Isolation: Book 2 of The Quarantine Series Read online

  “That’s a really good idea. It will give you limitless options,” Milo holds onto his proud smile from before, and my heart flutters the same as before. But this time in the way I’d imagine it would in a movie. Or in a book. Or in song lyrics. Even my pussy skips a beat.

  As we wrap up our meal, Milo starts to clear out the trash. I try to help him but he refuses my help, simply grabbing my hand to pull me to my feet once he is done. He brushes off the grass from his jacket as I uselessly gawk at him from the sidelines.

  I keep stealing glances at him. He looks unbelievably gorgeous today in his black sweater. That little show he put on earlier when he lifted his sweater to reveal his perfect washboard abs; I thought my chest was going to burst open. Every single one of his abs are stacked on top of the other. It’s un-fucking-believable.

  Is it anti-feminist to suggest that his permanent job should be to fill out a sweater? He might as well be a male model, especially with that hair. And that body. And those eyes.

  I have seen him for weeks. I have scoffed at his superficial beauty. I thought women were stupid to fall for his act. Suddenly, I am as affected as those stupid women. Maybe even more so.

  Last night, I couldn’t breathe at the thought of sleeping with him.

  Now, I can’t breathe every time he looks at me, but for a very different reason.

  “Did I tell you that there is a woman at work who keeps squeezing my ass?” Milo’s lighthearted voice rolls smoothly off his tongue as we walk home.

  Excitement courses through me. “Don’t tell me that Jaci is on another bender to even out the scoreboard for gender inequality that exists during workplace harassment?”

  “The one and only,” Milo chuckles.

  Jaci likes to give drunk speeches about how gender inequality in the workplace even impacts sexual harassment. It’s time for the females to harass male coworkers and make them uncomfortable for a change. No one argues with her when she cites facts to back her proposition.

  “Oh God,” I roll my eyes and laugh. “Was it today?”

  “Yup. She first tried to make Brandon and I uncomfortable by gawking at us. Then she grabbed Brandon’s pecker and called him tutz, and squeezed my ass right as my Dad walked in.”

  I let out such unladylike laughter that I almost fall over. Milo entwines our fingers to pull me closer. I hold on to him tightly, and soon I pester him for more “dad jokes.”

  CHAPTER 7

  -----------

  Raven

  The door to Milo’s room is slightly ajar. None of the “kids” in the house knock when they enter each other’s rooms. So, if you are indecent, your door better be shut and locked. If your door is slightly ajar, it’s an open invitation for the other siblings to enter.

  Nonetheless, I peek through his open door before making my way inside. I have been tasked with waking up Milo… by Milo himself. He knows that I don’t sleep much so it was a sure way to receive a wake up call.

  Milo might chide me for my sleep schedule, but my nights have become very productive. For example, I ended up working all of last night with my mother. I received too many dress orders and enlisted her help to finish on time. Mom’s work ethic is solid, and she is good with her hands. Maybe we can still have our mother-daughter duo team one-day.

  With Mom’s assistance, I was able to ship out all of the outfits earlier this morning. Afterward, I came straight here. Milo has a meeting today that he cannot be late for. But he also put in a late-night and was worried about sleeping through his alarm.

  Milo is sprawled out on the bed under the covers, his unconscious body is reflecting mental mixed with physical exhaustion. Looking at his sleep-deprived state, I don’t have the heart to wake him up.

  According to my watch, he can probably get away with sleeping for thirty more minutes, forty-five minutes maximum if he doesn’t deem a shower necessary for a video conference meeting. I decide to wait until the last possible second to wake him up.

  As I wait out the clock, I take in the condition of the room. Milo is very clean, but this room is… it’s not messy but not up to his usual standard—no doubt due to his schedule.

  As quietly as I can, I start to clean up. By the time I take his hamper to the laundry room to throw in a load, at least twenty minutes has passed. I come back to his room to find him sleeping through his alarm. I wait ten more minutes before waking him up.

  “Milo,” I coax him gently.

  “Mmm.” He barely moves.

  “Get up, Milo.” I give him a shake.

  “Was going on?” he asks with his eyes still closed.

  “I’m here to wake you up.”

  “For work?”

  I look at him sadly. “Unfortunately.”

  “Perk of being your own boss is setting your own hours,” he mumbles in his sleep.

  I laugh at the nonsensical sentence that actually comes out coherently. “Yes,” I agree. “It is. But you, the boss, set a meeting that you are about to be late for.”

  Milo opens his eyes, still looking hazy as hell and too fucking exhausted.

  He closes his eyes again. “Okay. Two more minutes.”

  I let out a deep sigh. Milo’s sleep schedule is established based on his work schedule. It’s clearly catching up to him.

  I pull out the new phone. It was a gift from Milo. Actually, it wasn’t exactly a gift. He destroyed my last phone and replaced it with this one, albeit this phone is nicer.

  Swiping my phone screen to unlock it, I text Alexa.

  Rave: Good Morning! So, Milo has a meeting in twenty minutes.

  I wait a few minutes, but I don’t receive a response. I know Alexa also worked late alongside Milo, so she might be sleeping as well. All the same, I send her one more text.

  Rave: I was wondering if you know anything about this meeting?

  I sigh in relief when I get her response.

  Alexa: Morning! Of course I do. Why? What’s going on?

  Rave: Any specific reason why Milo personally has to be there? I came in to wake him up, but I think he is exhausted. I was wondering if someone else could cover for him.

  Alexa: Any one of us can take the meeting, but Milo is the one who scheduled it. All of us just got done about an hour ago. I usually don’t mind covering for him, but I honestly don’t have the energy to get out of bed. Sorry, girl.

  I frown at Alexa’s text. I feel bad for asking, as I am sure she is as exhausted as Milo. However, I cannot bear the thought of waking him up now that I know he has been asleep for one hour. So, I send her a dumb text.

  Rave: I’ll buy you lunch for a week.

  Then I send her a ridiculous text.

  Rave: I’ll make you that couture outfit you wanted. The EXACT replica.

  And the stupidest text of them all. Milo would laugh at me if he were awake right now.

  Rave: You know how we decided you get 6% royalty for every dress I sell? Make it 7%

  Alexa: You are a terrible negotiator. You should always wait for a response after the first offer, before spewing out more.

  Rave: Will you take the meeting or not?

  Alexa: How can I say no when you twist my arm into it like that?

  Rave: You are the best.

  Alexa: I am pretty sure that’s not true.

  Rave: No, you are.

  Alexa: No, I’m not. But now I understand why he always called you his Xanax. Girl, you just gave up part of your company so Milo can sleep through ONE meeting.

  Alexa: Also, we need to have a serious discussion about your negotiation skills if we are going to be business partners. They are terrible.

  Alexa: Correction, they are non-existent.

  I laugh but lock my phone as Alexa keeps sending me more texts about my poor business skills. Reaching over, I turn off Milo’s alarm which he had already snoozed. He has one of those old fashioned alarm clocks.

  That dork.

  That old fart.

  He is like an eighty-year-old man stuck in a twenty-five-year old’s body.

  I am about to get up from the bed when Milo feels the shift of my weight on the mattress, and grabs my hand.

  “Stay,” he mumbles hoarsely.

  Instead of moving again, I sit still and stroke his hair. He always said it was like magic when I did that, alleviating his anxiety.

  I hope I still have some magic left, and can somehow take away all of his fatigue and stress.

  -----------

  Milo

  “Oh please,” Raven laughs, dismissing me with a hand wave. “As if we don’t know of all the shenanigans you used to pull.”

  I smile. “What shenanigans? I know not of any such thing. I am responsible.”

  I got to sleep for a large portion of the day, thanks to whatever magic Raven must have pulled. I can’t imagine Alexa would have so easily agreed to take my meeting, which was supposed to last a few hours.

  Raven herself has been working all day, and finally took a break for dinner. Our banter tonight includes discussing the shit those three used to pull when they were younger and thought I didn’t know about. Raven counters with what they think I have done back in my day.

  Raven picks up her legs and tucks them under her, to get comfortable. She starts to list off all the dirt she has on me. I have probably done way worse than what she knows.

  “Let’s see, I heard about how you toilet papered the neighbor’s house.”

  “Lies.”

  “How about the time you used chalk to draw a fake dead body on the same neighbor’s pavement, and then put police tape in front of it?”

  “Character defamation. That never happened.”

  Raven narrows her eyes. “Okay. Now I know this one happened, because multiple people have confirmed it. You and Brandon filled a beautiful box with dog poop, and then left it at Alexa’s doorstop for her birthday.”

  “Poop is funny,” I say casually.

  Raven shakes her head. “You are such a boy.”

  “I was,” I protest. “We were ten.”

  “Oh yeah? Then why did you guys give her the same gift on her birthday last year?”

  “Hey,” I hold up a hand. “I want to go on the record and say that we did not gift her poop. We recreated an artificial dog poop model based on the original poop. It’s called a throwback to celebrate the fifteen-year mark. It’s not our fault Alexa doesn’t understand quality vintage.”

  I expect our banter to continue, but Raven’s smile fades. “It hurt her feelings because she wanted you to do something thoughtful. You do know how Alexa feels about you, don’t you?”

  Honest. Direct. And to the point. I feel somewhat apprehensive about the direction of this conversation, but Raven is slowly starting to be upfront with me. She deserves the same.

  “I guess,” I give her an unsettled admission.

  “Yet, you asked her to invest so I can start my own business. You had her promote my designs to her contacts. Don’t you think it was a little insensitive towards her feelings?”

  I blink.

  I have no idea how to take this.

  “She didn’t play it cool,” Raven explains. “New York is filled with talented people who are looking for investors. Alexa hasn't seen me in years but within five minutes jumped on the bandwagon to invest in me. It was easy to put two and two together.”

  Raven is talented. Extremely talented. Even when she was younger, I used to stare at her designs and wonder how she came up with something so creative.

  Over the years, she was only active on social media to post outfits she designed. I saw every single one of her posts. Seeing them made me feel connected to her.

  But talent like hers often becomes unpaid talent. Venturing out without the proper capital and marketing is the reason why most small businesses fail.

  Through Alexa’s contacts, Raven’s business is already thriving with multiple dress orders in tow. Alexa’s rich friends have no problem ordering through Alexa’s new company instead of whoever they previously used. The credit goes to Raven’s talent, but that talent needed financial backing and promoted to the right clientele, by the right marketer.

  Raven wouldn’t take my money but she trusts Alexa; who has both the money and the contacts. I had offered Alexa the money to pass on to Raven, but she insisted on personally investing. I wasn’t lying about Raven’s work. Alexa knew it would be stupid to pass on her.

  It probably doesn’t raise my standing on the moral scale to ask a woman, who is half in love with me, to invest in Raven. But Alexa knows how to differentiate between personal and professional feelings.

  There is no point in condescending Raven’s intellect by denying the allegations. “As you mentioned, Alexa has the right contacts. And doing this by yourself would have been tough,” I offer. Instead of guessing what Raven is thinking, I decide to be direct. “Are you upset this was my idea or are you upset because I asked Alexa to help you?”

  Raven frowns. “I am not upset at either. You like to fix things and take care of people. That’s who you are. I trust Alexa and I like working with her. I guess I don’t understand why you kept arguing with me to take your money if this was your idea.”

  I slowly rise. Now that we have both finished eating, I collect our trash and clean the table. I feel fucking irritated so I want to exert energy by keeping my body in motion.

  “Because I asked you to take my money multiple times. You refused and seemed more comfortable taking someone else’s money.”

  “Milo, at that time—”

  “Look Rave, as you pointed out, I didn’t have a problem hurting one of my best friends if it meant helping you achieve something better. That’s how little other women mean to me. That’s how quick I am to sacrifice everyone and everything for you. So, it just sucks when you pick other people over me, okay?”

  Raven looks stumped. She stares at me as if she doesn’t have a single coherent thought. Neither of us utter another syllable as we tidy up.

  “Thank you,” she finally says quietly. “Not for hurting your friend’s feelings,” she quickly adds to clarify. “But for helping me achieve something better.”

  I stare at her, surprised by her admission. It takes me more than a few minutes to regain my composure after the turnaround in the conversation.

  “At that time when you had offered me money, it made me uncomfortable to accept it because of our history,” Raven says softly. “But things have changed between us. We have both acknowledged it. Presently, I would much rather have you as my business partner if I hadn’t already made a commitment to Alexa.”

  “Okay.” I give her a nod, suddenly not feeling so irritated anymore. “I get it.” I give her my own quick admission in return.

  Raven seems like she is having the same thought as I am. “Where were these problem solving skills of ours when we were younger?”

  “I guess that’s why we had to grow up and meet again.”

  “I guess so.” She smiles sweetly and kneels next to the mannequin to pin the dress she is working on. “I should get back to this.”

  I give her another nod, and lean over to kiss her on the cheek. “Good night,” I whisper against her skin.

  “Good night,” she breathes out, but I don’t move back.

  I hover over her skin for the longest time. Her warm, inviting skin. Smell of Vanilla. Some lavender mixed in with it. There is no way I can pull myself away.

  It’s the closest I have been to her in weeks. My breathing is accelerating and hers is too. It takes every ounce of my self control to move out of her bubble after almost an eternity has passed.

  But I shouldn’t have done it.

  I shouldn’t have invaded her space so intimately without notice. Right as I pull away, I see the repercussion of my actions.

  Raven caught herself so quickly that I had almost missed it. But I am not allowed to point it out right now; not until she is ready to talk about it.

  Raven is still holding the sharp fucking pin, but now it’s lodged inside her fucking forearm. She pierced her skin and dug the pin all the way inside.

  CHAPTER 8

  -----------

  Raven

  The staircases leading to the split-level are made in imperial style. No, not like the grand double staircases at fancy hotels. It’s just two flights of walled-off stairs, going in each direction.