Page 129 of Business Casual
“Shit,” he says. He drops the knife and digs in his back pocket for his phone. “I told Evie I’d call her for this.”
“For what?”
Beckett taps at his screen and places his phone into the middle of the table while it rings. “For the moment you enter reality.”
Evelyn answers on the second ring. “Is it happening?”
“Sure is!” Harper responds at the same time Beckett says, “Hey, honey.”
I gape at the phone right next to the green bean casserole. At my family, arranged around the table. Not one of them looks surprised. Did someone spike the wine tonight? Are the potatoes laced with something?
“Why do you think I keep saying you need to get laid?” Vanessaasks. “I’m not actually trying to set you up with randos. I’ve been goading you, you tiny fool.”
“What? I’m—what?”
“There was a picture on the phone tree text chain of him bringing you coffee,” my dad offers. “You looked at him the same way you used to look at those expensive fine-point pens when you were a kid. You had little heart eyes.”
“My favorite was the picture of Charlie and the goose,” my mom adds. She snickers to herself. “I still have it saved as my wallpaper.”
“I like the roof video best,” Harper offers diplomatically. She threads her fingers together and rests her chin on top of them. “I hope your hydrangeas made a full recovery.”
“Someone got a video of that?”
“Of course I did,” Beckett says, still eating his dinner like I’m not having an out-of-body experience right next to him. What the actual hell is happening? “I heard your window open while I was waiting on the front porch. Voices carry.”
“And you sent it to the phone tree?”
“To be fair,” Evelyn’s tinny voice echoes up from Beckett’s phone, face up on the table. “I think he was trying to send it just to me.”
Oh my god.Oh my god.
“You’ve been wearing his Rolex, Nova,” Beckett says around a mouthful of meatloaf. “Honestly. I’m not an idiot.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
One of his eyebrows arches up. “Do I need to be okay with who you date?”
I don’t know. I certainly don’t think so, but he’s always given the impression that he has an opinion on the matter. “He’s your friend” is all I can think to say.
“So?” He shrugs. “That just means I know who he is. I love him. I love you. I don’t see the downside.” He pours gravy over everything on his plate. “That said, if he breaks your heart, I’ll break his jaw. He doesn’t get a pass on that detail. But if you break his heart”—Beckettpoints at me with his fork, cheek bulging with his dinner—“I’ll have words for you too.”
“I won’t,” I whisper faintly. “Break his heart.”
I can’t believe we’re having this conversation at family dinner while he shovels mashed potatoes into his face.
“Good,” Beckett says.
“I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping it hidden,” I try to explain, even though I don’t know why. “I thought it would be easier that way.”
“Easier for who?”
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? This whole time, we’ve been doing things the way I’ve wanted to do them. Charlie let me set the terms, and he let me go at my own pace. He’s given me everything I’ve asked for without requesting anything in return.
“It was just to blow off steam, at first. But then it turned into something, and I guess I thought if it didn’t go anywhere else—if no one knew about it, we wouldn’t have to talk about it. I didn’t want to need anything from him,” I say faintly. “I was afraid of it.”
“What about now? Do you feel like you need Charlie?”
I shake my head. I can do just fine on my own, but I—
