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Angela leaned forward and kissed him. The kiss was meant to be brief, but Isaiah pulled her onto his lap and deepened it. Heat swirled inside her.
“I’ve got to go to work,” she said against his lips.
He groaned and gripped her thighs. “You’re working tonight? I thought we could hang out.”
She’d rather stay here with him, but she really couldn’t afford to skip out of work. “I know, but I really need to go now that it’s my only source of income.”
“What about Cory?”
“Nate is watching him.”
“Look, save your teen-sitter money,” he said with a grin. “At least let me do this for you. Cory can spend the night at my place.”
“Why spend the night?”
He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Because if he stays, you stay.” His hand slid up her thigh until his fingers brushed the heat of her center. “And I miss you.”
Angela sighed and kissed him harder. She should save the money. Yeah, that’s why you’re going to agree. “I’ll be there before one.”
CHAPTER 21
Isaiah had just left a team meeting about the upcoming training camp when his mother called. He had been sitting with several members of the team in the locker room talking and stepped out to answer.
“Bridget told me you dumped her for some stripper” were the first words out of her mouth.
Isaiah gritted his teeth to keep from snapping at his mother. He didn’t mind her asking about what had happened with Bridget, but the derisive way she’d said “stripper” set him on edge. She’d already formed an opinion about Angela before she’d even met her. He had no doubt Bridget helped with that.
“Hello to you, too,” he said calmly.
“Isaiah, I didn’t call you to play games,” she answered in an equally calm tone, the one she used when she was mad but tried to use reason to get her way. “What’s going on?”
“For one, I didn’t dump Bridget. She wanted time to figure out if we should get back together. I told her about Angela and that I didn’t think getting back together was a good idea.”
“Why did you invite Bridget to move there if you were interested in another woman?” Her voice was measured and questioning. She sounded every bit the college professor asking a pupil to dig deeper to find the true answer to the equation.
“I hadn’t met Angela when I first suggested moving to Bridget,” he answered just as evenly.
“Aha,” she said slowly. “You’re making a rash decision.”
Isaiah inhaled and exhaled slowly. “You’d rather I continue to keep Bridget in my life while I date Angela?”
“No, but you basically told Bridget you two were done forever after only knowing this woman briefly. You and Bridget have known each other for years. You’ve got a lot in common and want the same things.”
“We only came back to each other because it was convenient, not because we cared for each other. I don’t love her.”
She was quiet for a few seconds. “Who is this woman?” The change in subject meant he’d won the argument as it related to Bridget. His mother may have an engineer’s mind, but she also believed in love. “And why did you introduce her to the media before us?”
“Introducing her to the media first wasn’t intentional.” Calculated to prevent fallout, but not to disregard his family.
“You’re showing her off for damage control,” she said as if she’d caught him cheating on a final exam. “Your father heard about the incident.”
Of course his father knew. “We were together before the appearance.”
“Not for long. You’d just split with Bridget a few days earlier.”
His mother never questioned him this hard about the women he’d occasionally been seen with when he wasn’t with Bridget. He was sure they would have been happy with whomever he ultimately fell in love with even if the woman wasn’t Bridget. This was something different.
“What are you getting at?” he asked.
“We’re coming to see you before you leave for training camp. We want to meet her,” she said in a no-nonsense voice that meant the bags were packed and plane tickets purchased.
