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“Becca doesn’t care if I eat garlic tonight, El.”
Ellie sighed and leaned back. “Well, dammit.”
Beau and Becca shared a grin.
“So youhaven’tdecided what you want,” Ellie said.
Actually, Beau knew exactly what he wanted. It just wasn’t on the “menu”.
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he told the older woman.
She nodded. “Okay. Good. I was thinkin’ you were goin’ to take all the fun out of this.”
“What do you mean?” Beau asked.
“Well, that trophy is really pretty. And I haven’t even gotten to play yet.” She gave them a wink, then turned and headed toward the bar.
Oh…crap.
Ellie Landry was even getting in on this “competition” to throw him and Becca together? The Landry family did two things big and loud and better than pretty much everyone else: bullshitting and falling in love.
“Okay, so…” he said, turning back to Becca.
Becca leaned in, elbows on the table. “Why do I feel like our plan just backfired?”
Beau shook his head. “No one’s getting kissed in here, and there are no rings on anybody’s fingers. Nothing’s backfired.”
She nodded. “Right. That’s the ultimate win,” she said. “For us to officially be back together there will have to be some kind of public gesture or acknowledgment.”
He nodded. “Grand gestures are the thing around here. It won’t count until that happens.”
She nodded. She seemed thoughtful.
“What?”
“I guess it just hit me, they actually expect us to end up together. Like married. Together forever.”
He watched her for a long moment, not trusting himself to speak. That made his entire chest feel tight. He wanted it. And the fact that the rest of the town wanted it too did not make that any easier.
Beau cleared his throat. “Yeah. I mean, I guess if I just laid a kiss on you in the middle of the bar like I did the first time, they’d probably try to count that.” They’d gone to Baton Rouge for New Year’s Eve as their first official “date”, but they’d been in Autre the following weekend, and he’d kissed her right in the middle of Ellie’s. That’s when everyone here had known they were officially a couple. “But yeah,” he said, “I think they’re all hoping for a diamond ring.”
She nodded. “Whoa.”
He gave a little laugh, that was completely unamused. “Don’t worry, Bec, I’m not going to propose.”
She frowned. “I wouldn’t say I’mworried.”
He swallowed. He had to say this. If they were going to be continually thrown together with the whole town hoping it would turn romantic, they needed to have a few things out in the open.
“I would never do that to you,” he said.
She frowned. “Do what to me?”
“Make you say no to me. To that.”
She stared at him. “I…” She took a deep breath, then blew it out. “You’re so sure I’d say no?”
Surprise and heat rocked through him, but he clung to reality. And the fact that he cared about her way too fucking much to mess around with this. “You’dbettersay no to me. If I get drunk some night, and that comes out of my mouth accidentally, you better say no.”
