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“Stop.” Isabelle held up one hand. “Just… stop, Michael Barrington.”

Michael paused as Isabelle continued to talk about soulmates. She used his full name. She did that when she was really done with him.

She looks pretty today, Michael thought. Kind of like Princess Leia. Episode IV Leia. Not Episode VI, definitely not slave Leia, which is canonically the wrong era anyway and also—, followed quickly by, Wait…why am I thinking that?

Isabelle Sanford had joined Ursidae Capital six years ago, when Michael was still running the firm out of a converted loft with secondhand furniture and sheer stubbornness. She had negotiated her equity stake with a precision that had genuinely impressed him (and intimidated him. More intimidated than impressed). Stanford undergrad. London School of Economics MBA. She could have gone anywhere. She could have run her own Fortune 100 company by now if she’d wanted to. She’d told him at the time it was because she wanted to learn more about crypto.

And yet she’d chosen to stay. As his assistant.

Six years later, she was still here — every room she entered quietly reorganizing itself around her without anyone quite realizing it was happening.

Why she stayed was a question Michael returned to often and never fully resolved.

She was standing at the kitchen island now, both hands flat on the marble, looking at him with an expression he couldn’t quite parse. Before he could try, his phone rang.

The opening notes of The Bare Necessities filled the kitchen.

Michael’s entire demeanor changed — shoulders loosening, a genuine, boyish smile breaking across his face as he thought of his best friend in the whole world. He quickly adjusted his glasses and put the call on speaker.

“Bear!” he said happily. “Hey! What’s up?” Before his friend could respond, he added, “Did you know it’s been two weeks, four days, six hours, and forty-two minutes since your last call? Also, for Christmas this year I was thinking⁠—”

“Michael. Breathe,” Isabelle said fondly, watching him with clear amusement as she began to read a financial report.

“Hey, you two,” Bear said warmly. Then came that familiar Bear pause — the one that meant something was being carefully weighed. “Hypothetically⁠—”

From across the kitchen, Isabelle’s head snapped up like a shark scenting blood.

Welp, Michael thought, already resigned. That’s that.

Before he could even finish the thought, Isabelle was across the room in three quick strides, plucking the phone from his hand with bright-eyed excitement. She leaned in close enough that Michael caught the faint, clean scent of her shampoo — something citrusy and warm that always made his brain glitch for half a second.

“Ooooh,” she said, grinning at the phone like it had just handed her a new quest. “I love when he starts with ‘hypothetically.’ It always means something fun.” She looked positively radiant. “Bear! Spill it. What are we doing?”

Michael told himself he let her take over the call because she was simply more efficient.

The truth — which he was becoming uncomfortably aware of lately — was that he found it increasingly difficult to tell Isabelle no about anything. She had quietly been running large portions of his life for the past six years, and the fact was… his days were… better. Brighter. More fun. The idea of taking the reins back from her felt wrong. Unnatural.

He liked it when she was in control. He liked when she ordered them food without asking, reminded him to take breaks, and sat with him in sterile doctor’s offices during booster shots, holding his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

It just felt… right.

Michael shook his head, trying to pay attention to the call again.

“So?” Isabelle leaned closer to the phone, her eyes bright with excitement. “Spill it. A new school for Blackthorn Ridge? A community center? The population’s growing — you’re going to need the infrastructure eventually. Also tell your mama I’ve been dreaming about her chocolate chip cookies. If she ever wants to go national, I can make her a billion dollars. Conservatively.”

A pause on the line. Michael could picture Cal’s faint half-smile perfectly.

“I’ll pass that along,” Bear said. “Actually — hypothetically — if someone wanted to plan a Christmas party… A big one. At the cabin. How would one go about that?”

Silence.

Michael and Isabelle stared at each other across the kitchen island.

“The probability of that specific request,” Michael said quietly, adjusting his glasses again, “is somewhere around two point four percent. Repeating, of course.”

Isabelle shushed him, then leaned in closer to the phone, her voice softening into something careful and gentle. “Bear. Of course we’d love to help. Can I ask — why?”

They both waited. They’d learned long ago to give Bear the time he needed.