He pondered that as he started the car. “Good point. Okay, if you were at home, and you were celebrating something, what would you do?”
She smiled out the window as she considered this. “I’d probably make my friend Priya go out for happy hour with me.” She suddenly missed Priya so much it hurt. “We’d eat a bunch of overpriced snacks, drink some cheap cocktails, talk ourselves into sharing dessert, and then talk ourselves into sharing two desserts.”
Izzy turned back to Beau, but his smile had faded. It came back when he saw her looking at him.
“Sure, let’s do that,” he said.
Beau absolutely didn’t want to do that. She could tell. There’d hardly been anyone around at the beach, but at a crowded happy hour people would recognize him. Right. She’d sort of forgotten he was famous.
“Or,” she said, “we could get some really good takeout and an indulgent dessert to eat at home. Like, ice cream and hot fudge, or something. That might be better for now, since I would sort of like a hot shower, after being thrown into the ice-cold Pacific Ocean numerous times. I’m sure Michaela left a ton of food in the fridge for us for the weekend, but—”
Beau brushed that aside. “That’ll just mean she’ll have less food to cook for us next week. There’s a great ice cream place in town; why don’t we go pick some up and order dinner when we get home?”
That sounded fantastic, actually. And it sounded even better a few seconds later when Beau turned onto the main street, and she saw the rows of bars, packed with people. She wasn’t exactly in the mood for a crowded happy hour either.
“Perfect,” she said. “I’m thinking maybe Thai? Or sushi? But then, thinking about happy hour made me think about bar snacks, so now I’m obviously thinking about mozzarella sticks and buffalo wings.”
Beau stopped at a light and turned to her with a grin. “How about all those things?”
One good thing about Beau was that she never felt self-conscious around him about how much she loved food. Maybe because he clearly loved it as much as she did.
“Are you just saying that because you’re as hungry as I am right now?”
He nodded. “Probably. Being in the water does that to you. I looked up why once—something about your body temperature versus the cold water, blah, blah, blah. I was just satisfied that it wasn’t only my imagination that I was so starving after swimming. Anyway, I hope that explains why I’m about to buy six pints of ice cream. Please don’t tell me we already have some in the freezer; I know and don’t care.”
Like she would ever argue with someone about how much ice cream to buy.
“As long as one of the flavors is cookies and cream, I don’t care what else you get.”
He shook his head. “No, that’s not fair, you can’t make me make all the ice cream decisions on my own, you already know I’m indecisive and difficult; I’ll hold up the line forever. You have to help.”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I’m going to tell you right now, I’ll vote against any ice cream with marshmallows in it.”
Beau narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s your problem with marshmallows? Start looking for a parking spot.”
Izzy scanned the street around them. “They’re only good melted: Rice Krispies Treats, great; put a stick in one, poke it in a fire, excellent. But that’s it. I don’t even like them in hot chocolate, they just dilute the chocolate flavor. And especially never in ice cream; they’re just hard little frozen pucks.” She pointed. “There! At the corner!”
Beau flipped on his blinker. “I have many points to argue with you on everything you just said, but you found us a parking space less than a block away, so I’ll let you have this one. We will eliminate all ice creams with marshmallows in them from our decision matrix.”
They walked toward the ice cream store, where there were already a bunch of people in line. She could feel Beau tense up next to her and turned to him, to say they could go somewhere else, but he just clenched his jaw and kept walking, so she followed him. At first when they got in line, Izzy felt self-conscious, standing there in a thin cotton dress over a damp bathing suit, especially standing there next to Beau. Would people recognize him? And then wonder what he was doing there, with her, when he always dated people who were tall and willowy and mostly blond?
NOT that this was a date. But still.
As she looked at the people who walked by, she worried less. Lots of other people wore swimsuits under dresses, or just swimsuit tops over shorts, and no one in this entire city seemed to own shoes other than flip-flops, Birkenstocks, or sneakers. No one paid her, or Beau, the slightest attention.
Beau took a step closer to her and bent down to whisper in her ear. “Okay, Izzy. Can you do something for me?”
She could feel his breath against the hairs on the back of her neck. She shivered. She was probably just getting chilly, what with the wet swimsuit and the ocean air.
“Depends on what it is,” she said.
He sighed. “I should have known you would answer like that. Okay. Don’t make any sudden moves, but I need someone else to see this guy at the end of the line.”
Izzy turned very slowly and looked at the back of the line. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. She looked around for a few more seconds, trying to be casual, then turned to face Beau. His eyes were full of laughter.
“Okay,” she said. “I could have handled the parrots on his shirt; this is California after all. Even the parrots on his shorts, they’re a little matchy-matchy, but fine. But.” She swallowed. “Um. I wasn’t prepared for the live parrot on his shoulder. Is he going to bring that into the ice cream store with him?”
Beau’s face crumpled. “I was trying to hold it together,” he said. “But you just made me picture him standing there…asking for ice cream samples…with the parrot on his shoulder. And I just…”
Izzy started giggling, then Beau did, then they were both laughing helplessly in line. She turned away from him to look in the other direction, in the hope that it would make one or both of them recover, but they both just laughed harder.
She almost leaned back against him but stopped herself. That’s not what this was.
Finally, they got to the front of the line. They decided on their ice cream flavors much more quickly than Izzy would have predicted. Caramel brownie, cookies and cream, coffee, triple chocolate, lemon and marionberry, and vanilla bean. Loaded down with ice cream, hot fudge, and raspberry sauce, they walked back to the car.
“Bye, parrot man,” Izzy said as soon as they were out of earshot. “I’ll never forget you.”
Beau laughed so hard at that he could barely start the car.
On the way back to the house Izzy googled the name of the Thai restaurant Beau told her he liked.
“I’ve probably had half their menu. The only thing I don’t like from that place is the desserts. When I put in a big order, they always send me this strange rice pudding thing, as like, a bonus or something. I’m weird about stuff like that, I hate any kind of pudding.”
Izzy turned to stare at him. “So do I!” she said. “I hate all pudding. Anything with that jiggling texture, I just can’t handle it.” Ohhh. That’s why Michaela had laughed on her first day.
“Really?” Beau laughed. “No one else ever understands this. They’re always like, ‘How do you like chocolate ice cream and not chocolate pudding, they’re the same ingredients?’ Just because they have the same ingredients doesn’t mean they’re the same thing!”
Izzy nodded. “People do that to me, too. They get all shocked that I don’t like crème brûlée—once you get through the crunchy topping, it’s just wobbly grossness in a spoon.”
When they got back to the house, Izzy turned to go up the staircase.
“I’ll put the ice cream away and order the food,” Beau said. “Just come down to the TV room whenever you’re ready.”
She nodded and ran up the stairs, but Beau stopped her when she was halfway up.
“Wait, Izzy—we didn’t decide what to order!”
She turned around. “I trust you. Order all the good stuff.” She started back up the stairs, and then turned around again. “You were right. We needed a break today. I needed a break today. It was a tough work week and, well…thanks for suggesting it. And for the surfing lesson.”
He looked up at her, a smile on his face. “You’re welcome. And thank you. I hadn’t gone surfing in…a while. It felt really good.”
They smiled at each other, and then Izzy walked very slowly up the stairs. Her legs hurt, too? Why did her legs hurt this much?
After they were settled in the TV room, in comfortable clothes, with wine in front of them and with more Thai food than Izzy had ever seen in one place in her life, Beau nudged her.