AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Except him.
Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. The kids and families in Autre were lucky she’d come home to teach Kindergarten.
But fuck, he’d hoped she’d go somewhere else after graduating. At least for the first few years.
Sure, that sounded crazy, considering he was in love with her. But he didn’t want her stuck here. He loved their little town. But it was…little. Things didn’t change much here. It definitely wasn’t as exciting or as progressive as a city like Baton Rouge, which he knew Becca had loved. And she was now working for her dad. Kind of. Jonathan Bollier was the high school principal and Becca was an elementary teacher, so she didn’t report to him directly. Still, he was part of the administration at the school where she was now teaching.
Jonathan was a great guy. He’d been the high school principal in Autre as long as Beau could remember. He was well-respected and Beau knew both her mom and dad had influenced Becca’s decision to go into education. She looked up to them and felt that their work was important. But Beau was worried that working with her dad might not be as easy as Becca was hoping.
Hell, he was worried about a lot of things about Becca being home in Autre.
That she’d get bored. That she’d feel held back. That she’d want more eventually. That she’d feel stuck. That she’d wonder about bigger, or just different, opportunities.
That he’d fall deeper and deeper in love with her and it would hurt even more when she left.
She’d only ever lived in Autre and Baton Rouge. She’d only ever considered being a teacher. She’d only ever dated Beau. She hadn’t even gone to parties in Autre. Her first real taste of any kind of social life had been in college when she’d met Savannah and Toby. She’d been a quiet, nerdy, bookworm while in Autre. Really living and having fun had happenedawayfrom Autre.
Why did she want to settle down here for good?
And would that desire actually last?
What if he fell for her completely and she left?
He wasn’t going anywhere. Autrewaswhere he was going to live his life. So it made no sense to get involved with her until he was sureshewas sure this was where she wanted to be long term.
But living next door to Becca and leaving her alone after touching her, tasting her, knowing what it was like to hold her, to talk with her all night long, after being the one she looked for across a room, after making her laugh, making her moan, making her come was the hardest fucking thing he’d ever done.
He cleared his throat and put on the I’m-just-your-friend façade he’d been wearing ever since they’d broken up. “Yeah, yeah, okay, I’ll agree you have some soul. Maybe more than most. But if it comes down to you or me, Remy and Damon and Emmaline are gonna come for me, so you can make a break for it.” He grabbed the handle of the trunk.
“You’d sacrifice yourself for me?” she asked. “That’s sweet.”
Beau made the mistake of glancing at her. She looked almost touched by that. But fuck yeah, he’d sacrifice himself for her. They were joking about some stupid spiders, but suddenly the moment felt weightier.
Dating her had changed their relationship completely.
It was why they’d beenextremelycareful about keeping things strictly platonic since she’d been home. At least he had. They hadn’t talked about their past. There was no reason, really. The break-up had been a mutual, amicable decision.
His car accident had freaked Becca out. It had freaked him out too. It had pissed him off more than anything, but after the ER doc had dismissed him and he’dfinallymade it home to Autreninehours after the burst pipe rather than five, he’d admitted it could have beenmuchworse. He could have been killed. He could have killed someone else.
He’d agreed that he couldn’t keep burning the candle at both ends.
He’d always vowed that he would let Becca end things whenever, however she chose to do it. So when she’d said, “I don’t think this is good for you. I don’t think we should keep doing this,” he’d said, “You’re right.”
And that had been that.
He’d seen her when she’d come home to visit but it had always been in passing, or when her mom asked him to come over to fix something. It was so obvious that Maureen always needed something fixed when Becca just happened to be home. But he always showed up and he and Becca were always friendly to one another. But nottoofriendly.
And he very carefully avoided being alone with her. Something she seemed very happy with as well.
They had an unspoken agreement to pretend as if those three months of being more than friends hadn’t happened and to try to transition back to what they’d had before.
Which was fine. Great even. They’d tried being more, it hadn’t worked out, and they didn’t want to entirely fuck everything up between them forever. Especially with her living here now.
But it wasn’t working. Being her friend only was nearly impossible.
Since she’d moved home permanently and taken the job as the third kindergarten teacher in Autre, they ran into each other all the time. Literally every day. They had friends in common. Their mothers were friends. They lived next door to one another.
Well, their moms did.
