Chapter Twenty-Seven
Izzy
I couldn’t believe that VP Blake was still asleep.
It was seven o’clock, I was dressed (in his big T-shirt and a pair of his baggy shorts that I’d had to waist-roll two times) and ready for a run, while Blake lay face down on the bed as if comatose. I would’ve imagined him as one of those dudes doing burpees at 5:00 a.m., but apparently he liked sleeping in.
And I found that contradiction to be so adorable, God help me. I wanted to jump on his back and bounce up and down, just to irritate him awake and see his sleepy scowl.
After feeding the cats, I left him a note so he didn’t overdose Goodyear and quietly left the apartment. I still had his code from when I cat sat, so I didn’t bother with a key. It wasn’t until my second mile that I finally heard from him. His text notification silenced the Post Malone that was blaring through my AirPods.
Blake: Where did you go?
I stopped and replied, I’m under the bed .
Blake: You don’t seriously think I’m going to look, do you?
Izzy: In my head, you did.
Blake: Was I wearing coveralls, little perv?
I snorted and moved off the sidewalk and onto a bench. Texted, First of all, it’s LIL PERV. Second, no coveralls this time. This time you’re only wearing that pretty chest and a very precarious sheet .
Blake: What makes it so precarious?
I grinned and pictured naked Blake, sound asleep in his bed. Texted, The way it’s SOOO close to sliding off and exposing your junk.
Blake: Have I ever told you that you have a way with words?
Izzy: Don’t have to—I know it.
Blake: So—where’d you actually go?
Izzy: I’m running. Well, I WAS running until you texted. Now I’m sitting on a bench outside of a barber shop.
Blake: In your skirt?
I offhandedly wondered where that skirt was. The entire night was like some kind of fever dream. I texted: In your pants. I swear I didn’t rifle, but you had a pair of workout shorts folded on top of the dryer so I borrowed them.
Blake: Are they falling off of you? They must be huge.
Izzy: That’s what she said.
Blake: That doesn’t make sense.
Izzy: That’s what HE said?
Blake: Still not there.
Izzy: How about that’s what you said when I said I was wearing your shorts?
Blake: FFS, Shay. How much longer will you be running?
I snorted. There was something so rewarding about irritating VP Blake. I texted, Two more miles. But the time varies GREATLY .
Blake: Greatly??
Izzy: Well, it depends on if I’m feeling lazy, or if I see a dog, or if I got railed last night and am out of shape because of it—that sort of thing.
Blake: Did you get railed?
I grinned and noticed that the man sitting at the bus stop was looking at me like I was out of my mind. Totally fair, dude. I texted, Seriously, Chest, you wouldn’t BELIEVE the night I had .
Blake: Good?
Izzy: I wouldn’t want him to know and get a big head, but this man was unbelievably good.
Blake: He knows.
Izzy: Oh, he does not.
Blake : Trust me. You make this noise that sounds a little bit like a sexy guinea pig and you get super bitey; it definitely lets a man know how he’s doing.
Izzy: So you know it was good for me because I became vermin-like.
Blake: YUP.
I texted, Well you make this growly noise that rumbles in your chest and your fingers get all grippy, so I know you liked it because YOU became a cat.
Blake: You also know I liked it because I came so hard I nearly blacked out.
“Oh, my God,” I said out loud with a squeal, and the bus stop dude clutched his grocery bag like he thought I was coming for it. I responded with I have to go run before Bus Stop Man calls the cops .
Blake: Why? What are you doing?
Izzy: It’s this perverted little cackle, like I’m turned on and also very amused. I imagine it’s mildly unsettling to a stranger.
Blake: Do you want company on your run, weirdo?
Izzy: Well yes, but I feel like you might be slower than me and hold me back.
Blake: I promise to try my hardest.
Izzy: I’m sitting in front of Alliance Barbershop. You’ve got 20 mins.
Blake: I’m still in bed—how am I going to run two miles and be there in twenty minutes?
Izzy: Sprint, dumbass. Or drive.
Blake: Drive, she says.
Izzy: Yes! Drive here, we run, and then we drive to breakfast after.
Blake: I was going to make you breakfast.
I felt all gooey inside, like I was about to melt into a thick puddle of happy honey. I texted, You were?
Blake: Homemade pizza because I know you hate breakfast food.
Izzy: Oops I just made the guinea pig sound.
Blake: Fuck, yes, I’m on my way.
Izzy: YESSSSS.
Blake: I seem to recall you saying that a lot last night.
Izzy: I pretty much chanted it.
Blake: Fucking amazing night, Shay.
Izzy: Agreed, Phillips.
Blake: I’m pretty sure I saw God that last time.
Izzy: No, that was me, silly.
Blake: My mistake, Goddess.
Izzy: #newnickname
Blake: #youwish
Izzy: #drivecarefully
Blake: #iwill
Blake
“How old were you?” I asked.
“Five,” she said, toeing off her shoes in the entryway as I shut the door behind us.
“Seems like you should’ve been old enough to know better,” I said, wondering when I’d become the kind of guy who was obsessed with childhood stories. For some reason, with Iz, I wanted to hear every single anecdote that led to her becoming the person she was.
It reminded me of that Taylor Swift lyric You told me ’bout your past, thinking your future was me.
“Maybe Scotty was a little shit—did you ever think of that?” she asked, her nose crinkled as she pretended to be pissed. “Did anyone?”
I watched her pull the ponytail out of her hair and then use her fingers to shake it out. Those little mannerisms were somehow something to me all of a sudden. I wanted to learn every single one. I crossed my arms and said, “But didn’t you say he cried every time he saw you coming?”
“Are you going to talk about Scotty the Shit all day, who probably deserved my tackling backbites, or are you going to show me how to work your fancy showerhead?”
I grabbed her hand, linked my fingers through hers, and pulled her toward the master bathroom.
The run had been entertaining, with Izzy shit talking the entire time about how fast she was while simultaneously telling me to slow down. After that, we grabbed breakfast while walking around the farmers’ market (she was too hungry to wait until we got home). I’d wolfed down a breakfast sandwich sold to me by a certified beekeeper who also taught yoga, and Izzy wolfed down a glazed donut she’d found at the gas station across the street.
There had been a brief moment of mortification when the flower vendor told Izzy the “adorable” story of how I’d needed to find the perfect flowers yesterday and was a bit of a psycho about it, but when Iz’s lips turned up into a huge grin and she sarcastically batted her eyelashes at me and put her hands over her heart, I’d stopped caring.
“You know,” she said as I flipped on the bathroom light, “it’d probably be best for the planet if we just showered at the same time.”
“I do love the planet,” I said, opening the glass door and turning on the water.
“I knew it,” she said, going straight to the counter to brush her teeth with the extra travel brush I’d given her last night.
“But I think you just want to see me naked.” I joined her at the vanity, grabbing my toothbrush.
She shook her head and said through a mouthful of toothpaste, “That’s a mighty big ego you have, sir.”
“I think you want to see my mighty big—”
“Shhh,” she interrupted, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she scrubbed her teeth. “Don’t say it.”
“Say what?” I asked as I started brushing, feigning innocence even though we were both remembering the night before.
The things she’d said.
The things I’d said.
She delivered a look of warning to me in the mirror, but the smile in her eyes ruined it.
“You can’t say it now?” I teased, giving my mouth the fastest brushing, because that shower was calling. “Because I seem to recall that pretty mouth saying some filthy things in my bedroom.”
Her eyes sparkled with humor, with challenge, as she finished brushing and turned off her sink. Then she stepped out of her shorts, pulled off her T-shirt, and stripped down to nothing. “I’d rather use my mouth for other things. You coming?”
She walked around me and stepped into the shower. I just stood there, frozen with my toothbrush in my hand, looking at naked Izzy as she turned away from the shower stream so the water was hitting her back, and she leaned her head all the way back to get her hair wet.
“Stop staring and get in,” she said, her eyes closed.
I was naked in a second and stepping into the shower, my hands reaching for her waist to pull her close. I muttered something, but she cut me off by grabbing the back of my head, pulling me down to her level, and kissing the living shit out of me. The hunger of it, the want, nearly buckled my knees as I squeezed her waist and tried keeping up with her.
Hot water poured over us as heat pulsed through my veins. This… this I could do forever. I reached around her to grab the body wash, not breaking contact with her mouth as I squeezed out liquid soap and started lathering her back. My hands traveled all over her slick skin, back to front, head to toe.
And I was a fucking junkie for her reactions. A sigh was great at first, but then I needed a moan. When my hands made her moan, my adrenaline spiked, and I could barely breathe from the burning need to hear her scream. And when her mouth delivered that hot-as-fuck sound, I finally felt like I had my fix.
Until she slid down my body, her fingers scraping down my thighs, and she proceeded to make me lose the capacity to think at all.