Chapter 30: Suite on the Boss: Chapter 29

The city’s a tad too cold for walking with bare legs. The nip in the air is almost painful, but it’s energizing too, cooling me down from the tennis lesson I’ve just had with Marisol. The muscles in my right arm are sore, and the arm hangs heavy at my side.

For a delightful hour and a half, the rest of life had faded away, and it was just me and sweat and the thrill of improvement. I take a few deep breaths, inhaling the fall air. My sweatshirt feels too hot, and my bare legs beneath the tennis skirt feel too cold.

Nerves, unusual and unwelcome, pulse in my stomach. Now that my brain can focus on other things than a ball coming at me in high speed, it’s circled back to him.

I’ve made a decision.

Tonight, after I’ve showered and had dinner, I’ll get in a cab and head to the Winter Hotel to talk. To tell him that I don’t know what the way forward might look like… but that I want to try. With him.

By the time I’m back on my block, my legs ache. I can’t wait to jump into my shower and have the warm water smooth over sore muscles. I nod hello to the concierge who works in the lobby during the days.

“Miss Bishop,” he says. “Just a moment, please. There was a man here earlier who delivered a letter for you.”

I pause. “Hand delivered?”

“Yes. Let’s see…. Here it is.” He hands it over. It’s an anonymous white envelope with my name scrawled across it.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime,” he says. “Hope you played a great game today.”

“I sure did. Thank you, Jerry.” I barely make it to the elevators before I’ve torn open the sealed envelope. Inside is a handwritten note.

Sophia,

I’m not done with us. Because there was an us, sweetheart, and it was the best us I’ve ever been a part of. You told me not to contact you again. If that’s still what you want, I’ll honor that and won’t do it again. But if you’re having even a sliver of doubt… let me convince you that our future is unwritten. I will never pressure you in any direction. What we build together is ours, and I think it could be something great.

You once said you wanted us to go places where no one knows who we are and the past doesn’t hide around every corner. I wish I’d listened. But I’ve heard you now, and that’s where you’ll find me. I’ll be at your favorite ramen place every night this week. Come to me if you want to talk.

Isaac

The ramen place.

I’d just walked past it. I walk past it all the time. I have the menu on the inside of my kitchen cabinet and the takeout number saved to my phone.

I spin around in the lobby.

“Everything all right?” Jerry asks.

“Yes, thank you,” I say, my steps speeding up. “Just forgot something. I’ll see you later!”

The door to my building falls shut behind me, and then I’m half running up the street, back where I came from, still in my sweaty tennis clothes. On my arm, my smartwatch buzzes. Exercise begun.

I come to a stop outside the familiar window. Folding chairs fill up the small interior, and there, in the corner, sits a man too tall for the small table. He has a laptop open and his phone tucked beneath his ear.

I can see him talking, steadily, calmly, to the person on the other end. On the foldout chair beside him hangs his suit jacket, neatly draped over the back.

My chest tightens at the sight of him.

He nods, then nods again, at something the person on the other line says. I can see his lips move. And then he looks up and sees me.

I give a tiny wave.

He says a few more words. I can read them through the dirty glass window. I’ll call you later.

I push open the door, and the tiny bell above rings out, announcing my arrival. “Hello.”

“Sophia,” he says. “You came.”

“I just got your note. I did some errands after work and then I played tennis. Have you been waiting long?”

“Not particularly,” he says.

“That’s a lie,” a voice chimes in. Amy stands behind the counter, wearing a huge grin. “He paid me a stupid amount of money to sit here and work every night this week. He’s rented my whole shop!”

My eyebrows rise. “You did?”

“It’s only fair she be compensated.”

“That’s right,” Amy says gladly. “Do you want your regular order?”

“No thanks, not… yet, anyway. I’m just here to talk to him.”

“Good call,” she says. “You’ve got yourself a handsome one, there.”

I chuckle. “Thanks.”

She nods again and grabs a rag from the side of the counter. “I’ll be in the back. Not listening, I promise.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Isaac’s voice is measured and steady, but I can hear the trace of cautiousness in it. “You look great.”

“Thank you, but I’ve just worked out. I’m a sweaty mess.”

“You still look great,” he says.

“Did you really… sorry, I can’t believe you’re here.”

His mouth twists into a rueful smile. “Yeah. Sorry if I’ve overstepped, I just figured meeting on neutral ground might be… anyway. Do you want to stay and talk?”

I pull out the chair opposite him. The air in the small restaurant feels thick with tension. “Yes. Thanks.”

“I wondered how to best do this,” he says. He’s bracing his hands on the table, the wide backs and long fingers stretching out on the vinyl. “I considered writing you a letter or sending an email through the official channels, but that would be violating our agreement. No pleasure mixed in with the business.”

“Yes,” I murmur. “Winter and Exciteur are separate.”

“They are. I considered calling you, or texting. But…” He shakes his head. “Last time, you told me to leave you alone.”

“God, I said a lot of things last time. I didn’t mean that.”

“I hoped you didn’t, but I wanted to honor it in case you did.”

“So you did this. Ramen,” I say, looking around at the framed images on the wall, the neon lighting.

“Yes. Do you remember when we came here together?”

“Of course I do.”

“I knew I shouldn’t walk you home. Shouldn’t follow you inside. Shouldn’t think about the way your lips had felt on mine, or how distractingly attractive you were in that skirt, or how well we’d played together.”

My cheeks heat up. “I knew I shouldn’t have invited you up to my apartment that afternoon, either.”

“No,” he says quietly, “you shouldn’t have. But you did.”

“Yes.” We’d showered together, his hands on my body, my lips on his… and started something much bigger than just a tennis game.

“Sophia,” he says. “It’s been a long couple of years before I met you, and during every one, I was alone. Even in my last relationship, when we were engaged, I was on my own. It wasn’t a true partnership. And I think I’ve always preferred that. I think it’s always been safer to not let anyone in, not fully. To focus on my work and what everyone else needs me to be.

“That’s part of why I spent time with Beverly. It was self-destructive, and easy, and safe. Because she never needed me. And I never needed her. I’m sorry I helped her be unfaithful. I’m sorry it hurt you, Sophia, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it right away. But most of all, I’m sorry it made you think less of me.”

The words wash over me, and through me. They settle something inside that had been nervous from the moment I’d seen him sitting at this plastic table.

“We all do things we’re not proud of,” I say. “The way I reacted… it was because of my past.”

“I know,” he says softly. “I should have anticipated that.”

I shake my head. “You can’t anticipate everything. I reacted more strongly than… I didn’t listen to you, Isaac, or to your reasons. You were hurt too, after having been cheated on. I should’ve listened.”

He closes his eyes. Dark eyelashes fan out over his high cheekbones, and stubble traces the sharp line of his jaw. “Meeting you has been the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

My throat feels tight. “Isaac…”

“I want you to know that I’m willing to work for it. To go as slow as you’d like. To wait. To never ask you to another party or benefit if you feel like you’ve had enough of them for a lifetime.”

I put my hand over his. “I’m not in love with Percy.”

There’s disbelief in his eyes, plain and simple, and I remember his words from our explosive conversation by the river. “I’m not,” I say again.

“But that night, when we were at Salt. When they told us about the pregnancy…”

“I was feeling a lot of things right then, but believe me, it wasn’t jealousy. It’s more like I saw myself in her, and where I might’ve been if the divorce never happened. And it’s a sore spot, one where I’d always been made to feel like… well, like I’d failed. Percy and his mother loved to hint about kids, but I wasn’t ready yet.”

The hand beneath mine turns to grip mine. “What do you mean?” he asks flatly.

“I wanted to wait for kids, to focus on my career. Honestly, I’m still… unsure about when I’ll feel ready. I’m thirty-three. Shouldn’t I be ready?”

“There’s no timeline,” he says, and there’s a fierce undertone to his voice. “You do things at your own pace.”

I sigh. “Yes. Well, they made me feel like I should want it, like I was a fool for loving my life the way it was, and I was letting them down. Letting Percy down.”

“I hate the Brownes.”

“They’re in the past. And I mean that, you know. The sadness I felt that night… it wasn’t because I wanted to be Scarlett. God, do you know how glad I am that I never had a kid with Percy? I’d never have been rid of him!”

Isaac nods. “You dodged one there.”

“But that doesn’t mean you were completely off base, either,” I say. “I have to be honest about that.”

His dark eyes sharpen. “Oh?”

“I’m not in love with him,” I say, “but I was haunted by him. By the memories. And I did compare you to him. I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair to you.”

“I understand it,” he says.

“It wasn’t right, but I was afraid. More afraid than I realized, more afraid than I could put into words. And my response to that has always been running away.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“All of it. Feeling trapped again. Feeling like I… like I love a man who never thinks I’m enough. Feeling like I’m a failure. Most of all, though, I’m afraid of being hurt again. I never want to relive the last year.”

“I know,” he murmurs and grips my hand with both of his. “You won’t.”

I smile, shaking my head. Tears feel perilously close. “Neither of us knows that. And maybe that’s okay, you know? Maybe that’s just part of life.”

He looks down at where my hand rests in his. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “This might get really hard, and messy, and I’ve avoided every chance of that since Cordelia. But if it’s with you that things are getting messy… I can handle it. I might even want it.”

“We’re very similar,” I say. “Have you thought about that? Because I have.”

“Yes,” he says quietly. “I have.”

“Do you think that’s a good thing? Or are we too similar?”

He smiles that lopsided, genuine smile. “I don’t know, but sweetheart, it doesn’t really matter in my book. I don’t think I can be with anyone else. It’s you, or it’s no one.”

My mouth drops open. “Oh.”

“I don’t want to pressure you,” he says, “and I realize that might sound like pressure, but I can go slow. Like I said, we can leave every fucking society thing out of it. If anyone makes an idiotic comment about our kids being heirs when we’ve never even had the kids conversation ourselves, I’ll excommunicate them.”

I chuckle. “You can’t do that.”

“Of course, I can.”

“You don’t run a church or a cult.”

He waves his free hand. “Cut them out of my social circle, then.”

“You can’t. And we can’t avoid society altogether, Isaac. Those are your family, your friends, your business associates.”

“I can downsize,” he says. “I know you wanted a simpler life. A smaller life. A math teacher.”

I shake my head. “I don’t.”

“Sophia…”

“No, really. I was just afraid, afraid of living the last seven years of my life over again, and instead of facing that, I made up new problems. And I didn’t realize that until just this past week. But I’m a problem-solver, Isaac. That’s what I do every day at my job. Maybe it’s time I started doing that in my own life.” I look over my shoulder at the empty counter, unable to stop the smile from spreading across my face. I feel light. “I love this ramen place, but I do live just down the street.”

“Do you now?”

“Yes,” I say. “Come home with me.”

He smiles. “I don’t know, I have this place rented out for a few more hours today…”

“Isaac.”

“All right, then.” He rises from the table, and I walk into his arms. He wraps them around me, and he smells like cologne and soap and him. I breathe it all in.

“Bishop,” he murmurs. “If it ever gets too much, any of it—my work, a party, someone’s comments… tell me. I’m on your side, you know. Only on yours.”

I close my eyes against the burning behind them. “I’m on yours, too,” I say. “Okay? We play sets together.”

He chuckles. The sound reverberates through the chest I’m pressed against. “We do,” he says, “though it’s hard to concentrate when you look so hot doing it.”

I laugh. “You’re laying it on thick.”

“Just being honest.” His free hand curves around my waist, pulling me tighter against his body. “Tell me, does this tennis skirt have those little built-in shorts, too?”

I lean back and meet his brilliant dark brown eyes. “Come home with me,” I say, “and I’ll let you find out.”