Wait! Isaac’s date tonight!
I’d completely forgotten in the hectic lust of our little room at the inn that I’d set Isaac up with another muse. It was a wild card, but there was definitely a world in which tonight was the first page of his forever happily ever after, and I wouldn’t deprive him of a new muse no matter how badly I sometimes wanted to, and suddenly, I could breathe again.
It felt awful, and I was itchy and jealous about it, but it was so much better this way. He’d go on this date, securely attach to someone else, and we’d all be spared the fallout of me trying to be Isaac’s muse and making a fool out of myself loving him while he still loved only Brooklyn.
We’d be spared the car crash, and one day, he’d thank me for it.
It wasn’t until we were five minutes from home that I curled my fidgeting fingers into my sleeves and said, “Do you want to do a little fashion show before your big date tonight? I can put on my stylist hat.”
“My big date,” he repeated flatly. “You’re joking, right?”
“Not even a little bit,” I said, biting back the answer I really wanted to give him. That things couldn’t change between us. That it wasn’t only my fault that the two of us would be a disaster together. “They’re picking you up at seven, baby.”
“Fuck off with that, Sunny. I’m not going on another date with some stranger.” Each word hit like a lash. “You’re just going tohave some kind of fairy-tale, snowed-in-at-a-bed-and-breakfast fuckfest with me and then send me off on a date?”
“This person isn’t exactly a stranger. And I promised to help you, Isaac.”
His lips parted and then he bit them into a thin line as he parked in front of the mansion. “If that’s what you want.”
Inside, Mr.Tumnus yowled as he paced the foyer in circles and the cold drafts coming in through the door tinkled the bells of the ancient doorbell system.
Isaac fled up the stairs, like a phantom.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, but the question was swallowed by the slam of his bedroom door.
Fine. Message received.
I shuffled into the kitchen with Mr.Tumnus on my heels. I fed him the fancy cat food and refilled his bottled water and it all just reminded me of Isaac, because of course it did. Of course I couldn’t even enjoy the company of my own fucking cat without seeing him.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about the date. Maybe I should have just let us continue on in our own little fucked-up horny cycle where we tried our hardest not to let our feelings get the best of us as we gave into the hungriest, most starved parts of ourselves, and pushed off thinking about the future until we couldn’t avoid it anymore.
But anyway, the damage was done. A door had been slammed, and I was abruptly a teenager again, listening to Charlie stomp and slam his way through the house after deciding that our parents were unfairly babying me while micromanaging him. It was a sound I associated with something more than fighting, more than my brother; it was the sound of me being accused. Declared a failure.
And I’d never slammed doors back; I shut down. I was an open book until I wasn’t, and the fastest way to shut me down was with a slammed door.
How could Isaac ever possibly know that? But in a way, I was thankful. It would make it all that much easier to send him off with someone else tonight. Someone who could be uncomplicatedly his and live up to the impossible standard he’d made out of Brooklyn’s memory.
I trudged over to the library and lay on the couch, stuffing my hands into my pants, because anyone who doesn’t admit to sleeping with their hands tucked cozily in their pants at least once in a while is lying.
I tried to sleep. I begged my brain to just shut the fuck down until seven o’clock. But brains were merciless, silly things. So instead I stared at the lovely, ornate ceiling while Mr.Tumnus made biscuits on my chest.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Isaac
“Ihope you know that I don’t make a habit of going after Sunny’s sloppy seconds,” Jack Hart announced to me the moment I opened the door to his car... and before I could process that Sunny had set me up withJack Hart.
It was also the moment I realized the passenger seat was already full.
A custom dog bed was fitted into the seat, stacked with plush cushions, and perched atop the cushions was a dog I knew to be a bichon frise only because Nanny spent her spare time volunteering as a judge on the dog show circuit. The dog was strapped into a safety harness and had no fewer than three toys in front of its face and was shivering even though the heaters in the car were running at full blast.
I gave the dog a tentative pat. It chuffed and sneezed, but allowed me to continue. It was kind of nice to see a small animal that didn’t want to kill me.
“I mean, given our hookup history, maybe Sunny technically hasyoursloppy seconds?” I replied. “And should I move your dog, or—”
“I cleared a space for you in the back seat,” Jack replied. “MissCrumpets gets motion sick, so she needs to ride in the front.”
MissCrumpets laid her scruffy head between her paws, clearly lending her opinion to the issue.
