Beauty and the Mustache (33 page)

“
Other men’s
fiancées?”

“
Yep. Like mine for
example. But, to be fair, she wanted to be seduced.”

Again, it was like a bomb
had gone off. My breath left me on a whoosh and we stared at each
other.

Well…isn’t that like shit
on a shoe at a wedding.

I glanced at his lips then
kissed him again. This time I made sure that the kiss conveyed how
much I’d been thinking about him—and his kisses—over the last
several days.

He responded immediately and we kissed for
several minutes. When things started to escalate, he gently pushed
me away, holding my face in his hands.

Drew gazed into my eyes as
though searching them—or me—for the answer to life’s great
questions. I met his stare straight on, held it, dared him to find
one trace of pity or reluctance or regret.

I felt none of it.

Instead, I felt fierce
loyalty and pride—in him for all he’d accomplished despite his
family, and pride in my family for taking him in as one of their
own.

I also might have been
feeling desire. In fact, I
was
feeling desire. I’m not going to lie.

Whatever he found in me
must’ve satisfied his implicit concerns, because Drew’s expression
lost some of its severity and he sighed. “Ash.”

“
Yes?”

“
I wish we could….” He
said this in a rush then stopped, licked his lips, and affixed his
eyes to the sky. I sensed that he was holding himself back from
speaking his mind. He seemed to be literally biting his tongue.
Yes, literally. His tongue was between his teeth and he was biting
it.

At length, looking
pensive, Drew cleared his throat before starting again. “I looked
up your father when I was in college, then I found out where he
married your momma, and I discovered that she still lived here. I
was curious about her. So when a game warden position opened up, I
used the job interview as an opportunity to meet her.”

I propped my head up with
one hand and laid the other on his chest, peering down at him. “And
how’d that go?”

He smiled. “She was
something else.” Then he frowned again. “In a lot of ways, she
reminds me of Christine: soft hearted and sensitive, but also with
a talent for sass.”

I chuckled and rested my chin on his chest.
“She does have a talent for sass.”

“
Sass has a genetic
component. It’s passed down from mother to daughter.”

I rolled my eyes,
“Whatever, Nietzsche.” Then I recounted one of my least favorite
Nietzsche quotes, “‘There are no facts, only
interpretations.’”

Drew reached his hand into
my hair and began combing his fingers through it as he’d done a few
moments ago, and I had an out-of-body experience.

I honestly didn’t know how
I’d arrived at this place, this time, this moment. I was a person I
didn’t recognize, but I had a faint sense of knowing from a long
time ago. I was someone from my past when trust was freely given,
and my overly idealistic mind jumped to romanticized conclusions
even when faced with realistic expectations, good judgment, and
logic.

I was lying in a field of
wildflowers…
wildflowers.
I was half on top of fictionally handsome Drew.
His hand was in my hair. We’d just been kissing. I trusted him
because he’d proven himself, through his actions, to be
trustworthy. And I was giving no thought to real life, sorrow, or
the ramifications of willfully surrendering to this mountain of a
man.

I had to shake myself out
of my trance, because Drew was speaking again, and I wanted to
hear.

“…
At the library, so I
came by the next week again. This time I brought some of my own
poetry and, I don’t know why I did it, but I showed it to her. She
read it, made some suggestions, then gave me a book of poetry by e.
e. cummings.”

“
Ah, I love e. e.
cummings.” I sighed when I said this, because I really loved e. e.
cummings. Whenever I needed a shot of romance or a dose of raw
galvanized euphoria, I’d read e. e. cummings. He jumpstarted my
heart. He made me feel like I held a light within myself that could
scorch and smolder and rage like an inferno—or that showed me I at
least had the potential to burn. I just needed someone who knew how
to light the match.

Drew smiled at me then kissed my nose.

This should have struck me
as strange, these careless intimate touches, but it didn’t. They
didn’t. He didn’t.

Obviously, I was
insane.

And because I was insane,
I snuggled closer to him and asked, “Roscoe said you beat the crap
out of Jethro one time.”

Drew nodded as he picked up my hand and
laced his fingers through mine, studying my fingertips.

“
Yeah. It was after I
accepted the job. I’d been here for about two months. Your mother
had me over for dinner a few times. Jethro knew who I was, had met
me more than once....” He was quiet for a long time as he
investigated my fingers, tested how we fit together, compared the
sizes of our palms.

I was mesmerized by this
little dance of our hands and lost track of what we were
discussing. When Drew continued, it took me a few seconds to
remember the topic. “I think he did it because it was the only way
he knew how to get attention.”

“
What? Who?”

He placed my hand over his heart then gave
me a quizzical grin. “Jethro. My bike. I think he stole my bike in
order to get my attention.”

“
Ah, and you beat him
up?”

“
I didn’t know it was a
call for attention at the time. I just thought he was an asshole
stealing my bike.”

I couldn’t help but laugh
at this. Poor Jethro. He’d had a hard time of it, being the oldest.
He knew our father the best out of all of us, and being Darrell
Winston’s firstborn wasn’t an enviable position.

“
But then you became
friends.”

“
Yep. We did. Good
friends.”

“
Like
brothers?”

Drew looked at me for a
beat then glanced away as though pondering this concept. “I hope
so, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t have any brothers.”

“
What about other family?
Aunts? Uncles? Cousins?”

“
My mom was an only child.
And my father’s family…they’re all high society, rich oil people in
Houston. They don’t much understand me, and I don’t care to
understand them.”

“
What do you mean? They
must be proud of you. You’re a friggin PhD from Baylor for
hootenanny’s sake.”

His smile was warm, but it
barely met his eyes. “I mean, to them, my sister was an
embarrassment because she was mentally ill. When she died, they
milked it so that my father would win his election. Then, when he
and my fiancée started carrying on, they wanted me to publically
endorse their relationship, because my father was slipping in the
polls.”

As he spoke his eyes
hardened; obviously, the memory was distant but the feelings were
fresh.

“
My sister Christine was
an embarrassment because she’d been born differently and needed
help. My father marries my fiancée, and I’m a disappointment
because I won’t publically endorse their marriage. The hypocrisy of
society, what is considered appropriate behavior, is completely
baffling to me.”

I twisted my mouth to the
side and contemplated the man that was Drew. He recited the details
of his broken past with a detachment that was heartbreaking because
it didn’t sound at all forced. And he’d just thrown it all out
there, all his baggage filled with dirty laundry. He didn’t ask me
to wash it, or pick it up, or like it, or smell it.

He simply said,
Here. Look at this shitty mess. This is
me.

But he wasn’t a mess. His
family was a mess. Drew was beautiful and poetic and raw and
real.

I thought about
reciprocating. I thought about telling him about my father, how
he’d been drifting in and out of our lives, conning us all. About
how he used to hit Momma, how she put up with it. I thought about
telling him the story of the day she finally threw him out, when
she came home and found twelve-year-old Billy black and blue, and
called the cops. Roscoe was two at the time.

Instead, I was quiet, like
a coward. I wasn’t ready to open up my baggage and share my dirty
laundry.

“
What are you thinking
about?”

Drew’s softly spoken
question pulled me from my thoughts. He was watching me closely,
and I briefly wondered if I’d verbalized any of my internal
musings. We were face to face now, one of my legs was thrown over
his stomach, chest to chest, and I was leaning over him on my
elbow.

I shrugged and gathered a
deep breath. “I guess I was thinking that you’re pretty brave, just
throwing everything out there about yourself, about your family and
your past.”

“
I don’t have anything to
hide.”

“
Really?”

“
Really.”

“
Then
what were you fixin’ to say earlier? You started to say
something:
I wish we
could
….”

Drew’s eyes seemed to burn
brighter—intense and hot—at my mention of his unfinished
statement.

At length he shook his
head subtly and said, “I don’t want to say things you’re not ready
to hear.”

“
Can you give me a
hint?”

His mouth hooked to the
side, but his eyes were melancholy. “No, Sugar. I can’t. Please
don’t ask, because I can’t think of anything more difficult than
saying no to you.”

Of course this made me
smile and feel warm from my chest to my toes. “Why do you suddenly
like me so much, Drew?”

Drew touched his nose to
mine and gifted me with a soft kiss before responding. “There’s
nothing sudden about it.”

“
Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it
happened
.”

―
Dr. Seuss

“
Will
you make
pie?”

“
Pie?”

“
Yeah, pie. I think I
could get Momma to eat your pie. She hasn’t been eating
much.”

We’d resumed our earlier
position; Drew’s arm was on my shoulders, mine around his torso.
This time we were taking the direct path back to the
house.

We hadn’t stayed long in
our field of flowers because I felt anxious about getting back to
check on Momma, and it was time to get dinner started.

“
What kind of pie? Does
she have a preference?”

“
You’ve never made my
momma pie before?” For some reason this surprised me. Drew made
fantastic pie. It was pie that should be shared.

“
No. I guess I haven’t.
But she made me her lemon meringue pie a few times. I guess if I’d
had to choose between any of my pies and hers, I would have picked
hers.” He scratched the back of his neck then his beard. “Maybe
I’ll try to make her lemon meringue.”

“
Hey, that would be
great.” I smiled up at him. “I think she’d really like
that.”

“
Well, don’t you two look
cozy?” Beau called from a few feet away. Neither of us had noticed
his approach, and we stumbled to a stop.

My brother smiled,
glancing between Drew and me. “Mind if I join you?”

Without waiting for a
response, Beau slipped his arm around my waist and encouraged me to
do likewise with him. He then propelled the three of us toward the
house, walking as a unit.

“
I need to clean out the
barn; it’s getting too messy to pull the cars in.” Beau spoke over
my head at Drew then shook his head. “By the way, it’s nice to see
you two getting along so well. I was a little worried at first
after I heard about the titty-twister episode. Real big of you,
Drew, to let all that go.”

“
Hey! He was the one who
woke me up at six in the morning.”

“
Settle your mettle,
woman. I’m just saying it’s nice to see you guys behaving like
brother and sister is all.”

I felt Drew stiffen beside
me, his hand on my shoulder flexed. I stole a glance at him and
found his handsome face marred with a pensive frown. We walked
several more paces in strained silence before Drew cleared his
throat and slowed our steps.

“
Beau,” Drew said, and his
tone brought the three of us to a stop. “It’s not what you
think.”

My eyes widened and I faced
Drew, gave him my very best
what-the-hell-are-you-doing
face. He
ignored me.

Beau gave both of us a
perplexed grin and stepped away, holding his hands up. “No, Drew.
Man, I wasn’t thinking that
at
all
. I would never think that. Like I said,
brother and sister.”

“
Beau, it’s not like
that.” Drew said this slowly, his arm on my shoulders
tightening.

“
Oh God,” I said on a
quick exhale then closed my eyes.

“
Drew, man, I
know.”

“
No. Beau, listen to me. I
have feelings for your sister that are not brotherly.” He paused,
his hand dropped to my waist, and he pressed me against his
side.