By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(60)

She was cold—she should have worn something other than a sleeveless dress to the beach in this weather. As she slipped it on, he cleared his throat.

“I know you said not to apologize again. But I just need to say this. I can be a real asshole, but if I’d known that, about you and writing, I never would have said what I said yesterday. I really hate that I hurt you like that.”

She touched his arm. “I know.”

They were mostly quiet on the way home. Izzy was glad she’d suggested surfing. Things felt better between them. Not back to how it had been before—that was impossible. Good in a different way, though.

Izzy checked her phone when she got back to the house.

Met a hot medical student last night, friend of my cousin. Keep your fingers crossed he asks me out!



Izzy laughed. Priya always managed to find hot guys wherever she went.

Fingers and toes are crossed!



When Izzy got back downstairs after a shower, she wandered to the kitchen. When she got there, she stopped and stared.

Beau stood at the kitchen island, his hands—and part of his T-shirt—dusted in flour, rolling out dough.

“What…What are you doing?”

He looked up from the dough to her. “Making croissants. I started them last night, after you went to bed. They take forever, but now it’s time to laminate the dough.”

“Laminate the dough…What are you talking about?” Then it suddenly hit her. “Wait. You make the baked goods?”

He laughed. “Yes, of course I make them, where did you think they came from?”

She walked over to the island to look at what he was doing. “I don’t know, I thought maybe the mixer and the oven became sentient and just popped them out on their own after we went to bed.” She grinned at him. “That, or Michaela.”

He went back to rolling the dough. “Michaela does do everything important around here, but no, it was me.” He shrugged. “When I got here, I had nothing to do other than just sit around and feel bad about everything. And I did that for a while, and then one night when I was up late—I haven’t slept all that well in…a while—I watched some cooking show. One of the old ones, where no one looked camera-ready and they were all kind of boring and pedantic, but I sort of got into it. And so I dug out some of my grandmother’s old cookbooks from the library and tried to make biscuits.” He shook his head. “They were terrible, that first time. Heavy and dense. But it just made me want to try to get them right. And once I did, I kept trying, with other stuff.” He looked down at the dough, and then turned to open the refrigerator. “I tried croissants once before, and they were good, but I knew I could do better. It’s been a while, though, so we’ll see how they turn out. But I figured I’d wait until I really needed to, and last night felt like the right time.”

He took a flat square of something out of the fridge and peeled the plastic wrap from around it.

“What do you mean, wait until you really needed to?” she asked.

He set the square in the center of the dough.

“It’s—this is going to sound stupid—a good distraction for me, when things are…difficult. And the more complicated the recipe is, the better it is at taking my mind off things. I mean, it’s fun, too, don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotten very dorky about different kinds of flours, and I now have a favorite brand of vanilla, please don’t ever tell anyone I said that. But having to do a million steps means I can’t think about anything else. And croissants take a lot of concentration.”

He folded the dough around the square and pinched the corners together. She couldn’t take it any longer.

“Is that butter? Because if so, that’s a LOT of butter.”

He laughed, definitely at her, this time. “It is butter. That’s why croissants taste so good.”

He picked up the rolling pin again and rolled the dough-encased butter gently, from the middle outward. Izzy came closer to the island to watch.

“You have to let the butter soften and then sort of press and squish it into a square shape, and then roll it out so it’s flat enough, and then refrigerate it again.” He picked up the dough and turned it sideways. “And then you fold it up like this, in your dough, and roll it all out. And once you’ve done that, you fold the dough in thirds, like this. Then roll it out again. That’s called laminating—it’s how you get all those flaky layers.” He made a face. “Well, if you do it right. I didn’t last time; I was too impatient.”

She looked down at the dough. “I didn’t realize it was that complicated.”

He held up the rolling pin. “Do you want to try?”

She walked around the island to stand next to him, and he handed her the rolling pin. She put it down at the edge and started to press down, when he stopped her.

“No, not like that—have you never rolled out dough before?”

His voice was teasing but not mocking. She could tell the difference now. She shook her head. “My grandmother makes biscuits, too, but she never lets anyone else help.” She thought back to those times and laughed. “Plus, I was always busy reading.”

He put his hands on hers, still holding the rolling pin, and moved them to the center of the dough, and then took a step back.