Page 121 of Two-Step
Chapter Twenty-Four
IRIS
I’ve spentthe last two hours tucked in the corner of the sofa with a skittish Mica pressed against my hip. I’ve tried to stoke my courage with the distracting power of Airpods because the house sounds like it’s about to splinter to smithereens right over my head.
And Beau is just chillin’ in Ramon’s room. Like we aren’t in the middle of a hurricane.
Surprisingly, refreshing the WeatherChannel.com page on my laptop isn’t helping soothe my nerves. Maybe this is why people have hurricane parties—to deal with the shit-curdling fear.
A blast of wind smacks something against the side of the house, and I jump two inches off the couch. Mica whimpers.
That’s it. I don’t care if I look like a scaredy-cat. I am a scaredy-cat. Too bad if Beau needs his alone time. I’m done sitting alone.
“Beau?” I call—at the exact second he fills the doorway.
“You okay?” he asks, seeing me huddled on the couch.
I shake my head. “Not really. No.”
Beau crosses the room and sits on the other side of Mica. He pats my dog’s head and runs a hand down his back. It looks like it feels good, and I scold myself for being jealous.
“Are you worried about the storm?”
“Maybe.”
Beau scratches behind Mica’s ears. Mica’s mouth parts gently, and he pants little wispy dog breaths before sighing audibly. By proxy, I sink a little deeper into the cushioned couch, easier now that Beau is nearby.
“We should do something to distract you.”
I blink, trying to school my expression to something believably neutral. Suggestions stampede to mind. I can imagine countless ways I’d like to distract myself with Beau. “Like what?” My words are innocent, but my voice comes out a little throaty.
Beau shrugs. “Teach me something.”
“Wh-hat?” Again, I don’t know what I expect him to say, but it’s not this.
“I teach you stuff four nights a week,” he says, one corner of his mouth lifting. “You teach me something now.”
A choppy, uncertain laugh leaves me. “I-I don’t know how to do anything.”
His brows become a flat line. “You’re a famous actor. You know how to do everything. You at least know how to pretend to do everything.”
I laugh.
He waits.
I gulp.
“First of all, I’m not really famous.”
Beau rolls his eyes. “Please. Strangers recognized you in the hospital the day we met. You have a Wikipedia page. That counts as famous.”
“You looked me up on Wikipedia?”
“Irrelevant,” Beau says, mouth twitching. “Suffice it to say you know enough about things I don’t to teach me something.”
My face heats. “Have you seen the show?” I hate how my heartbeat becomes an attention-seeking brat in my chest.
Do I want him to have seen the show? Yes. Yes, I do. But only if he liked it. If he saw it and thought it was dumb, I might burn to ash.
