But she knew if she went back to bed she’d just lie there wide-awake, thinking of the cheese-flavored potato chips, so close yet so far away. Plus, Beau had probably just fallen asleep in front of the TV. She could sneak into the kitchen and grab the chips and then go back upstairs without him hearing a thing.
She crept down the hall toward the kitchen. As she walked, she kept one ear cocked toward the TV room but heard no other movement aside from the steady, quiet sounds of the TV.
She stopped by the kitchen door to turn the light on but realized she had no idea where the light switch in this room was. Well, it didn’t matter; there was just enough light filtering in through the big window for her to be able to see.
She went straight to the snack cabinet, pulled out the third shelf, and grinned. There they were. She’d never seen so many flavors of chips before: jalapeño, ranch, pepperoncini…olive? Well, that might be taking it a little too far. Now to find the cheese…
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you turned the lights on?”
Izzy spun around. He was standing there, a big, dark shape in the doorway.
“Yeah, probably,” she said.
Beau flicked the light switch—ah, it was just outside the kitchen door, she hadn’t even thought to look there—and Izzy blinked in the sudden burst of light.
He was in a different pair of fancy sweatpants—these were dark gray, the other ones had been light gray—and a white T-shirt. All the other times she’d seen Beau, he’d been wearing a hoodie. The T-shirt was snug on his biceps. And his chest.
She could hear Priya’s voice in her ear.
If you like those big brawny guys, which I absolutely do.
Izzy looked away from him immediately. And suddenly realized that she was wearing shapeless pajama pants, a thin tank top, and no bra. Thank God she’d pulled that cardigan on before she’d come downstairs.
“What are you doing up?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. So after a while, I thought maybe a snack might help.” Izzy looked down at the three bags of chips in her hands and slowly put two bags down.
“It usually does,” he said. “Plus, it is National Snack Food Month, after all.”
Izzy’s eyes snapped back to Beau. “How do you know that?” she asked him, probably too sharply. He didn’t actually read her emails. Right? He couldn’t. He’d showed no sign that he had any idea that Isabelle Marlowe existed, let alone that he knew who she was.
He looked confused. “Oh, um, I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I think it was on the back of a bag of chips or something.”
That made sense. Beau seemed like more of a read-the-back-of-a-bag-of-chips kind of guy than a read-emails kind of guy. Or write-a-memoir kind of guy, for that matter.
“Oh. Okay. Um, sorry if I disturbed you. Or…” She put the chips down. “If you don’t want me to…”
He shook his head and took a step toward her. “You didn’t disturb me. And take the chips, I don’t care. I mean, it’s fine.” He smiled at her. An actual, sustained smile, and not that quick, almost secret smile she’d seen the other day. “You have good instincts—those cheesy chips are my favorite. Perfect for a late-night snack.”
She laughed. “That’s what I thought. I saw them when Michaela showed me the snack cabinet, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since.”
He was still smiling. “We all need snacks in the middle of the night sometimes.”
She smiled back at him. “Yeah. We do. Especially after…” She stopped herself. Was she really so tired and frustrated that she’d been tempted to vent to Beau Towers of all people?
“Especially after what?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Just a long day.” He was still looking at her, like he was waiting for her to say something else, so she kept going. “I still have to do all my other work while I’m here, which means I have to be up and working by six a.m. Pacific time, and someone at work today said something that…I’m still annoyed by.” She couldn’t tell Beau what Gavin had said about him, obviously. “It was just…a frustrating day. That’s all.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He still looked…pleasant, almost. He wasn’t quite smiling, but he wasn’t glaring at her either. Not the normal monstrous Beau Towers she’d gotten used to.
“Sure,” she said.
“What’s in it for you? This job, I mean. You deal with jerks at work, and from what I can tell of the rest of your job, it’s just a lot of pointless drudgery. You act like you believe these little cheerful stories you tell me once a day, and you seem so committed to this whole pep talk routine, but you can’t actually believe that ‘a book changed my life’ nonsense, right? What do you even do this for, anyway?”
His whole smiling and friendly thing had just been another way to make fun of her. How had she let him trick her like this? She was suddenly furious.
“I know this entire concept is foreign to you, but some people need to work for a living.” The expression on his face changed when she said that. He looked angry. Good. She kept going. “But even beyond a paycheck, some of us actually care about our jobs. I work hard at my job because I love books. I love everything about them. I love the way you can fall into another world while you’re reading, the way books can help you forget hard things in life, or help you deal with them. I love all the different shapes books come in, and the way they feel in your hand. I love seeing authors develop their idea from just a few sentences to a manuscript to an actual book that’s on the shelves, and I love the face they make when they see their name on a book cover for the first time. I love when readers discover books that felt like they were meant just for them, and they’re so happy and grateful and emotional that everyone in the room wants to cry, and sometimes they all do. Those books do change lives. I hope that answers your question.”
Izzy stormed out of the kitchen past Beau and ran back upstairs. When she got back into her room, she tore open the bag of chips. Why had she believed that smile on his face? Why had she thought they were sort of bonding down there in the kitchen, about snacks and being up in the middle of the night and whatever else? Why did she feel almost disappointed in him now?
As she ate her chips, she replayed in her mind everything she’d said to him. She’d been frustrated with her job for so long and had been on the point of giving up on it. But she’d just given Beau Towers a full-throated defense of publishing. And the wild thing was, everything she’d said to him had been the truth.
Those things she loved—those were the things she’d held on to during the hard times, the times when Marta had said something casually cutting, the times when she’d tried to speak up about something important and everyone ignored her, the times when she’d lost hope about her own talents and abilities as a writer.
That’s why she did all this. Because she wanted to shepherd the kinds of stories she truly believed in through the publishing process; she wanted to advocate for the kinds of authors who mattered to her; she wanted to really work with authors on their books and make them the best they absolutely could be.
Was she ready to give up on this dream? And was she ready to give up on the dream of being a writer herself? She hadn’t truly asked herself that.
Was it all worth it?
She had no idea how to answer that question.
She stared down at the bag of (wildly delicious) chips. Thank goodness she’d at least grabbed them on her way upstairs.
Izzy woke up the next morning, groggy and covered in crumbs. She immediately turned and grabbed her phone. She always had work emails by, like, five a.m. here in California—how did people live like this all the time?
She sat up with a jolt when she saw it was ten a.m. How did she sleep so late? Why didn’t she have any emails? Oh, right, today was Saturday. The good thing about publishing was that not even Marta sent emails before noon on Saturdays—or even, on most Saturdays, at all.
The house felt so still. So silent. It had been nice this week, to be away from her parents, from the office, where people were around her all day. But Michaela was the only person she’d really talked to all week; her short, weird interactions with Beau Towers barely counted. And now it was Saturday, and Michaela wouldn’t be around today or tomorrow. That meant she’d be all alone, with Beau Towers. She had to live through two full weekend days in this house with him and with no work to keep her occupied and no Michaela to talk to.
How depressing was it that she was sad that Michaela wouldn’t be there? As nice as Michaela was to her, she wasn’t really her friend; she worked for Beau Towers, after all.
She suddenly missed her parents, Priya, home. All she’d wanted at home was to have space, and now that she had it, there was too much of it. She felt…lonely.
Coffee. She needed coffee. She really didn’t want to go back down to the kitchen, but she also didn’t think there was a way she could hide up here away from Beau Towers for the next few days, so she might as well get it over with now.