EMMA
"I know," Beau mumbles, fumbling in the darkness for a light switch. When it flickers on, the room is just barely illuminated, casting an eerie glow around the small apartment. "It's so nice - it's left you speechless." He smirks down at me, tossing his keys from hand to hand.
Aware of his playful but intent gaze on my face, I only turn my nose up at the heaps of fast food delivery trash. This man will eat himself to an early grave.
"Beau," I sigh, scrunching my nose at an old bag of stale French fries, "You need to start eating real food."
"That's what you're worried about right now? My lack of cooking ability?" He raises his dark brows at me, bottom lip pulled between his teeth.
Scanning the rest of the place, I shrug, not getting the big deal. "It's not what you've usually got going on, but... It's cozy."
If I focus on his unkept abode, I don't have to perseverate on who could possibly be sending me anonymous flowers. And why they might want to. Dialing in on the beat up guitar I gifted him resting against the sofa, I feel an easy smile on my lips, almost making me forget the weird situation entirely.
"My shitty apartment aside," Beau murmurs, pressing his body to mine as he steps through the hall and what I'm assuming is the one bedroom, "I'm going to get in touch with my security team. Get someone to stick with you for awhile, keep an eye out for anyone suspicious."
He returns, pulling a black t-shirt over his head and revealing his hard abs, and I gulp, trying to focus on the situation at hand. The situation being ignoring the heat in my belly long enough to form a single sentence.
"Security?" I mutter, eyes following his hands as he pulls the fabric the rest of the way over his happy trail, making my heartbeat race. "Is that necessary?"
Please let it not be necessary. My hand flutters to my belly and I gnaw at the corner of my lip, the panic creeping up on me. It's got to be someone. Gemma maybe, or even Adam. Someone who only wants the best - not someone who could possibly hurt me. Us.
Beau cocks his head to the side, a sexy smirk on his lips. Instead of calling me out for my not so subtle admiration of his physique, he nods instead.
"You said no one knows you're pregnant." He shrugs, stepping close to me again as he makes his way to the living room, his smokey-minty Beau smell following after him in a delicious fog. "It's weird to leave stalker notes like that, whoever it is." His brows furrow and he shakes his head, mumbling more to himself than to me now. "It could be anyone."
My heart starts to pound quicker as I contemplate the possibilities. His fans - many of them incredibly devoted, maybe insanely so, or Rey, who I haven't heard of in awhile but might still be jealous...
"It's probably Gemma or Adam. Maybe they found out somehow." I sit beside him on the sofa, resting my hand atop his thumping fingers. Maybe if I act calm, he'll settle down, too.
"Why would Adam be sending you flowers?" Beau's eyes narrow and I clench my jaw to resist rolling mine.
Not this again.
"Because he's my friend." I say firmly, removing my hand from Beau's leg as my irritation grows. "And a good one, too."
After a couple of seconds, Beau relaxes, jaw unclenching and forehead smoothing, naturally reaching into my lap and intertwining our fingers once more before continuing his train of thought.
I almost pull away but given the moment... his hand feels nice. Safe.
"That doesn't explain the note, though, Em." He leans his head against the couch, watching me with those pretty green eyes of his, liner-less today, the color bright against his tan skin. "I'd rather be safe than sorry."
A chill runs up my spine. This is real - it's serious. Dangerous even. I tug at the dry skin of my cuticles, bubbling worry racing through my body.
"Sorry," Beau murmurs, slowly rubbing a circle into the skin of my fist.
"It's fine," I sigh, finally taking my hand from his and shifting to the other side of the couch. "Maybe we're overreacting." At his stern look, I continue, rushing to get this topic over and done with. "Call security, have them stake out my house or whatever. But I'll talk to Gemma and hopefully, it'll all be some silly misunderstanding."
Beau contemplates for a moment before agreeing, quietly leaning his head back against the sofa and resting his eyes, palms pressed into them as if he's massaging his eyeballs.
The space between us hurts but is nothing compared to the pain that I feel every time I realize there's huge parts of him that I still don't know. Huge, important parts of his life that I'm completely in the dark about.
Parts of him he doesn't want me to know. I thought we were past that, I thought that after everything... I'd seen it all. I knew Beau Lewis and I knew Beau, my Beau. And yet... I'm always the one playing catch up, rapidly trying to connect the dots in an impossible puzzle.
"Whatcha thinking over there?" He shifts over the arm of the couch, reaching and setting his guitar in his lap. Plucking the strings lazily, he begins the opening verse of Emma, but thankfully without the lyrics. "You've got that thinking face on."
"What thinking face?" I mumble, relaxing the muscles scrunched together over my eyes. I sit on my hands, speckled with new raw spots around my nails.
Chuckling, Beau mimics me without breaking from the song before muttering teasingly, "That one."
The familiar chords pull at my heart in a painful tug. I ignore his dramatic impression and decide to spill the truth. "Just wondering what else I don't know about you, is all."
Beau falters, looking down at his hands even though I know he could play almost every song in his sleep, especially this one, and clears his throat.
"You're still mad."
"Not mad." I correct him, letting out a deep exhale. Can he play a different song already? Jeez. "Just hurt."
His eyes flash to my face, but still he continues to play. "Emma," He continues but I can't concentrate on his words, the lyrics to his song about us taking over everything in my mind in a painful blur.
"Can you stop?" I finally snap, tucking my legs up beneath me and pushing myself farther away in the sofa, nearly hanging over the side to create as much distance as possible.
Beau stutters, a slight flush coming over his cheeks, and he clumsily fumbles the guitar to the floor. Left with nothing else to do, his fingers chip at the polish on his opposite hand, and guilt nags at me.
"I don't know how else to tell you how much I love you. How to convince you that you know me better than anyone." He doesn't meet my stare as the words leave his lips, quiet and unsure.
I remember the day Beau told me how he felt - telling me that he only felt like he could be himself when he played guitar and when he was with me. My heart breaks for us then, for the time when that alone was enough.
"Beau, it's not about your words anymore." I shake my head, hair falling into my eyes as the words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them. "It's about you showing me how you feel. Time and time again you show me things too late - when you're forced to. Here I am, so in love with you, I want you to know everything about me. It's like if I could bring you to the places I used to go growing up, if I could have you with me in those moments, I would. But you... you keep me at a distance, like I'm some pop magazine interviewer or something." I take a shakey breath. "And then I meet someone like Zoey and it makes me wonder if we're all that I think we are at all. Or were, whatever."
I blink back the moisture collecting along my lashes, determined to stay strong this time.
"Emma..." Beau reaches to place a hand on my knee but stops, letting it flop between us instead. His next words sound deliberate and slow, like he's considering each one carefully. "My entire life, people have wanted something from me. My family, the band, the label, the fans. I could never just be Beau and when I ever was... If I ever tried being myself, people left."
"That's not fair." I mutter, the guilt at making him put the guitar down growing in my chest. "Because I never did, I never left."
"So can't you see why I didn't want to mess that up?" Beau cocks his head to the side, brows crinkled above his eyes like the answer is obvious.
In a way it is. I stare at him, throat tightening as tears threaten to spill over, and decide to let it go. He has his logic and I'll never understand it. If I did, I'm not sure it would make the truth hurt less anyways.
Watching me, I see Beau begin to smirk, the Cheshire Cat smile that is so rare nowadays splayed out over his full lips.
"What?" What on earth could be amusing right now?
He shakes his head, tousled strands falling into his face before he pushes them away, grabbing the guitar again. "You said you're in love with me."
I blush, immediately flustered. "No I didn't, I said I was. Past tense."
"No," Beau argues, biting his lip and raising one brow as he begins to play another song. "It was present tense."
Smirking at me in challenge, Beau refuses to back down. Unable to defend myself and suddenly drained of the energy to do so, I stand from the couch and try for even more distance.
I can't think straight around him, that's all.
"I'm going to shower." I peer down at him, expression still proud despite my refusal. "If that's okay?"
"Bathroom is down the hall." He nods, the smug glint in his eye oddly comforting.
I stomp in its direction, ignoring the butterflies in my stomach when he begins to hum happily to himself.
***
"That smells good," I mumble, the heavy scent of pizza grease making my belly rumble. "Why didn't you wake me?"
The living room is dark, the natural light from the windows fading as the sun sets in the distance. I'd gone into Beau's room to change after my shower, but woke just moments ago, still wrapped in my towel. Rubbing a hang through my nearly matted hair, I let out a long yawn.
Adjusting the draw string on a pair of Beau's sweats that I've borrowed, I sit at the table and grab a slice of pizza, heavy with garlic-y sauce and gooey cheese.
"You're busy, ya know," He points a long finger at my abdomen, struggling for the right words. Giving up, he shrugs. "I figured you're probably more tired lately."
"Mmm," I groan, the saucy goodness warm in my mouth. Tired and starving. All of the time.
"Plus, I know Italian is your favorite." Beau notes, grabbing a couple of slices and eating them directly from the box.
Dropping the crust of my first piece, I raise a brow at him. "Delivery pizza isn't necessarily Italian," I laugh easily, reminding myself that I will definitely have to teach him to make a couple dishes at some point. "And how would you know it's my favorite, anyways?"
"It's the first thing you made for us, remember? Chicken parm?" Beau says casually, discarding the crust of his second piece already. "And pizza is always your go-to, especially if you're stressed."
Hm. Not wrong.
I watch him chew for a couple of quiet seconds, before he catches my eye and raises a brow at me in question. When I don't speak, he wipes his hands on a paper towel and clears his throat.
"I was thinking about what you said. Why don't we play a little game so that you can get to know me better?"
I exhale, the weight of too many failed attempts heavy on my shoulders. "Beau, I've tried already."
"Try again." He says firmly, reaching over and tipping my chin to face him head on. "Not for me. Not even really for you. For the baby." His lips curl around the word so softly, like it's fragile and delicate, his voice gentler than I've ever heard it, and again, I feel a new set of tears building.
"What do you have in mind?" I whisper, heart beating a little bit quicker until he drops his hand from my face.
He smiles before composing himself quickly. "Tonight, anything goes. You can ask me anything you want and I'll answer it. Whatever you want to know. No lies. No secrets."
Beau's tattooed fingers find mine on the wobbly tabletop, barely grazing my skin, but sending electricity straight to my heart nonetheless.
"You're sure?" I bite my lip, curiously meeting his eyes from under my lashes.
Swallowing hard, Beau nods anyways. "Give me your worst, Em. I'm ready."
Thanks for reading loves! This chapter went longer than expected but another will be posted soon!
What questions are you hoping Emma asks? If you could ask Beau anything... what would it be?
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