Even Odds (18 page)

“So, Isabel, it's been a few weeks since you last came to dinner. You seeing any nice young men?” Julio sliced into his beef.

“Julio! You can't ask her that every time.” Rosalyn fixed her husband with an exasperated stare, but just as soon, turned to her daughter. “But yes, I want to know too. Are you seeing anyone?”

Isabel's mouth opened. “Mami! You always told me my career should come first, and I shouldn't get mixed up in anything too young.”

“Yes, well, that is true.” Rosalyn nodded. “But you're twenty-seven. You're not so young anymore.” Isabel looked between her parents with shock. While her father teased her about relationships quite often, her mother seldom joined in.

Julio nodded at his wife's comments. “What good is your career if you have no one to share your happiness with?”

“I'm perfectly happy, Papi.” Isabel took a forkful of food. The beef tasted juicy, but Isabel's mouth was dry.

“All right, we won't bother you about this. You have a new game coming out, right?” Rosalyn patted her daughter's hand.

“Yeah, I have a game coming out. We just hired a new creative manager, so I'm working with him.” Isabel didn't mention how closely she was
actually
working with Caleb, a wave of guilt mixed with unbidden lust rushing through her at the memory of their tryst earlier that day.

“I'm so proud of you.” Rosalyn smiled. “
Mi piedra
, designing games and bossing around all those men.”

“Just like her
mami
.” Julio winked at his wife, who blew him a kiss in return.

Isabel turned back to her dinner, suddenly missing Caleb. She usually liked these dinners, but her parents' closeness made her acutely aware of her loneliness, and tonight she just wanted to be anywhere else. “So, Mami, what's in development right now?”

Her mother gave her a sidelong glance, aware she was the recipient of a subject change, but going with it. She spent a little while explaining the drugs they were developing at the pharmaceutical company and her hopes for the process, which reminded her father of the plot of one of the books he'd just finished, and dinner passed easily into a discussion of popular media. By the time Isabel left at nine, she'd dodged any further conversations about her dating life or lack thereof.

Ever since Pixel Dream, she'd vowed never to mix relationships and business. She'd long ago decided that if her colleagues knew she was a sexual, feminine woman, that's the only way they would ever see her. That mentality had worked for the past few years, and her professional success fulfilled all her career aspirations. She had her dream job at a great company. So what if she didn't have much of a social life?

Then here came Caleb, blurring all her boundaries with those stupid tattoos and those sculpted pecs.

She didn't want to stop seeing him. But how could she have passion in her life without losing the respect of her colleagues and friends? And even if she could, would she be happy with just meaningless sex? She could already feel herself wanting more, thinking of something settled, something deep, something like what her parents had. Caleb, it seemed, wanted none of that.

The dilemma stayed on her mind all through the rest of dinner and later, as she drove the winding streets home in solitude.

It was completely illogical
for Caleb to be nervous as he walked into the dark level-design room at a quarter after five the following Friday. Sure, it was hard not to remember spreading Isabel's thighs on her desk and licking her pussy while she writhed against him, but aside from that basic oversight, this was a place of work. In the week since what he'd come to think of as the Desk Incident, his relationship with Isabel had remained courteously professional, neither of them addressing their Saturday interlude and both focused exclusively on the work. Now that the week was over, though, he was going to ask her out. Not a date, not really. A friendly evening together. And since it wasn't a date, he didn't really care if she said no, so he shouldn't be nervous.

Except of course he didn't want her to say no. So he was nervous.

Isabel was sitting at her desk in the dark with her headphones on, typing away while nodding to the beat of whatever she was listening to. She was the last one in the room, all her coworkers having gone home at five, passing him one by one as he'd waited in the hallway and tried not to look like he was waiting around for her. Finally, when it became apparent she wasn't coming out, he'd gone in after her. Now he walked up and tapped her shoulder.

At least she didn't jump this time. Maybe she'd felt him approaching. Pulling off her headphones, she turned in her chair. “Oh, hi.” She greeted him, her smile polite and distant. Their interactions all week had been of a similar tenor. She hadn't ignored him, but she'd put up walls around anything not completely professional. “What's up?” she asked.

“Do you want to go to Ikea with me tonight?” He tried for the right mix of hope and nonchalance in his voice.

She blinked, puzzled. “Ikea?”

“Yeah. I need some new furniture for my place. A bookcase and a shelving unit. I thought you could help me put it together. We could order a pizza or something.”

One of her eyebrows went up. “And you're asking me this after you saw my Ikea construction capabilities?”

Caleb remembered her fluent stream of Spanish obscenities on the convention floor and smiled. “It's okay. I'm good at it. But I'd like to see you tonight and spend time with you. Unless you have other plans.”

Isabel stared at him. He wasn't usually this direct, but she deserved directness. After a moment's uncomfortable silence, she shrugged. “Okay.”

The Ikea store in Tampa was, like all Ikea stores, a monumental warehouse of terror and beautiful home furnishings. Upon walking through the main entrance with Isabel, Caleb saw all the other couples walking arm in arm or with their heads bent closely together, discussing the design plans that lay ahead of them and that they hoped to turn into a reality. Shit. This was way more domestic than he'd anticipated. From the blanched look on Isabel's face, she was thinking the same thing.

“I thought you weren't into any of this.” She stood back to scope out a room setup of cheerful Swedish furniture and wrinkled her nose.

“What, furniture?” Caleb checked a price on one of the nightstands, because he really could use a new nightstand as well. “I'm into furniture.”

“No, not furniture.” Isabel waved a hand, as if it was going to convey whatever message she couldn't find words for. Caleb waited for more explanation, because it definitely seemed like she thought he slept on the floor and sat on milk crates. Eventually, she said, “dating.”

Oh. He had hoped to leave the definition of their evening ambiguous. There wasn't any romance involved, nothing sweet about the entire process. But clearly Isabel thought it was a date and had said yes. Rather than starting out with the basics like dinner, a movie, and sex, they'd apparently jumped right in to picking out furniture together.

He tried for something casual. “It doesn't have to be a date. It can just be two friends hanging out, right?”

She looked sideways at him, caution in her eyes. “I suppose. But you did ask me to go buy furniture with you, and it is Friday night.”

This was true. He tried to evade her very correct observation with a noncommittal shrug and turned a corner into the land of living room sets. All perfectly neat, matching furniture, cozy and elegant and leagues above his cobbled-together living room. “Shit, these are so much nicer than my living room.” He walked into one of them and sat down on the couch, rubbing his hands over the plush fabric. “I feel like my apartment is in shambles compared to this.”

Isabel walked into the same display and peered around at the furnishings. After a moment she shook her head. “None of this has any soul, though. Nobody lives here. Anything can look neat if it's never used or enjoyed.”

Caleb looked up at her, beautiful despite the work clothes that hid all her best physical features. “So you're saying it's a shame to let something lovely go to waste?”

Isabel turned and caught his eye, one eyebrow raising. She was no fool and she understood innuendo. “Come on, Casanova. Let's get you furniture.”

They found a suitable bookcase and shelving unit before they'd reached the end of the living room section, but Isabel insisted on weaving their way through the entire rest of the warehouse before leaving. “I never come here, and I like looking at everything. We haven't even made it down to the main floor yet.” She stood in front of a kitchen setup and appraised the decor. “Besides, I don't think it's possible to leave without working your way through the whole store. It's like a maze.” Walking into the model kitchen, she opened the oven and then the fridge, like there would really be something in there. “You'd think they could put beer in here or something, make the whole shopping experience more fun.”

“I'm sure there are some laws against that.” Caleb joined her in the kitchen, running his hand over the marble countertop.

“No, I think it would be great.” Isabel turned and leaned against the fridge. “Imagine ‘Drunk Ikea' nights. You show your ID at the door, and then they get you plastered in the kitchen section, blindfold and spin you around a few times, and you have to find your way out. If you get lost, you end up in the ball pit, so it's a win all around.”

Caleb laughed. “And then there could be drunk furniture-assembling contests. You do a shot for every shelf you put in backward and at the end whosever furniture doesn't collapse wins a prize or something.”

“Yes! You win whatever you built!” Isabel was laughing so hard now she could barely stand up straight. People passing by were starting to stare at them, but Caleb couldn't be bothered. This was nice, standing in a fake kitchen making jokes. It was wonderful to see Isabel laugh this hard, none of the worry or stress in her eyes that he saw at work.

“Oh geez, we're gonna get thrown out.” Isabel straightened up and wiped a tear from her eye. “Come on. Let's see what's next.” She took his hand and tugged him ahead into the next section, passing a family dawdling over the next model kitchen in the line. When they rounded the corner, Caleb found himself looking out on a sea of bedrooms. Isabel didn't hesitate, dragging him forward into the section.

“Ooh, this is nice.” Isabel let go of Caleb's hand and walked into one of the bedroom setups, eyeing the king-sized bed. “My bed sucks. I should really get a new one.”

Caleb hopped onto the bed. “Springy. I like it.” He fell back onto the mattress, legs dangling off the side.

Isabel climbed onto the other side of the bed and flopped back as well, so their heads were near each other even though they were lying on opposite sides. “I've never had a king-sized bed. I always thought they were ridiculous.”

He turned his head so he could see her lying there, staring up at the warehouse ceiling. “Past tense?”

“Now it seems like a fun luxury. Getting to sprawl all over, cover it with dozens of pillows? I don't know. I'm going to be thirty in a couple of years. Maybe it's time to start treating myself right.” She shifted so she was sitting up on her elbows. “What do you think?”

“I think king-sized beds are a ridiculous waste of money and I want one anyway. How about that?” Caleb sat up as well, swinging his legs around so he was sitting at the foot of the bed. “My parents always had money when I was growing up, but we were never allowed to have any luxuries. Save, save, save, that's their motto. Now I don't have a lot of money, but I want to blow it all on fun stuff. Maybe I'm exactly as immature as they think I am.”

“My parents are the same way.” Isabel's hair was starting to come loose from its clip so she unfastened it, releasing all those dark curls to tumble around her shoulders. “My mom is a chemist for a pharmaceutical company, so I know she must have money, and yet they never indulge in anything. It's probably fear. Immigrant families, fear of losing everything. It's a common story.” She ran a hand through her hair, tousling it, and Caleb lost track of what she was saying as she did so. Her hair was beautiful. He wanted to gather it up in his fist and kiss her.

The feeling came over him so quickly it left him dizzy, and he had to struggle to regain the conversation. “Well, what about you? Don't you avoid indulgence in the same way?” He shifted again on the bed so they were sitting next to each other.

Isabel sat up the rest of the way and looked down at their dangling feet. “I don't know. It's hard to break those kinds of habits when you're brought up with them.”

He supposed for some people it would be, but that idea was foreign to him. “Not for me. I blasted out of there as soon as I could and I've overcome all the bullshit they put in my mind. I'm not going to let them control the rest of my life.”

“Is it all bullshit?” Isabel tipped her head to the side, questioning. “All of it?”

“Most of it.” Caleb thought back to his time doing legal assistant work for his parents' firm, the condescending remarks about his art, their pleading for him to give it up and get a real job for once, to settle down with a nice girl and raise a family. He'd tried that route with Katie, and it ended in disaster. Ever since then, he'd thought he'd written off that path. He was going to live independently, make art, and screw whomever he pleased. Now he was sitting in Ikea on what may or may not be a date, buying furniture with Isabel like an old married couple. “Maybe it's not all bullshit.”

Isabel opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated. After a minute of silence, she started again. “So if you're doing everything to prove them wrong, how are they not still controlling your life?”

Caleb felt a twist of discomfort in his stomach, worried she might be right. He'd moved over a thousand miles but was still terrified of failing in everything meaningful to him. “Come on. This discussion is too heavy for someone else's bedroom in an Ikea.” He got to his feet and extended a hand. “Isn't there another floor of this crazy place you want to see?”

By the time they got back to their cars, wheeling giant boxes and carrying twine, it was after seven. Isabel surveyed Caleb's Subaru with a suspicious expression on her face. “Is this all gonna fit in there?”

“Of course. It's a hatchback.” He started extolling his car's virtues while folding the seats down. “Gets almost thirty miles per gallon and it's all-wheel drive.”

Isabel snorted. “That's really going to come in handy with all the snow we don't get.”

Still half in the car, Caleb made a face at Isabel over his shoulder. “Well, I didn't know I'd be moving to Florida when I bought it. You all probably don't even have Subaru dealers down here.”

“They probably have them in the Panhandle,” Isabel suggested. “Sometimes it snows an inch or two up there.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Caleb finished folding everything out of the way. “Can you help me load this in?”

“I still don't think it's going to fit, but okay.” Isabel slid the shelving unit box off the wheeled cart. “Let's give it a try.”

Both boxes did fit, barely, and Caleb didn't even have to use the twine to tie his trunk closed. “Ta-dah.” He folded his arms in triumph.

“All right, I'm impressed. Now can we get some food? I'm starving.” She pulled out her phone to check the time. “It's after seven. No wonder I'm so hungry.”

“There's a pizza delivery place on the way to my apartment. I'll call it in and it should get to us by the time we're back.” He pulled out his phone. “Follow me?”

“Will do.” Isabel opened the door to her car, parked right next to Caleb's. “You're paying, though. You get all my labor for free.”

“Fine, fine.” Caleb got into his car and dialed Roberto's to order dinner. The evening was feeling more like a date than he had anticipated—and he was finding he didn't mind that one bit.

———

Caleb's apartment wasn't that
far from work, nor from where Isabel lived. Fortunately, he only lived on the second floor, but carrying the giant boxes up the narrow, twisting stairs was more difficult than Isabel had anticipated. After she ran into the wall for the fifth time, they finally got the shelving unit box around the corner, where it joined the bookcase box they'd already carried to the landing. Isabel rested against the hallway wall and rubbed the back of her wrist across her forehead while Caleb unlocked his front door. “If I don't get some pizza soon, I'm shoving that back down the stairs,” she said.