By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(79)

As she wrote, her frustration mounted, and her sadness turned to anger. See, this was better. She—and her main character—should get angry instead of so sad. What had sadness ever done for her? Nothing.

When she finally looked up, she realized the sun was already setting. She and Beau usually ate dinner by now; no wonder she was hungry. But she was so mad at him that she wanted to wait to eat until after he was safely out of the kitchen.

No. That was silly. She wasn’t going to sit in her room and hide from him.

She got up and went downstairs.

The kitchen was empty when she walked in, and she felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. She opened the refrigerator door to see what Michaela had left for them tonight. She hadn’t done this in a long time, she realized. Beau was always in charge of getting their dinner ready.

“Hey.”

She turned around, and he was standing there, leaning against the kitchen door.

“Hi.” She took a salad bowl out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter.

“I wasn’t sure if you were coming down,” he said. He took a few steps into the kitchen.

That was really all he was going to say?

“Oh, are you done with your break?” she said.

Beau winced. Okay, yes, she’d sounded kind of bitchy—okay, very bitchy—when she’d said that, but what did he expect?

“I’m really sorry about earlier in the library,” he said. “I should have led with that. But, Izzy, I’m trying here. This is all hard for me, you know that. Yes, of course, what you said today made perfect sense. But it was hard for me to hear, hard to realize I have to do it, to reveal to the whole world more of the hard parts of myself if I want to make this book any good. And I hate that I still miss my dad, despite everything. I started to get mad at you in there, and I realized I had to stop and take a breath. So instead of lashing out at you, instead of saying something I knew I would regret, I told you I had to take a break. Please don’t be mad at me for that?”

Oh.

She should have realized that’s what he was doing. He’d basically told her, but she’d been so freaked out by their first fight after they’d become…whatever what they were…that she hadn’t bothered to think about it from his point of view.

She uncrossed her arms. “I’m sorry, too. You did the right thing. I should have thought about it more from your side.”

He let out a sigh. “No, it’s okay. I came back to the library to apologize, but by then you’d left, and you’d forgotten your phone there, so I couldn’t text you. And I couldn’t come up to your room, so—”

“You can come up to my room,” she said.

He shook his head. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

She’d almost forgotten that he’d said at the very beginning that he wouldn’t come upstairs.

“Yes, but it’s different now,” she said. “I’m saying that you can.”

He took over dinner assembly—a Caesar salad, with chicken and fresh croutons—while Izzy pulled out the dishes. She felt bad for getting carried away, getting so mad at Beau for something she should have understood.

Had she apologized well enough? Probably not. She should have explained better how she felt, how what he said made sense to her, why she’d overreacted so much.

But to do that, she’d have to explain how she felt about him, and she wasn’t sure if she knew how to put those feelings into words. Or if she was ready to.

They went into the TV room with the food, Beau carrying almost everything, as usual. She’d tried once, but he could easily carry more than twice as much as she could, so she’d given up and let him do it. He was silent as he put the food down on the table.

When he sat down, she made herself turn to him. “Are you mad at me?”

He looked surprised. “No. Why would I be mad at you?”

“Well, I wasn’t…I was kind of mean, in there. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn’t have—”

Beau shook his head. “Yeah, but I’m not sure if I deserve the benefit of the doubt. I was a real asshole, the last time we went through this.”

Izzy shrugged. “Yeah, but that was before.”

He gave her a very sweet smile. “Yeah. That was before.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close. They hadn’t touched since she’d left his room first thing that morning. She’d missed this. “And no. I’m not mad at you.”

She put her hand on his cheek. “Good.” She looked up at him. “It’s okay that you still miss your dad. He was still your dad—you’re still grieving him. And you never got to be mad at him in person; you’re grieving that, too.” She turned his face to hers and kissed him. “And you do deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

He smiled down at her. “Thank you. For all of that.”

She wanted to say more, but for right now, it felt like enough to curl up on the couch with him, to eat dinner and watch their show and just be together.





The next morning, just after nine, an email popped up in Izzy’s personal account.

Hi, Isabelle—

I hope all is well with you; it was great to run into you in February. A position of assistant editor here at Maurice just came open, and I immediately thought of you. I’m not sure if you’re looking to leave TAOAT, but I thought I’d reach out just in case. We’d like this process to be relatively accelerated, so please let me know if you’re interested as soon as you can. I’d love to bring you in for an interview next week, if that’s possible.