I lift my hand to knock anyway.
Isabella’s house sits a little above the road, tucked between tall aspens that shimmer silver when the warm breeze moves through them. I considered turning around the whole walk here. The excuse was already forming in my head before I reached the walkway.
But then I hear the hose.
I round the side of the house and stop.
Isabella is standing barefoot in the grass, watering a row of potted plants along the deck railing.
She’s wearing a black sports bra and a pair of biker shorts that look like they were designed by someone hell bent on keeping me distracted. Her brown hair is twisted into a looseknot, strands already escaping and sticking to the back of her neck in the heat.
The hose arcs lazily from her hand, droplets catching the late afternoon sun.
For a moment, I just watch.
The woman who left a man speechless with three sentences in front of half the rink last week is now carefully adjusting the stream of water over a basil plant like it’s a delicate engineering project. There’s something about her that doesn’t loosen its hold once it has you. Quiet, almost imperceptible—but constant. Like if I stand here long enough, I’ll stop trying to leave at all.
Her back shifts as she reaches for the next pot.
My brain briefly forgets how language works.
Then she turns slightly and notices me.
“Jesus—” Water splashes across the deck and soaks her toes. Isabella blinks against the sun, using her hand to shield her eyes as she studies me standing in front of her, frozen. “Ceci?”
I clear my throat. “Hi.”
She stares at me for a moment, recalibrating, then shuts off the hose and drops it on the grass.
“You know, most people text first,” she says, the corner of her mouth quirking up just a little bit.
“Yes, I considered it.”
“And?”
“I thought this would be more interesting.”
She wipes her hands on the sides of her shorts, and my eyes betray me immediately, drifting down to the line of her stomach before I can stop them. The problem with IsabellaPierce outside the rink is that there’s nothing between her and the world. No blazer, no posture, no careful composure.
Just muscle and sunlight and the quiet confidence of someone completely comfortable in her own space.
“Were you planning to stare all afternoon,” Isabella asks lightly, “or did you actually come here to hang out?”
Heat creeps up my neck. The annoying part is that she isn’t even teasing in a cruel way. She’s teasing because she already knows the answer.
Isabella notices immediately. Of course she does. Her smile widens just enough to make it clear she’s enjoying this. Being in control.
Not the heavy kind she performs in public—the one that comes with cameras and committees and federation politics. This is different. Lighter. Almost playful.
“You’re so bad at lying.”
“I didn’t lie,” I say defensively. “I just?—”
“You just what?” she murmurs, stepping closer with a slow kind of confidence that makes my brain stall out completely.
I open my mouth, but not a single sound comes out, and this only makes her smile wider.
She closes the last bit of distance between us like it was inevitable all along. Not rushed. A quiet kind of gravity pulling her forward until my back brushes the warm siding of her house.
