Page 6 of Timeless Pages
“I’m not sure she’d see it that way,” Evan warned. “I don’t need to remind you that we’re enemies number two, three, and four right now.”
Nate cursed under his breath as he braced his hands on the island and stared at the floor. “Right,” he said decisively as he straightened and returned to the stove. He turned the burner off with a snap of his wrist and moved the pan to the back of the stove. “We’re going back there. Now.”
I had never seen him take to a woman so quickly before. Twenty years ago, when we were at the wise age of fifteen and planning our future, we decided that to stay friends and successful business partners, it made sense to share a wife. In the past twenty years, we’ve never come close to finding her. Sure, we had individual flings here and there. We’ve had some girlfriends who looked promising in the past, but those relationships never lasted.
I looked at the meat that would be taco meat forlornly as I followed them onto the elevator. As the doors closed, I couldn’t help but wonder if we were headed toward something even better than tacos. Maybe we hadn’t found the right woman yet because we had to wait for her to grow up. Could Isabella be the one for us? I didn’t care about the age difference, and judging by Evan and Nate’s responses to her, I didn’t think they cared either. The question was, would she care that we’re seventeen years older than her? Nearly an entire adult human.
Fuck.
What if all she saw when she looked at us was a bunch of old men?
Chapter seven
Isa
The door chimed as I was ringing up the last customer of the night, and I suppressed a groan as I looked to see who it was. It wasn’t that I didn’t love running the store or my customers, but I had hoped to close on time tonight after the shit day I had.
The groan came out as a tiny little growl that had my customer’s eyebrows raising and my cheeks heating in embarrassment when I saw who it was. What the hell did they want? I watched them from beneath my lashes as they spread out nearby, pretending to look at books as they waited for me to finish my transaction.
Given my daddy issues, I had never understood why a woman would call her sexual partner Daddy. As I looked at the three men in my store, I could understand it a little bit more. It wasn’t their looks. They didn’t look old in a bad way. It was the way that they carried themselves. They oozed confidence and wisdom, but their eyes held a wickedness that made my body heat and mypussy flutter. A promise that they knew how to show a girl a good time, and all she had to do was ask.
Nathan Chambers, whom I assumed fell into the leader role in the group based on all that big dick energy he exuded, stood in the aisle directly across from the register. He was the one watching me with his cool blue eyes with the least amount of subtlety. His wavy black hair teased the tops of his ears and begged for me to run my fingers through it. He was the tallest of the bunch and stood at least a foot taller than my five-foot-two-inch frame. This man was accustomed to making people feel intimidated and counted on it to gain the upper hand in any situation quickly. Too bad for him; I’ve faced a worse monster. Nathan didn’t scare me.
The playboy, Dominic DeCosta, stood in the next aisle and was the shortest of the men, though he still towered over me by nine inches or so. His short blond hair was perfectly faded on the sides, and the twinkle in his green eyes screamed frat boy. Dominic was a man who knew how to live life large, and if the papers were correct, he had a revolving bedroom door. I didn’t put much stock in the papers, though. They would have you believe my father was a pillar of his community. Luckily, not many people knew him here in Sunflower Falls.
Evan Waters was already my favorite of the three, but perhaps that was because he shared my love of reading. I had seen him watching me in the store before today, though I didn’t know who he was. I had hoped that one day he would muster the courage to talk to me. Evan was flipping through a book as he watched me over the pages. But when his eyes moved back to the book, he would start reading it and get sucked into it, and then remember he was supposed to be watching me. His brown eyes would suddenly snap up to peer at me through the rectangular glasses he wore, then slowly drift down to continue reading. Evan stooda couple of inches shorter than Nathan, and his brown hair stuck out in different directions.
I finished ringing up my customer and followed him to the door, where I locked it behind him. I turned to face them and quickly stepped back when I realized they were right behind me. We can add 'ninja' to their resumes. “My father isn’t here,” I stated, pushing past them.
“We didn’t come here to talk to him, Isabella,” Nathan replied. “We came to talk to you.”
I cringed at the sound of my full name rolling off his tongue. “Don’t call me that,” I growled.
He exchanged confused looks with Evan and Dominic. “Don’t call you what?”
“Isabella. Only my father calls me that. I don’t like it,” I replied.
“What should we call you then, beauty?” Dominic asked.
“Isa. My name is Isa.”
“Pleased to officially meet you, Isa,” Evan replied. “As you know, I’m Evan; this is Nathan and Dominic.”
“I know who you are,” I replied, cutting him off. I instantly felt bad about it. Uncle Jason would disapprove of my rudeness, even to them. “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “It’s been a long day. What do you want with me?”
“To understand,” Nathan said gruffly.
“And to help if we can,” Evan said quickly.
“Why did your father get a judge to sign off on conservatorship papers as soon as your uncle died?” Nathan asked, stepping just outside of my personal space bubble.
My mouth fell open in shock. How the hell did they know about that? I said something about it in passing to Evan earlier, but how did they know any details? Did they look into it? Why would they do that? The idea that they were poking around in my life when they didn’t know me made me uneasy.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
Nathan lifted his hand toward me, and I reflexively flinched away from his touch before I could stop myself. His hand froze as his eyes softened. Slowly, he continued moving his hand toward me to tuck a wayward lock of hair behind my ear.
“What has he done to you, Little Bell?” Nathan asked softly.
