Isaac pulled out his phone and clicked a few times before handing the phone to Alex. “Did Dani ever tell you she made her own prom dress?”
Alex took the phone. “Really?”
“You do not have that picture on your phone.” I leaned over, trying to see whatever Alex was seeing.
“Of course I do,” Isaac said. “It was amazing.”
I looked at my brother. I would have expected him to be joking, but he looked genuinely sincere, like he actually did think my badly made high school prom dress was amazing.
“You should have seen the things she made,” he continued. “Out of nothing, too. She could take the ugliest clothes and turn them into the most incredible stuff.” He met my eye across the table and grinned sheepishly before taking his phone back from Alex and passing it to Rizzo.
“Ah, high school,” Rizzo said, looking at the photo. “So you’re a designer?” He turned his attention to me. “You make clothes?”
My eyes reflexively darted to Alex before I forced them to the table. “Oh. Well, not yet. I work for a designer, but I’m still just a PA.”
“She could be though,” Isaac said. “She could go out on her own and be incredible.” He looked at me one more time. “You still could, you know. It’d be better than getting coffee for the stuffed pricks you work with now.” His gaze darted to Alex. “No offense, man.”
Alex nodded. “None taken.”
The whole conversation had stunned me into absolute silence. Isaac had a picture of my high school prom dress on his phone. And he thought the clothes I’d made in high school were amazing. And he thought I should be designing on my own? I mean, he’d always joked about it in high school, but only at the same time that he’d called me a wannabe and a sell-out for wanting to work in New York fashion. I’d always assumed his opinions were a result of his general anti-establishment view of the world.
But now he actually sounded like he thought I was good at what I did. Or, rather, what I wanted to be doing. It was disconcerting, to say the least.
Moments later, Isaac brought the evening to a sudden halt. “Well, it’s been real, Dandi,” he said, “but I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”
“You do?” I picked up my phone and glanced at the time. It was getting late, but not that late.
“I promised a friend I’d stop by her party.” He looked at Rizzo. “You want to come? There might be some company that interests you, if you know what I mean.”
I rolled my eyes at the subsequent exclamations of machismo, but it could have been worse. He could have included Alex in his invitation. And while the thought of my brother party-hopping in search of women was bad, thinking of Alex alongside him was enough to make me feel like I’d eaten curdled cream and rotten tomatoes.
I followed Isaac and Rizzo out of the restaurant, Alex behind me, feeling suddenly deflated. It had been months, years even, since I’d spent any time with Isaac that hadn’t felt strained and uncomfortable. The dinner had definitely held moments of tension, but the last few minutes when we’d talked about growing up, laughing at old stories, had felt good. Really good. Like maybe it was possible for us to actually figure out a way to actually get along. But then he’d ended the evening so quickly, and in a juvenile way that reminded me of all the reasons why I found him so irritating.
Isaac stopped when he reached the sidewalk in front of the restaurant and turned to face me. “Will you get home okay?” he asked.
I stared. “I live here, Isaac. I know how to get myself home.”
“Right. Okay. I was just checking.” He looked to Rizzo. “Ready?”
Rizzo nodded.
“I’ll see you back at the hotel?” Isaac said to Alex, who nodded in response. Almost like an afterthought, Isaac turned to me one more time, wrapping his arms around me in a vice-like squeeze. “Bye, Dandi. You know I love you, right?”
I shrugged out of his grip. “Fine, fine. Goodbye.”
I watched Isaac turn the corner and disappear out of sight, then looked at Alex, still standing beside me. “He’s something else, isn’t he?”
“He is . . . the most entertaining person I’ve ever worked for. I’ll say that much.” Alex pushed his hands into the pockets of his suit. “Do you want to walk for a bit?”
I hesitated. Did I?
Curse his deep brown eyes. If he hadn’t looked so handsome standing in the glow of the dim streetlight overhead, I might have had the courage to say no.
Instead, I shrugged my shoulders. “Sure,” I said. “Walking sounds good.”
Chapter Six
Alex
We walked side by side for half a block or so, my hands shoved into my pockets, her arms folded tightly across her middle. We probably looked like a walking argument to anyone observing from the outside. I wasn’t all that sure myself why I’d asked her to go for a walk. But I wasn’t ready for us to part ways. I’d been bitter over the comment she’d made about Sasha, but as dinner had progressed, I remembered more and more of the things I’d loved about her. Maybe we had different opinions about LeFranc, but I’d hurt her. Abandoned her. And my integrity wouldn’t let me forget that. If there was a way to make it right, I had to at least try.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she said without looking up. “They were beautiful.”
Relief flooded through me. It wasn’t like I’d been dwelling on the flowers all night, but knowing she’d appreciated the gesture and not felt weird about it was no small thing. “It felt like the least I could do. Is your dress going to be okay? It was one you made, right?”
She looked at me, surprise evident on her face. “You could tell?”
I shrugged but couldn’t keep myself from grinning. She’d made a lot of her clothes while we’d been dating; the dress she’d had on that morning had looked particularly Dani. “Is that such a surprise?”
Heat crept up her cheeks, barely visible in the dim light cast from the streetlamps above us. “Chase is getting it cleaned for me. He says he knows a guy.”
“Like a guy that isn’t just a dry cleaner?”
She smiled at the question. “This is Chase we’re talking about. An ordinary dry cleaner would never do.”
I chuckled. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s perfect, as always,” Dani said.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Silence stretched for several paces before I tried another topic. “I don’t think I realized just how different you are from your brother until I started working with him.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Tonight was actually better than it usually is.”
“I don’t remember you guys fighting all that much.”
“We’re really good at avoiding each other,” she said. “But it’s more that we just can’t relate. It’s like there’s this fundamental difference of understanding that we’ve never been able to overcome.”
“Understanding about what?”
“You name it. Life, work, everything.” She ran her hands up and down her arms. The temperature had dropped during dinner and while it was still mild, she was obviously feeling chilled.