck, I’m for sure out.”
“Of course.”
That was the end of the question portion of the date. We fell into ourselves after that, leaning on the sarcastic banter that was our language of choice as we talked about nothing and everything.
I discovered he loved animal documentaries (though the man was straight-up terrified of monkeys), hated snow, and was a volunteer “watchdog” at his niece’s school, which basically just meant that he had to volunteer one day a year doing whatever the principal told him to do. The smile on his mouth when he talked about little Ellie made me slightly dizzy.
It wasn’t until our plates were cleared and we were enjoying a post-dinner glass of wine that things changed. Blake was talking about one of the new machines at the gym, and I said, “Y’know, I haven’t gone back there since the day I saw you in the elevator.”
“Why not?”
I knew I should shut up, but the wine had loosened my tongue. I ran a finger over the rim of my glass and said, “Because if I go all the time, my routine visits will gradually dim the memory of that first time. And I don’t want to ever forget that elevator ride.”
His smile disappeared, his expression turning serious.
“I mean, I know it’s no big deal now—you’re Blake and I’m Izzy. We’re friends. But at the time, it felt like this great cosmic coincidence, that I would run into Mr. Chest from Scooter’s, and I always want to remember the magic of all that crackling potential.”
He didn’t say anything. At all. He just watched me.
“Obviously I’m drunk,” I teased, rolling my eyes and lifting the glass to my lips. “I shall shut up now.”
“Don’t,” he said. “I think about it every single time I step into that elevator.”
“You do ?” I asked, unable to be cool. “Seriously?”
“Hell, yes,” he said. “I rotate between the memory of what it was, and the fantasy of what it could’ve been.”
“You fantasize about the elevator?” I leaned forward on my elbows. “I do, too. All the time.”
His eyes dipped down to my mouth as he said, “About you hitting the stop button?”
I ran my tongue over my bottom lip. “That’s where it starts.”
“Tell me where it finishes, Shay,” he said, quietly and calmly. No one around us would ever guess that he was asking me to share a sexual fantasy. No one who’d ever known me would guess that I would.
“With my hands on the wall,” I said, stuck somewhere between shyness and exhilaration as I dared to say it all. “And with you behind me, most of the time.”
He raised his eyebrows like he was amused, but his jaw was rigid. “Most of the time.”
“It varies, y’know?”
“Yeah, I fucking do know,” he said, and my stomach dipped.
“So tell me,” I said, intimidated and totally turned on by his blazing eyes. “Where it finishes for you.”
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting—Blake wasn’t the kind of guy to back down from a challenge, so of course he’d answer—but it wasn’t “your back against the elevator wall, your legs wrapped around my waist, and my name on your tongue.”
“Ah,” I managed, unsure of how to behave as my body spontaneously combusted over after-dinner drinks. “I, um, I think I like yours better.”
“Do you want more wine?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
“Do you want to go?”
“Yes, please.”
Blake
I pulled into the parking garage as Iz rambled about the song on the radio. The drive to my place had been off, the two of us unusually quiet as thoughts of sexual fantasies pinged through the air.
Izzy tried to jump-start a conversation, but it wasn’t meant to be. I was fucking incapable of thinking about anything other than the image she’d put into my depraved mind. After pulling into my spot and turning off the car, I finally dared to look at her.
“This’ll only take a sec,” I said, referring to our stop-off to inject the cat.
“Like I don’t know that,” she teased. “I did it last week, remember?”
I swallowed, my throat dry as hell. Yeah, I remembered. We got out of the car and walked to the elevator bank, and I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed her hand and laced my fingers through hers, needing to touch her.
She grinned at me and said, “You couldn’t stay away, could you? You just had to touch me.”
I didn’t even bother denying it.
Izzy hit the up button, and her thumb rubbed back and forth over mine as we waited. “I think the boys will be happy to see me.”
“Nah, they’ll hate you again. Short-term cat memory.” The doors opened and we stepped inside.
“There is no such thing, and those two are hopelessly devoted to me.”
The doors slid closed. “Please don’t sing Grease .”
Izzy pressed the button for my floor with her free hand. “I wish I had tuna in my purse.”
“Said no one ever,” I replied.
The elevator started moving, and it hit me like a freight train. I watched the numbers lighting up, hyperaware of Izzy’s scent and how close she was and the size of her hand in mine. In the fucking elevator. She looked at me then, and something in her eyes was different.
“Blake,” she whispered, like she was going to say something, but she didn’t.
I turned toward her, just the slightest bit, and I knew she was thinking the same thing. I could feel it in the way she looked at me. The air crackled, we stared each other down for a long second, and then everything exploded.
Izzy
Blake’s huge hands came up to my face as his mouth came down on mine. I kissed him back with ferocity while I pushed my body into his, moving him—both of us—closer to the stop button.
“Fucking yes, Iz,” he said against my lips as I reached around him and depressed the button. The elevator jerked to a stop, causing us to stumble. Blake took advantage of the impetus to move, turning us and pushing me up against the wall.
Was this really happening? Was I really pinned against him in the elevator while he kissed me like he wanted to eat me whole? I kissed him back with the same unhinged intensity that he was giving me, snaking my arms around his shoulders, crazed with lust.
His hands slid up the backs of my thighs, stopping at the bottom of my skirt as he whispered, “Is this okay?”
“Don’t you dare stop,” I said, needing him like I needed oxygen at that moment. Every nerve in my body was buzzing and connected to the points on my skin where his hands were resting.
“Shay,” he panted, his fingers tightening before sliding higher. I bit down on his lip and moaned into his mouth when he touched me—holy hell the man knew what to do with his hands—and I lost the ability to formulate logical thoughts as he made me climb.
It got frantic as the alarm started going off, reminding us of our limited time before maintenance showed up. A cacophony of zippers and wild hands and ripping wrappers joined the jangling elevator bell as he lifted me in his hands and then—finally—he was there.
Blake
“Oh, God,” Izzy moaned, her heels bringing me in closer as her head fell back against the elevator wall.
“Holy shit .” I gritted my teeth and froze, my knees nearly buckling from the feel of Izzy surrounding me. Nothing had ever felt that good, and when she opened her eyes, I felt her gaze in my every molecule.
“Blake,” she bit out as I started moving, her eyes closing as she met me move for move. I could feel her fingers grasping me through my shirt and sweater, and it made me fucking burn. She’d been in every one of my fantasies since the day we’d met, but the reality of sex with Izzy was a thousand times better.
She breathed, “You do not suck at this, Phillips.”
“Nor do you,” I quipped, my entire body overcome with that annoying emotional pinch as I looked down at her face. I was in the middle of the hottest sexual encounter of my life, a mind-blowing escapade against the wall of an elevator, yet I desperately wanted to kiss the tip of her freckled nose.
“I don’t?” she asked, her mouth sliding into a slow grin. She said it like a joke, but there was something wary in her eyes that reminded me what she’d admitted, that she didn’t really date.
“Iz,” I said, recognizing that I sounded like an asshole as I tried talking through a clenched jaw. But every fucking muscle in my body was tense and taut as our pace got faster, hotter. “Swear to God this is the best I’ve ever had, and we aren’t even done yet.”
She pulled my face down to hers and started kissing me, desperate and hungry and wild, and that’s when things caught fire. I stopped hearing the deafening alarm as every one of my five senses—my entire consciousness—narrowed in on that one spot where we were joined.
“We should probably stop,” she said, panting, sounding like someone absolutely not interested in stopping. “Before we get arrested.”
“I just. Want,” I started, needing her to finish, and then—like a sex goddess—she gave me exactly what I’d been waiting for. All ten of her fingernails pressed into my shoulders as her entire body tightened and flexed, making me growl out, “ Fucking thank you holy shit ,” before following her lead.
···
“He totally knew,” Izzy said, laughing beside me in the hallway as I pulled out my keys.
“ Of course he knew,” I replied, relieved she was able to laugh at the fact that security had opened the elevator doors a mere three seconds after we got our clothes readjusted. I slid my key into the dead bolt and said, “I know I couldn’t stop grinning like a dumbass, which made the elevator-stuck scenario pretty tough to believe.”
“Yeah, you suck at lying,” she said, giggling.
“Totally do,” I agreed, turning the lock.
She grinned up at me with maximum nose crinkle, and I knew I loved her. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense, but I loved her enough that it terrified me.
It was total lunacy.
It was way too soon to feel that much—impossible to love her already—but I knew it with absolute certainty.
“By the way, Mr. Chest,” she said, giving me a total smart-ass smile that made me want to pick her up and throw her over my shoulder. “Have I told you how happy I am that you’re no longer the boss of me?”