“My eyes are up here.” Beau raises both pointer fingers to his impressive pecs and directs my eyes upwards.
“I look where I please.” Belligerent in the middle of my grand gesture. This is going well. But I do look up to meet his hazel eyes, which look very green right now. Even more like a Christmas tree.
“I love you. Despite the fact that you may be physically incapable of enjoying nature, and I think you’ll melt if you live too far from a Target. I love you,” he says.
Well, damn it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
That’s what I forgot to say in my speech. I was so worried about telling him why I left, but I forgot the most important part.
“I love you too. Obviously.” The last part is more for me than me because I still can’t believe I forgot to tell him.
Beau smiles in relief. I guess he didn’t think it was that obvious. He leans forward and slides his arms around me, pulling me from my own chair to stand between his legs.
“Then that’s all that matters.” Beau goes in for a kiss, but I pull my head back.
“That’s not all that matters. Literally all the points I brought up about us living in two different states still stand. And I don’t think you’ve developed a hankering to live in civilization in the last few minutes,” I wail.
Beau blows past my use of the wordhankering. Rude. I was trying to make him feel more at ease.
“You aren’t the only one who did some thinking after you left.”
Fled. But thanks for making it seem less cowardly than it was.
“I do love home, my family, and the farm. They’re all I’ve known in a good life, and I didn’t want to leave that. Maybe I was afraid to leave that.”
This isn’t going great right off the bat. My shoulders slump and my stomach drops like I’m on a roller coaster and I just went over the big drop. This is why I hate roller coasters.
“But I’ve also acknowledged that I want to do a lot that I can’t do here. These last few weeks have been frustrating. Because I missed you, but also because I’ve been getting calls from the team about work and I just want to be there with them. I want to be solving problems with them and working hands-on for the research part. Just attending meetings via Zoom has made me antsy.”
I perk up, just like Bubba’s ears when he hears the wordfood. But I don’t say anything yet. There’s still a chance I’m making all this up and he’s really warming up to tell me I can pound dirt but I hear he’s buying a townhouse on the Upper East Side.
He sighs. “I need to be in New York to get this battery project working. So I’m moving to the evil city whether or not you want to be with me.”
“You’re moving to New York?” I’m going to need to hear that a minimum of five times before it sets in.
“I’m moving,” he confirms. “I was trying to tell you, maybe see if that was news you would be receptive to, but you didn’t seem interested in my calls.” Accusatory eyes stare me in the face.
I shuffle my feet. “The cell reception is really spotty in India.”
“You tweeted daily.”
“Hmm.” That I did. Taken down by technology. “I was going through some stuff.” I grab Beau’s face, one hand on either side of his face. “But I love you. And I’m not going to do that again.” I hope. “Maybe you can come to some of the therapy sessions with me later? If that’s not too much for you.”
“I love you too. And I would love to come with you.” Beau leans down for a kiss.
When his lips touch mine, all the tension, the worry, the sadness, and the anger I’ve felt floods out of me, replaced by a larger dose of the same relief I felt when I talked to my parents.
And when his tongue touches mine, I don’t just forget all the negative feelings I’ve had for the past week; I forget everything.
His hands clutch my dress behind me, at the bow, and my hands frantically try to find a way to more skin. I forget any argument I had against not doing the nasty in his parents’ house.
But then Bubba reminds me why this isn’t a great idea right now. He must have gotten bored or felt like we were having fun without him, because he shoves his giant head between us, searching for attention.
We break away with a laugh and Beau wipes at my cheeks.
“Wait, why am I crying now? I’m happy,” I say in frustration.
