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I blink at him. “You know, people usually text before showing up unannounced. Or bring snacks.”
His mouth barely twitches. “Didn’t think snacks would fix it.”
“Depends on the kind,” I say, voice too thin to carry the joke. “Cheetos have fixed worse.”
He almost smiles, but not quite. He doesn’t look like a man who’s here to play it off. He looks like someone who’s been hollowed out.
I shift the grocery bag higher on my arm. I wasn’t ready for this. For him. For the way his presence stirs up everything I’ve spent the last three days trying to fold away neatly like laundry I’d rather ignore.
“Is this the part where you tell me you didn’t mean it?” I ask, quieter now.
His eyes meet mine. “Yeah. That’s exactly the part.”
For once, I don’t have a punch line ready. All I’ve got is a heart that’s thudding too loud and legs that don’t know if they’re supposed to stay or run.
He rises to his feet and steps down the last stair. “I wouldn’t blame you,” he says. “For not wanting to hear me out.”
I stare at him, trying to keep my voice light, even as the tremble edges in. “And if I say I don’t want to hear it?”
His jaw tightens. “I’ll leave.”
I look down at my keys, thumb tracing the worn plastic of my house fob. Then back at him. His face. Those heartbreaking eyes.
“Come in,” I say softly.
I unlock the door, walk straight to the kitchen, set the grocery bag on the counter, and try not to look at him too hard.
He hesitates near the entryway as if he’s afraid my house might spit him out if he breathes too loud.
And I can’t promise that it won’t. I’d actually appreciate it if it did.
“Do you want…” I trail off, hand hovering over the cabinet. “I don’t know, water? Whiskey? A large rock to crawl under?”
He lets out a dry laugh. “Just you.”
He steps in slowly and doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t ask to. Just leans against the opposite side of the island and keeps distance between us.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” he starts, his voice like gravel. “My mom… She’s not well. Hasn’t been for a long time. She has bipolar disorder, and when she’s off her meds, she spirals fast. Some days she’s the mom I used to pretend I had. Sweet. Present. But when the highs get too high, or the lows bottom out, she gets…mean. Paranoid. Self-destructive.”
He pauses, breathing through it. I finally glance up. His hands are balled into fists on the counter.
“My dad left when I was seven. Haven’t seen him since. So it’s always just been me taking care of her.”
I want to reach for him, but I don’t. I don’t know what we are right now. And maybe it’s stupid, maybe it’s the least important detail in the room, but I’ve never heard him talk this much. And definitely not with his heart cracked open. Beau usually speaks in fragments—shrugs, looks, the occasional grunt that somehow means everything.
But now he’s spilling out all his vulnerabilities.
“She stopped taking her meds a few weeks ago. I didn’t realize at first. She’s good at hiding it when she wants to. By the time I saw it, it was already getting bad. I didn’t want to dump that on you, not when you were shining like the goddamn sun.”
I grip the edge of the counter.
“I’ve spent my whole life being the one who keeps everything together. Or tries to. Even if it means lying. Even if it means disappearing. It’s easier to be the guy who shrugs it off, who says something shitty and pushes people away, than to admit I’m scared out of my mind that I’ll fuck it all up.”
His eyes finally meet mine. “You weren’t just a fling, Red. You never were. I wanted to scare you off before you saw me go into survival mode. I shut down, push people away, isolate until it passes. I’ve done it my whole life.”
He rubs a hand over his jaw, eyes tired. “But with you, it’s different. You saw me anyway. You called me on my shit. You didn’t let me hide behind silence and pretend I was protecting you when I was really just protecting myself.” His throat works. “And somewhere along the way, I started needing you.”
My chest splits wide open, rib by rib, and suddenly I’m not seeing Beau as the man standing in my kitchen. I’m seeing him at seven, watching his father walk out the door. At ten, maybe, learning how to hide when his mother’s moods turned volatile. At fifteen, cleaning up messes that weren’t his to deal with, carrying weight that would break most people.
