CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bee turned into Grandma's driveway and let the car roll to a stop beneath the porch light. The bookstore bag slid against Wes's shoe, but neither of them moved to pick it up. Sara's voice had filled the quiet all the way home.
She shut off the engine, but neither of them reached for a door. Wes's hand still rested over hers on the center console. Bee looked at their joined fingers until her phone lit in the cup holder with another notification.
Wes glanced at the screen. “Don't read it,” he said.
“I wasn't going to,” Bee replied as she turned the phone face down.
“You looked at it,” Wes pointed out.
Bee released his hand and reached for her purse. “Looking isn't reading.”
Wes opened his door and gave her a doubtful look over the roof of the car. “That sounds like something you made up.”
“Most rules are made up,” Bee replied.
The front door opened before they reached the porch. Grandma stood behind the screen door in her robe with one hand on the frame. Her gaze moved over Bee's face, settled on Wes, then returned to Bee.
“You left here smiling,” Grandma said.
Bee climbed the porch steps and forced a smaller version of that smile. “The date was good.”
Grandma held the door open. “That wasn't what I said.”
Wes waited for Bee to enter before following her inside. “The date was good,” he confirmed.
Grandma looked at him more closely. “Something happened.”
Bee slipped off her shoes near the door. “We met the woman behind @saralee.”
Grandma's mouth tightened. “What did she do?”
“I don't want to talk about it right now,” Bee replied.
Grandma studied her for another moment before stepping aside. “Go change. I'll make tea.”
Bee returned from her room wearing an oversized sweatshirt and soft shorts. Wes had taken one end of the couch. Grandma moved around the kitchen behind them, giving Bee space without going far enough to miss anything.
Bee sat beside Wes and opened her phone. She found the comment Sara had left beneath Wes's snack video and read it again. I wish my man was more like Wes. The words felt worse now that Bee knew the woman behind the username.
Wes leaned forward until he could see the screen. “You've been staring at that comment since you sat down.”
Bee locked the phone. “I wasn't reading it.”
“You were definitely reading it,” Wes said.
“I was thinking,” Bee replied.
Wes pointed between her eyebrows. “That's when you get that little crease.”
Bee touched the spot he indicated. “I don't have a crease.”
“You do when you're worried,” Wes said.
She placed the phone facedown on the cushion between them. “I'm not worried.”
Wes nodded with no sign that he believed her. “Okay.”
Bee narrowed her eyes. “You don't believe me.”
“Not even a little,” Wes admitted.
“You're getting annoying,” Bee said.
Wes settled against the back of the couch. “I've been annoying since you picked me up.”
Bee laughed before she could stop herself. “That is true.”
His smile lasted only a moment. Wes looked toward the kitchen, then lowered his voice. “I meant what I said in the parking garage.”
Bee rubbed her palms over the sleeves covering her hands. “I know.”
“I don't want you sitting here thinking Sara was right,” Wes said.
“I don't think she was right,” Bee replied. “That doesn't mean hearing it didn't hurt.”
Wes turned toward her. The answer seemed to settle something he had been trying to understand since they left the city. He rested his forearms on his knees and looked down at the phone between them.
“Can I have your phone?” Wes asked.
Bee frowned. “Why?”
“I want to say something to your followers,” he explained.
Her hand moved toward the phone before she stopped herself. “You don't have to do that.”
“I know,” Wes said.
Bee studied him. His voice was calm, but the set of his jaw told her the frustration from the parking garage had not disappeared. “Are you going to start a fight?”
“No,” Wes promised.
“Are you going to name Sara?” Bee asked.
“No,” he replied.
“Are you going to post something while you're mad and regret it tomorrow?” Bee continued.
Wes looked at her. “I'm going to tell the truth.”
Bee pulled one sleeve over her fingers. “I don't want you getting dragged into this because of me.”
His expression softened. “Bee, I'm already in it.”
“You don't have to defend me,” she said.
“I know,” Wes replied. “I want to.”
Bee held his gaze. “Why?”
Wes took his time answering. He rubbed his palms together once, then rested them on his knees. When he looked at her again, there was no hesitation left in his face.
“Because I'm your man,” Wes said.
Bee stopped breathing for a second. The words landed harder than she expected. Wes swallowed, but he didn't look away or try to take them back.
“If people are coming after you for something I chose to do, I'm not going to sit here and let you take all of it,” he continued. “I have something to say too.”
Bee looked toward the kitchen. Grandma stood near the stove with her back to them, though the tea kettle in her hand had not moved for several seconds. Bee turned back to Wes and picked up her phone.
“You really want to do this?” Bee asked.
“Yeah,” Wes replied.
She held the phone out to him. “Okay.”
Wes accepted it, then handed it straight back. “Unlock it.”
Bee laughed softly as she entered her code. “You could've led with that.”
“I didn't know if you'd say yes,” he explained.
“I almost didn't,” Bee admitted.
“I know,” Wes said.
He opened the app and checked that he was on Bee's account. Then he propped the phone against a stack of books on the coffee table and sat in the chair across from it. Bee watched him adjust the angle twice before rubbing his hands together again.
“You're nervous,” Bee said.
Wes checked the frame. “I'm not.”
“You do that with your hands when you're nervous,” she pointed out.
He looked down at them. “Maybe I'm cold.”
Bee pulled one knee beneath her on the couch. “You're a terrible liar.”
“That's probably a good thing,” Wes replied.
He reached forward and tapped the red button. The timer began counting while Wes sat back and looked directly into the camera. His shoulders were stiff for the first few seconds, but his voice came out steady.
“Hey, everybody. I don't usually make videos like this, but I need to say something about the comments people have been leaving for Bee,” Wes began. “Some of you have gone too far.”
Bee lowered her eyes to her hands. The house seemed quieter with Wes speaking to the same people whose words had filled her screen for days. Even Grandma stopped moving around the kitchen.
“You don't have to like every video Bee makes,” Wes continued. “You don't have to like me, and you don't have to approve of what happens between us. You can keep scrolling. What you don't get to do is bully her over choices I made for myself.”
Wes paused and glanced at Bee. She nodded once, and he returned his attention to the camera.
“When Bee talked about asking me for snacks, people called her spoiled and selfish,” he said. “Some of you acted like she dragged me out of bed and made me drive across town when I had work the next morning. That's not what happened.”
His hands rested loosely between his knees now. The nervous movement had stopped. Wes leaned forward slightly as his voice grew firmer.
“I was already going to the gas station,” he explained. “Bee asked for Hot Cheetos and a candy bar, so I got them. I drove to her house because I wanted to see her. I brought doughnuts for Grandma because I wanted Grandma to like me.”
“It worked,” Grandma called from the kitchen.
Bee covered her mouth as a laugh escaped. Wes looked toward the kitchen and smiled, but he did not stop the recording. When he faced the phone again, some of the tension had left his shoulders.
“Grandma confirms the doughnuts worked,” Wes said. “The point is that Bee didn't make me do anything. I wanted to make her happy, and I was happy to go.”
He drew a breath before continuing. Bee watched his expression change as he reached the part that had bothered him most. His smile disappeared, leaving the same quiet certainty he had shown Sara on the sidewalk.
“Then I told the story on my account,” Wes said. “People called me thoughtful. They said other men should take notes and told me I was treating Bee the way a woman should be treated. Some of the same people who criticized her praised me for doing the very thing they said she was wrong to ask for.”
Wes shook his head once. “That doesn't make sense. You can't call Bee spoiled for accepting something I wanted to give her, then call me a good man for giving it to her. That's a double standard.”
Bee blinked against the sting in her eyes. Wes had listened when she tried to explain the difference between their comment sections. He had understood it well enough to see the pattern himself.
“There's a difference between disagreeing with somebody and trying to make them feel bad about themselves,” Wes continued. “If you wouldn't make a snack run, don't make one. If you wouldn't ask your man to go, don't ask him. That has nothing to do with Bee.”
He looked straight into the camera for the final part. His voice stayed controlled, which made every word land harder. Bee stopped pulling at the cuff of her sleeve and listened.
“If your goal is to make her ashamed of being happy, leave her alone,” Wes said. “She doesn't deserve that. I'm not asking everybody to like us. I'm asking you to remember that she's a real person before you type something meant to hurt her.”
Wes reached forward and stopped the recording. The red timer froze, and the room filled with the quiet hum of Grandma's refrigerator. He picked up the phone but did not touch the button to post.
“Was that okay?” he asked.
Bee wiped beneath one eye. “Yeah.”
Wes held the phone toward her. “Watch it first.”
She moved from the couch to the chair beside him. Their shoulders touched as Wes played the video, and Bee listened to every word again. He had not spoken for her or told her followers how she felt. He had only explained his own choices and drawn a line around the way people treated her.