Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Daisy
Spraining my wrist brought out Beckett’s caring side.
It wasn’t even a bad sprain, but the way he’s been treating me, you would think I’d completely lost the use of my right arm.
Callie hasn’t stopped talking about how adorable he was deliberating over which tampons to buy. Not that he did much deliberating. He bought so many tampons that I donated ten unopened boxes to a women’s shelter.
I’ve spent the past three weeks trying to be as helpful as possible despite my limitations—not my wrist, my boss. Beckett told me in no uncertain terms that I’d do more harm than good working on the vineyard.
So, when we experienced an August heatwave, I passed out electrolyte drinks and water to the vineyard crew.
I deliberated over paint charts for days and chose all the wall colors for the house, completely overriding Beckett’s decisions. And he let me .
I’ve been working in the tasting room all week, serving flights of wine and cheese boards to flocks of tourists. A solution Beckett came up with after I spent two weeks trying to convince him I was ready to return to work. It was a good compromise, so I didn’t argue. I want my wrist to be fully healed when the harvest starts.
And for want of a better word, Beckett and I are… friendly . Strictly platonic. Housemates who don’t gaze into each other’s eyes or whisper sweet nothings.
When we eat dinner together, I try not to stare at the definition in his forearms. The way the veins bulge when the muscles in his arms flex.
When we watch movies together, he sits on the opposite end of the couch so no part of his body touches mine. But when I make a joke, his lip twitches and sometimes, he laughs. Out loud .
I get the biggest kick out of making him laugh. He’s too serious—a workaholic and a perfectionist—so I’ve made it my mission to loosen him up, lighten his load.
But I’ve mostly resigned myself to the fact that Beckett and I will never be anything more than frenemies who shared a house for three months once upon a time.
I’m not sure why that doesn’t feel like enough for me.
I’m not sure why I would even want a man who claimed that kissing me was a mistake.
But the more time we spend together and the more I get to know him, the more I do. Want him, that is.
On this Sunday afternoon, I emerge from the bathroom on a cloud of steam and run into Beckett in the hallway.
He’s just come back from a run. His skin is flushed and coated in sweat.
I’m freshly showered, a towel turban on my head and another wrapped around my body. My skin is glowing from my DIY brown sugar scrub exfoliant.
His gaze briefly dips to my cleavage before focusing on the neck up. So proper, you could almost be fooled into thinking he’s a gentleman.
He steps to the right to let me pass while I simultaneously step to the left to let him pass.
Now we’re at an impasse, standing right in front of each other again.
I laugh and grab the towel that’s starting to unravel on my head. But when I raise my arms to fix the towel on my head, the towel wrapped around my body slips, exposing my right nipple and possibly my left.
Then the towel unravels completely. I snap it up before it falls to the floor, but I’m too slow, so now he’s pretty much seen...well, just about everything.
“Jesus Christ.” He sucks in a sharp breath and quickly averts his head like he’s never seen boobs before.
I briefly consider just slinging the towel over my shoulder to see his reaction but think better of it and wrap it around me securely.
Rejection is not on today’s agenda.
“What’s a little nip slip between friends, am I right?” I flash him a smile.
He scrubs a hand down his face like he’s trying to erase the vision of my half-naked body.
Which, of course, compels me to mess with him. “Wait. Are you…a virgin?” My mouth forms an O, eyes widening in shock. I pat his arm as if I’m consoling him. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Put some fucking clothes on,” he growls.
It’s all I can do not to fall over laughing when he stalks down the hallway. I lean against the wall, silently shaking with laughter as his bedroom door slams shut with so much force, I’m surprised it doesn’t fly off the hinges.
Interesting.
Maybe our relationship isn’t so platonic after all. Maybe he just has a lot of self-control. That wouldn’t surprise me. Beckett is very disciplined. With his diet (no junk food). With his workout regimen. With his daily routine.
You learn so much about a person when you live with them.
I know he hates surprises. He’s a loyal friend (Grayson told me that when he visited last week). A neat freak. A die-hard 49ers fan and season ticket holder. A good grandson who adores his “Grams.”
I know that he has insomnia and doesn’t get enough sleep. That he paces when he’s trying to work through a problem in his head. That his academic intelligence is off the charts, but his emotional intelligence leaves something to be desired.
I know all this because I am so hyper-aware of the man I live with that I notice all the seemingly inconsequential things that make him who he is.
Even though he is still a giant pain in the ass, and I alternate between wanting to kiss him or stab him in the neck, I’m starting to care about Beckett.
I care about him more than I’m willing to admit.
But I don’t want to get too attached, so I need to tread lightly.
This will all be over in five weeks, and we’ll go our separate ways. He’ll go back to his life, and I’ll go back to mine. In time, the memories will fade, and it will almost feel like this was all a dream.
So, it’s for the best if we keep our distance.
That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.
After choosing my outfit, I lay my clothes out on the bed and throw open the windows to let my hair air dry while I do my makeup.
It takes longer than usual, but when I’m done, I’m happy with the result.
I used desert pink on my eyelids and cheeks with a dusting of gold powder on my cheekbones. For the finishing touch, I wove strands of gold thread through the braids crowning my head, and left the rest of my hair down.
Dressed and ready to go, I grab my backpack and jog down the stairs.
I find Beckett in the kitchen drinking one of his wheatgrass juices. He has them shipped to the house by the caseload. I tried one last week and immediately spit it into the sink. That’s how vile it tasted.
He looks up from his phone and does a double-take. “The fuck are you wearing?”
“My festival wear. I had to improvise. I couldn’t fit my entire wardrobe into one suitcase, so it’s not as good as my Burning Man outfit. I wore fake fur, dreaded hair, and a body chain.”
“Sorry I missed that,” he comments dryly.
“You joke, but it was quite memorable.”
I tell him how I pitched a tent and slept in a hammock. Made a pilgrimage to the Temple at sunrise for quiet contemplation and on the final night I watched it burn.
I spent six days traipsing through the desert, capturing some truly incredible photos for a travel magazine, and when I got back home to Brooklyn, I took my first proper shower in a week and then I slept for two days straight.
He visibly shudders like he can’t imagine anything worse. All those people. All that body odor.
I would pay good money to watch him riding the New York City subway. I’d bet he’d have a full-blown panic attack.
I whip off the cotton scarf tied around my waist like a sarong and wrap it loosely around my neck. “See? Multipurpose. I bought this scarf at a market stall in Barcelona for fifteen bucks and it was the best investment ever. You can use it as a beach towel, a sarong, a scarf, a turban?—"
Beckett cuts me off. He’s not interested in the versatility of my desert-pink cotton scarf. “Can those even be called shorts?”
“They’re booty shorts. So yes, technically, they can be called shorts. Do you like them?” I give him my back, which is completely bare in a floral applique halter top, and shake my booty as I grab a couple of bottles of water from the fridge.
After I do a quick inventory of my backpack—a hoodie in case it gets chilly later, sunscreen, camera, lenses, and equipment—I stash the water bottles inside and zip it up.
“What about those baggy jeans of yours,” Beckett says. “Wouldn’t they look better with that top?”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Are you giving me fashion advice now?”
His wardrobe is strictly designer, and even his T-shirts probably cost a hundred bucks each. But I don’t think this has anything to do with fashion.
“I’m happy with my outfit. A girl should be able to wear whatever she wants.” There’s a challenge in my tone, like I’m daring him to contradict me.
“I agree. It was just a suggestion,” he mutters.
I sling my backpack over my shoulder and head for the door, but I can’t wipe the smile off my face.
Sometimes Beckett is funny without even trying. And sometimes he’s kind of…sweet. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Where are you going?”
“To a festival.” I stop in the doorway and look over my shoulder. “Why? Do you want to come?”
He strokes his jaw like he’s actually considering it. “Festivals aren’t really my thing.”
“Yeah, I figured. This festival is definitely not your thing. You’d hate it.” He’s just contrary enough that if I tell him he’ll hate something, he’ll go out of his way to prove me wrong. But in this case, I’m not using reverse psychology. I can’t see him enjoying this festival, so I’m trying to spare us both from the agony. “Have a good day.”
When I reach the front door, I hear his footsteps behind me.
“Hang on. Where is this festival?”
I pause, my hand on the brass knob. “Petaluma.” I yank open the door and keep on walking with Beckett hot on my heels.
“I’m not so sure you should be driving. Your wrist isn’t fully healed. And I’m also not sure that truck will make it.”
“My wrist is completely healed. I’ll be fine.” I wave away his concerns, toss my backpack into the truck, and slide behind the wheel.
But when I turn the key in the ignition, the engine rumbles, then sputters and dies. I try three more times but get the same result.
Dammit. I smack my palm against the wheel.
“Not much of a getaway car,” Beckett drawls when I climb out of the truck and stare at it balefully.
I round on him. “Did you put a hex on it?”
“I’m not a warlock.”
I arch a brow like I’m not entirely convinced. “Are you sure?” I plant my hands on my hips. “Because it worked just fine the other day.”
“If you’re referring to the day when you shot-gunned down the road, leaving a trail of black smoke in your wake, I would hesitate to call that ‘fine.’ But if you mean fine in the sense that it was fine when that asshole grabbed your arm, then yes, this truck was running just fine .”
I exhale loudly. He really needs to let that go, but he doesn’t let anything go.
“I’m not going to debate the definition of fine with you.” I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts as if any of them will be able to help me. Most of them don’t even live in California.
“Do you know any mechanics who work on Sundays?”
“Let me have a look.” He sighs loudly, letting me know this is a huge imposition and not at all what he planned to do on this fine Sunday. “I think I know the problem.”
If I didn’t want to go so badly, I’d tell him to forget it, but if there’s any chance he can fix this truck, I’m not going to stand in his way.
He pops the hood and sticks his head under it, tinkering around in there, checking this and that while I cross my fingers, hoping he can figure out the problem and that it’s an easy fix.
I have no idea if he knows anything about car engines, but this is no time to question his skills as a mechanic or wound his fragile ego by insinuating he has no idea what he’s doing.
“Maybe it needs water,” I offer helpfully.
“It’s not a houseplant,” comes the voice from under the hood. “Must be a dirty carburetor,” he concludes. “There’s fuel on the spark plugs.”
“So you know your way around an engine, huh?” For some reason, that makes him a hundred times hotter.
A guy who can wear the hell out of a suit, chop wood, drive a tractor, and fix your car?
Hello, sign me up.
Beckett Heyward is coming dangerously close to becoming my dream man.
But I have complete faith that he’ll find a way to squash my dreams by proving that he is not, and never will be, anyone’s dream man.
“My grandmother had a piece of shit car that was always breaking down, so I learned the basics,” he says, wiping the grease stains off his hands with the paper napkins I dug out of the glove compartment. “But you’re not going anywhere in that truck today. You’re not driving that truck at all until I get it completely overhauled. It wasn’t safe to be driving in the first place.”
Even as I melt a little at his gruff tone and the concern etched on his brow, my shoulders sag in disappointment.
I’m not that subtle, so Beckett notices immediately.
“You really want to go?”
“Yeah. But it’s fine,” I say, trying to brush it off. “I’ll get over it.”
He hesitates a moment. “I’ll take you.”
I give him a skeptical look. Even though a tiny part of me hoped he would offer, I don’t want him to feel obligated.
Dragging someone to an event they have no interest in attending is a recipe for disaster. If he’s miserable, I won’t be able to enjoy myself either. “Are you sure?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, why not.”
I’m not entirely convinced that this is a good idea, so I try to talk him out of it.
When that fails, I point my finger at him. “You can’t complain, though. Just remember that you volunteered. No one is forcing you to do this.”