He nodded and realized that’s probably what he should have been told from the beginning. He was a damn fool from the start. Hopefully Tara would take him back, even if he had to get down on hisknees.
* * *
Tara toreoff her bed sheets, though she knew it would have been absolutely silly to think the book was tucked against her mattress like that. But she was running out of options. Her tiny, one-bedroom apartment had been turned upside down in order to find that missing novel and the panic steadily began to build in herchest.
When she had gotten back to the office after meeting with Beau, she had wanted to check the book to see if anymore had been written. It was way too addictive not to check, even if her heart had crumbled into a thousand little pieces. She knew it hadn't fallen out at the café, but she went there right after work anyway to see if Rachel might have found it under the table where she and Beau had been sitting. No one had turned in a booktoher.
So thinking she'd just left it at home on her nightstand, she hurried back to her apartment. It wasn’t there either. Tara had been searching for over an hour now, but the book was absolutely nowhere in herapartment.
She wasn’t so much worried that she had lost the book. Too many hours had been wasted fretting over what would appear in the magical pages next to make her realize this wasn’t healthy. She couldn’t just wait around for words to appear on a page and dictate her life. The book wasn’t something that could determine her fate. She had to do thatherself.
What she was more worried about was someone else finding the book and reading what was in there. Yet, if it fell into the hands of another reader, would the story change? Would the cover change? Or would they read this crazy, mixed up story about her and Beau? Would they make the connection that she was really Tracy and Beau wasreallyBen?
Tara dropped to the foot of the bed and ran her fingers through her slightly disheveled, tangled hair, as she leaned against the edge of the mattress. She hadn’t taken that book anywhere besides work and home, and she had already asked if Rebecca had seen it anywhere. She hadn’t. Somehow, she figured that she wouldn’t even need to ask. If Rebecca found the novel and saw Beau on the cover, she would have made a huge deal about it already. She wasn’t the type to playanythingcool.
She sat and held a moment of silence for the lost book. It was certainly fun and entertaining while it lasted. Now, she only had her own memories to remind her of the amazing times she'd had with Beau and his family. And now was her chance to make her own path, decide her own actions when it came to Beau andDaniel.
Who knows, maybe now that they were past this awkwardness, she could actually pursue Beau like she wanted. He seemed to have given up on his mission to set her up with his brother, now that she knew the whole truth. Maybe they could start over, just like they'd agreed inthecafé?
She pulled out her phone from her back pocket and opened her Facebook app. She had ignored his friend request for too long. With a shaky finger, she tapped the accept button and let out a longbreath.
A knock came at her door and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn't even heard any footsteps. These walls were paper thin so it was impossible not to hear her neighbors trouncing down the halls at all hours of the day ornight.
She looked around her apartment, to the tossed throw pillows on the floor by the sofa, and the way the pots and pans had been pulled out from the kitchen cabinets. It looked like a tornado had hit the place, but with luck, whoever was at the door wouldn’t stay for long. Maybe one of her neighbors had heard her tearing up the apartment and wanted to make sure she wasn’t beingrobbed.
Tara opened the door and looked up into a pair of stunning, troubled blue eyes. She nearlycrumbled.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to slide that filter in place between her brain and hermouth.
Beau smiled and held up her book. Her stomach did several backflips and she was sure she’d puke right there on his shoes. “It said you lived at the Magnolia apartment complex, second floor, third door down the hall on the right… And here you are.” He gave a small laugh and looked down at the cover. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t quite sure if you’d be hereornot.”
Tara’s heartbeat pounded in her throat and she wasn’t even sure if she could speak clearly. Somehow, the words managed to find a life of their own and poured out. “You read it? Allofit?”
He nodded. “As much as it would let me… Canwetalk?”
Glancing over her shoulder to the chaotic mess, she seriously didn’t want this to be his first impression of her apartment. Though, if he had read what was written so far, then he already knew what her apartment was like. Would he know about this mess? Did the book predict thatforhim?
She swung open the door and let him inside. He let out a whistle just as she shut the door. “I think the bookunderstatedthis.”
Tara crossed her arms over her roiling stomach. “Ilostit.”
“And you were looking for it,” he interrupted. “Iknow.”
Then, he kindly offered her the book. She took it and pressed it against her chest, hoping that it would calm everything with its mystic juju, or whatever it was that made the words appear onthepage.
“So you know everything now,” she stated, unwilling to meet his gaze that felt hot onherskin.
“Not everything,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “Where did you findthatbook?”
Tara took a deep breath and leaned against the wall by the front door. “In Rachel’s bookstore. I pulled it down, because I liked the cover, but I didn’t realize what it could do until youwalkedin.”
His brows shot up. “You found it the daywemet?”
She nodded. “And when it started to show everything that was happening, I knew I had tokeepit.”
“And that’s how you found out about my idea to set you up withDaniel?”
She nodded again. “I read about it the night I came home after we leftthebar.”
