Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Travis
We’re at The Third Rail celebrating Isla. I’m happy this night is finally here. It’s been the longest week ever, but I felt it was best to tell everyone about our relationship when we were all together. It saves us from having to tell the story of how we met before she came to work for us more than once. One and done is my motto.
“To Isla. Thank God she agreed to take the job. Thanks for all your hard work and for going above and beyond this past year,” Lucas says, raising his beer in the air.
Everyone clinks their glasses together and smiles at Isla.
Josh lifts his glass in the air from the far end of the table next to Brady. I’m beside Isla in the middle of the table, directly across from Lucas and Camila.
“I just want to thank you, Isla, for always fixing my paperwork mistakes and never ratting me out. You’re a solid chick.”
I roll my eyes at him calling her chick , but she never seems to mind, even if he does sound like a goddamn teenager.
Isla laughs. “You’re welcome, Josh. Happy to help out.” We all raise our glasses again and take another sip of our drinks.
Everyone at the table looks at me expectantly. At first, I’m confused, and then it dawns on me that they’re waiting for me to say a few words about how much Isla has helped out since she started at RENT-A HUSBAND.
“Oh.” I clear my throat, raising my beer in my left hand and looking beside me at Isla on my right. “Isla, when I returned from vacation last year and saw that you’d been the person who was hired to work for us, to say I was shocked would be an understatement.” She gives me a knowing smile. “I already knew you were an intelligent and driven woman, and the fact that you’re beautiful is obvious to anyone with eyes.” I feel the energy at the table shift with my last comment, but I don’t look away from Isla. “What I couldn’t have known then that I know now is how much you would change all our lives, but especially mine. You’re one of the best people I know, and I’m lucky to have you in my life. Happy one-year anniversary at RENT-A HUSBAND. I hope there will be many more.” I lean down and kiss her lips before pulling away and looking around the table, daring any of them to say anything negative about what I just said.
“Finally!” Josh throws up his hands.
“Wait, you two are together?” Lucas says, forehead wrinkled.
“Nice work,” Brady says.
“I told you there was something there,” Camila says with a huge smile on her face.
I sip my beer and move my hand to Isla’s thigh under the table, squeezing gently. “We’ve been seeing each other for a bit. I wanted to make sure it was something that was going to stick before we told all of you. Consider yourselves in the loop now.”
“This is amazing!” Camila gets up from the table and comes around to give Isla a hug. “Now we can double date!”
This was something I hadn’t thought of. I enjoy spending time with my brother and his fiancée, but I don’t want every one of our outings to be the four of us.
The girls share a moment to our right while I turn to look at Josh. “What did you mean ‘finally’?”
He rolls his eyes. “I knew something was going on with you two.”
I scowl. “Bullshit.”
“Are you kidding me? You two have been eye-fucking each other for months, and whenever her ex was around, you looked like you wanted to murder someone. That time I walked in on you two in the office and you guys tried to play it off like there was nothing going on?” He shakes his head at me. “You two were so obvious. The sexual tension in the room was thicker than Gram’s pancake batter.”
I’m actually impressed that if he did have an inkling something was going on, he didn’t tell anyone. Maybe he’s finally growing up.
“Wait a minute. You said that you already knew that Isla was intelligent and driven the first day you saw her in our office. How is that even possible?” Lucas asks. Camila goes to sit down next to him, and he wraps his arm around the back of her chair.
I sigh, not wanting to do a deep dive into our past.
“My grandma bought Travis at the senior center bachelor auction for me. We’d gone out on a date before I started working at RENT-A HUSBAND.”
“But she didn’t know I was one of the owners because I used my middle name at the auction, and when they introduced me, they talked about my furniture making, not about the handyman business.” I take a pull from my beer.
Lucas’s eyes are practically bugging out of his head, and I have to stifle a laugh. “So have you guys been seeing each other since that first date?”
I shake my head. “No, that date didn’t end so well.” Both Isla and I look at each other and laugh. “This is more recent.”
“What happened?” Brady asks.
“Nothing you’ll ever know about,” Isla says, giving me a wink.
I give her another quick chaste kiss and bring my hand back to her thigh again just as our waitress Mel approaches the table. It’s obvious she clocks the movement when her gaze dips down for a brief moment, and a line forms between her eyebrows.
She clears her throat. “Are you guys ready to order something to eat?” she asks.
There’s a brief uncomfortable moment, and I wonder whether I should pull my hand back, but that’s ridiculous. I’ve never done or said anything to Mel to make her think I might be interested in her. In fact, it’s the opposite. I go out of my way to make it clear that I’m not .
Everyone at the table places their order, and Mel walks away, letting us know that it shouldn’t be too long until the orders are ready.
“Better check your food from now on, Isla,” Josh says. “Now that you’ve stolen Travis out from under her nose, there might be some rat poison in it.”
I glower in his direction. “There’s never been anything between Mel and me.”
“No, but she clearly likes you,” Isla says. “I do feel bad.”
I frown. “Well don’t. She has no reason to think I was ever into her. We’re just living our lives, and that’s all we can do. She’ll move on, trust me.”
“He has a point,” Camila says. “Maybe now she’ll stop pining for Travis and open herself up to meet someone who feels the same way as her.” Lucas turns his head in her direction, and she shrugs. “What? It’s true. She’ll never find someone if she’s hung up on your brother.”
“Have you told Mom or Dad yet? Grams and Gramps?” Josh asks.
I shake my head. “You guys are the first to know.”
“Don’t worry, Josh will be on the phone as soon as he leaves here telling everyone in the family that you’re banging the woman who works for you,” Brady says and laughs.
He’s probably right, but I’m more concerned about the way Brady phrased us. I don’t like it, and I can tell that Isla doesn’t either based on how her thigh flexes under my hold.
It’s an effort to keep my inner asshole in check because Brady is also one of our employees, not just my little brother’s best friend. “Listen, I don’t want to hear anyone talking about it like that, got it? It’s disrespectful to Isla, and it’s not like that.”
Brady’s shoulders sag, and he leans forward so he can look Isla in the eyes on the other side of me. “Sorry, Isla. I was just joking.”
“That’s okay,” she says because she’s too nice.
Brady’s phone buzzes on the table, and he picks it up, looks at whatever’s on his screen, and lets out a disappointed sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Josh asks.
“It’s my sister. I love her, but ever since she’s moved in with me, she’s been cramping my style. She’s always on me when I bring someone home, and since she’s been away for so long, she doesn’t have a lot of people to hang out with. She’s always asking me what I’m doing and wanting to hang out, but she doesn’t want to go out looking for hook-ups.”
“Invite her to join us,” Isla says. “Camila and I would love to meet her.”
I squeeze her thigh, thinking of how she told me she was lonely before she became friends with Camila last year. Knowing Isla, she thinks that Nova probably feels the same and wants to include her.
“You guys wouldn’t mind?” Brady’s gaze passes by everyone seated at the table, and we all nod. “All right, thanks guys.” His thumbs move across his phone, and almost immediately it buzzes in his hands again. “She’s on her way over.”
I don’t miss the way that Josh’s body goes rigid in his seat and avoids looking across the table at his best friend.
This is going to be interesting.