Page 132 of When You Wish Upon a Wideout

Sienna closed her eyes and leaned her head back. The tension in the car was so thick Sienna knew Grace couldn’t cut it with small talk, let alone a knife—her daughter would need a chainsaw.A few more minutes,she told herself, wondering if Beau was driving slow on purpose, the way he used to do when they were teenagers, savoring the final minutes until her curfew.

Grace unclipped her seatbelt. “Actually, speaking of the Yankees,” she began when Beau turned onto their street, “I should give you your hat back. Navy is more your color than mine, Beau.” She opened the door of Beau’s truck as he pulled up to the curb. “Wait here!”

Sienna went for the door handle when Beau reached for her.

“Sienna—”

“No, not now.”

Beau squeezed her shoulder. “Please.”

“Please what?” Sienna spat, whipping her head to him. “What can you possibly have to say to me that I don’t already know?”

Opening his mouth to speak, Beau shook his head. “I’m—”

“You’re sorry. I know. You’re sorry, I’m heartbroken andmortified.” She shook her head. “What else is there, hm?”

Beau rubbed his lips together. His eyes left hers only to look at the house where his gaze lingered. “Do you think,” he began, “it was supposed to be this way?”

“Do you mean are we supposed to sit here and end it thesameway you did the first time?”

“No, no. I didn’t even know the lantern festival was tonight,” Beau tried to assure her. “I was coming for Scrabble night. I gave you two weeks. We’ve done more than adecadeapart—”

“Stop.”My heart can’t take this just stop.“I can’t even remember everything on Grace’s list in that letter... the lantern festival—”

“I thought maybe you told her about all those things, about us.”

Grace might have heard a few slips from Henry, might have remembered her father watching Beau’s games. She thought back to the game they attended with the Golden Penny Foundation, how Grace had said Beau was “the best damn wideout” her father had ever coached. And that had been true, Sienna knew. Because Beau was central to her father’s offense, giving him something to focus on beyond his grief.

Steadying her shaking hand on the dash, Sienna shook her head as the memories from the year they reconnected flooded back—the year Beau had pulled her out of the hell of counting lonely days until infinity, the year he spent painting over the dark drawing of grief she had sketched, streaking it with color, laughter, love.

They might have been sitting in the newest model of a Ford F150 that he bought with his copious amount of money. But when Sienna closed her eyes, she could feel the rumbling of the old truck Beau had to fix with scraps from his father’s garage. Sienna’s mind went back to that night when he pulled that loud truck up to her house for the last time, a harsh, final goodbye under the false promise of return.

But it didn’t matter that Beau had come to her father’s funeral because when Sienna opened her eyes and looked out the window, she saw Grace peek out behind the living room curtain.

I did it without you,she thought, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand.I got through it without you because of her.The time between Beau leaving and Grace’s birth had been a path littered with too much partying, dropping out of school, and pushing the limits and her father and brother away. But Grace’s arrival into the world gave Sienna a second chance at living that Beau had stolen when he left and never looked back.

“I’ll do it again.”

“What?” Beau asked.

Sienna hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but since she had, she continued, “I picked up the pieces of my broken heart and your broken promises once before. I can do it again.” Balling her fists, she took a deep breath. “I know you’re involved in the GPF trip to Disney World and... after that, I’m wondering if you should go to LA.”

Beau’s eyes widened. “Sienna—”

“Don’t stay in Dallas because of me, alright?” She ignored the heartbreak on Beau’s face and reached for the handle again. “I should—”

“I signed with the Sparks today.”

Sienna shut her eyes but didn’t fight Beau’s hand coming to her face. “I don’t know if you should’ve done that.”

“I did it because the timing isright, Sienna, don’t you understand that?”

Sienna wanted to swat his hand and run from the car, to choose the flight response when Beau was in front of her, prepared to fight. But the space was too small, and she teetered between the past and present, remembering how awful it felt to run from his truck, back into her home, and begin her life without him.

“What? Better late than never?”

Beau clenched his jaw. “Fuck better late than never, Sienna. It’s now or never.”

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