By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(68)

His smile widened. “Absolutely.”

Izzy ran up the stairs, conscious the whole time that he stayed at the bottom of the staircase and watched her. When she got to her room, she just stopped for a moment and smiled. She had no idea where this was going, she knew she shouldn’t really be doing this, because given everything she knew about Beau, she had a feeling heartbreak was on the horizon. But for once, she would ignore that feeling.

She quickly changed into leggings and one of the tank tops that she most definitely had not realized had been driving Beau wild, washed her face, pulled Beau’s hoodie on, and ran back downstairs. She knew she should hang back, not be too eager, go down in thirty minutes instead of the twenty that she’d said. She didn’t care.

Beau was already in the TV room, setting something up on the coffee table. He looked up when she walked into the room.

A slow smile spread across his face when he saw her, and his eyes roamed down her body. She felt a shiver go through her.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. She suddenly felt shy. “Do you need any help? With dinner.”

He shook his head as she walked toward him.

“Everything is heating up, I’m just waiting for the timer to go off. But I…” He looked down for a moment. Was he blushing now? “I didn’t ask you what you wanted to drink, but I thought, maybe…”

Izzy came closer and saw what was on the coffee table. A champagne bottle and two glasses.

He’d done this, just for her? Beau wanted to celebrate as much as she did?

Her smile got bigger. She didn’t even try to hide it.

“You thought maybe what?” she said. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook here, no matter how sweet the moment was. She wanted to know what the rest of that sentence was.

He took a breath. “I thought maybe tonight was a good occasion to bring out some of my grandfather’s champagne.”

“I think that was a great idea.” She sat down on the couch, in the same place she sat all the time. But it felt so different now.

He picked up the bottle, unwrapped the foil from around the top, and then slowly twisted off the cage around the cork. He poured the champagne into two glasses and handed one to her before he sat down next to her.

“Cheers,” he said. “To a day of making up for lost time.”

Izzy touched her glass to Beau’s and took a sip of the champagne. And then she stared at the glass for a moment.

“I think your grandfather’s wine is going to spoil me for wine for the rest of my life,” she said.

Beau laughed. “This champagne is incredible, right? Perfect for the occasion.”

They smiled at each other again. He took the glass out of her hand and put it on the table. Then he leaned forward and kissed her again.

She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer. She felt greedy, like she wanted all of him. Like she had to hold on to every touch, commit every caress to memory, absorb every moment into her bloodstream.

He kissed her hair and laughed softly. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you since that very first day, you know,” he said.

She sat back and rolled her eyes. “You did not. You just wanted me out of your house.”

He laughed. “Well, yes, at first I did. But the thing was, when you seemed so confident, so unafraid of me, when you refused to let me intimidate you, I was intrigued.” His finger trailed from her cheek, down her jaw, to her collarbone.

She slid her fingers into his hair. “Mmm, were you really?”

He nodded as his hands moved down her body. “I was.”

She pulled him close. Just as she was about to kiss him again, his phone alarm went off.

He laughed. “Dinner.” He shook his head and stood up. “Perfect timing.”

A few minutes later, he came back into the TV room with a tray full of food.

“I don’t know how it’s become my job to bring you food all the time,” he said.

She beamed at him. “I don’t know either, but I like it a lot.” She glanced at the tray. “Ooh, baked Brie? Where did that come from?”

He lowered the tray to the coffee table and sat down. “I found it in the back of the freezer—pretty exciting, right?” He gestured to the bowl on the table full of crackers. “That’s what these are for.”

She leaned forward and cut into the Brie.

“You think of everything. See, this is why the food is your job. I wouldn’t have thought of crackers!”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “That, my friend, is absolute bullshit, and you know it.”

Izzy giggled. “I was trying to praise you, okay?”

Beau put a stack of salami slices on his plate and a handful of crackers. “Oh, did I miss where you were telling me how you’ve wanted to kiss me since the first day?”

Izzy looked sideways at Beau. He was smiling but a little shyly. She could tell he wanted a real answer.

“Well. Not since that first day. Then, I just thought you were an asshole. But after that day by the pool…”

He sat back against the couch and grinned. “Really? You seemed wholly unaffected by me!”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on. When you were parading around half-naked like that?”

He laughed. “I mean, I was trying to impress you, I just didn’t know I’d succeeded.”