He was in a different pair of fancy sweatpants—these were dark gray, the other ones had been light gray—and a white T-shirt. All the other times she’d seen Beau, he’d been wearing a hoodie. The T-shirt was snug on his biceps. And his chest.
She could hear Priya’s voice in her ear.
If you like those big brawny guys, which I absolutely do.
Izzy looked away from him immediately. And suddenly realized that she was wearing shapeless pajama pants, a thin tank top, and no bra. Thank God she’d pulled that cardigan on before she’d come downstairs.
“What are you doing up?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. So after a while, I thought maybe a snack might help.” Izzy looked down at the three bags of chips in her hands and slowly put two bags down.
“It usually does,” he said. “Plus, it is National Snack Food Month, after all.”
Izzy’s eyes snapped back to Beau. “How do you know that?” she asked him, probably too sharply. He didn’t actually read her emails. Right? He couldn’t. He’d showed no sign that he had any idea that Isabelle Marlowe existed, let alone that he knew who she was.
He looked confused. “Oh, um, I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I think it was on the back of a bag of chips or something.”
That made sense. Beau seemed like more of a read-the-back-of-a-bag-of-chips kind of guy than a read-emails kind of guy. Or write-a-memoir kind of guy, for that matter.
“Oh. Okay. Um, sorry if I disturbed you. Or…” She put the chips down. “If you don’t want me to…”
He shook his head and took a step toward her. “You didn’t disturb me. And take the chips, I don’t care. I mean, it’s fine.” He smiled at her. An actual, sustained smile, and not that quick, almost secret smile she’d seen the other day. “You have good instincts—those cheesy chips are my favorite. Perfect for a late-night snack.”
She laughed. “That’s what I thought. I saw them when Michaela showed me the snack cabinet, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since.”
He was still smiling. “We all need snacks in the middle of the night sometimes.”
She smiled back at him. “Yeah. We do. Especially after…” She stopped herself. Was she really so tired and frustrated that she’d been tempted to vent to Beau Towers of all people?
“Especially after what?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Just a long day.” He was still looking at her, like he was waiting for her to say something else, so she kept going. “I still have to do all my other work while I’m here, which means I have to be up and working by six a.m. Pacific time, and someone at work today said something that…I’m still annoyed by.” She couldn’t tell Beau what Gavin had said about him, obviously. “It was just…a frustrating day. That’s all.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He still looked…pleasant, almost. He wasn’t quite smiling, but he wasn’t glaring at her either. Not the normal monstrous Beau Towers she’d gotten used to.
“Sure,” she said.
“What’s in it for you? This job, I mean. You deal with jerks at work, and from what I can tell of the rest of your job, it’s just a lot of pointless drudgery. You act like you believe these little cheerful stories you tell me once a day, and you seem so committed to this whole pep talk routine, but you can’t actually believe that ‘a book changed my life’ nonsense, right? What do you even do this for, anyway?”
His whole smiling and friendly thing had just been another way to make fun of her. How had she let him trick her like this? She was suddenly furious.
“I know this entire concept is foreign to you, but some people need to work for a living.” The expression on his face changed when she said that. He looked angry. Good. She kept going. “But even beyond a paycheck, some of us actually care about our jobs. I work hard at my job because I love books. I love everything about them. I love the way you can fall into another world while you’re reading, the way books can help you forget hard things in life, or help you deal with them. I love all the different shapes books come in, and the way they feel in your hand. I love seeing authors develop their idea from just a few sentences to a manuscript to an actual book that’s on the shelves, and I love the face they make when they see their name on a book cover for the first time. I love when readers discover books that felt like they were meant just for them, and they’re so happy and grateful and emotional that everyone in the room wants to cry, and sometimes they all do. Those books do change lives. I hope that answers your question.”