“I, um, I should have prepped you better for it, though,” she said. “I forgot to warn you that with Marta, everything is a negotiation.” She looked back up at him. “What did she say to you, at the end there?”
He turned to the door. “Oh, just that she’d confirm this with you, to make sure you want to stay. And that she’s looking forward to the book.”
That all made sense, but Izzy had thought there had been something else. Maybe she’d just imagined that anxious look on Beau’s face.
Beau stopped, just after they’d gotten out of the library. “I should teach you to bake a cake tonight so we can celebrate.”
She put a confused look on her face. “A cake? But I didn’t see any cake mix in the pantry?”
He looked horrified. “Mix? You think I’d make you cake out of a mix?”
She laughed out loud. She knew that would get him. He glared at her, but she could see the smile underneath.
“Oh, that was a joke, was it? You think I’m just that easy to antagonize?”
She laughed again as she turned to go upstairs.
When she walked into the library on Friday afternoon, she could tell something was wrong with Beau. He had that tense look on his face that she now knew meant he was stressed, not angry.
“Everything okay?” she asked him when she sat down.
“Everything’s fine, why wouldn’t it be?” He took the notebook that she pushed across the table to him. They were well past the point when either of them was worried that he’d delete a part of his book—at least, she was pretty sure they were—but they still exchanged the notebook every day.
“No reason. You just seem out of sorts, that’s all,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said, without looking at her.
Okay, then.
She opened her own notebook and pulled out her phone to start the timer. They wrote in silence for a minute or two.
“I’m nervous,” he said.
She stopped the timer and looked at him. He was staring down at his notebook.
“I’m seeing my mom tomorrow,” he said. “Every day this week, I’ve typed out a text to cancel. So far, I haven’t sent one, but who knows what will happen later today, or tomorrow morning, or tomorrow if I actually make it in the car to drive to LA.”
She’d been so intent on her own work that week that she’d almost forgotten that Beau would be seeing his mom this weekend, and how hard that would be for him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. “About what you’re nervous about?”
He let out a short laugh.
“What am I not nervous about? Seeing her again, telling her how sorry I am in person, finding out how mad she is at me, hell, I’m not sure whether she’ll even let me in her house, given what I said to her, how I acted. And not just at the funeral, but…Her text was nice, but she has every right to be furious.”
He tried to smile at her, but it wasn’t that successful.
Izzy thought for a moment. “Do you want me to come with you? Not to see your mom, but just, like, in the car to keep you company so you don’t turn around and come back here?”
Until recently, she would have hesitated to ask him something like that. And then hedged it more, with “You don’t have to say yes to this” or “My feelings won’t be hurt if you say no.” But they didn’t have to be careful around each other anymore.
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?”