through the grapevine, this could be your last meal.”
His laughter doubles when I grumble under my breath, “Shut the fuck up.”
14
Brandon
“Shut the fuck up, Grayson!” My roar is so loud, I hear it twice when it bounces off the brickwork in the alleyway siding Isabelle’s apartment. “There was nothing wrong with my kiss. Isabelle said so herself.” It’s also been a while, but I sure as fuck am not disclosing that to Grayson.
Grayson told me to do something drastic to force Isaac to respond. I racked my brain for the two hours of our ‘date’ striving to think of something profoundly moving. I thought a kiss was the ideal solution. It would have been if I didn’t have Grayson in my ear, egging me on. Have you ever tried to kiss someone with a thirty-three-year-old man catcalling and wolf-whistling in your ear? I got stage fright. Kill me.
Luckily for me, Isabelle was cool about my sudden desire to lock lips. She even jested about how she would have dragged me into her apartment if she didn’t have a three-date rule. Did I believe her? Not really. I may have if she hadn’t mentioned chasing an unattainable man. If that wasn’t a flashing alarm alerting me to just how deep Isaac has crawled under her skin, I don’t know what will.
While jabbing my finger into the key of my BMW, I tell Grayson to shut the fuck up for the third time. My ego is already blown to shit, I don’t need his laughter.
“I’m not laughing at you, dipshit. I am terrified about how fucking hard I am. That was almost as good as porn for a saint like me. I have precum seeping into my pants and shit—” His chair popping into place drowns out his words. It’s quickly chased by his fingers tapping the keys of his keyboard. “It fucking worked.”
I yank open the driver’s side door of my car and slide into the driver’s seat. “Isaac is watching the feed?”
“No.” Grayson’s one word shoots out of his mouth so fast, it replicates the crack of a whip. “He’s in Izzy’s apartment.”
My jaw quivers with annoyance more than excitement. “You rigged Isabelle’s apartment?”
“No,” he fires back again, his voice extra loud.
“Then how the fuck do you know Isaac is in her apartment?”
He jabs at his keyboard another three times before a voice I’ve heard on surveillance many times the past eight-plus months filters through the device in my ear. “No more men in your apartment, Isabelle.”
“Your kiss with Isabelle got him so riled up, he had to pay her a visit,” Grayson mutters, his voice husky with humored excitement.
As I crank my neck to watch the main entrance of Isabelle’s apartment building, I ask, “How did you get the audio?” I’ve only just asked my question when the answer smacks into me. “I left my jacket in her coat closet.” When Isaac bursts through the rotating doors of Isabelle’s apartment a few seconds later, my lips curl into a grin. “And I’m going to need to get it.”
“Yesss,” Grayson replies with a hiss. “Play the fucker at his own game.”
My steps back to Isabelle’s apartment are nowhere near as weighed down as the ones I used when leaving it. They’re extra springy and have me reaching Isabelle’s front door in a record-breaking forty-eight seconds. Yes, I was counting.
“Play it cool, BJ,” Grayson suggests, throwing me off my game with his unusual nickname. Usually, punk, dipshit, and dickface are his go-to terms of endearment. He must be cautious my overzealous knock has me walking into a trap like I did the night I babysat Olivia after Tobias informed her that her brother had gone missing. She was as miserable as me, and just as drunk. We stumbled into bed—once—and I’m still paying for it. “Be the charmer you were most of the night. Be the opposite of the man she’s craving. She isn’t seeking a hookup right now. She needs a friend.”
“I am her friend,” I mutter back just as Isabelle cracks open her door.
I’m taken back when I take in her red cheeks, water-brimming eyes, and cracked lips. I thought euphoria would be pumping out of her, not fear. “I… umm… forgot to get my coat. But you look busy, so I’ll come back later.”
“Where the fuck are you going?” Grayson asks at the same time Isabelle assures, “Brandon, it’s fine. I’m not busy.”
When she ushers me into the foyer of her home before moving to the coat closet