Authors: Erin Nicholas
“It was a little last minute,” Amanda said, glancing at Shane. “And I didn’t know you would be here.”
“The three of you were going to have a nice weekend without me?” Emma asked, looking from Isabelle to Olivia.
“Amanda only told me because she didn’t have Nate’s new number,” Olivia said.
Emma’s expression was instantly suspicious. “Nate’s number? Why did you need that?”
“To ask if we could borrow his plane,” Olivia said with a shrug.
“His
plane
?” Isabelle asked.
“His private plane,” Olivia said with a grin. “And he was happy to let us use it.”
“It’s not Nate’s plane,” Emma said. “It’s his grandfather’s.”
Shane watched the way Emma rolled her eyes. She seemed inordinately irritated by any mention of Nate. Since Shane was exceedingly irritated by
her
, he found it entertaining to see her get huffy.
“Well, it’s Nate’s
family’s
plane,” Olivia admitted. “But he uses it. When we took it to Chicago for that fundraiser—”
“That’s how you knew about it?” Emma asked, facing her younger sister squarely. “You’ve been
on
that plane before?”
“Yes.” Olivia tipped her head to the side, watching Emma carefully. “When we went to the fundraiser in Chicago.”
“I knew he was asking you to fundraisers since Amanda’s with Ryan now, but I didn’t know he was taking you out of town. On a private plane.” Emma had a hand propped on her hip.
“I didn’t realize you needed to know,” Olivia said calmly.
Emma stared at Olivia for a long moment. Finally she said, “I don’t think you should go out with him.”
“I’m not going
out
with him,” Olivia said. “I’m going
with
him to fundraisers.”
“Why can’t he go alone?” Emma wanted to know.
“Because the women won’t leave him alone if he’s not with a date,” Olivia said simply.
Emma’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Oh, I’m sure.”
Olivia looked a little smug. “We have a good time. He’s very charming and a complete gentleman and…well, there’s the private-plane thing.”
Emma made a little growling noise and Amanda gripped her arm.
“We need to deal with the girls,” Amanda said. “They’re getting restless.”
“Put them back on the bus,” Shane said simply.
“No way,” Emma protested. “We drove nine hours. And it’s late.”
“This is smack dab in the middle of party-time for you,” Shane said. “It’s not even one a.m.”
“This is my
business
,” Emma said. “Do you understand that? These are clients and Brittany and Chloe’s clients are potential clients for me.”
He couldn’t believe this. “This is your sister’s
health
. Do you understand
that
?”
“Isabelle doesn’t need complete quiet constantly. And the girls will hardly be making noise when they’re doing yoga and getting massages.”
Shane rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He could use a massage right now himself. “Emma—”
“Let’s let Isabelle decide,” Emma interrupted. “If she wants us to leave, we will.”
Shane dropped his hand to his side. He couldn’t see Isabelle’s face, but his gut knotted. Emma was essentially asking Isabelle to choose between them.
“The spy game was my idea,” Emma went on. “I knew that you both needed to see that Isabelle can be adventurous and fun in spite of everything. And yes, this spa thing with the girls is also a great idea. And—” Emma glanced at Amanda, “—apparently you needed some backup anyway.”
Shane gritted his teeth. “Amanda’s not backup.”
Emma crossed her arms. “Then why’s she here?”
Was he going to admit that he was on his way home tomorrow morning?
“Emma, why don’t you and the girls go upstairs? There’s plenty of room,” Isabelle said calmly.
Emma looked like she was going to reply, but she must have seen something in Isabelle’s face that made her simply nod. “Okay.” She stepped around Isabelle and Shane. “All right, chicks, everybody upstairs! Pick a room. Brittany, Chloe and I will be around in a little bit to fill you in on the agenda for tomorrow.”
As the herd of women started up the staircase, Amanda grabbed Olivia’s hand. “We’ll, um, head upstairs too.”
Isabelle didn’t say anything but she nodded. Shane could feel the tension in her body and he felt the rigidity in his spine ratchet up. They were about to fight. He could feel it.
When everyone was on the second floor except for them, Isabelle turned. She had her arms crossed over her stomach and he could see the strain in her face.
Yep, they were definitely about to fight.
Isabelle took a deep breath and turned to him. “I know what you’re going to say.”
Well, he was going to say it anyway. “That having your sister here, yoga or not, especially with eleven
additional
women, isn’t exactly the way to relax and get a handle on things?”
Isabelle nodded. “Right.”
“So tell them to leave.”
“I can’t.”
He raised both eyebrows. “The hell if you can’t. In fact, you
need
to.”
“It’s not that easy.” She looked at him, pleading in her eyes.
“It needs to get that easy, Iz,” he said firmly. “
You
have to take care of you. This is exactly like what we talked about. When I want to have sex on the bathroom counter in a restaurant, you have to say no. And when Emma wants to show up and throw a four-day party at your boss’s cabin—whether she uses the word
spa
or not—you have to say no.”
“But—” She pressed her lips together, then started again. “Emma’s having some trouble dealing with all of this too. Maybe this is good. This will help her feel like she’s helping me and I can use the time to help her understand things better.”
He pulled in a deep breath. “This isn’t about Emma, Iz. I know you’re used to letting Emma call the shots, but…you can’t get caught up in her stuff without thinking anymore.”
He remembered something Emma had said to him, that he
couldn’t
tone things down, that this was who he was, that if he tried to change he would be miserable. And that he would fail at it and break Isabelle’s heart.
“You can’t expect Emma to change, okay?” he said, gently, but seriously. “This is who she is. And if she changes she’ll be miserable and that will hurt you too. Don’t expect her to do the work in understanding this and don’t expect…” He sighed. “Don’t expect her to stop renting party buses. You have to be the one to say no to getting on the party bus that Emma will definitely keep on renting.”
Which meant, he couldn’t blame Emma either. He knew that she didn’t mean to hurt her sister or make things harder on Isabelle. She did, however, need to become a better listener. And Isabelle absolutely needed to get better at saying what Emma needed to hear.
Laughter drifted to them from upstairs and Shane saw the wistful look on Isabelle’s face.
“Tell them to leave,” he urged. “Amanda and Olivia will stay and you can go on according to plan.”
“If they stay, I can practice relaxing in spite of other things going on and I can start working on saying no.”
She wasn’t going to make Emma leave. Of course she wasn’t going to make Emma leave.
“Bullshit,” Shane said, his voice tight. “We both know that with Emma here, there’s no way you’re going to make it through five books. What you’re
actually
going to do is party with your sisters, probably drink too much, stay up too late, and do all the things you
shouldn’t
be doing.”
A little crease formed between her eyebrows. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’d love to give you a vote of confidence—if I felt confident in the decisions you were going to make.”
She sucked in a quick breath, clearly surprised by his words. “There’s only one way to find out what I’ll do,” she said tightly.
“I guess there is.” She could take all the fucking time she needed to figure this out. He wanted to be supportive, but he couldn’t take it more seriously than she did. And he couldn’t hang out and watch her not take it seriously. “And I guess you don’t need me to hang around then.”
“I guess not. My sisters are here for me.”
Yes, because he’d called them. Well, one of them anyway. Whatever. He could be supportive if she was trying to make changes. He
would be
supportive. But he wasn’t going to push her, he wasn’t going to do it for her and he wasn’t going to watch her mess around.
“So you’re leaving?” she asked as he stomped up the stairs.
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.” He headed into their room and paced to where he’d tossed his clothes when he’d exchanged them for his sweatpants.
“With my car?”
“You have a whole party bus to use to get home.”
“You know what? That is a great point.” She turned and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To find my sisters. I’m
definitely
in need of some relaxing now!” She slammed the door behind her.
He slumped onto the bed. He’d handled that
so
well. It was amazing that she hadn’t wanted to confide everything in him from the beginning.
Living and Loving with Fibromyalgia
lay on the table next to the bed. He picked it up, weighing it in his hand. It was heavy. There was a lot of information to learn in there. Living with fibro was one thing, but loving—yeah, that would definitely add some pages.
He clearly had some homework to do. He tucked the book into his bag, pulled the strap up on his shoulder and headed back downstairs to start his trip home. Without Isabelle.
Isabelle stepped out onto the porch, slamming the door behind her.
She pulled in a deep breath through her nose, letting it out and working on calming her heart rate.
She hadn’t asked Shane to come along in the first place. She hadn’t
invited
him. In fact, she’d pretty specifically
not
invited him to come with her. She needed to figure some stuff out. Why was that so hard to comprehend? And was it so hard to believe that this would be
difficult
for her sisters to handle too? Really?
“Argh!”
She stomped down the steps. She had no idea where she was going, only that she couldn’t stay and watch Shane pack to leave her and she wasn’t quite up to diving into the midst of all the girls in the house.
“Argh!”
Halfway down the front walk, she stopped and looked around. It was really dark out here. She wasn’t going to get far… Dammit.
Then her eyes landed on the pink party bus. It was hard to miss, of course, but she focused on it now. And realized that no one would think to look for her there.
While Shane and Emma had been arguing in the foyer, she remembered seeing the driver—an older guy in a chauffeur’s hat and jacket—come into the house. Emma’s friends and clients had brought him into their fold and Isabelle assumed he now had a room somewhere upstairs too.
She pushed on the door to the bus and was pleased to find it unlocked. She climbed in and looked around. It was dark now, but it was clear where the strips of pink neon lights ran along the ceiling and floor. The walls were silvery and likely reflected the neon nicely—or gaudily depending on who you asked. The two sides of the bus were lined with black leather seats broken up here and there by little tabletops with cup holders. There was a bathroom at the back, two mini fridges and at least ten stereo speakers.
Isabelle had to admit that this seemed like a lot of fun.
Something shiny caught her eye. The keys were still in the ignition. Of course, clear out here, she could understand the driver thinking the bus would be more than safe.
Isabelle slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key.
Pink neon lit up the interior and the stereo blasted “You Shook Me All Night Long”. She could imagine her sister belting out those lyrics with her friends.
In fact, Isabelle couldn’t help but start singing along herself. She got up and moved farther into the bus, shaking her hips a little as she went.
She sat down in the middle of one of the benches, pleased to discover the seats were extremely comfortable. She pivoted and laid back, folding her hand on her stomach, and worked on breathing.
This was nice. Alone. Closed off from the world where everyone had an opinion on what she should be doing and how she should be doing it. No one insisting she do things differently. No one insisting she do anything at all.
And Shane was leaving. In about ten minutes she’d be free. She could do whatever she wanted. No one would be nagging her about gummy bears or getting enough sleep. That would be great.
Tears pricked at her eyes.
There would also be no one holding her all night or giving her special little smiles or making her laugh.
Dammit.
She swiped at her eyes.
“Do you still have the pendant?”