“I know,” she’d said. “That’s the worst part. You might even agree with me.”
He’d laughed and given her the notebook.
After he read her notes on Wednesday, he looked up at her, his eyes narrowed.
“Okay, but what else?” he asked.
She stopped, midway through sliding her notebook into her tote bag. “What do you mean, what else?”
He set the laptop to the side. “You had this worried look on your face, the whole time you were reading. I thought there must be something really wrong with it, but nothing you said is that bad. Are you holding out on me? Giving me the easy notes at the beginning, so I can get used to it, and then bam, you’ll come in and tell me to rewrite the whole thing?”
Izzy laughed. “No, and no. And I promise, I won’t tell you to rewrite the whole thing.”
He pushed his notebook across the table to her. “Then what is it? What’s wrong? Something put that look on your face.” He shook his head. “Wow, incredibly self-centered of me to assume it was my book, you do have other things in your life. Never mind.”
Izzy rubbed her hand back and forth on top of his notebook. “Oh. Um. It kind of was about you, actually.” Why was she so bad at hiding her emotions around Beau? She used to be so good at it. “It’s just that…Okay, feel free to say no to this?”
She still wasn’t sure if she should ask, but now she had no choice.
“I’m good at saying no.” He looked amused. “As you’re well aware. What is it?”
She swallowed. “Um, my friend Priya—I work with her, I’ve mentioned her, I think? She’s going to be in Santa Barbara this weekend for a wedding, she has a million cousins. And she kind of wanted to know if she could come up here, and see the house, and everything?” She couldn’t read Beau’s face at all. He wasn’t smiling anymore, but he didn’t look mad, exactly. Just…blank. “It’s okay, it’s not a big deal, I’ll just tell her—”
“Of course your friend can come here.” He said it almost harshly, but then he smiled at her. “You’re living here, aren’t you?”
Did he mean it? Izzy couldn’t tell.
“Are you sure? It’s okay if—”
Beau stood up. “It’s fine. Really.” He still seemed…off, but she wasn’t going to push it.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll bring her by Thursday.”
So on Thursday afternoon, right after she left the library, she drove down to the airport to pick up Priya. She’d left plenty of time to get through airport traffic and figure out where and how to meet her. When she pulled up to the tiny, adorable airport that didn’t even have a single traffic light, she laughed out loud. She really hadn’t needed all that time.
After a few minutes, her phone buzzed.
Just landed!!!
Izzy got out of the car to wait for Priya.
Yay! I’m here! See you soon!
She couldn’t believe she was going to see Priya. Suddenly, the thought of seeing someone from New York, from her real life, almost overwhelmed her. She’d been in this tiny, almost dreamlike bubble in California, with Beau, for the past three weeks. It felt strange that someone else, even someone as great as Priya, would intrude on that.
She only had just over a week left in the month Marta had given her. Beau was on track, she thought, to finish his memoir, at least eventually. It wasn’t as scary to him anymore, she didn’t think. But…she hadn’t quite told him the whole truth the day before. She had been holding out on him. Everything he’d written so far was good, but it was all missing something. If he’d written about whatever had made him leave LA and come to this house in Santa Barbara and disappear from the rest of the world, he hadn’t shared it with her. In fact, she was pretty sure he hadn’t put it down on paper yet. It was clear he was leading up to something big, but it was vague, only hinted at. Izzy had found herself getting impatient as the days went on, waiting for him to get there. She hadn’t pushed him on it, not yet, but she knew she had to in the next week before she left. She wasn’t looking forward to that.
“Izzy!!!!!”
She looked up, and Priya was running toward her, rolling suitcase in one hand and her long black hair flying behind her.
“Priya!”
Priya almost smothered Izzy with her hug, but Izzy didn’t care.
“Ahhh, it’s so good to see you,” Priya said, when they finally let go of each other.