By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(27)

“The bookstore, sure, there, too. I mean, if you’re stuck in California babysitting me, you might as well get to enjoy being in California, you know?”

She looked up at him, an apology on her lips about that babysitting crack, but he had a grin on his face. It made him look different—younger, more relaxed, a little playful. And very attractive.

She pushed that last thought out of her mind.

“It’s definitely been nice to be in sixty-three-degree and sunny weather all week when it was in the twenties in New York, that’s for sure.” She looked outside. “I guess that’s why it didn’t even occur to me that it could rain here.”

He pulled out a tray from the side of the fridge and put their bowls of soup on it. “We do have weather in Southern California,” he said. “It’s just within a much smaller range of possibilities than you have in New York.” He picked up the tray and nodded at the wine bottle. “Can you get the wine and wineglasses?”

She took a corkscrew out of a drawer and grabbed the bottle and glasses. She followed him down the hall to the TV room, a room that she’d still never stepped inside. When Beau pushed open the door with his shoulder, Izzy stopped and stared.

The TV in this room was larger than any TV she’d ever seen in person. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t seen any other TVs in this house; there had originally been five or six, and this TV had just eaten them all.

Beau set the tray on the coffee table in front of the couch and then turned around to see Izzy still staring at the TV.

“I know, it’s a little absurd.” He looked embarrassed. “When I moved in here, it was kind of sudden. I’d only planned to come for a long weekend, to kind of…clear my head. And then I just stayed. It used to be my grandparents’ house.”

Oh. A few things made more sense now.

Izzy sat down on the couch and reached for her bowl of soup. It tasted as good as it smelled. She was glad there was more in the kitchen, since she had a feeling she’d eat this entire bowl and then some.

Beau picked up the corkscrew and reached for the bottle of wine.

“A lot of the furniture and stuff here is still theirs, but they had a really old TV, the picture was terrible, it barely got cable, and I knew I needed something else.” He laughed. “I told Michaela I needed a new TV, and when she asked what I wanted, I said I didn’t care, I just wanted the biggest TV they had. And so, well, that’s what she got me.”

Izzy laughed, partly at the story, but also at how chatty Beau suddenly was. It was like he’d been bottling up all his conversation for months and was letting it all out at once.

“Michaela seems very reliable that way.” Izzy took the glass of wine that Beau handed her.

He laughed again. “She definitely is. That’s also sort of how the snack cabinet came to be: She kept asking me what I wanted her to get for me at the store, and finally I just told her to get me every snack she could think of. And so she decided to take me literally.”

Yes, that sounded like a thing Michaela would do.

“Well, I fell in love with the snack cabinet immediately, it’s the love of my life, and we’re getting married in a few weeks,” Izzy said.

Beau tore off a hunk of bread and dipped it in his soup. “Sorry, no, I can’t allow that, you’re not taking my snack cabinet away from me.”

They grinned at each other.

“I think Michaela really has fun with it,” he said. “At first it was just chips and pretzels and crackers and beef jerky and stuff, but then she started stocking it with stuff from the Mexican grocery store, and then the different Asian grocery stores, and now there’s so much good stuff in there. I’m obsessed with these spicy veggie straws, I don’t even know what they’re called or where they came from, but I love them.”

Beau reached for the remote, but Izzy knew there was something she had to say before he turned the TV on.

“Um, I want to apologize, too,” she said. He sat back and looked at her. “I kind of…I just assumed you were being a jerk last night and today. I think you just pushed my buttons, and I got mad. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I was an ass when you got here, of course you would take everything I said the wrong way.” He picked up the remote. “Anything you’re in the mood to watch?”

How should she answer? This always seemed like a test question, especially from guys—like you were supposed to answer something “smart” and tell them about the documentary you’d been dying to see, or the TV show about the angry man that you just love, or that superhero movie you couldn’t wait to watch again. But it had been a long day. She might as well just be honest.

“Obviously, with the rain outside and with this bowl of very cozy soup, all I want to watch is some sort of luxurious period drama with lots of sweeping views of the countryside in England or Italy or somewhere like that, and people drinking tea and eating tiny sandwiches and scones. Do you know the kind of thing I mean?”

To her surprise, Beau nodded. “Good idea.” He flipped through his many streaming services, and landed on something. “What about this one?”

“This Provincial Life,” Izzy read on the screen. “I don’t even need to read the description, the title is enough for me. Sold.”