Page 32 of It's Only Love

“It wasn’t your fault, she clearly needed help and that isn’t something that you could have provided. At least you managed to bring her around and she’s alive because of you.”

“But she nearly wasn’t and that was because of me too!”

“No, it was because of her,” Christy replied vehemently. “You’re not responsible for other people’s actions, remember that.”

“She’s tried to contact me a few times since, she wanted to talk but after the incident, I fell out of love with L.A. and wanted to get away from the toxicity of it. That’s why I’m moving home. I want to help people. I’ll always be grateful for the work I did before, it got me the knowledge and the financial stability to be able to do it. I still want to help people, but in the right way.” He nodded as if driving his point home.

“That’s also why I want to keep it quiet about the house. I'm worried Tracy will follow me here and I want to get away without her finding out.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep it to myself,” she replied. They fell into comfortable silence and watched the trees blowing in the breeze. After a while he stood up and held out a hand to help her up.

“Wanna show me what you want doing to the house?” he asked.

“Well, what do you want to do? It’s going to be yours soon.”

“I think we’ll just focus on fixing and redecorating for now, I don’t want to do any massive renovations to the house itself, it’s more the land I want to develop.”

She took him around the house and pointed out various areas of improvement in every room, he followed her making notes on his phone. As they went upstairs, they stopped outside her father’s old room. Her heart thudded in her chest as Beau reached for the door handle.

“Wait!” she yelled, and he let go of the handle like it was radioactive. He stared at her.

“I can’t go in there yet. Can we leave that one for now?” She watched as understanding dawned on him.

“Sure thing, have you been in there at all since you came back?” She shook her head.

“Okay then, it’s off limits,” he said easily, and moved to the room opposite. He rested his hand on the doorknob and paused, looking at her for permission. She nodded and he opened the door and immediately started laughing.

“I guess you were a big fan of the color pink and boybands?” he asked, his tone teasing. She went into her childhood bedroom and looked around, nostalgia washing over her. She waited for the sting of pain that usually accompanied the feeling, but this time it wasn’t nearly as sharp as it used to be. She walked around, looking at her things, the room was exactly as she left it. Double bed with flower duvet, pink butterfly throw that she had since she was a kid, stuffed toys lined up along the bed. Pink curtains, pink rug, and pink wallpaper. Posters of various boybands lined the walls, the epitome of a teen girl’s room. Beau whistled low as he looked about the room.

“Man, finally in Christy Lee’s bedroom, the dream of most of the guys at school.”

Christy choked, “What? You’re crazy!”

“Come on, Christy. The boys at school always had such a thing for you,” he said. She didn’t believe him, no one had ever approached her, she wasn’t one of the slim, beautiful, popular girls. Which was fine because she was herself and there was no one else she would rather be.

“Well, not everyone,” she muttered, thinking of Dean. Beau faced her and folded his arms over his impressive chest, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Anyone in particular you’re thinking of?” She turned away before he saw the blush creeping over her cheeks. She shook her head and started to leave the room.

“Remember Christy, boys are stupid and just because they’re mean, that doesn’t mean they don’t like you,” he said, as though he knew where her mind had wandered, replaying the scene. He walked past her and went off down the hall, leaving her staring after him.

They finished inside and went outside to look at the land around the house. It didn’t need quite as much doing to it. Just a lot of weeding, the trees and bushes need pruning, and the grass definitely needs to be cut. Once they finished, she realized it was actually getting quite late, Christy was due to spend the evening with Taylor and Justine, and Beau was off to meet Dean for dinner. They said goodbye with Beau promising to come back the next day to start work on the house. As he left, he kissed her on the cheek in an affectionate familial way, and she felt lighter than she had in a while.

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