Chapter 20
Beau is a man of his word, leaving me alone to luxuriate in the Jacuzzi. His loss. Or maybe mine. But I’m proud of myself for noticing the needed boundary before breaching it.
When I wander up to the loft an hour later, he’s still holed up in his bedroom.
After a quick shower, I head into the kitchen to make dinner.
Beau wanders out as I put the steak into the oven and pivot to slice the peaches for the salad.
He’s just showered, and I get a whiff of his soap—it’s citrusy and distinctly masculine.
His hair is wet and brushed back, and his glasses are fogged.
He pulls them off and wipes the lenses with the hem of his shirt as he approaches the counter, revealing a strip of tanned, flat stomach.
I dart my focus to his face—but his glasses are off—which is mesmerizing, too.
I so rarely get to see his eyes from behind his glasses that I’ve forgotten what a deep brown they are—how his eyelashes are so thick and straight that it looks like he’s wearing eyeliner. It’s a shame they’re always veiled.
“What can I do?” Beau slips his glasses back on. I try to clear my expression.
“Sit there and look pretty. I got it.”
He grabs the sparkling water out of the fridge as I top the arugula with the peaches. “As soon as we get back to civilization, I’ll help you search for your mom.”
“It’s like she really is a ghost.”
“We’ll check the older addresses when we head north. Someone may remember her.” He pours me a glass of water. “We can check the courthouse in Jackson County—try to find the rest of that paperwork.”
“Maybe.” The ordeal unsettles me—it’s a pit in my stomach, a subtle form of nausea that hits me in waves, a throb behind my temples.
Do I keep searching? The irony is that I wish I could ask Dad what I should do.
He was my moral compass. Realizing that his sense of ethics was shaky makes me question every decision I’ve made—every time he told me, You did the right thing, Princess, maybe it was the wrong thing all along.
“Hey,” Beau says, his voice gentle, “what are you thinking?”
I contemplate deflecting, but it’s getting harder to stop my runaway thoughts, especially in the face of Beau’s gentle nudge.
I sigh. “I’m not sure what I expect to gain even if I do find her.”
“Answers?” Beau leans a hip against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest.
“If she’ll give them.” If she can give them. I don’t know how much of my own sanity or happiness I can pin on a resolution I may never get.
“An apology?”
“I’m not even sure I could accept it.”
Beau watches me, and the heat of his gaze might be the one weapon that can pierce my emotional armor, because I feel defenseless.
“Do you know what you’d say to her?”
I give his question a moment to marinate.
It’s not like I haven’t thought about it, but I’ve tried to push it from my mind.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself and feel even more unsettled and confused if I never find her.
“Not yet. But I feel like I’ll know in the moment, right?
Assuming we find her, the state of her life will answer a lot, I think. ”
Beau sounds like he’s making me an interview subject when he asks, “In what way?”
I resist the urge to change the subject or tease him about jumping into researcher mode. It’s a fair question, even though I’m not sure I have a coherent answer.
“If she looks like she’s lived a rough life, maybe that offers some clues.
If she moved on like nothing happened and has another family, kids .
..” I swallow as my throat thickens. I’m not ready to go through the scenarios, because none of them—other than a soap-opera-esque three-decades-long coma or bout of amnesia—can absolve her.
I’m consumed by feelings without descriptors, questions without answers, and instincts without reason.
Beau’s undivided attention is dangerous—he shines a flashlight on my emotional cracks and spotty logic.
I turn on a bright smile, stir the pan sauce with a wooden spoon, and hold it aloft. “Taste this.”
Beau startles and laces his palm around my wrist. He opens his mouth and closes his eyes as he tastes, moaning slightly. “Holy hell, Phe.”
“Good?” I’m pleased with his praise and so grateful that he’s letting me move on. He must sense I’ve reached my limit.
He hums, his eyes closed and expression vulnerable.
This is what he’d look like if he were lost in pleasure.
The vision of him seeps into my senses, wraps around my chest, ensnares my belly, and spreads heat down my thighs.
How would it feel to affect this man and make him experience something other than irritation?
To break down his guard until he forgets himself and his hang-ups?
To make him hum like that for other reasons?
He opens his eyes, and I’m still watching him.
Our gazes lock, and the muscle in his jaw jumps.
I dart my focus away and shake off the fantasy.
His attentiveness—and my knowledge of the abs under that thin shirt—is making me forget my commitment to keep my hands to myself.
I clear my throat. “We’ll be ready in five minutes. You want to set the table?”
“Excuse me,” he says as he reaches into the upper cabinet.
His arm passes over my head, his body eclipsing the light from the window.
He braces himself with a palm on my back, holding me steady as he grasps two plates and closes the door.
Every nerve collects under his palm. I step aside as he opens a few drawers, and then we shimmy by each other again.
I feel his heat, still humid from his shower, and a drop of water from the tip of his hair lands on my collarbone.
“Sorry,” he says, flicking his hair back and moving away, as I let out a slow exhale.
I plate the steak, pour a spoonful of sauce over each, and bring them to the table while Beau follows me with the salad and sliced baguette. We settle at the pine dining table, maneuvering our plates and glasses to make room.
“Hair of the dog?” Beau asks, holding up a bottle of cabernet. He doesn’t wait for my answer before pouring me a glass.
“Cheers,” I say.
“To detours.” Beau holds his glass aloft for a toast, and I clink mine to his as he eyes me with an expression that’s wistful, searching, and heavy. I don’t know how to read it.
He digs into his steak while I take a steadying sip of the wine.
“Phe,” he moans, “why did you hide this talent from me for so long? We’ve been eating like college students.”
“Keep renting me cute little cabins and I will cook for you forever.” I clear my throat—and coax the flirt out.
“You really paid attention to my mom, didn’t you.”
“Well, yeah, your mom taught me a lot.” But my mom was my first teacher.
She’d set me on a stool with a bowl and wooden spoon, allowing me to mix while she measured ingredients.
But I’m not sure I can trust those memories or their significance.
“While you were busy reading books, I was in the kitchen with her. And then I watched a lot of Cooking Channel.”
Beau laughs—but it’s true. You live alone, TV keeps you company.
He sighs into a bite, and my pride swells.
I love to cook, but it’s so much more fun to do it for someone who appreciates it.
I would cook when I visited Dad, but he had a simple palate.
I knew when he didn’t like it because he’d say, Wow, Princess.
This is fancy. His gray eyes would twinkle as he said it—proud I knew how to cook something he didn’t know how to pronounce, but still not eager to eat it.
I think of my small apartment back home with no one to cook for.
The loneliness creeps in again. I have loads of acquaintances—people I called friends until I lost the person who had been my world.
The calls dried up after the funeral, which was a floodlight on the truth of each relationship like the lights coming on at closing time.
Beau takes another bite, making a sound I will never unhear.
It’s low and satisfied, appreciative—and it makes me flush with pride and something else I shouldn’t name.
Because I can’t afford to let that noise infiltrate my long-term memory.
It’s bad enough to know how he looks half naked, but I need to keep my fantasies single-sensory.
Otherwise, I might do something stupid and pounce on him and threaten our newly rekindled friendship.
He’s the person in my life who has known me the longest now that Dad has died.
Our reconciliation is tenuous, and I need to protect it from my disastrous instincts.
Right now, my reflex is to bake him a flourless chocolate cake to see how much more pleasure I could beckon—and then taste it off his lips.
And that would put an expiration date on our friendship.
The last time I lost him, it was because I made the mistake of taking everything he would give me—even if it wasn’t good for him. I can’t do that again.
Perhaps I could hold his attention while we’re sequestered together on our strange crusade for truth.
We could slip into bed and let our attraction burn to dust. But if I want to hang on to him after this trip is over—and I do—I need to exercise self-control.
I need to build on our nostalgia with these new, potent moments of connection to safeguard our friendship from another estrangement.
A platonic relationship will be enough, I think.
It has to be—because Beau is bred for monogamy with someone serious, and I am not that person.
“What happened with you and Bianca?” The question is born whole, tripping off my tongue and stumbling onto the table.
Beau freezes but softens when he sees my face. I think I’m more surprised than he is. “Phe,” he sighs.
“She’s obviously still in love with you.”
“She’s not,” he says.
“She couldn’t have been more territorial if she had peed on you.”