By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(61)

“You roll from the middle outward. That way, it makes the dough more even in the end.”

She pressed down and felt the dough move as she rolled the pin in one direction and then in the other.

“Like this?” she asked.

He nodded, but she could tell something was wrong.

“What is it? Am I ruining your dough?”

One corner of his lips tipped up. “Not ruining it…exactly. It’s just that…”

She laughed. “I knew there was something. Show me.”

He moved behind her and put his hands on top of hers. “You need a little more power here, that’s all.” They rolled the dough together, first in one direction, and then in the other. “It’s easier for me, because I’m so much taller.”

It felt nice, with him standing behind her like that. Surrounding her with his warmth. With his strong hands on top of hers, with his arms around hers. She wanted to lean into him. Into all this.

It felt far too nice.

She dropped her hands, and so did he.

“I’ll let you finish this part, then.” She stepped back, and he moved away. “I can, um, get dinner warmed up? Because I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

She had forgiven Beau, but that didn’t mean that she had to let herself go back down that particular path. It would be too easy, and it would hurt too much. Especially since she was going back to New York in a week.

He nodded, without looking at her. “Good idea. I’m starving, too.”

She turned to the fridge, then stopped. “Wait. So you’re telling me that up to a few weeks ago, you did all this baking, and then just…left the kitchen like this for someone else to clean up? With lots of dishes and flour everywhere?”

He looked around at the kitchen, then back at her. “When you put it like that, it makes me sound like an unmitigated jackass.”

She cracked up, and so did he.

“I didn’t say it, you did.”

By the time dinner was ready, he’d chilled, rolled, and folded the dough again. They decided to eat in the kitchen so Beau could keep working on the croissants. When he brought silverware over to the kitchen table, he picked up his phone, and then stilled, his back to her.

“Beau?”

After a few seconds, he turned around. “She, um, texted me back. My mom. She asked if I could come to LA next weekend, to see her.”

Izzy looked at Beau to try to gauge his reaction to that, but she couldn’t tell from the tone in his voice or the look on his face.

“How do you feel about that?” she asked. She shook her head. “Sorry, I sound like I’m trying to be your therapist or something, that’s not what I mean, but—”

He looked at the kitchen island, still dusted with flour. “I don’t know,” he said. He walked over to the toaster oven and scooped pigs in a blanket on their plates. They were going full-on frozen snack foods for dinner tonight. “Do you want honey mustard or barbecue sauce? We have a number of different kinds of each, of course.”

Well, that was a clear change of subject.

“Both, obviously,” she said, “but I’m not picky on what kind.”

After they sat down at the table, Beau looked over at her. “Sorry. I’m just a little talked out, if that’s okay.”

Izzy reached for a pig in a blanket. “That’s totally okay.” And then she stopped. “Also—if you want to be alone now, that’s okay, too. I can just—”

He shook his head. “I don’t. I was actually kind of…looking forward to this.”

She looked at him for a second, then down at her plate. “Me too.”

They didn’t talk about anything else hard, for the rest of the night. They just ate dinner, and finished the croissant dough, and made cookies, and watched TV. But somehow, she felt closer to him at the end of the night than she had at the beginning.





On Monday afternoon, Izzy met Beau in the library. He raised his eyebrows at her as she sat down.

“Are you still up for our deal?” Beau asked. “About us both writing, I mean.”

Izzy gestured to the notebooks she’d brought with her. One was Beau’s, the one they passed back and forth every time. The other was her own.

“I’m not one to back out of a deal,” she said. “Haven’t you learned that about me yet?”

There was a certain amount of bravado in her voice, bravery she didn’t exactly feel. Yes, she’d been tinkering with an idea for the past few weeks, jotting down notes, tiny scenes, here and there. But she was scared to really commit to writing again.

She was glad, in a way, that this deal with Beau would force her to write. But another part of her was terrified. That she’d discover Gavin was right, this was too hard for her, she was no good at this. Or, even worse, that her experiences with writing and publishing over the past few years had taken away all her joy in writing, that joy she used to have when she was a teenager, sitting on her bed with her notebook for hours, deep into a world she’d created.

But it scared her even more to never try again, to leave that part of her life, of her dreams, behind.

She pushed Beau’s notebook across the table to him and took out her phone to set the timer. This time it was for her, not for him.