Chapter 17

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Isabel and I watched most of the movie together, but I heard her breathing heavily near the end and realized that she had fallen asleep.

I looked down at her head on my shoulder and a smile spread across my face. The battle I was having between being able to enjoy this and feeling guilty as hell was not a fun one, but I could at least enjoy this moment for the time being.

"Hey, Isabel," I said quietly as I patted her arm.

"What?" She said sleepily as she sat up and looked at me.

"I'm going to head home, seems like you need to go to bed," I grinned.

"You should just stay," she said as she laid her head back against me.

"I told Ava I'd be home sometime tonight," I said, "I don't want to fuck this up already."

"Okay, guess that's a good idea," she admitted.

"I'll talk to you soon," I said as I kissed the top of her head.

She sat up and let me get off of the couch before following me to her door.

"Night Skylar," she said with a lazy grin.

"Night," I said as I went to walk out the door.

"Wait, hold on," Isabel quickly said as she grabbed my hand.

"Yeah?" I turned around to face her.

She put her hand on the side of my face as she leaned in and gave me a slow kiss. Damn this girl was good. How did Ava ever break up with her?

Fuck, I couldn't think about that.

I smiled against Isabel's lips before she leaned back and dropped my hand from hers.

"Okay, you can go now," she said.

"Thanks for that," I said as I smirked at her, "see you later Isabel."

I walked out of the building and to my car, almost feeling like I was floating. I wished that things between Isabel and I were going to be easier, but I was still glad that all of this had happened.

Especially the kisses, those could happen all that they wanted to.

When I got home, I walked in the front door and nearly had a heart attack when Ava greeted me from the kitchen.

"Hey Skylar," she said.

"Jesus Ava," I said breathlessly as I put my hand over my chest, "I didn't think you were still awake."

"Sorry," she said with a grin, "didn't mean to scare you."

"Well fuck, you sure did a good job," I said as I felt my heart pounding against my chest.

Ava shrugged as she filled up her water bottle at the sink.

"What did you do tonight?" She asked me.

Great, we were doing this already, I thought.

"I just went to grab drinks with a few people," I said.

I remembered that I hadn't told Ava about my job yet, and hoped that telling her would steer the conversation away from where I'd been.

"Oh shit, you scaring me threw me off so much that I forgot to tell you that I got another job," I continued.

"Oh my God, that's a big thing to forget to tell me!" She said, "congrats!"

"Thanks, I am pretty excited actually," I said, "it's with another event planning company."

"Okay well I'm exhausted but you'll have to tell me more about it tomorrow," Isabel responded.

"Yeah, I will," I said, "night."

Ava walked back to her bedroom and I breathed a sigh of relief. This was going to be very difficult.

***

When Monday came around, I was both excited and nervous to get started with my new job. I was just going in today to finalize everything, but hopefully I could actually start shortly after that.

I was in my room getting ready when I heard a soft knock on my door.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"Good luck today," Ava said as she poked her head into my room.

"Thanks Ava," I grinned, "I'll try not to go off on any bosses today."

"I would hope not," she teased, "see you tonight."

I gave her a quick wave as she left and continued getting ready. I made sure to look good enough to make a good first impression, I didn't want to fuck this one up.

I left with plenty of time to get over to my new office building, even though it wasn't very far away.

I walked inside and looked around as I heard the receptionist greet me.

"Good morning," she said in a friendly tone, "is there something I can help you with?"

"Morning, I'm Skylar, I'm here to meet with Jen at 9:00," I told her.

"Oh sure, I'll get her for you," she said with a smile.

"Thank you," I responded with a nod.

I stood in the lobby for just a couple of minutes before a friendly looking middle aged woman came walking out.

"You must be Skylar," she said as she stuck her hand out to me, "I'm Jen, nice to meet you."

"Yes, hi Jen," I responded, reaching out and shaking her hand, "nice to meet you too."

"Follow me and we can go ahead and get started with everything," she said as she motioned for me to walk with her.

We walked back to the main part of the office, and it seemed like a nice set up. There were a few people sitting at desks in the middle of the room, and separate offices on either side.

Jen walked me to her office near the back and I followed her inside.

"Go ahead and take a seat there," she said as she motioned to a chair across from her at her desk.

"Alright, so we basically just have to have you sign a few things and accept the offer and we should be all good to go," she continued.

"Okay, great," I said.

Jen reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a folder and took a few pieces of paper out of it.

"Here's the official job description and requirements," she said as she tapped her pen on the first sheet of paper before flipping to the next.

"And here's the time off and holiday policies and your starting salary," she continued.

I tried not to look too surprised when she showed me the salary, it was quite a bit more than I expected. Wasn't going to complain about that.

"Okay," I said with a nod as she continued to explain the paperwork.

"If everything looks good you can go ahead and sign those two spots down at the bottom of the page," Jen said as she handed me a pen.

I signed without much hesitation and slid the papers back to her. She was smiling to herself as she took them and put them back in the folder.

"Perfect, we're excited to have you start," she said, "you came with a pretty high recommendation from one of the catering managers that we frequently work with."

I couldn't help but smile when she said that. Of course Isabel had found a way to help me land this job.

"Thank you," I said, "I'm excited too."

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