Page 45 of Beau Pair
I turn to give him a quick, apologetic glance as I reverse out of the driveway and take off for Harlow U.
“Of course not,” he smiles, and I take a deep breath.
Good. There’s one less worry.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe we can make this work. We’re both grown-ups. We can communicate. We don’t have to make it weird. We can just enjoy what we have while we have it and not worry about what’s socially acceptable and what isn’t.
Or more specifically, I needn’t worry about this stuff. Just because Beau is younger than me and works for me doesn’t mean we can’t be together. Right? And with his college assessment taken off my hands, there’s less ethical stuff to be concerned with. I just have to teach him what I know about personal finance, and come January, he won’t even be in my class. If we last that long.
“So, I think I’ll try and finish the suit today if Miss Demeanor back there gifts me with an hour’s nap again, and you can try it on when you’re back home. I was also thinking of going grocery shopping. Do you want me to grab anything?”
“I-uh… anything you want for dinner. Here, take my credit card. You can stock up if you want,” I tell him and take my wallet off the little shelf on the dashboard and hand it to him. “Actually, I can give you my car, so you don’t have to worry about carrying all the stuff home.”
“I can take a cab,” he says.
I smile.
“Personal finance lesson 101, my young Beau. Don’t waste money on a cab when there’s a free car available,” I tell him, and he laughs.
“Fine. If you’re sure.”
“Of course I’m sure,” I tell him. “Unless you’re, like, a terrible driver and are gonna crash the car, in which case, I might change my mind.”
“Umm, excuse you, Mr. Davis. Why would I be a terrible driver?”
I open my mouth to apologize, but I don’t get the chance.
“For starters, if you let me drive a car with your daughter in the backseat and I was a bad driver, you’d be a terrible father. Which you’re not, so at least trust in that. And secondly, Mama Hadlee would never let me touch her car if I was bad. She’s stricter than the DMV. Believe me.”
As we come to a stop at a traffic light, I turn to him with an apologetic look and he reaches across my face to squeeze my cheek.
“Mama Hadlee, huh? How old is she?”
“Seventy,” he answers. “I was a miracle, late baby.”
“Oh, you’re a miracle all right,” I tell him, and he flutters his lashes at me. “Don’t you miss her? Can she manage on her own?”
“Of course I do, and of course she can. She’s been a farm girl since she was a baby. She’s got her people to look after the land now, anyway, but she’s a stubborn girl, Miss Hadlee.”
“Sounds like my mom,” I told him.
“Yeah? What is she like?” he asks.
“She was a force to be reckoned with. Didn’t stop working until the day she died,” I say, and I can feel Beau’s gaze on my face.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,” he says, and reaches for my thigh again to give it a gentle pat.
“Of course you didn’t. Don’t be silly.”
“How long has it been?” he asks.
I go back to the day I got the call. I dropped everything to go be by her side. Even when she was lying in bed in the hospital, she wanted to get up and harvest.
“Five years,” I say.
“What did she do? You said she didn’t stop working until the day she passed away.”
“She was a tobacco farmer,” I answer.
