By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(64)

His eyes widened. “Would you really do that for me? Yes. Of course I want you to come. But it’s a lot to ask.”

She tried to ignore how good it felt for him to say “of course” like that.

“You didn’t ask. I offered. I can’t solve any of those other problems for you, but I can sit in the car with you and go to a coffee shop or something and write or read for however long you’re with your mom. And I can hold on to your phone on the way so you don’t cancel.”

He looked down at the notebook. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Thanks.”

She started the timer. “You’re welcome.”


So Saturday, late morning, they walked to the car together. Izzy offered to drive, but Beau shook his head.

“No, I can do it,” he said as they walked to the car. “I want to do it.”

He’d trimmed his beard, she noticed. He still seemed on edge, like the slightest thing would cause him to jump.

“Oh.” He reached into his pocket at the first stoplight they hit and handed her his phone. “You said you’d take this?”

She slid it into the pocket of her denim jacket without a word.

They’d been on the freeway for about thirty minutes before he said anything else.

“Remind me,” he said. “Before we leave LA, I want to stop at this one tea place. They have Michaela’s favorite tea, and it’s hard to find. I thought, since we won’t be that far away, we should get her some.”

That was nice of him, to think about Michaela like that.

“What’s it called?” she asked. “I can go pick it up while you’re with your mom.”

“Oh. That’s a good idea. It’s that brand in the kitchen with the black boxes and gold letters. The tea place is called Off to the Cupboard.”

She nodded. “Sounds good.”

They drove on for another thirty minutes until suddenly, Beau pulled off the freeway and into a gas station right off the exit. She expected him to get out of the car to get gas, but instead he turned to her.

“I’m not sure if I can do this,” he said.

She turned to him and grabbed his hand. “You and I both know you can do this, that’s not in question. The question I want you to think about is whether it will feel worse for you to push through this hard, scary feeling now, and do it, or if it’ll feel worse to turn around, walk back in the house, and wake up tomorrow, and every day after this, knowing you didn’t do this.”

He looked down at their hands, his large hand holding tight to her smaller one, his pale brown skin against her darker brown skin, and didn’t say anything for a while.

Finally, he let go.

“Okay.” He started the car again and pulled out of the gas station and back onto the freeway going south. “Okay, fine.”

Would it help him to talk? She couldn’t tell, but she knew he’d make it clear if he didn’t want to.

“The foundation,” she said. “The one you and Michaela are working on. What’s it for?”

Beau seemed relieved at the change of subject. “It’s to support libraries that don’t have big sources of funding. Schools, community centers, places like that.”

Izzy almost laughed. What a wonderful idea. And not what she would have expected from Beau when she first met him. She smiled at him.

“Oh wow, that sounds great,” she said.

His hands were a little less tight on the steering wheel.

“Yeah. At first I wanted to build whole new libraries, do that kind of thing. But I got some advice from a friend who runs a foundation, and she said the goal is to find the people who are already doing good work and give them more money to do it with, so that’s what we’re going to do. Eventually, the goal is to fund writing tutors, scholarships, stuff like that, too. Getting a foundation all organized is a lot more complicated than I thought. At least Michaela knows what the hell she’s doing because I definitely do not.”

She laughed at that, and so did he.

He got quiet for a few minutes.

“Naming it after my grandparents,” he said.

She put her hand on his for a second. “I’m sure they’d like that.”

A few miles later, she turned to him. “I didn’t mean it. What I said that day about you. Being spoiled and everything.”

He glanced over at her, a small smile on his face. “Yes you did.”

She had to smile at that. He knew her too well. “Okay, then, I don’t mean it anymore,” she said. “I don’t believe it anymore.”

The smile hovered around the corners of his lips. “Thank you for saying that,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

After another hour or so of driving, they pulled up in front of a modest bungalow on a quiet side street. Granted, the quiet side street was just past the WELCOME TO BEVERLY HILLS sign, so it was only modest in comparison to some of the other houses on the block.

He turned off the car and handed her the keys and then some cash from his wallet. “For the tea.”

She tucked the cash into her wallet. “Okay.” She took his phone out of her bag. “I think it’s safe to give this back to you now. Just text me when you want me to come back, okay? I have my notebook, my laptop, lots of books, so I’ll be fine for however long.”