I wince. I haven’t discussed Mal’s... nature with Bianca. But she’s observant, and the incident with Nix during children’s class was hard to explain away as a “trained exotic pet.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“He slept at your place last night.”
“How do you—” I stop. Small town. Of course she knows. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like what you’re thinking.”
Bianca’s eyebrows climb. “You had a gorgeous man in your bed and you just slept?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“From you? Yes. Isadora Solis, who schedules bathroom breaks and hasn’t taken a day off in three years? Yes, it is extremely hard to believe that you’d waste a perfectly good overnight guest on actual sleeping.”
“It wasn’t a waste,” I snap, then do my best to soften my voice. “It was... nice.”
The eyebrows climb higher. “Nice.”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face is saying plenty.”
Bianca’s expression softens into something approaching genuine affection. “Izzie. Bring him to the party.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is. ‘Mal, would you like to come to my mother’s birthday party?’ See? Simple.”
“You’ve never met my mother.”
“I’ve heard enough.” She hops off the desk. “Look, I know Carmen is... a lot. But you’ve been dreading this party for weeks, and now you have someone who actually wants to be in your corner. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?”
“Because...” I trail off, searching for the real answer beneath all the rationalizations. “Because it means something. Introducing him to her. It makes usrealin a way that’s hard to take back.”
“And that’s bad?”
“It’s terrifying.”
Bianca considers me for a long moment. Then she reaches out and squeezes my arm.
“Terror isn’t the same as wrong,” she says quietly. “Sometimes the scariest things are the best ones.”
She heads toward the back office before I can respond, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the faint scent of children’s fruit snacks.
A short time later Mal arrives for our afternoon practice session. He’s wearing dark jeans and a charcoal Henley that does unreasonable things to his shoulders, and he’s carrying two cups from the coffee shop down the street.
“Cortado, one sugar,” he says, handing me one. “And before you ask, yes, I remembered that you only take sugar on Tuesdays and Thursdays when you have back-to-back classes.”
I stare at him. “How do you know my coffee schedule?”
“I pay attention.” He says it simply, without pride or expectation. “Also, Bianca may have mentioned it.”
“Bianca has a big mouth.”
