Wreck the Halls

“What kind of project? I read in an article a while back that you work in rare books.” A frown marred his forehead. “I just realized that most of what I know about you comes from articles.”

“Same.” Or your Instagram captions. Which were usually just a location and date. No pithy one-liners or inspirational quotes, as if she needed more reasons to like him. “I’m restoring a Judy Blume book—Superfudge. An original printing from 1980. It’s weathered a few spills and the binding is weak, but it’s a beautiful specimen.” She couldn’t keep a dreamy sigh from escaping. “I’ve sort of made young adult literature my specialty.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I lived inside of those books growing up. I want to take care of them, the way they took care of me.”

His expression remained thoughtful, maybe even a little troubled until he coughed into a fist, seeming to mold his mouth into a smile. “Do you work with a magnifying glass attached to your head?”

“I work mostly from home. Sometimes that’s all I wear.”

Beat choked on his sip of coffee, and flames climbed Melody’s cheeks.

Does this window open so I can leap through it? “Another drawback of working from home is a glaring lack of social skills.”

He laughed, one of his hands traveling across the table to squeeze her wrist. “You just caught me off guard.” A moment passed. Then very, very briefly, his thumb slipped beneath the cuff of her blouse and swept smoothly over her pulse, lingering for a heavy second before he abruptly pulled away.

Beat cleared his throat hard, shifting in his chair.

Melody couldn’t move at all. That itty-bitty touch had turned her thighs to jelly. If she tried to cross her legs, she would slowly topple sideways like an underbaked cake.

Did Beat touch everyone like that? Was it a perk of his undivided attention?

“Um.” Don’t be awkward. She hunted for something to say. “I’m not totally without a social calendar. I’m on a bocce team.”

He leaned forward, amused. “Are you?”

“Yes. We are the opposite of undefeated. We’re defeated. But being on the team forces me to take off the magnifying glass hat and talk to actual people, instead of books.” She dried her sweating palms on the tweed material of her skirt, hoping he couldn’t see. “Actually, that’s where I met Danielle. She was lying in wait for me outside of the bar after a match.”

His smile faded. “I’m sorry. About all this.” He started to pick up his coffee, but hesitated. “Are the bocce games at night?”

“Yes.”

“Do you walk home alone? At night?”

“Yes. I do. It’s perfectly safe.” She paused to think. “I do have coworkers who live in the same direction. I could probably wait and walk home with them. But I just want to . . .”

“What?”

“Get out,” she murmured. “I just have to get out of there. Get away. You know?”

She expected him to be confused by her admission or change the subject. But she should have known not to underestimate him, because he only looked . . . relieved. “Yeah, I do know, Mel. Toward the end of the night, everyone’s filters are off and people start asking uncomfortable questions. Or they ask me if I’ll FaceTime my mother.”

“Or they take selfies without asking,” she breathed.

“Endless selfies.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Even my friends that I’ve known for years—and I love them. I do. But this feeling never goes away of . . . wondering if they’re just in it for the clout. I keep my guard up.”

She got the sense he was underselling that last statement. Was Beat very guarded now? He hadn’t come across that way at sixteen, but a lot of time had passed.

“Yeah. It’s exhausting,” she said, finally.

They looked at each other across the table. For the first time in a long time, Melody was devoid of the tension that came from being out in public. Just being outdoors. This was safe. She was with someone who navigated the same waters. Mostly. Hers had been a little more treacherous. At least, she thought so. Who knew what his experience was like?

No one knew but Beat.

“So, just to be clear . . .” He looked down at his coffee cup, then back up at her, his gaze a touch sharper than before. “No boyfriend to walk you home, Melody?”

His use of her full name made her toes dig into the soles of her boots. “No.”

He swallowed.

Stop reading into every little movement he makes.

“What about you?” She did her best to sound bright, casual. “No girlfriend or—”

“No.”

How? That was what she wanted to ask. Instead, she crossed one leg over the other and dug her fingertips into her kneecap. Just to redirect some of the pressure in her chest. In her stomach. The overall effect of being around this man. “Our last match of the season is just over a week away,” she said, trying to keep her breathing steady. “I would invite you to come watch, but . . . for one, I would rather you didn’t witness my sheer lack of athletic ability. And two, the both of us together in public . . .”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “It would cause a stir.”

“A big one. Us doing anything together would get a lot of attention and . . . I kind of thought we were on the same page about not wanting so much attention. Which is why I wanted to speak to you alone.” She watched his face carefully. Closely. “Why did you want us to take this meeting in the first place, Beat?”

His chin jerked up a notch. When he might have spoken, his jaw only clenched down.

“There must be a reason. We could fill an ocean with the requests we’ve gotten for reality shows and reunion attempts and interviews. Why this one? Why did you entertain it?”

“I’d rather not get specific, Mel.”

That was it. He didn’t continue.

And despite her odd sense of kinship for him, this was where she needed to let the subject drop. Her imagination might be telling her something different, but in reality, they weren’t friends. They weren’t close. Another fourteen years might pass before they even crossed paths again, so she definitely didn’t have the right to press him for an answer.

But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Maybe it was the sense that he was struggling and doing his best to hide it. Or maybe she had inherited some of her mother’s stubbornness. For whatever reason, Melody took a deep breath and pushed a tad harder.

“There’s only one reason to do this . . . and it’s money.”

He closed his eyes.

Bull’s-eye.

“Okay.” Sympathy tunneled right through her chest. “You don’t have to tell me the finer details—”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, Mel. I can’t.” He shook his head. “And it doesn’t matter anyway, because there is no way in hell that I’m going to attempt to reunite Steel Birds on a live stream, where I can’t control”—he seemed to bring himself even again with a slow breath—“how it affects you. I won’t do that.”

Melody’s entire body throbbed like one giant heartbeat. “I’m . . . I’m the reason you won’t do this. What’s holding you back is . . . me?”

Beat’s chest rose and fell, his hold tightening around his coffee cup.