Chapter Twenty-Nine
Keeley
Becks has done his homework.
As we climb into his truck, he tells me that he doesn’t need my human GPS skills tonight. Instead, he puts on a country playlist and drives straight towards the outskirts of town.
There’s only one possible place we could be getting ice cream, and it happens to have my favorite ice cream in the world.
As he pulls off at an exit in the middle of nowhere, I gape at him. “How did you know about this?”
“Ezra might’ve given me a couple of tips.” Beckett parks the truck, then rubs the back of his neck. “I wanted to give you a good first date, and I only had dessert to work with.” He turns and gives me that lopsided, dimpled grin of his I love so much, and adds, “I wanted to make sure you were suitably impressed.”
I’m not sure what’s got me in my feels more—the fact that he took the time to learn my favorite dessert in preparation for tonight, or the fact that he said first date.
As in, there are going to be more dates following this one.
“Consider me impressed,” I tell him as we climb out of his truck. It’s still dark and gray and overcast, and I’m glad I grabbed my sweatshirt.
When people talk about the best ice cream in Serendipity Springs, most mention Calaway Creamery—an awesome spot downtown that offers hundreds of delicious flavors and comfy booths to sit in. It’s popular with tourists and locals alike, and it’s a favorite for people cozying up on dates, sharing a sundae. It’s actually where I went on my (admittedly awkward) first date with Andrew. We shared a double scoop sundae—I chose mint chip, he chose coffee, and it turned out those flavors totally clashed. Didn’t work or blend together at all.
It’s where I assumed we’d go tonight.
But Beckett, once again, has surprised me. In a good way.
Because while I love Calaway Creamery’s ice cream, my favorite dessert in the world is found in this little spot on the side of the highway.
Dippity Doo Dah is an old-style ice cream truck that serves creamy soft ice cream dipped in the best chocolate coating on the planet. It’s one of Serendipity Springs’s best kept secrets, in my opinion. The owners are snowbirds who spend their winters in Florida, so their ice cream is only available in the summer months. Which, of course, makes it even better, because every year, you have to enjoy it while it lasts.
Gramps used to bring Ezra and me here all the time when we were growing up.
Beckett smiles as he looks around. The truck’s cute striped awning is lit up with hanging lanterns, and small clusters of people sit at the few picnic tables surrounding the truck.
“When we started driving out here, I got nervous for a minute,” he admits. “Thought Ezra might’ve been having me on and we were actually on a wild goose chase.”
“He likes you too much to sabotage our date,” I reply with a laugh as we get in line. “But believe me, the drive out here is totally worth it. What are you going to order?”
“Two of whatever you want,” he says, and I have to say, I love that he wants to try my favorite thing on the menu. At every turn, it’s like he’s searching to know more about me—from the little things to the big ones.
When we get to the front of the line, I order two large caramel vanilla swirl cones dipped in chocolate. The elderly man smiles at me. “Excellent choice.”
We take our cones, and I’m about to walk towards a free table when Becks smoothly intertwines his hand in mine and pulls me in the other direction. I look at him questioningly, and he looks back at me with a heat in his eyes that makes my heart pound.
“I don’t want to sit with all those people,” he says in a low voice that I feel in my very core. “I’ve been waiting to get you alone all night.”
And that’s how we end up sitting on the tailgate of his truck in the parking area, overlooking a mostly deserted highway as we eat our ice creams… and somehow, it’s the most romantic date I’ve ever been on.
Because it’s exactly what I would have picked. And he somehow knew it.
“I give this a ten out of ten,” Beckett says after swallowing a bite of ice cream. He’s sitting close to me. So close that I can feel his body heat, which is somehow even more comforting than the cozy sweatshirt I’m wearing. “You have great taste, Roberts.”
“I know,” I say with a smile as I lick a droplet of ice cream from my finger. I’m hyper aware of the way his eyes follow my movement, how they linger on my mouth.
And I like it. A lot.
“Glad we didn’t stay strangers,” he says, and the sleeve of his jacket scrapes tantalizingly along my skin as he casually moves his arm.
He’s so casual, so composed. And I’m… well, I’m melting faster than the ice cream cone in my hand.
A veritable puddle of a person.
“Me too,” I say into the night, my eyes on some headlights moving down the highway because I hardly dare look at him.
Everything about Becks captivates me. Draws me in. Makes me want more. He fits in with my friends, my family, even my apartment building, with an ease that makes it feel like he’s a piece of the puzzle that’s been there forever, but is finally in its correct place. Finally where it was always meant to be.
And while all of that feels so right, it also feels… scary. Like I made the decision to do this because I was sure I could protect myself from getting hurt at the end of it, but somehow, I’m already falling for him too fast, too hard, and in a way I can’t prevent. In a way that I won’t be able to escape.
In a way that I don’t want to escape.
Sure, this is a budding summer romance, but even though I know this is all it can and will be, it already doesn’t feel like just a summer romance. It feels like something bigger. Something that’s going to leave its mark on me when it inevitably ends, however that mark may look.
And instead of fleeing the idea of potentially being hurt again, I’m leaning right in.
I scoot impossibly closer to him. Lay my head on his shoulder like it’s something I’ve done a million times before. Soft suede-like material against my cheek. Woodsy, fresh scent in my nose. My stomach is full of a million butterflies, all vibrating in anticipation of…. something.
“I’m always going to remember this summer,” Becks says suddenly, like he’s reading my mind.
“Agreed,” I reply. “This will always be the summer I got locked in the elevator, trapped on the fire escape, stuck in the laundry room…”
I feel his smile in his voice. “The summer you experienced all of the above with your charming, handsome new neighbor.”
I chuckle. “The summer my incredibly modest new neighbor hit a whole new level of humble.”
“The summer I met Keeley Roberts.”
I wait for him to elaborate. To add something I did or said that was funny or embarrassing.
But he says nothing further.
I twist my head to look at him, and he shrugs, his eyes burning into mine as he says, “That’s it, that’s what I’m going to remember. You.”
“Beckett…” I breathe.
That electric feeling is only growing. Crackling with energy. With possibility, like anything could happen.
My breath becomes shallow as his hand tightens on my knee, and his pupils dilate as I tilt my chin up towards him.
What I want is surely written all over my face as he leans closer…
“Aghhhhh!” I shriek as what feels like an entire bucket of water washes over my head.
The heavens have opened, the sky has exploded, and screams echo around the parking area as people flee to their vehicles to escape the downpour. Within seconds, I’m a sopping wet mess holding a sopping wet ice cream cone, and my brain has short-circuited—the rain has clearly fried my already overheating circuit board.
Because I’m sitting here, frozen, until the sound of Beckett’s laughter snaps through me like a rubber band. Deliciously deep, almost dirty, laughter.
In one swift, impressively accurate motion, he pitches the remains of his ice cream cone into a nearby trash can, then removes his jacket and holds it up over my head.
In a world of boys, he’s the gentleman of all gentlemen.
He hops down from the tailgate and tosses my soaking cone into the trash too, before helping me down. Together, still laughing, we run around to the driver’s side of the truck, and he steers me in front of him so I can climb in first.
I tumble into the cab of the truck, soaking and giggling. He’s hot on my heels, and I scoot across the bench seat to make room for him.
We’re both breathing heavily, and the cab fogs up within seconds. Becks throws his soaking jacket into the back seat, and I peel off my sweatshirt, which is plastered to my skin. My scoop-neck tee underneath hasn’t fared much better, and Beckett’s t-shirt is sticking to him, almost completely see-through.
“We haven’t had rain like this all summer!” I say, running my fingers through my wet tangles.
Becks leans his head against the headrest, still laughing. Droplets of water cascade down his handsome face. “Clearly, I brought the Irish weather tonight.” He turns the key in the ignition. “Let me get some heat going.”
“Does it rain on most of your dates, then?” I ask. It’s not very graceful, nor subtle, and I’m sure he’ll clue in pretty quickly here that I’m digging, but I don’t care.
“What dates?” he asks with a wry smile. “I haven’t gone on a date in forever.”
“Yeah, right.” He told me that first night on the fire escape that he split with his long-term girlfriend last year, and despite his apparent opinion that he’s not good boyfriend material, I am certain that a newly single Becks would have been an extremely hot commodity in his hometown.
Anywhere, actually.
“I’m being serious.” Beckett pushes his hair back off his face and then holds his hands to the vents, where warm air is blasting. “This is the first date I’ve been on in forever. In fact, it’s the first first date I’ve been on in like a decade.”
“ Why?! ” The word blurts out of my mouth before I can stop it, and I hastily follow up with, “Sorry, that was nosy. You don’t need to answer that. Obviously.”
I’m blabbering again.
But he just shakes his head with a smile. “Because I didn’t feel like dating. For a long while there, I didn’t really feel much of anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“After Gran died, I shut down for a while, was essentially just going through the motions of life. I handled my grief badly, I think.”
His eyes flit to my face. I get the feeling he doesn’t talk like this easily, doesn’t share this with everyone, and I find myself feeling sheer privilege.
He runs a hand through his hair. “I dealt with it all by looking after everyone else, while not really letting myself feel or lean into my emotions… that is, until I met you.”
“Me?” My voice is high-pitched and squeaky, like a mouse.
“You,” he confirms. His voice, in comparison, is deep and even and loaded with conviction. So much so that the single one-syllable word brings goosebumps to the surface of my skin, all over my arms and legs.
Because under Becks’s sunny, carefree surface, he’s a complex person who feels deeply. Who loves deeply and puts the people around him before himself. I think, in the process, he’s neglected himself, emotionally—a fact that hurts my heart.
Yet somehow, I’ve been able to play a role in changing that for him. And that means the world to me.
He looks at me for a long, loaded moment, and before I can reply—before I can even attempt to express what I’m feeling—his eyes move away and focus on my goosebumps. “I’d better get you home, you’re freezing,” he says quietly.
The physical reaction happening within my body right now isn’t from the cold, but he’s already throwing the truck in reverse.
The highway is slow-going, with cars lined up and moving slowly. The rain is relentless, with pelting sheets of water hopping off both the vehicle and the road ahead, but Beckett’s relaxed. He leans forward intermittently to wipe the fog from the inside of the windshield while claiming that he’s “used to driving in these conditions.”
I don’t mind the slow drive, either. I want to savor every possible moment of this date. This night.
“I’m sorry our date got cut short,” he says when we finally pull into the parking garage next to The Serendipity. He looks more than a little disappointed as he adds, “I don’t think tonight is going to be a good night for a fire escape chat, either.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I say—I’d been hoping we could meet up out there later, but this rain is relentless. “Thank you for taking me for ice cream. I had a great time, despite the weather.” My hand hovers by my seatbelt, but I don’t unbuckle it yet. Instead I bite my lip, then say, “And thank you for telling me that stuff earlier. About your grief. I’m glad you’re letting yourself feel again. I… really care about you, Becks.”
He turns his hazel green eyes on me. But unlike earlier—when his gaze was hot and electric and loaded with desire before we got near-drowned in the rain—his eyes are sparkling with a totally different emotion. Something I feel tangibly in my chest.
“From the second you crashed into my life in the elevator, Keeley Roberts, I started feeling things that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Maybe ever. And for that, I will always be thankful to you.”
We look at each other for a moment, and a spark of hope jumps in me as his breathing shallows. But then, his eyes move over my soaked hair and clothes almost regretfully before he says, “I want to get you inside and warm. Are you ready to make a run for it?”
I can’t deny the disappointment that wells in my chest, but I know it’s unfair—I can’t fault the guy for being a gentleman, for putting my needs first. Like he does with all the people he cares about.
“Let’s do it,” I agree. Although I think my need to kiss him is burning much stronger and brighter than my desire to get warm and dry.
We leave his jacket, my sweatshirt, and the box of Gramps’s stuff Ezra gave us in the backseat, and we make a break for it. As we run through the pouring rain together, his hand reaches for mine.
We’re both soaked to the skin as we run, hand in hand.
Me squealing, him laughing.
We bolt up the front steps to the building and stop at the front door. It’s locked, and he looks back at me and grins as he fumbles in his pockets for his keys.
He finally puts his key in the lock. Turns it.
“Come on. Come on, come on,” he mutters as he wiggles the key back and forth.
The door doesn’t budge.
“Hang on, I’ll get mine.” I wipe a hand over my face, then root through my shoulder bag and produce my set.
The rain pounds on my back and Beckett comes to stand behind me in an attempt to shield me with his body, but there’s no shielding anything from this crazy rain.
I slot my key in.
Turn it.
It doesn’t budge.
“I can’t believe this is happening!” I exclaim as I wrench the key again with no luck. I’m breathless and frazzled and soaking wet, my heart beating too fast at the sensation of Beckett’s warmth so close to me.
He wraps his fingers around my forearm, his very touch sending a bolt of heat coursing through me as he spins me around to face him.
Water is coursing in rivulets down his face, his t-shirt looks like it’s been glued on, and his hair is a soaked mess, but his eyes are blazing pure fire. A fire that lights me up from the inside on sight.
“I can,” he says.
And then, his lips are on mine.