Page 44 of To Have and to Scold

His face softens with a smile, and he shakes his head. We walk in silence, something he seems perfectly comfortable with, like he’s a companionable silence type of person. I am not, thus the churning inside of me.

“Can I ask you one thing?”

He doesn’t even hesitate. “Sure.”

I sift through options in my mind. I’ve been thinking of Mr. Beck Billingsley so much lately that it feels like I’m a kid who’s just won a shopping spree at a candy store, but then I find out I only have thirty seconds to grab all the candy I want. The pressure of it all feels wild.

I have to choose my one question carefully. This is stupidly hard. “Do you have any regrets about the relationship? Like, if you’d only done things differently, it would have been better?”

He sobers and is silent for a long while.

Just as I start to tell him he doesn’t have to answer that, he speaks up. “That’s a good question, one I’ve asked myself. Sure, I have regrets, but I don’t regret that it ended. Chloe came from Houston to Willow Cove to live with her grandparents in the summers. We met in high school, between freshman and sophomore year. And we’d hang out every summer. She was from the city. I think I was drawn to the idea of what I thought she represented.”

He shakes his head and stares down at our toes filtering through the sand. “My regrets mostly involve proposing to her before I’d really thought it through.” He lets out a slow breath. “What about you? What regrets do you have?”

I pause, unsure if I’m ready to let go of talking about Beck. “Most of my regrets in life run in two categories. I regret it when I don’t work hard on what I really want. And I regret it when I let someone or something distract me from the things that are most important. Holden didn’t fit at all into my five-year plan.”

He weighs my words. “Plans for the future are interesting,” Beck says. “Sometimes I wonder if the picture I have of my future is holding me back from having the future I’m actually meant to have.”

“Hmm. Tell me more.”

“I don’t know,” Beck says. “I don’t talk about it in these terms, but I have a five-year plan, or maybe a fifty-year plan. And I’m so set on it, so intent on staying comfortable in it. What if there’s something more for me out there? Something better than what I can see?”

I nod in agreement. “Maybe there is something better for all of us than what we can see, or what we think we want.” All of the sudden, I wonder what it would feel like to hold his hand.

The moon, the ridiculously large, pocked moon, is low in the sky, and the calls of the birds and the rhythmic waves are a blanket for my soul.

And yes, my mind is also so full of Beck that a sense of calm overtakes me when he quietly asks, “How about another one of those professional hugs?”

Chapter Sixteen

Beck

Dallas surprises me with the perk of a smile. She steps to me, slides her arms around my middle, and leans in close.

This is not unlike that first hug, mechanics-wise. Once again, both my arms are around her waist, barely reaching it since she’s petite.

Now this time, it feels more intimate. A nice, substantial hug, not too tight, not crab leg-like loose. Just right.

Then why does it have such a different effect on me this time?

The first one? Unexpectedly pleasant.

This one blows everything else out of the water.

Maybe it’s because I know her now. I know how serious about her job she is, how hard she works, how personable and warm she is with clients, all the while working relentlessly for them to have the wedding they’ve always dreamed of.

I also know what she looks like when she’s frustrated or stressed, how there are golden flecks in her brilliant blue eyes. How determined she is. Her strength. Her courage.

When she gives the barest of sighs, her head against my chest, wriggling closer to me, I come to my senses. I wait a couple of breaths before pulling apart.

“Thanks for that,” I say. “You sure you don’t want to go into the field of professional hugging? You’d make a killing.”

Her smile is warm, her gaze taking in my face.

I want to kiss her.

I cup her face with my hands, my thumbs gliding across her skin. I know my skin can be rough, so I’m extra gentle. Under the moonlight, I can see the sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks. The cool sea breeze whispers around us, causing her hair to lift off her face so that I can see the spot below her ear and the column of her neck.

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