“We’ll go after her for you,” Nathan said with a smirk.
His sisters nodded, and Kelli could see how much that surprised Isaiah, especially coming from Nathan. After eyeing his siblings, a bit bemused, Isaiah turned to Kelli again. “I won’t question New Mexico ever again. It doesn’t matt—”
“Zach chose to hire me specifically.” Kelli lifted her chin as Isaiah’s smile flattened. “He said my resume and interview were a breath of fresh air compared to all the other pretentious applicants he’d interviewed. He wasn’t really seeking a personal stylist or an image consultant either. The man is the epitome of style. Most would envy the image he’s worked so hard to build and maintain for years. The last thing he wanted was some over achiever image consultant or stylist trying to prove herself and making his trip a nightmare for him. He doesn’t even need an assistant; he just hates being alone, so he was looking for someone to travel with him—a companion.”
Kelli paused, swallowing hard as she waited for a response to that, for the accusations to come flying out of Isaiah’s mouth or even his siblings, AJ mostly, but there weren’t any. They all remained silent. The fact that Isaiah didn’t even seem annoyed said a lot about the effort he was already putting into keeping his promise of working on it. She’d purposely let him know that part first because she figured if anything would have him jumping to the ugliest conclusions it would be this. But when he didn’t say anything, she continued.
“He told me all this today over lunch. That business lunch we had wasn’t really for business either. He had me believe it was until after a few drinks when he worked up the courage to come clean.”
Emi cleared her throat, and Kelli caught how she and Olivia exchanged glances, as if maybe this was beginning to make them nervous. But even then Isaiah didn’t say anything, and his expression remained unaffected. With a sudden urge to be near him again, she started toward the bed as she continued to explain. She told him how Zach confessed that her being so under qualified on paper was what initially had drawn him to her resume and why he set up the interview in the first place, but it hadn’t been until after he met her and had such an instant connection with her that sealed it. She’d been his first choice for the job.
To her surprise, instead of reacting negatively to that, Isaiah reached out for her hand. She took it with a smile, beyond grateful that he still remained unspoken—patient.
“The bottle of wine today was his way of celebrating his coming clean about just wanting a travel companion.”
Now Isaiah’s lips pressed together a bit, but he still stared at her silently as if he knew she was expecting him to know there was a perfectly valid explanation for all this. So she decided to just tell him the rest.
“Just before Nathan got there, I’d already decided there was no way I wasn’t quitting. It’s why I’d excused myself to the ladies’ room to gather my thoughts. As polite and respectful as he’d been about his admission, the more I thought about it, the more annoyed it made me, and I’d had a few glasses of wine. I didn’t want to snap. That’s when Nathan confronted me.”
This time the corner of Isaiah’s lips lifted, and Kelli all out smiled, even though she could feel herself getting emotional again. “His showing up just when a wrench had been thrown in my plans to escape my heartache was like fate all over again. The moment he told me what was really going on with you, I knew what I had to do, where I had to be.”
“Holy shit,” Nathan said as she felt the others let out breaths they’d apparently been holding in. “I thought for sure shit was gonna hit the fan.”
Emi and Olivia both brought their hands to their chests. “Girl.” Emi laughed. “I kept thinking please tell me after we just dragged her back in here that she didn’t really just admit she agreed to be some guy’s hired companion.”
Isaiah pulled her closer with a smile. “Nah, I knew she had something up her sleeve.”
She leaned in and kissed him softly, giving into the emotion as he brought his arm around her neck. “Point taken,” he whispered in her ear. “I may not always be as patient as I was just now hearing you talk about the connection this guy had with you, but I sure as hell will work on waiting to hear the whole story before reacting.”
Kelli wiped the tears from her eyes as she laughed softly, for the first time noticing his siblings had made a quiet exit out of the room. “The moment what he was saying was clear, I knew there was no way. No matter how over our relationship was, I knew it’d be a long time if ever that I’d be over you.”
“So you quit already, right? You don’t have to call his ass back still, do you?”
She shook her head but smiled, the emotion from what had really happened today still sinking in slowly. “You know I never would’ve accepted the job in the first place if I knew I had the choice of being here with you. Mostly all I wanted was to run away from my heartache.”
Giving in to the emotion because she felt too drained to try not to anymore, she leaned against his hand as he caressed her face. He pulled her to him again. “I love you so much, Kel,” he whispered as he kissed her tears away. “You know I’d already begun to think before Nathan brought you in here today that I couldn’t live without you. But when you walked out on my dumb ass, I knew it. No way was I going to. Remember what I said I’d do if you ever disappeared on me again?”
Kelli nodded, staring into his beautiful eyes and smiling, even as the tears continued to fill her eyes. “That you’d hunt me down.”
He smiled, kissing more of her tears away. “You’re damn straight. And then spend the rest of my life begging you to take me back if I had to.”
Taking a deep breath, Kelli ran her fingers through his hair gently. “Your brothers and sisters said you’d do something like that.”
“Did they?”
Kelli nodded just as someone knocked on the door before pushing it open. An older nurse walked in and seemed surprised to see Kelli there. “I didn’t know you had a sweetheart, Isaiah.”
“I do,” Isaiah said as the nurse came around the other side of the bed and checked the machines monitoring him. “This is Kelli.”
Kelli nodded, smiling politely as she wiped lingering tears away. “Nice to meet you, Kelli,” the nurse said as she pushed buttons and wrote something down on a clipboard. “I’m Leonor.” She glanced up from her clipboard. “So how long have you been this stubborn man’s girlfriend?”
Kelli had only begun to think of an answer when Isaiah squeezed her hand. “Fiancée actually,” he said. He smiled, meeting Kelli’s startled eyes as his fingers toyed with the ring on her finger. Kelli had forgotten she’d slipped it on when she rushed to pack her things up at the hotel in New Mexico.
“We’ve been engaged for a few months,” Isaiah clarified then added, “but she’s owned my heart for over a year now.”
The way Isaiah gazed at her now made Kelli’s heart swell. He nodded as if to confirm what he’d just said was true.
“Well, congrats,” Leonor said with a big smile as she placed the clipboard back on the wall. “Have you set a date?”
“Not yet,” Kelli finally answered one of Leonor’s questions.
“But soon,” Isaiah added. “We don’t wanna wait too long.”
Isaiah finally took his eyes off Kelli, only to turn to Leonor and tell her to make sure he got her address before he was released so he could send her an invitation. Kelli’s heart pounded away in her chest, even as Leonor walked out of the room. He couldn’t be serious.
She stared at him for a moment without saying anything once they were alone, until he smiled big with a shrug and pulled her to him again. He leaned his forehead against hers. “I already told you I can’t live without you.”
Almost annoyingly, she felt her eyes welling up again. “I can’t live without you either.”
“So start thinking about a date.”
For the first time in days, Kelli smiled genuinely. “You haven’t actually asked me to marry you, Isaiah.”
“I can
’t until I get you a real ring, but it’s coming soon, and you already know how I feel about long engagements, so start thinking about it.”
She lifted a brow with a smirk. “But what if I don’t say yes?”
He moved his hand just under her, and whatever he did made the rail on the side of the bed slide down. Instantly, she was pulled against his chest and she gasped, trying to pull away. “Isaiah, I’m gonna hurt you!”
“Only pain I know for a fact now I’ll never survive, is you saying no to being mine forever.” Kelli tilted her head, feeling her heart swell all over again. “Say you’ll love me forever,” he whispered.
“I’ll love you forever.”
“Good girl.” He kissed her softly. “You already know I’ll love you forever.”
Epilogue: Monster Mash
Isaiah
Somehow Isaiah had thought the first time he let Kelli blindfold him would be for a much more exciting reason than this. He sat there impatiently waiting for her to tell him he could take the blindfold off.
“Okay now.” Her tone was downright giddy.
He took it off and let his eyes adapt to the light. When they did, he took in his sexy-ass smiling girlfriend from top to bottom. She wore knee-high black high-heeled leather boots over skin-tight black high-waisted leather pants. A red open coat appeared tailored to fit her perfectly, tight at the waist but flared out past her hips. Underneath it, she wore a flowy white silk blouse and topped off the entire costume with a big floppy red hat.
“I thought you were gonna be a witch?”
Her smile flattened as she tilted her head. “I am a witch, Theodora from Oz the Great and Powerful.”
Isaiah wracked his brain to try and remember which of the witches in the movie ever dressed like this.
“This is the costume she was wearing in the beginning of the movie when she first meets James Franco.”
Isaiah didn’t miss the sinful smirk as she turned to model it for him from all angles. She looked hot. He’d give her that. But this wasn’t the costume he’d imagined when she gave him a hint as to what they were dressing as for his uncles’ Monster Mash.
“She later turns into the evil green witch you probably remember most.” Kelli still wore that evil grin even as she started toward the door. “I like that her love for Franco—or rather The Great and Powerful Oz—is what turned her evil, even if I believe she was just misunderstood.”
“Kel,” he said as it suddenly dawned on him. “This isn’t your way of—”
She shushed him as she rushed over to his wheelchair next to the sofa where Isaiah sat. “Just wait ’til you see this.”
Before he could say anything more, she rushed out of the room, pushing the chair. A few minutes later she pushed it back in the room and Isaiah’s mouth fell open.
“That’s ridiculous.” Isaiah stared at the impressive but ridiculous contraption Kelli had put together. “I’m not wearing that. I don’t need to be in a wheelchair.”
Ever since he’d mentioned there’d be a costume contest at this thing, she’d been working on theirs for over a week in the great room, the one room he hadn’t been allowed to even peek into. Now he knew why.
“Isaiah, you promised.”
Isaiah glared at her playfully, even as he sat there knowing that as soon as he lost this argument he’d be sitting in that ridiculous thing. He kept insisting he didn’t need to be in it anymore because he really didn’t. Yeah, his surgery wounds still hurt when he walked too long, but he’d be fine. Of course, Kelli had a way of convincing him to stay in it longer than he cared to.
The contraption she’d made was a huge yellow basket that encircled the wheelchair. On top, it had a big fake balloon with painted words that read: Oz the Great and Powerful.
Before he could even begin with his list of objections to this, she pulled out something from the basket. “And this is your costume!”
Kelli held up a black tux like the kind the guy wore in the movie: long coat, bow tie, top hat and all. The moment he shook his head she pouted, setting it back down, and sauntered toward him slowly, looking wickedly sexy as she bit her bottom lip. “When you insisted on going to this thing, even though you’ve only been out of the hospital a few weeks, I assured your very concerned brothers and sisters that I’d make sure you behaved and made you stay in your wheelchair.”
When she reached him, she tilted her head sideways, making him breathe in deeply. Well, shit, she already looked hot in the damn costume. Did she have to do the pouty thing too?
“Please?” she said, bending over then dropping down to her knees.
She reached for his zipper, making him swallow hard. “The treats will start early this Halloween if you just say yes to the costume.”
Isaiah gulped, glancing up at that ridiculous costume she’d be wheeling him into Manny’s backyard in. The moment he felt her unzip him his eyes were back on her. She’d taken off the hat so he could see exactly what she was doing. He watched as she pulled him out and licked around the tip very slowly, making his eyes close and his entire body shudder.
Then she had the nerve to stop and gaze up at him, fluttering her lashes. “Yes?”
~*~
Kelli
As Kelli rolled Isaiah into his uncles’ backyard via the driveway, she smirked, thinking of his warning. She and Isaiah, who she’d been coaxing into staying off his feet the past few weeks, had been doing a lot of board game and video game playing. He now knew just how competitive she could be.
Remember Kel, the games and contests at the party are all in fun. You’re not going for gold medals.
Obviously, they wouldn’t be participating in the sack races he told her they’d had last year. But he did mention other less physical challenges like the caramel-apple-eating contest. Kelli had no intention of making a pig of herself her first time at his family’s gathering as his official girlfriend. But at least she was fairly certain their costumes were sure wins. Isaiah’s was anyway.
The first to spot Kelli and Isaiah as they rolled in were Moe and his uncle Manny, who was dressed like the penguin from Batman.
Isaiah groaned the moment they started laughing. “Of course, it’d be these two who’d spot us first.”
“Looks like someone’s in it to win it.” Moe laughed.
Isaiah rolled his eyes, nodding. “Yeah, she is. This was all her.”
Moe and his uncle walked up to them as Kelli tried to make out Moe’s costume. He wore a simple black suit with a white shirt, no tie, and a red handkerchief in his coat pocket. Most notably, his hair was spray painted in a salt-and-pepper look to give him the appearance of an older man, and he wore an equally salt-and-peppered but neat beard and mustache.
They eyed him a bit longer, even as Moe spun around for them to behold the whole costume and held out the cigar he was holding. His cousin smirked, posing for a moment.
“Who are you supposed to be?” Isaiah asked as Moe and Manny surprised Kelli by greeting her with a hug and kiss.
Manny was about to say something. “No, don’t tell him,” Moe said. “He has to guess.” He turned to Isaiah. “I’ll give you a hint.” He turned to Manny with a silly smile then back to Isaiah and Kelli. “I won a lifetime achievement award . . . twice.”
Manny wheezed, tapping Isaiah on the shoulder. “This kid has a load of them.” Isaiah shook his head, but to Kelli’s relief, he, too, didn’t seem to get what Moe was supposed to be.
Manny tapped Isaiah again. “Listen. Listen.”
“If opportunity knocks and I’m not home”—Moe smirked playfully at Kelli then winked—“opportunity waits.”
Once again, Isaiah’s uncle was wheezing before Moe could even finish. Kelli and Isaiah exchanged confused glances.
“Oh my God,” Isabel, Moe’s wife, said as she walked up to them. “How perfect is this?”
She too hugged and kissed Kelli then Isaiah, admiring their costumes as Kelli explained how she made the hot air balloon. Isabel wore a short sexy green dress with t
he Dos Equis emblem in the front and a hat that looked like a beer bottle cap.
“Superman has pajamas with my logo on them,” Moe said, reaching out for Isabel by the waist and pulling her to him.
Manny could barely breathe now. “Oh God,” Isabel said, shaking her head with a smile. “He’s gonna do this all night.”
Kelli still didn’t get it, but thankfully Isaiah squeezed her hand and explained. “The most interesting man in the world.” Manny’s laughter was getting contagious because even Isaiah laughed now. “The guy from the Dos Equis commercial.”
“Ah!” Kelli said, nodding. “Well, I have to admit you do sound very interesting.”
Moe leaned into their circle to get closer to Kelli. “Are you kidding me? Sharks have a week dedicated to me.”
“Alright, alright,” Isaiah said, laughing. “Stop before Manny messes his pants.”
“He doesn’t even like Dos Equis,” Isabel said with a laugh.
“Babe!” Moe said with feigned exasperation. “Don’t give away my secrets!”
“Your son’s on the pot,” Isabel said as they all started walking further into the backyard. “Go see if he doesn’t need the most interesting man in the world to wipe his butt.”
There was no shortage of oohing and aahing at Isaiah’s and Kelli’s costumes. Though more than once Kelli had to explain who she was.
Nathan showed up in his firefighter turnout pants. Only instead of wearing the yellow coat, he just wore the suspenders over a snug white wife-beater that showed off that upper body, one he noticeably worked hard to maintain. Kelli would never admit it to Isaiah, but between the muscles, tattoos, and the soot he’d smudged all over his arms and even his stubborn chin, Nathan looked like something out of those hot firefighter calendars. His date wore a tight, short, white dress with black polka dots, matching polka dot doggy ears, dangerously high red patent-leather heels, and a thick red leather spiked dog collar.