It's Complicated: A Reservations Story

“Is that Beckett?”

Marc nodded. “He’s texting me, worried about you. I told him I had you in my line of sight.”

Julian nodded and pushed to his feet, dusting the sand off his legs. He hated sand and hadn’t properly thought this through when he’d taken the seat. Julian swiped at his slacks before bending to gather his dress shoes, choosing to carry them and go barefoot. His toes in the sand had helped ground him.

“Can we not tell Beck I was out here like this?” Julian asked, lifting his head to the bodyguard. He looked down at the sand as they went. “I’ll call him when I get home.”

Marc’s eyes narrowed as he tilted his head in Julian’s direction. “I thought I’d gotten to know you pretty well, but you’ve been off. Did something happen?”

“You could say that,” Julian confirmed as he fished his keys from his pocket.

“I didn’t notice anything. What did I miss?”

“It’s a personal thing.” Julian veered off, heading to his car parked next to Marc’s. Before he dropped in his seat, he took his phone from his back pocket. Once he was inside the confines of his car, he started the engine and pulled his messaging app up to read Beckett’s latest text.

“When you see this, know I’m thinking about you and missing you. Whatever’s going on, we can deal with it together this weekend. My mom showed up unexpectedly. It’s great seeing her. We’re having dinner together tonight. I’ll be free early—by nine. Call me when you get settled. I leave in the morning for a training session. I’m really missing you. No pressure. Call me when you can.”

Julian dropped his head back against his headrest. Beckett was a fucking saint, a consummate gentleman. Nothing was ever off about him. Not ever.

Knuckles rapped on his passenger side window, startling him. Julian pushed the button to lower the window for Marc. “I’ve known Beck a long time. He’s a real good guy. He never asks where you go or who you’re with, just that you’re safe.”

Julian blew out a breath and nodded then rolled the window up without saying another word. He needed no one’s guilt. He dropped the car into gear and backed out of his space, berating himself with every turn of the wheel. He knew better than to get involved with the honest and integrity-filled people of the world. It was why he had ignored his attraction to Beckett for so long.

Fuck. Beckett deserved someone so much better than Julian. He would make the call tonight and end both their agony.

Chapter 35

“Congratulations!” Beckett said, taking the lead at his small family dinner party. He grabbed his longneck beer bottle and lifted enough from his seat to tap his father’s then Randy’s bottles in the center of the table. Beckett’s mother clapped happily, smiling as broadly as the other four people at the table.

“A baby! I’m so happy for you,” she said, clinking her glass of sweet tea along with everyone else’s.

“We’re nervous,” Marly, Randy’s longtime girlfriend, said with a hand resting on her belly.

“When did you find out?” Beckett asked.

“Two days ago,” Randy announced proudly, lifting his brows toward his girlfriend for confirmation. She gave a patient grin and lifted three fingers. Randy continued, “We haven’t told our families yet. She’s barely two months along. We were thinking about eloping, so her parents don’t have a fit.”

Marly nodded. “They’re very religious. They think I’m still living at school. Like I would live on campus while working on my PhD.”

They all knew the details of Marly’s life, and how she’d eventually followed Randy, tired of the long-distance relationship. Though her parents would never understand living in the wilderness while teaching at a small county school, Marly felt her life fit their small circle of family completely.

“Well, I couldn’t be any more excited,” his mother said, grinning dreamily. His smitten father reached across the table, taking her hand in his. “I wish we had been able to have more children, daddy.”

Beckett’s gaze slid to Randy’s, lifting a brow, giving him a firm zip-it glare. Randy always made fun of his mother’s endearments. He had a whole teasing joke, explaining to anyone around that Beckett’s father was not really her father too. It was so overdone.

His phone rattled and vibrated next to his dinner plate. The few minutes of reprieve from the mounting anxiety slammed forward again as Beckett reached for the phone, not caring in the least at the panicky way he opened the screen to find a message from Julian.

Finally. A breath he hadn’t known he was holding released. Beckett opened the message as he stood, his chair scraping across the linoleum.

“Can you talk?”

Why did such a simple text cause immediate alarm? Something wasn’t right, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out. Since Beckett had first broken through Julian’s barriers, they’d spent all their free time talking. Three words after days of silence wasn’t good.