By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(63)

She ripped out a piece of paper from her notebook and started writing.

“Um, I was thinking…a month?” he said. He made a panicked face at Izzy, and she almost laughed. “After the week we already have remaining, of course.”

Marta was still talking, but Izzy knew exactly what she was saying.

She held up her note so he could see it.

NEGOTIATE!!!



His eyes widened, and he nodded at her. “I don’t think an additional two weeks is enough time,” he said, in a much more assured voice. “Especially given where I am in the book. But an extra three weeks might do it.”

He listened for a second, and then grinned at her. “Excellent,” he said. “I’ll let her know.”

Izzy grinned back at him, but his attention went back to the phone. Beau’s smile faded.

“Okay,” he said after a while. “Of course.”

Izzy raised her eyebrows at him, but he shook his head. What did Marta say? Did she change her mind?

“Okay. Thanks, Marta. I appreciate it.” He hung up the phone and stood up. “We did it!”

Izzy jumped up. “We did it!”

He came around the table and enveloped her in a hug. She hugged him back.

“She’s even scarier than I remembered,” he said. “Thank God you were there for that. I never would have made it out alive on my own.”

She leaned into the hug. She’d forgotten how good this felt. For him to hold her like this. It had only happened one time before, that accidental time in the kitchen, but this time it was on purpose, for both of them. He was so big, and strong, and it just felt so…right, to have his arms around her like this. She didn’t want him to ever let go.

As soon as she thought that—as soon as she realized that she’d thought that—she made herself drop her arms and take a step back. He was smiling down at her, with a look on his face that…She swallowed and looked away.

“I, um, I should have prepped you better for it, though,” she said. “I forgot to warn you that with Marta, everything is a negotiation.” She looked back up at him. “What did she say to you, at the end there?”

He turned to the door. “Oh, just that she’d confirm this with you, to make sure you want to stay. And that she’s looking forward to the book.”

That all made sense, but Izzy had thought there had been something else. Maybe she’d just imagined that anxious look on Beau’s face.

Beau stopped, just after they’d gotten out of the library. “I should teach you to bake a cake tonight so we can celebrate.”

She put a confused look on her face. “A cake? But I didn’t see any cake mix in the pantry?”

He looked horrified. “Mix? You think I’d make you cake out of a mix?”

She laughed out loud. She knew that would get him. He glared at her, but she could see the smile underneath.

“Oh, that was a joke, was it? You think I’m just that easy to antagonize?”

She laughed again as she turned to go upstairs.





When she walked into the library on Friday afternoon, she could tell something was wrong with Beau. He had that tense look on his face that she now knew meant he was stressed, not angry.

“Everything okay?” she asked him when she sat down.

“Everything’s fine, why wouldn’t it be?” He took the notebook that she pushed across the table to him. They were well past the point when either of them was worried that he’d delete a part of his book—at least, she was pretty sure they were—but they still exchanged the notebook every day.

“No reason. You just seem out of sorts, that’s all,” she said.

“I’m fine,” he said, without looking at her.

Okay, then.

She opened her own notebook and pulled out her phone to start the timer. They wrote in silence for a minute or two.

“I’m nervous,” he said.

She stopped the timer and looked at him. He was staring down at his notebook.

“I’m seeing my mom tomorrow,” he said. “Every day this week, I’ve typed out a text to cancel. So far, I haven’t sent one, but who knows what will happen later today, or tomorrow morning, or tomorrow if I actually make it in the car to drive to LA.”

She’d been so intent on her own work that week that she’d almost forgotten that Beau would be seeing his mom this weekend, and how hard that would be for him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. “About what you’re nervous about?”

He let out a short laugh.

“What am I not nervous about? Seeing her again, telling her how sorry I am in person, finding out how mad she is at me, hell, I’m not sure whether she’ll even let me in her house, given what I said to her, how I acted. And not just at the funeral, but…Her text was nice, but she has every right to be furious.”

He tried to smile at her, but it wasn’t that successful.

Izzy thought for a moment. “Do you want me to come with you? Not to see your mom, but just, like, in the car to keep you company so you don’t turn around and come back here?”

Until recently, she would have hesitated to ask him something like that. And then hedged it more, with “You don’t have to say yes to this” or “My feelings won’t be hurt if you say no.” But they didn’t have to be careful around each other anymore.