THE WOMANIZER'S DEMISE
It had been a week since the eventful family dinner. Mackenzie and Avery had since flown back to their respective homes and Jessica came and went as usual. Zoe couldn't get away due to having a residence under Walker's and Diana's roof and Diana hadn't heard from her three eldest sons since they'd left her house that night.
Her mind stayed consumed with Taylor and his sudden marriage. She just couldn't put a finger on how she felt about it. She knew that, more than anything, she was hurt. She hadn't meant to insult Winn, by any means, because ultimately, she knew how Taylor felt about her and the truth was, Zac had been right when he'd called her a good role model. Diana liked Winn. But the whole thing rubbed her the wrong way. She just couldn't shake the feeling.
More than the wedding, she determined, she was more disturbed by the pregnancy. She didn't want to distrust Winn. But how did this happen? It just looked bad. One second she's seeing Isaac and the next second she's pregnant with Taylor's baby? It had been Diana's understanding that Taylor and Winn were just friends. And, true, she didn't know the details of their personal lives. But how Isaac could just sit back and be okay with everything was beyond her. After all, he had just gotten into a physical altercation with Taylor over her just over a month ago. Maybe it was the Mama Bear in her that caused her to feel so defensive over her sons, but if both of her sons seemed to be happy with this outcome, why couldn't she be?
Calling Isaac and getting Linda Douglas's phone number was like an act of Congress. "Mom, I'm not going to aid you in ruining Taylor's life any more than you already have--"
"Oh, please, Isaac, I have NOT ruined your brother's life. If anything, he's done that for himself--"
"Absolutely not. With that attitude, I am NOT helping you."
Diana sighed. She hadn't meant to say that. Honestly, she hadn't. She was trying to hard to keep an open mind. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that, Ike, I'm really trying here. Just--please, she's my daughter-in-law's mother. I think I have the right to speak to her."
"Yeah, but I don't think I have the right to randomly hand her number out to crazy people."
"Sweetie, why don't you just--why doesn't SOMEBODY--just once and for all tell me what is going on here? What have I missed? Why is Taylor fathering your girlfriend's baby and then marrying her? Why? WHY are you okay with it? I could understand you wanting to maybe tear his head off NOW, rather than last month when you tried it in public. Please don't leave me to my own devices here. Just TELL me."
Isaac sighed into the phone. "Mom, you really don't need to know--"
"I need to understand SOMETHING."
"Fine. Fine. The long and short of it is, Tay loves Winn and Winn loves Tay. Somewhere down the line signals got crossed, mixed up, whatever, and then I enter the picture and Winn and I...Mom, I really don't need to go into this--"
"Tell me," she demanded.
"Winn and I started sleeping together. And we liked each other and I started developing feelings that I shouldn't have felt and--and neither one of us were ready for a real relationship so we kinda made an agreement of sorts...and apparently in that time period one thing led to another with Tay not once, but twice. And it was probably meant to be for them the entire time and I shouldn't have gotten involved with her, but, Mom, she--she made me feel things. She opened my eyes. She...she kinda found me when I thought I was lost. You know? And I wanted to hold on to that but the truth was, I had no right. I knew how Tay felt about her the whole time--the ENTIRE time, and I pursued her anyway and I shouldn't have because I was selfish. It wasn't fair to her, it wasn't fair to him, and it wasn't fair to me. Winn and I never committed to each other. I slept around on her, too. And--and when Christmas Eve happened, I can only assume that--that everything was as it should be, even for those few hours they spent together before he skipped town. And...that's pretty much it."
Diana sat on the phone in silence as she tried to take it all in and understand what he was saying. She remembered Thanksgiving. She remembered the tension. She remembered her conversations with both Taylor and Isaac. She had sided with Winn at the time--felt sorry for her. And then Isaac interrupted her thoughts.
"Oh, and about her job and her house? I'm ultimately to blame for that, too. She got fired because of the publicity of the fight. When it got out that it was about her, her company decided they didn't need to risk that kind of publicity associating with them. And when Tay's arrest got out, it only made it worse. A few weeks after she found out she was pregnant, she and I had dinner--mainly so I could apologize and we could iron things out. I still wanted to be her friend. And that's when I found out that she was planning to sell her house and move back home with her family to raise the baby. She knew it was Tay's baby even then and so did I. She was afraid to tell him, she was afraid--she was afraid of this very thing. Right here. The way you treated her last week. Mom, she was going to take off to Texas with your grandchild because she was afraid that Tay would judge her like you did. If you want to blame anyone for anything here, blame me. Blame me for it all. I nearly ruined my relationship with my brother, I got her fired and subsequently nearly ran her out of town. But, please, trust me when I say, I can guarantee you that they married for love. Not because he got her pregnant. Sure, they did something spontaneous and a little crazy--but they did something that felt right to them. And in the end, that's really all that matters. You should be the one telling me that."
Diana sighed and collapsed her face into her hand. Then she rubbed her face and she stared out into the space in front of her. "Will you please just give me that woman's phone number so we can get some things straightened out? I want my son back. And I want--I want my daughter-in-law and I want my future grandchild...and I want you back, too. I want my family back. And I want to speak to her mother. So please. Just give me the number."
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Isaac wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea of airing his dirty laundry out in public. Well, not anymore, anyway. However, he couldn't help that he was standing in the middle of the grocery store when his mother called him. He should have known where the conversation would go, he just wasn't expecting it to go as far as it did. Against his better judgment, he texted his mother the phone number she wanted and then glanced around to see just how many people had overheard the conversation he had tried to keep quiet in the produce section.
As he glanced around, a pair of cold fingers covered his eyes from behind him and the whisper tickled his ear. "Guess who?"
He couldn't help the smile that crept across his face. "I don't have to guess, I can smell you."
"Well, that's rude," Kelsey Kennedy retorted as she uncovered his eyes.
He turned around to face her, grinning in amusement. "You smell like pizza sauce and flour. Do they bottle that scent?"
Kelsey scoffed. "You know, for the reputation you carry around, you're not so good at flattering a lady, are you?"
"Ah, on the contrary. I'm actually quite talented at that. But you can't deny the truth and the truth is, you reek of your restaurant."
"Yeah, well. We had an unexpected lunch rush and I didn't get the supply order in in time and...here I am, buying onions and green peppers. And mushrooms and tomatoes and pretty much every topping on my menu. Tomorrow can't come fast enough."
"That sucks," Isaac sympathized. "You have to go back in tonight?"
"Yep. Have to close it down tonight."
"Oh," he nodded in thought. Before he knew it, he had completely forgotten what he had come to the store for, opting instead to walk around with Kelsey as she picked out produce for her restaurant.
"So. I couldn't help but overhear your conversation," she said shyly. "I mean, I wasn't eavesdropping or anything."
"Yeah..."
"So your brother's married, huh? And he's having a baby? That's quite a sudden undertaking. Who's the lucky lady?"
For as frequently as he had spoken to Kelsey in the past month, it slipped his mind that she wasn't exactly up to date on the latest developments. It HAD been a week or two since he'd spoken to her, so keeping her up to date on Taylor's nuptials hadn't happened yet. Isaac shoved his hands in his pockets and took a breath. "Uh, Winn."
Kelsey stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. "Wow. That's, uh...wow. Um...how are you?"
"Why does everybody keep asking me that?"
"Ike, I know you guys live on some kind of warped 'Hanson time' or whatever where your sense of time is abnormal to the rest of the world, but might I remind you, you just kicked his ass last month for sleeping with her and all of a sudden he's knocked her up and married her? I mean--he DID knock her up, didn't he...?"
"Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely not my kid. But, I just--yeah, I've had time to think. And I'm okay. I appreciate everyone's concern but it's just not needed. My biggest issue right now is my mother."
"Your mother?"
"It was ugly when she found out about Tay and Winn. She was like a completely different person. Now she wants to talk to Winn's mother, who apparently wasn't happy with the news, either. I may have just thrown that poor couple to the wolves, I don't know."
"Sounds like you just can't get out of the middle you keep getting thrown into, huh?"
"Tell me about it," he muttered as she pushed her cart several feet forward, stopping at the onions.
"So what does Ike have going on lately? That's who I'm concerned about."
He couldn't help the smile that crept across his face and, in spite of himself, and in spite of the scent of the pizza ingredients that radiated off of her, he couldn't deny that she looked incredibly cute in the moment. That was something that startled him for a second. Cute? Had she ever been cute before?
Either way, she was cute now in her black Kel's Pizza and Pub t-shirt, jeans, black sneakers, and her ponytail. She wasn't dressed up, her hair wasn't perfect, and she wasn't wearing a face full of makeup. She was just Kelsey. His old best friend, Kelsey, who used to pal around with him at summer camp and sneak alcohol in the woods with him after lights out. She was just Kelsey, who, after his fight with Taylor, was the one who made him realize that his self-loathing was for the birds and he needed to get his shit together. It was just Kelsey who'd blurted that she missed him--and the truth was, he missed her, too.
"Kels, what do you have going on tomorrow night?" He asked suddenly.
She smiled and shook her head, her brown ponytail swaying side to side. "That is not what I asked you."
"Well, that's my answer."
"You can't answer a question with a question."
"I just did."
She lowered the plastic bag of onions she'd just filled into her shopping cart and she looked up at him, her expression softening and her cheeks reddening just a little. "I, um. Well, I open tomorrow but I didn't really have anything planned for tomorrow night."
"Why don't you take me up on that dinner I asked you for awhile back?"
"Ike, I don't know..."
"You said that when I asked, you'd probably be free. Well, guess what? I want to take you out tomorrow night and it just so happens you're free."
"Out?"
Her brown eyes gazed questioningly into his and he detected the sparkle in them. His breath caught for a moment and he felt his heart thud against his chest. But despite the symptoms, he wasn't nervous. As a matter of fact, it was probably the most comfortable he'd felt with a woman since--well, since he and Kelsey were teenagers.
"Out," he clarified. "You and me. Out. Tomorrow night. What do you say?"
"You mean like a date?"
Isaac let out a breath, growing frustrated with her cluelessness. She wasn't this naïve and he knew it. "Yes. Exactly like a date. I want to take you out on a date. As a matter of fact, I think I'd like to take you on quite a few dates. A lot of dates, even. I might go so far as to say that I'm not interested in taking anyone else BUT you on a date and I hope that someday you can say the same about me."
Kelsey's mouth dropped open in shock for a moment. "Ike. I--"
"It's a yes or no question. You're not as coy as you're acting."
"Yes," she blurted. And then she recovered, flipping her ponytail off of her shoulder and straightening her spine, causing Isaac to grin in amusement. "I mean, uh, sure. Sure, I'm free tomorrow night. After I get off work, that is. The restaurant comes first, you know."
"Absolutely. How about you text me and let me know what time you're heading out of there?"
"Well, that's no way to plan a date--"
"It's how we plan a date. You have a business to run. I can respect that."
Kelsey nodded. "Okay. Yeah, I, um. We're really doing this?"
He looked at her for a moment in thought. The truth was, the moment he'd asked her out, he already couldn't wait for tomorrow night to come. He didn't know what it was, but he found himself drawn to her all of a sudden. Was he weak, the way he'd been weak with Winn? Was it desperation again, was he needing to feel something?
No. No, he knew that wasn't it. When he first saw Winn and asked her out, it had been purely physical. Nothing more, nothing less. But looking at Kelsey and asking her out was like--well, was this what it was like for Taylor when he looked at Winn? Because all of a sudden, Kelsey was the only thing that made sense to him. Why had he let himself go all these years when he could have spent that time bettering his friendship with her?
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Why not? Makes sense, right?"
"I'll text you when I get off work." Then she smiled and tore off another bag to fill with produce. "I'm actually kind of excited."
"Yeah," Isaac smiled. "Me, too."
Isaac walked out of the grocery store empty-handed. He suspected that once he got home he would curse himself for not getting what he went out for in the first place as soon as he remembered what it was. But for now, he had a date with Kelsey Kennedy tomorrow night and he wanted to bask in it for a little while.
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Isaac wouldn't dare tell a single soul that he was already ready for his date with Kelsey before she even texted him to tell him she was leaving work. Now he stood in the store, contemplating what kind of flowers to buy, when the thought suddenly turned him off. He was wearing jeans, for crying out loud. What the hell was he doing? Kelsey wasn't that kind of woman. She couldn't be bought and if he knew her like he thought he did, she might be borderline insulted by the flowers anyway. So why was he even standing here?
So he did something he never thought he would do in a million years: he went outside and he called his brother for advice.
"Help me out," he blurted when Taylor answered the phone.
"What's up?"
"I have a date with Kelsey tonight."
"Whoa!" Taylor replied, seemingly impressed. "How'd you pull THAT off?"
Isaac scowled into the phone. "I asked her and she said yes. It was pretty easy, actually. Anyway, I don't want to show up empty-handed. But flowers don't seem right."
"Is that your automatic go-to for these things? Flowers?"
Isaac sighed, slightly embarrassed. "Yes."
"Then, no. No flowers. Is it--I mean, is it necessary to bring anything at all?"
"What did you bring for Winn?"
"What did YOU bring for Winn?"
"Flowers."
"Ah. I see your predicament."
"You already saw my predicament, I told you what it was."
"Well...I can't exactly pinpoint my first official date with Winn, I guess. I mean, the first time I actually asked her to go anywhere with me was breakfast and we were both severely hung over--wasn't exactly romantic. And the second one was snowed in in my house AFTER I'd asked her to marry me. I'm not telling you to ask Kelsey to marry you."
"Yeah, that wasn't really on my checklist of possible gifts."
"Good."
"I feel rude if I don't bring something. Everything is so cliché. Flowers, chocolates...I mean, shit, Tay, it's not like it's Valentine's Day."
"It almost is. In a couple of weeks...shit, Ike, it'll be Valentine's Day soon and I nearly forgot it! I don't have SHIT planned for it!"
Suddenly, Taylor was stressing about his first holiday with his new wife and Isaac's wheels were suddenly turning. "Hey, thanks, bro. You were a big help."
"Wait, now you gotta help me!"
"When I'm not pressed for time. Gotta go."
Hanging up on Taylor, Isaac walked back into the store and walked straight to the greeting card aisle. He skimmed quickly and found a collection of vintage-inspired cards, one-sided cards that didn't open, with hand-drawn pictures and cute, witty little greetings. It didn't take him long to select one, smiling at the thought of their chance encounter in the produce section yesterday, paid for it, and darted into the parking lot and into his Escalade. From there, he scribbled hers and his names onto it and headed for her house.
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Kelsey's house was a quaint two-story in a modern housing development on the opposite side of town as Isaac's condo. When he showed up on her small doorstep the sun was out but it was barely still daylight outside.
When Kelsey answered the door, Isaac hadn't meant to openly ogle her, but he couldn't help himself. For years he had literally only seen her in her work uniform of jeans and a t-shirt. Now she stood in front of him in a black and white tunic-style dress, with three-quarter sleeves, that fell mid-thigh, showing off the bare, smooth, tan legs that peeked out between the dress and the black high-heeled boots just below her knees. Her shoulder-length brown hair held a few loose, soft waves, and her makeup was minimal, but he never thought she needed it anyway. He'd never seen her look like that before. She looked spectacular.
"Wow," he breathed, unable to take his eyes off of her. "You look amazing."
Kelsey smiled and glanced down at herself. "Thank you. I guess I do clean up pretty nice, huh?"
Only able to nod, he remembered the card in his pocket and he pulled it from his leather coat and handed it to her. "Uh, I brought you this. I, uh, didn't think flowers or candy would be quite right and I wanted to bring you something, so..."
"Aww," she smiled as she took the card from him. "You were right in your decision. I'm allergic to flowers and I don't eat sweets. A card is nice."
He realized that his palms started to sweat a little bit as she opened it and looked at the cheesy, vintage-inspired card he'd picked out. On the front was a picture of a plum handing a valentine to a peach. The peach's card read "You're a peach, Valentine!" and the message below the plum read, "I'm plum crazy about you." All of a sudden, he hated his choice and was tempted to yank it out of her hand before she opened it for fear of embarrassment.
But it was too late. She'd already opened the envelope and pulled the card out. To his relief, a smile crept across her face and he thought he saw her blush a little. "It's not even Valentine's Day yet..."
"Well, it will be..."
Finally, after she looked at the card for a moment or two, she looked up at him and smiled flirtatiously. "Aww, Ike...are you plum crazy about me?"
His face remained serious, his tone gentle. "You're the only thing I've been able to think about for the past few weeks. Look, I don't--I don't know where I went wrong all those years ago. And maybe we just grew apart, I don't know. But I wish--I wish I'd stuck around instead of, you know, letting things go the way they went. I wish I wasn't too stupid back then to see what was right in front of me."
Kelsey's smile faded as she looked up at him. "Ike..." she whispered. "What was--what was in front of you?"
"You," he said softly. "Just like you are right now. And I'm the luckiest man in the world that you agreed to go out with me tonight. I don't deserve it, but I'm glad you accepted the invitation."
Her jaw dropped open for a moment before she shut it again, seemingly speechless. Finally, she whispered softly, almost inaudibly, "I've been in love with you for so many years. I mean, I--I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I just--don't feel pressured or anything. Please don't let me run you off, I'm not trying to rush things and I'm not trying to get too heavy, but--I've loved you since we were fourteen. But I wasn't willing to watch you self-destruct. And I won't watch you do it again. And maybe--maybe back then we were both blind to a lot of things but now if--if you think your eyes are really open, then...well, then so are mine. I don't know what tonight is or where it'll go--"
"I know what my intention for tonight is. I knew what it was when I asked you yesterday and when I asked you several weeks ago. I'm done, Kels. I'm finished. I'm so tired. And you're right, let's not rush anything, but--but let's not be careful, either. Let's feel our way through this, let things go where WE want them to go. I know what I want. Dammit, Kels, for the first time in my life I actually know what I want. I'm kinda hoping we're on the same page here. I'm--I'm taking a chance. And it scares the hell out of me."
She was silent for a moment more and he swore he could hear the wheels turning in her head as she composed her next thought. "You have nothing to be afraid of," she said softly. And then, before he could react, she wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her lips over his, sending jolt after jolt of electricity soaring through his body, from head to toe and back up again.
He kissed her back, feeling his body begin to melt as he stepped forward and backed her into her house. Feeling around behind him, he slapped the door shut and they both ignored it as it slammed behind them. Taking her face in his hands, he deepened their kiss, letting his tongue dance in perfect rhythm with hers, and a moan escaped his throat uncontrollably with how content his heart was with her kiss.
After a moment, they broke their kiss and she stepped back and looked up at him, wide-eyed and bewildered. "I've never been kissed like that before," she said in disbelief.
His chest heaved with breath and adrenaline as his expression matched hers. "Neither have I."
And then, Kelsey cleared her throat, smoothed out her dress, and straightened her spine. "Don't you dare think this means you're getting out of this date. I didn't put all this crap on for nothing, you know."
Isaac smiled, amused at how adorable she was as she tried to compose herself. "You didn't have to put it on anyway. I'm taking you for wings and beer. You can't wipe your hands on that dress, you know. Besides, there's a game on tonight and I know the perfect place to--"
"Seriously? You ask me out and then you take me to a sports bar?"
"Well, I COULD take you to Lucky's like I've taken all my other dates. I mean, they know me there, a reservation would be pretty easy to get. I'll order the same thing I order every time, I'll probably order the chicken plate for you. I'll have a glass of whiskey to start and I'll order you wine. The wait staff would pretend not to know me and pretend not to notice that you're probably the--"
"Shut up, you're making me sick."
"OR we can stuff ourselves full of hot wings and beer and catch an awesome game on the monster screen at the sports bar." He took a step toward her and let his hands rest softly on her waist against the smooth material of her dress. "Then we could maybe catch a movie. And then I could bring you home. Maybe you'll invite me in for a nightcap..."
She smiled at him, her brown eyes sparkling with delight as she raised a suspicious eyebrow. "You seem to have this night all planned out."
"I've put a lot of thought into it."
Then her smile widened. "You had me at wings and beer. Give me two minutes to change, I'll be right back."
As she darted out of the room, Isaac shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and he smiled, his cheeks filling with heat as he glanced down at his shoes and the floor. So she loved him, huh? All these years, she'd said. This was completely new to him. And had this been any other time in the past then, yeah, he probably would have run away screaming. But now? Now he realized that you couldn't help who you loved. And he had no plans to string her along, either. He had no plans of letting her go. This was new and it was exciting and it was meant for him. Maybe he'd spent too many years chasing what he thought was his life, instead of letting life happen to him. Because the moment he'd finally let his guard down it seemed that life had fallen into his lap and he'd never been happier. It was his turn now. His opportunity. And he intended to take it with full enthusiasm and an open heart.
For the first time in Isaac Hanson's life, everything was as it should be.
Emerging from her bedroom in her usual uniform of a t-shirt and jeans, Kelsey Kennedy had never looked better. Throwing on her coat and grabbing her purse, she led Isaac out the door of her home, locked it up, and then slid her hand into his as if she'd been doing it for twenty years. At this small gesture, his heart warmed and he felt like a gooney teenager again. Her hand was soft and gentle and caring--and he never wanted to hold another hand for as long as he lived.
It had been a week since the eventful family dinner. Mackenzie and Avery had since flown back to their respective homes and Jessica came and went as usual. Zoe couldn't get away due to having a residence under Walker's and Diana's roof and Diana hadn't heard from her three eldest sons since they'd left her house that night.
Her mind stayed consumed with Taylor and his sudden marriage. She just couldn't put a finger on how she felt about it. She knew that, more than anything, she was hurt. She hadn't meant to insult Winn, by any means, because ultimately, she knew how Taylor felt about her and the truth was, Zac had been right when he'd called her a good role model. Diana liked Winn. But the whole thing rubbed her the wrong way. She just couldn't shake the feeling.
More than the wedding, she determined, she was more disturbed by the pregnancy. She didn't want to distrust Winn. But how did this happen? It just looked bad. One second she's seeing Isaac and the next second she's pregnant with Taylor's baby? It had been Diana's understanding that Taylor and Winn were just friends. And, true, she didn't know the details of their personal lives. But how Isaac could just sit back and be okay with everything was beyond her. After all, he had just gotten into a physical altercation with Taylor over her just over a month ago. Maybe it was the Mama Bear in her that caused her to feel so defensive over her sons, but if both of her sons seemed to be happy with this outcome, why couldn't she be?
Calling Isaac and getting Linda Douglas's phone number was like an act of Congress. "Mom, I'm not going to aid you in ruining Taylor's life any more than you already have--"
"Oh, please, Isaac, I have NOT ruined your brother's life. If anything, he's done that for himself--"
"Absolutely not. With that attitude, I am NOT helping you."
Diana sighed. She hadn't meant to say that. Honestly, she hadn't. She was trying to hard to keep an open mind. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that, Ike, I'm really trying here. Just--please, she's my daughter-in-law's mother. I think I have the right to speak to her."
"Yeah, but I don't think I have the right to randomly hand her number out to crazy people."
"Sweetie, why don't you just--why doesn't SOMEBODY--just once and for all tell me what is going on here? What have I missed? Why is Taylor fathering your girlfriend's baby and then marrying her? Why? WHY are you okay with it? I could understand you wanting to maybe tear his head off NOW, rather than last month when you tried it in public. Please don't leave me to my own devices here. Just TELL me."
Isaac sighed into the phone. "Mom, you really don't need to know--"
"I need to understand SOMETHING."
"Fine. Fine. The long and short of it is, Tay loves Winn and Winn loves Tay. Somewhere down the line signals got crossed, mixed up, whatever, and then I enter the picture and Winn and I...Mom, I really don't need to go into this--"
"Tell me," she demanded.
"Winn and I started sleeping together. And we liked each other and I started developing feelings that I shouldn't have felt and--and neither one of us were ready for a real relationship so we kinda made an agreement of sorts...and apparently in that time period one thing led to another with Tay not once, but twice. And it was probably meant to be for them the entire time and I shouldn't have gotten involved with her, but, Mom, she--she made me feel things. She opened my eyes. She...she kinda found me when I thought I was lost. You know? And I wanted to hold on to that but the truth was, I had no right. I knew how Tay felt about her the whole time--the ENTIRE time, and I pursued her anyway and I shouldn't have because I was selfish. It wasn't fair to her, it wasn't fair to him, and it wasn't fair to me. Winn and I never committed to each other. I slept around on her, too. And--and when Christmas Eve happened, I can only assume that--that everything was as it should be, even for those few hours they spent together before he skipped town. And...that's pretty much it."
Diana sat on the phone in silence as she tried to take it all in and understand what he was saying. She remembered Thanksgiving. She remembered the tension. She remembered her conversations with both Taylor and Isaac. She had sided with Winn at the time--felt sorry for her. And then Isaac interrupted her thoughts.
"Oh, and about her job and her house? I'm ultimately to blame for that, too. She got fired because of the publicity of the fight. When it got out that it was about her, her company decided they didn't need to risk that kind of publicity associating with them. And when Tay's arrest got out, it only made it worse. A few weeks after she found out she was pregnant, she and I had dinner--mainly so I could apologize and we could iron things out. I still wanted to be her friend. And that's when I found out that she was planning to sell her house and move back home with her family to raise the baby. She knew it was Tay's baby even then and so did I. She was afraid to tell him, she was afraid--she was afraid of this very thing. Right here. The way you treated her last week. Mom, she was going to take off to Texas with your grandchild because she was afraid that Tay would judge her like you did. If you want to blame anyone for anything here, blame me. Blame me for it all. I nearly ruined my relationship with my brother, I got her fired and subsequently nearly ran her out of town. But, please, trust me when I say, I can guarantee you that they married for love. Not because he got her pregnant. Sure, they did something spontaneous and a little crazy--but they did something that felt right to them. And in the end, that's really all that matters. You should be the one telling me that."
Diana sighed and collapsed her face into her hand. Then she rubbed her face and she stared out into the space in front of her. "Will you please just give me that woman's phone number so we can get some things straightened out? I want my son back. And I want--I want my daughter-in-law and I want my future grandchild...and I want you back, too. I want my family back. And I want to speak to her mother. So please. Just give me the number."
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Isaac wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea of airing his dirty laundry out in public. Well, not anymore, anyway. However, he couldn't help that he was standing in the middle of the grocery store when his mother called him. He should have known where the conversation would go, he just wasn't expecting it to go as far as it did. Against his better judgment, he texted his mother the phone number she wanted and then glanced around to see just how many people had overheard the conversation he had tried to keep quiet in the produce section.
As he glanced around, a pair of cold fingers covered his eyes from behind him and the whisper tickled his ear. "Guess who?"
He couldn't help the smile that crept across his face. "I don't have to guess, I can smell you."
"Well, that's rude," Kelsey Kennedy retorted as she uncovered his eyes.
He turned around to face her, grinning in amusement. "You smell like pizza sauce and flour. Do they bottle that scent?"
Kelsey scoffed. "You know, for the reputation you carry around, you're not so good at flattering a lady, are you?"
"Ah, on the contrary. I'm actually quite talented at that. But you can't deny the truth and the truth is, you reek of your restaurant."
"Yeah, well. We had an unexpected lunch rush and I didn't get the supply order in in time and...here I am, buying onions and green peppers. And mushrooms and tomatoes and pretty much every topping on my menu. Tomorrow can't come fast enough."
"That sucks," Isaac sympathized. "You have to go back in tonight?"
"Yep. Have to close it down tonight."
"Oh," he nodded in thought. Before he knew it, he had completely forgotten what he had come to the store for, opting instead to walk around with Kelsey as she picked out produce for her restaurant.
"So. I couldn't help but overhear your conversation," she said shyly. "I mean, I wasn't eavesdropping or anything."
"Yeah..."
"So your brother's married, huh? And he's having a baby? That's quite a sudden undertaking. Who's the lucky lady?"
For as frequently as he had spoken to Kelsey in the past month, it slipped his mind that she wasn't exactly up to date on the latest developments. It HAD been a week or two since he'd spoken to her, so keeping her up to date on Taylor's nuptials hadn't happened yet. Isaac shoved his hands in his pockets and took a breath. "Uh, Winn."
Kelsey stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. "Wow. That's, uh...wow. Um...how are you?"
"Why does everybody keep asking me that?"
"Ike, I know you guys live on some kind of warped 'Hanson time' or whatever where your sense of time is abnormal to the rest of the world, but might I remind you, you just kicked his ass last month for sleeping with her and all of a sudden he's knocked her up and married her? I mean--he DID knock her up, didn't he...?"
"Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely not my kid. But, I just--yeah, I've had time to think. And I'm okay. I appreciate everyone's concern but it's just not needed. My biggest issue right now is my mother."
"Your mother?"
"It was ugly when she found out about Tay and Winn. She was like a completely different person. Now she wants to talk to Winn's mother, who apparently wasn't happy with the news, either. I may have just thrown that poor couple to the wolves, I don't know."
"Sounds like you just can't get out of the middle you keep getting thrown into, huh?"
"Tell me about it," he muttered as she pushed her cart several feet forward, stopping at the onions.
"So what does Ike have going on lately? That's who I'm concerned about."
He couldn't help the smile that crept across his face and, in spite of himself, and in spite of the scent of the pizza ingredients that radiated off of her, he couldn't deny that she looked incredibly cute in the moment. That was something that startled him for a second. Cute? Had she ever been cute before?
Either way, she was cute now in her black Kel's Pizza and Pub t-shirt, jeans, black sneakers, and her ponytail. She wasn't dressed up, her hair wasn't perfect, and she wasn't wearing a face full of makeup. She was just Kelsey. His old best friend, Kelsey, who used to pal around with him at summer camp and sneak alcohol in the woods with him after lights out. She was just Kelsey, who, after his fight with Taylor, was the one who made him realize that his self-loathing was for the birds and he needed to get his shit together. It was just Kelsey who'd blurted that she missed him--and the truth was, he missed her, too.
"Kels, what do you have going on tomorrow night?" He asked suddenly.
She smiled and shook her head, her brown ponytail swaying side to side. "That is not what I asked you."
"Well, that's my answer."
"You can't answer a question with a question."
"I just did."
She lowered the plastic bag of onions she'd just filled into her shopping cart and she looked up at him, her expression softening and her cheeks reddening just a little. "I, um. Well, I open tomorrow but I didn't really have anything planned for tomorrow night."
"Why don't you take me up on that dinner I asked you for awhile back?"
"Ike, I don't know..."
"You said that when I asked, you'd probably be free. Well, guess what? I want to take you out tomorrow night and it just so happens you're free."
"Out?"
Her brown eyes gazed questioningly into his and he detected the sparkle in them. His breath caught for a moment and he felt his heart thud against his chest. But despite the symptoms, he wasn't nervous. As a matter of fact, it was probably the most comfortable he'd felt with a woman since--well, since he and Kelsey were teenagers.
"Out," he clarified. "You and me. Out. Tomorrow night. What do you say?"
"You mean like a date?"
Isaac let out a breath, growing frustrated with her cluelessness. She wasn't this naïve and he knew it. "Yes. Exactly like a date. I want to take you out on a date. As a matter of fact, I think I'd like to take you on quite a few dates. A lot of dates, even. I might go so far as to say that I'm not interested in taking anyone else BUT you on a date and I hope that someday you can say the same about me."
Kelsey's mouth dropped open in shock for a moment. "Ike. I--"
"It's a yes or no question. You're not as coy as you're acting."
"Yes," she blurted. And then she recovered, flipping her ponytail off of her shoulder and straightening her spine, causing Isaac to grin in amusement. "I mean, uh, sure. Sure, I'm free tomorrow night. After I get off work, that is. The restaurant comes first, you know."
"Absolutely. How about you text me and let me know what time you're heading out of there?"
"Well, that's no way to plan a date--"
"It's how we plan a date. You have a business to run. I can respect that."
Kelsey nodded. "Okay. Yeah, I, um. We're really doing this?"
He looked at her for a moment in thought. The truth was, the moment he'd asked her out, he already couldn't wait for tomorrow night to come. He didn't know what it was, but he found himself drawn to her all of a sudden. Was he weak, the way he'd been weak with Winn? Was it desperation again, was he needing to feel something?
No. No, he knew that wasn't it. When he first saw Winn and asked her out, it had been purely physical. Nothing more, nothing less. But looking at Kelsey and asking her out was like--well, was this what it was like for Taylor when he looked at Winn? Because all of a sudden, Kelsey was the only thing that made sense to him. Why had he let himself go all these years when he could have spent that time bettering his friendship with her?
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Why not? Makes sense, right?"
"I'll text you when I get off work." Then she smiled and tore off another bag to fill with produce. "I'm actually kind of excited."
"Yeah," Isaac smiled. "Me, too."
Isaac walked out of the grocery store empty-handed. He suspected that once he got home he would curse himself for not getting what he went out for in the first place as soon as he remembered what it was. But for now, he had a date with Kelsey Kennedy tomorrow night and he wanted to bask in it for a little while.
****************
Isaac wouldn't dare tell a single soul that he was already ready for his date with Kelsey before she even texted him to tell him she was leaving work. Now he stood in the store, contemplating what kind of flowers to buy, when the thought suddenly turned him off. He was wearing jeans, for crying out loud. What the hell was he doing? Kelsey wasn't that kind of woman. She couldn't be bought and if he knew her like he thought he did, she might be borderline insulted by the flowers anyway. So why was he even standing here?
So he did something he never thought he would do in a million years: he went outside and he called his brother for advice.
"Help me out," he blurted when Taylor answered the phone.
"What's up?"
"I have a date with Kelsey tonight."
"Whoa!" Taylor replied, seemingly impressed. "How'd you pull THAT off?"
Isaac scowled into the phone. "I asked her and she said yes. It was pretty easy, actually. Anyway, I don't want to show up empty-handed. But flowers don't seem right."
"Is that your automatic go-to for these things? Flowers?"
Isaac sighed, slightly embarrassed. "Yes."
"Then, no. No flowers. Is it--I mean, is it necessary to bring anything at all?"
"What did you bring for Winn?"
"What did YOU bring for Winn?"
"Flowers."
"Ah. I see your predicament."
"You already saw my predicament, I told you what it was."
"Well...I can't exactly pinpoint my first official date with Winn, I guess. I mean, the first time I actually asked her to go anywhere with me was breakfast and we were both severely hung over--wasn't exactly romantic. And the second one was snowed in in my house AFTER I'd asked her to marry me. I'm not telling you to ask Kelsey to marry you."
"Yeah, that wasn't really on my checklist of possible gifts."
"Good."
"I feel rude if I don't bring something. Everything is so cliché. Flowers, chocolates...I mean, shit, Tay, it's not like it's Valentine's Day."
"It almost is. In a couple of weeks...shit, Ike, it'll be Valentine's Day soon and I nearly forgot it! I don't have SHIT planned for it!"
Suddenly, Taylor was stressing about his first holiday with his new wife and Isaac's wheels were suddenly turning. "Hey, thanks, bro. You were a big help."
"Wait, now you gotta help me!"
"When I'm not pressed for time. Gotta go."
Hanging up on Taylor, Isaac walked back into the store and walked straight to the greeting card aisle. He skimmed quickly and found a collection of vintage-inspired cards, one-sided cards that didn't open, with hand-drawn pictures and cute, witty little greetings. It didn't take him long to select one, smiling at the thought of their chance encounter in the produce section yesterday, paid for it, and darted into the parking lot and into his Escalade. From there, he scribbled hers and his names onto it and headed for her house.
******************
Kelsey's house was a quaint two-story in a modern housing development on the opposite side of town as Isaac's condo. When he showed up on her small doorstep the sun was out but it was barely still daylight outside.
When Kelsey answered the door, Isaac hadn't meant to openly ogle her, but he couldn't help himself. For years he had literally only seen her in her work uniform of jeans and a t-shirt. Now she stood in front of him in a black and white tunic-style dress, with three-quarter sleeves, that fell mid-thigh, showing off the bare, smooth, tan legs that peeked out between the dress and the black high-heeled boots just below her knees. Her shoulder-length brown hair held a few loose, soft waves, and her makeup was minimal, but he never thought she needed it anyway. He'd never seen her look like that before. She looked spectacular.
"Wow," he breathed, unable to take his eyes off of her. "You look amazing."
Kelsey smiled and glanced down at herself. "Thank you. I guess I do clean up pretty nice, huh?"
Only able to nod, he remembered the card in his pocket and he pulled it from his leather coat and handed it to her. "Uh, I brought you this. I, uh, didn't think flowers or candy would be quite right and I wanted to bring you something, so..."
"Aww," she smiled as she took the card from him. "You were right in your decision. I'm allergic to flowers and I don't eat sweets. A card is nice."
He realized that his palms started to sweat a little bit as she opened it and looked at the cheesy, vintage-inspired card he'd picked out. On the front was a picture of a plum handing a valentine to a peach. The peach's card read "You're a peach, Valentine!" and the message below the plum read, "I'm plum crazy about you." All of a sudden, he hated his choice and was tempted to yank it out of her hand before she opened it for fear of embarrassment.
But it was too late. She'd already opened the envelope and pulled the card out. To his relief, a smile crept across her face and he thought he saw her blush a little. "It's not even Valentine's Day yet..."
"Well, it will be..."
Finally, after she looked at the card for a moment or two, she looked up at him and smiled flirtatiously. "Aww, Ike...are you plum crazy about me?"
His face remained serious, his tone gentle. "You're the only thing I've been able to think about for the past few weeks. Look, I don't--I don't know where I went wrong all those years ago. And maybe we just grew apart, I don't know. But I wish--I wish I'd stuck around instead of, you know, letting things go the way they went. I wish I wasn't too stupid back then to see what was right in front of me."
Kelsey's smile faded as she looked up at him. "Ike..." she whispered. "What was--what was in front of you?"
"You," he said softly. "Just like you are right now. And I'm the luckiest man in the world that you agreed to go out with me tonight. I don't deserve it, but I'm glad you accepted the invitation."
Her jaw dropped open for a moment before she shut it again, seemingly speechless. Finally, she whispered softly, almost inaudibly, "I've been in love with you for so many years. I mean, I--I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I just--don't feel pressured or anything. Please don't let me run you off, I'm not trying to rush things and I'm not trying to get too heavy, but--I've loved you since we were fourteen. But I wasn't willing to watch you self-destruct. And I won't watch you do it again. And maybe--maybe back then we were both blind to a lot of things but now if--if you think your eyes are really open, then...well, then so are mine. I don't know what tonight is or where it'll go--"
"I know what my intention for tonight is. I knew what it was when I asked you yesterday and when I asked you several weeks ago. I'm done, Kels. I'm finished. I'm so tired. And you're right, let's not rush anything, but--but let's not be careful, either. Let's feel our way through this, let things go where WE want them to go. I know what I want. Dammit, Kels, for the first time in my life I actually know what I want. I'm kinda hoping we're on the same page here. I'm--I'm taking a chance. And it scares the hell out of me."
She was silent for a moment more and he swore he could hear the wheels turning in her head as she composed her next thought. "You have nothing to be afraid of," she said softly. And then, before he could react, she wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her lips over his, sending jolt after jolt of electricity soaring through his body, from head to toe and back up again.
He kissed her back, feeling his body begin to melt as he stepped forward and backed her into her house. Feeling around behind him, he slapped the door shut and they both ignored it as it slammed behind them. Taking her face in his hands, he deepened their kiss, letting his tongue dance in perfect rhythm with hers, and a moan escaped his throat uncontrollably with how content his heart was with her kiss.
After a moment, they broke their kiss and she stepped back and looked up at him, wide-eyed and bewildered. "I've never been kissed like that before," she said in disbelief.
His chest heaved with breath and adrenaline as his expression matched hers. "Neither have I."
And then, Kelsey cleared her throat, smoothed out her dress, and straightened her spine. "Don't you dare think this means you're getting out of this date. I didn't put all this crap on for nothing, you know."
Isaac smiled, amused at how adorable she was as she tried to compose herself. "You didn't have to put it on anyway. I'm taking you for wings and beer. You can't wipe your hands on that dress, you know. Besides, there's a game on tonight and I know the perfect place to--"
"Seriously? You ask me out and then you take me to a sports bar?"
"Well, I COULD take you to Lucky's like I've taken all my other dates. I mean, they know me there, a reservation would be pretty easy to get. I'll order the same thing I order every time, I'll probably order the chicken plate for you. I'll have a glass of whiskey to start and I'll order you wine. The wait staff would pretend not to know me and pretend not to notice that you're probably the--"
"Shut up, you're making me sick."
"OR we can stuff ourselves full of hot wings and beer and catch an awesome game on the monster screen at the sports bar." He took a step toward her and let his hands rest softly on her waist against the smooth material of her dress. "Then we could maybe catch a movie. And then I could bring you home. Maybe you'll invite me in for a nightcap..."
She smiled at him, her brown eyes sparkling with delight as she raised a suspicious eyebrow. "You seem to have this night all planned out."
"I've put a lot of thought into it."
Then her smile widened. "You had me at wings and beer. Give me two minutes to change, I'll be right back."
As she darted out of the room, Isaac shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and he smiled, his cheeks filling with heat as he glanced down at his shoes and the floor. So she loved him, huh? All these years, she'd said. This was completely new to him. And had this been any other time in the past then, yeah, he probably would have run away screaming. But now? Now he realized that you couldn't help who you loved. And he had no plans to string her along, either. He had no plans of letting her go. This was new and it was exciting and it was meant for him. Maybe he'd spent too many years chasing what he thought was his life, instead of letting life happen to him. Because the moment he'd finally let his guard down it seemed that life had fallen into his lap and he'd never been happier. It was his turn now. His opportunity. And he intended to take it with full enthusiasm and an open heart.
For the first time in Isaac Hanson's life, everything was as it should be.
Emerging from her bedroom in her usual uniform of a t-shirt and jeans, Kelsey Kennedy had never looked better. Throwing on her coat and grabbing her purse, she led Isaac out the door of her home, locked it up, and then slid her hand into his as if she'd been doing it for twenty years. At this small gesture, his heart warmed and he felt like a gooney teenager again. Her hand was soft and gentle and caring--and he never wanted to hold another hand for as long as he lived.