Chapter 22
Beck devours his double order of green curry while I poke at my cashew chicken and adjust the container so Bodi can’t dig his giant tongue into it from his spot beside me.
My brows knit together as I watch Beck hurry through his meal like he’s scared I’m going to reach across the couch and take it from him.
My hatred of spicy food makes that impossible, but I don’t tell him that.
It’s kind of fascinating, him like this.
I can’t help but wonder how many people have been in this position with him and whether he minds adding me to that tally.
“Is your mouth not on fire?” I ask bluntly.
Green eyes flick my way, glimmering with humour. “Nah. I’ve had spicier.”
“Like what?”
“Have you ever had Jamaican jerk chicken?”
I shake my head and pop a cashew into my mouth. “I’m a spice snob. I don’t like eating anything that makes my tongue or lips burn.”
“Noted. I’m the opposite, though. My mom used to put chilli flakes over almost every meal she made me before I moved out.”
“Callie’s kind of similar, but I don’t think anyone should be that obsessed with spice. It’s borderline psychotic.”
He chuckles under his breath before ingesting another mouthful of curry. “I’ll introduce myself as your friendly neighbourhood psycho from now on.”
“It would be fitting.”
“Nobody gives me as hard a time as you do, Quinny.”
It doesn’t sound as flirtatious as I would have thought. Instead, it’s thoughtful, more like a statement than anything else.
“That hasn’t seemed to deter you thus far.”
He watches me, his eyes so intense they may as well be stripping my skin off. “No, it hasn’t. It’s actually an enormous turn-on.”
“Being bullied turns you on?”
“You’re not bullying me,” he says with a strained laugh. “You just give me a hard time. I like it. It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t hesitate to reem me out for something ridiculous I do or tell me off when I overstep.”
“Is that why you’ve been so adamant about going out with me?”
He jostles a shoulder, pink lips quirking. “It’s one of the reasons.”
“Are you going to tell me the others?”
“And ruin the suspense? No, baby. Not yet.”
“It might help me be a bit more believing if I knew why exactly you’re so set on this.”
Setting his empty bowl down, he scrubs a hand down his face. When he rights himself again, he’s twisted on the couch, his body language completely open. I hold still, cupping my container of food.
“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asks, his voice low and so, so soft.
My gut tingles with warning. “Not as well as you do. I wasn’t paying much attention.”
“I’m not talking about at the coffee shop. I mean in school. When we were kids.”
His arm stretches out along the back of the couch, and I flinch when a bold finger brushes my shoulder, running a hot line along the seam of my shirt. My stomach hollows as I repeat his words to myself. The confirmation that he remembers what I do is unexpected.
“That depends on what you think happened back then. I guarantee we don’t remember those years the same way,” I say, swallowing when I hear how cold I sound.
His eyes tighten at the corners, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.
“We didn’t talk much. Our circles were different.
But I know you came to watch our ball games every once in a while.
You’d sit on the highest level of the bleachers either with your hood up or a baseball cap on that would slip down your forehead and shield your eyes. ”
“I didn’t know you were watching us.”
He shakes his head. “Not ‘us.’ You. I only watched you.”
“Why?”
“You fascinated me.”
The noise I make in the back of my throat gives away how unimpressed I am with that. “Wow. How lucky was I?”
“I don’t mean it like that—” He palms my shoulder now, blowing out a ragged breath as he adjusts his positioning on the couch cushion.
“You were in the band and only ever hung out with those same two people. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to things outside of baseball back then.
My friends at the time were just . . . I don’t know.
Placeholders, maybe? They gave me the right image for the guy I needed to be then.
The popular jock with college scouts nipping at his heels.
Fuck, that makes me sound like a douche.
What I mean to say is that you fascinated me with how you didn’t give your attention to anyone you didn’t want to.
You didn’t care about having a thousand friends or hiding what you were interested in.
Not even your friends could distract you from what you were focused on, and I doubt they would have even considered it with how openly honest you were about what you needed from them.
“Like that time you found the rabbit behind the dugout? You shoved Jacobi out of the way when he tried to take it from you, and all but bit the head off of Kyla when she insisted we call animal control. There was no taking that thing away from you, even before we knew if it had rabies or some other contagious disease. You may as well have been dealing with it by yourself because there was nothing anyone could have offered that you couldn’t have either done or found yourself.
Your fierce independence made me notice you.
It was exciting to see someone so passionate about something that wasn’t their responsibility.
The only time I ever felt half as passionate about anything was when I first started playing baseball. ”
I remember that day . . . but not the same way.
When I found that rabbit, I was leaving the baseball diamond because Beck’s shit-ass friends had noticed me watching the game and couldn’t help themselves when the urge to give me a hard time arose.
They tugged on my hat and teased me for coming just to creep on Beck before stealing it and whipping it over the back of the bleachers.
There was no reason for them to be picking on me, but while Beck saw me as some fierce, independent girl who didn’t give anyone the time of day, I was still too fragile.
My soft heart made me an easy target for loud-mouthed boys to get their rocks off by being jerks to.
His friends were shitty, and because he kept them around and didn’t insert himself into their shit, I wrote him off the same way.
Up until recently, I didn’t regret doing that.
“I gave it to my nan, and she kept it for me. The rabbit,” I breathe out, too stunned to say anything else.
Beck laughs. “Yeah, I bet you did. What did you name it?”
“Polly.”
“Yeah, it did look like a Polly.”
“No, it didn’t, but I let Callie choose the name. It became her pet the moment I brought it home that night.”
“You’re close with your sister, right?”
“Very. She’s my best friend.”
He nods, giving me every inch of his attention. “I’ve always been jealous of people with siblings.”
“Your parents never wanted another kid?”
“They didn’t want to risk it. Mom always had really terrible endometriosis, and they always said one was more than enough for them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Being an only child is one of the reasons why we’re so close, I think. They had a shit ton of love to give, and I was lucky enough to receive all of it.”
I crack a smile. “Maybe that’s why you’re so needy. You’re used to being spoiled.”
“Now you might be onto something there.”
“I’m a genius, clearly.”
The hand on my shoulder has wandered without me noticing. Beck’s fingers are twirling the hairs at the base of my neck now, and once I zone in on that touch, I feel it zip all the way down to my toes. They curl on the hardwood as goosebumps pop up all over my body.
“What about your parents?” he asks, and that warm, gooey sensation in my chest vanishes.
I press my lips together before prying them apart again. My pulse thunders in my ears so loudly they ache. “What about them?”
“I don’t remember seeing them at school. Or at Blank Page. Are you close with them?”
“No.”
“Your grandma was around a lot, though, wasn’t she? Not at the coffee shop, but at school. I remember her at graduation. She was the one who stood up during the last speech and told them to hurry it up so she could take you out to celebrate.”
A choked laugh forces its way out of me.
The memory of the day he’s talking about is so vivid in my mind.
It replays in perfect detail, from the initial mortification I felt hearing her shout in the silence to the happiness that replaced it when I felt how fiercely she loved me.
There wasn’t a single fuck given when it came to my nan then.
She was too old and proud to care what other people thought of her, and she refused to waste the rest of her life following society’s rules.
I loved her all the more for that. She taught me everything I know.
“She was,” I croak, blinking furiously so I don’t cry in front of him.
Luckily, he reads into my tone and doesn’t ask for clarification about why she doesn’t—can’t—come around anymore. I’m being too obvious for him to need to wonder.
“I thought she was cool as fuck back then. My dad was a bit rattled, but my mom was gushing about it for a solid twenty minutes after the ceremony.”
“Yeah, sounds about right. Nan was a category five hurricane trapped inside an old, wrinkled body.”
He slips his fingers deeper into my hair until he can massage the base of my skull. My eyes flutter shut. “Sounds like a pretty great thing to be, if you ask me. If even one person remembers me as a certified badass once I’m gone, I’ll be honoured.”
“I opened Blank Page in her honour,” I admit.
“She loved coffee?”
“So much. It was her entire personality at one point. She was the one who encouraged me to open a café, and I had her name it before she passed, though she didn’t know it at the time. It was only a dream then. Something we shared between the two of us.”
The tightness in my throat loosens when he spreads his fingers and works them deeper. The distance between us has all but disappeared. His thigh presses to mine, providing another anchor. A reminder that he’s here, listening, and I haven’t sent him running yet.
I don’t want to think about why that has me feeling so conflicted.
“It’s a great name. Not as great as my favourite word, though, but it’ll do for now.”
“Oh? And what is said favourite word? Baseball? Sorry to say, but I’m not changing the name of my coffee shop to anything related to the sport.”
His features remain completely relaxed, our eyes so stuck together that the only way to separate them is to turn away from each other.
There’s something so completely enthralling about holding Beckett Rourke’s attention like this.
It makes me feel powerful. Like I’m the one in control, when in reality, that’s all him.
“Quinny.”
“What?”
“My favourite word. It’s Quinny.”
My entire body bursts into flames. One second, I’m plain old, regular Quinn, and the next, I’m on fucking fire, and the last thing I feel is ordinary.
His words jab so deep inside my chest that they may as well cup my soul.
My nose burns, and I blame it on the emotions lingering from talking about Nan.
I’m not close to crying because a man said something sweet to me. That’s not who I am. I’ve never been that person.
You are now, the annoying voice in my head says.
“It kills me that you don’t believe me,” Beck rasps.
I swallow. “I do.”
And I think that’s the most horrifying part.