Page 39 of Beau and the Beast

And then he remembered. Everything.

His entire life had changed over the span of 48 hours and nothing would be the same again.

Beau hugged his knees to his chest. He needed Noah. He needed to be home. It was no good to be so alone, to be forced to think about his parents without having someone nearby who could understand the bad dreams, who could hold Beau for a moment and smooth his hair and remind him that he wasn’t truly alone as long as he had his brother.

And what if Noah got himself into trouble while Beau was gone, sequestered here in the penthouse?

Beau had been lured by curiosity, by greed, and he’d done the very thing he’d always promised himself that he’d never do: leave Noah vulnerable to trouble.

* * *

On their second day together, Beau seemed to be a different person.

He wasn’t unkind but he was… distant. His blue eyes were rimmed with red, giving him the distinct look of a petulant child who had been pouting.

Had his wonder at what Wolfram was worn off so fast? Was it possible that the reporter was alreadyboredof him?

Or had he spent the night crying, chafing at the fact that he wouldn’t be allowed home?

Both thoughts frustrated Wolfram equally and he found himself growing more and more impatient with the interview. All of Beau’s whimsical questions from the day before had been replaced by dry procedural ones. Where had he gone to school, what were his favorite subjects, had Wolfram taken any formative trips abroad while he was young?

Even Beau’s scent was different, a dull lingering sweet smell that was almost cloying—so unremarkable that Wolfram wondered if he’d imagined all of the things that he’d smelled on the reporter’s skin the day before.

Halfway through the plodding morning, Wolfram took a break, leaving Beau with his notebook while he retired to his kitchenette to boil water for tea. When he returned, Beau refused his offer of a cup of tea for himself.

“What’s bothering you this morning?” Wolfram demanded.

There was something on the tip of Beau’s tongue—Wolfram could tell he was about to speak, to finally say what had upset him, what had changed since the day before. But at the last moment, Beau held himself back, shut his mouth and frowned.

He flipped his notebook open again as if to signal that they would be doing nothing that day but interviewing. But when he spoke again, the line of questions had taken an abrupt turn.

"What was your relationship like with your parents?" Beau asked.

* * *

Wolfram looked at him, puzzled. "That’s a broad question. What do you want to know?"

Beau had been unable to think of anything but his family that morning. He might as well ask Wolfram to talk about his own, he thought. There had always been something masochistically pleasurable for Beau to hear about the happy childhood of others.

"You've described your childhood home, the subjects that compelled you, the teachers who stood out and made an impact... but back at home, what was life like?"

"I was very close to my mother,Cicely," he said. He seemed taciturn, like he didn't want to continue down the road. "Less so with my father."

"Did they get along?"

"I don't know," Wolfram said. "There was always a good buffer there. If they fought about things, I'll never know."

"What were they like when you were young? Big celebrations for milestones? What were holidays like?"

"My mother was beautiful and outrageously talented. She was patient, too. We'd spend hours together playing make believe games that I'd invented. There were no other children in the neighborhood where I grew up, so she became my constant companion. To be honest, I never felt like I was lacking for companionship, even as an only child with no other children around. When I needed her, she was always there."

Sadness clenched around Beau’s heart. Wolfram’s mother sounded very much like Beau’s father.

"Did she encourage you to explore the things you were interested in?"

"Always," Wolfram said without hesitation. "She didn't care what the 'right' thing was for me to be interested in—only that it interested me. She never stood in the way of my consumption of books or insisted that I needed to pursue some sporting activity."

Beau could sense that there was a lack there, though, that Wolfram was skirting around.

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