Beard With Me

by Penny Reid

  Luckily, Ben didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. College is a lot of sitting and writing and waiting and listening. I’d prefer to be out somewhere doing something, learning about things for myself instead of pretending to care about what a lot of stuffy professors tell me.”

  “You didn’t like high school either?” My voice was steady, betraying none of the pain I felt.

  “Oh, I liked football and the social stuff. But classes? Nope. I worked at it for my parents. Now, I just don’t know.” He shrugged. “Do you like school? I mean, the classes part?”

  The sharp pain dulling to a throbbing ache once more, I thought about lying to Ben and saying I didn’t like school. I had no idea why this thought occurred to me. Why would I lie about something so silly?

  So I said, “Yes. I do. I like my classes. A lot.”

  He made a face of mild disgust, like he found this information unfathomable. “But why? Isn’t it boring? All the studying useless information?”

  “I don’t think it’s useless.”

  “It is,” he insisted, laughing again. “I’m never going to need to know what sine or cosine means, so why learn it?”

  “But engineers need to know, right?”

  Ben lifted his eyes to the ceiling of the diner. “I guess. But I’m not going to be an engineer.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He shrugged again, his gaze dropping to the tabletop. A rare gloomy expression arrested his features, though he still smiled. “I don’t honestly know, Scarlet. Sometimes, I feel so lost, you know? All this pressure, to know what I want to do, what I want to be. It’s overwhelming.”

  I nodded, watching him, even though he had me confused again. I didn’t understand how his situation could be considered overwhelming. He had everything and he was overwhelmed? Could people be overwhelmed by blessings such that they felt like burdens? From where I was sitting, that didn’t seem possible.

  Not knowing what to say, I let my attention stray. Movement beyond our booth at the front of the diner caught my notice.

  “Oh. Look. It’s Roscoe and Simone.” Gingerly, I leaned to the side, hoping Mrs. Winston was behind her youngest son or close by. I wanted to thank her for everything since I now knew she’d been solely responsible for it all.

  Sure enough, Mrs. Winston came strolling in a second later, the twins and Ashley in tow.

  “Who’s Roscoe?” Ben asked, searching over his shoulder.

  “You know, Jethro’s youngest brother?” I slid out of the booth carefully and stood, waving at Mrs. Winston.

  “Oh. Yeah. He’s got so many brothers, I usually just call them all Jethro Jr.”

  I chuckled and shook my head at Ben. “They’re all so different from each other. Their names are easy to learn if you take a minute.” I didn’t know any of the Winston kids very well, but I knew who was who.

  Mrs. Winston had broken off from her children. She wore a huge grin as she walked over, like she was so happy to see me, and I was her favorite person in the world.

  “Oh hey, y’all,” she called, surprising me with a kiss on my cheek and a shoulder squeeze. The twins and Ashley headed straight for the counter, grabbing stools while Roscoe and Simone had followed Mrs. Winston.

  Ben had also stood up, so she greeted him with a kiss as well. “I owe your momma a call, Ben.”

  “She knows you’ve got your hands full, Ms. Bethany. Take your time.”

  “We have a fairy in our backyard,” Roscoe announced to Ben and me, all matter-of-fact like.

  “You do?” Ben grinned down at him indulgently, seeming to enjoy interacting with the eight-year-old.

  The little boy nodded, his bright blue eyes wide and serious, as though he were the fairy authority in these parts.

  But Simone Payton sighed tiredly at his side, tossing a quantity of long, black braids over her shoulder. “Roscoe. You should not accept—de facto—that an empty plate means there is, without a shadow of a doubt, a fairy in your backyard. We need more evidence.”

  “Five empty plates. What more evidence do you need, Simone?” Roscoe asked.

  Five? That didn’t seem right. I counted in my head: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday was four. But I hadn’t left one last night. Unless Billy—

  “A confirmed sighting would be nice. And an interview.” Simone must’ve given this some thought.

  “You want to interview the fairy?” This question came from Ben, grinning at the little girl like he thought she was the cutest thing in the whole world. She kinda was.

  “Yes,” she confirmed with a nod. “And a DNA test. We should set a fairy trap.”

  Roscoe gasped. “Simone Payton! We are not setting a fairy trap.”

  “It’s the only way.” She shook her head sadly. Her brown eyes were also sad, like she was grimly resigned to it, and turned from the table. “Come on. Let’s go get a donut and ask Beau and Duane to build us one.”

  “I’ll always eat a donut, but how would you like it if someone put you in a trap?” Roscoe frowned at his best friend, walking next to her to the counter. Their conversation trailed after them. “Trapping isn’t the answer. We’ll ask the fairy to come out nicely.”

  Just then, the bell over the door rang again announcing another person. I leaned to the side, hoping to spot Cletus—because we had things to discuss—but was instead met with the stoic sight of Billy Winston. Stiffening at the sudden and unexpected scorching shock of embarrassment racing to each of my limbs, I quickly leaned back, my brain scattered.

  Working to suppress the aftereffects of the shock and find my train of thought, I felt a blush creep up my neck, a simmering spark in my lungs. Additionally, I didn’t know quite where to set my attention.

  Crap. What is this? Why am I behaving this way?

  Apparently, I would be a mess of a person around Billy Winston now that I’d cried on his shoulder and he’d seen . . . he saw my back.

  So frustrating.

  I lifted my fingers to my forehead to rub the sudden headache between my eyes, but then snatched my hand back. I needed to get a hold of myself.

  “We’re just here picking up a pie we ordered for Thanksgiving,” Bethany was saying, and I realized I’d missed some of the conversation. Her eyes flickered to me, a small frown sitting there. “Hey, are you okay, baby?”

  I nodded, then forced my lips to curve into something like a smile. “Too much ice cream, I think.”

  “You don’t make pie, Ms. Bethany?” Ben, paying me no mind, gave Mrs. Winston a teasing look and I stared at him, wondering stupidly where he’d come from.

  Has Ben been here the whole time?

  The morning came back to me in a flash: leaving Billy’s room, straightening the campsite, changing my clothes, meeting Ben at the Corner Shoppe at 10:00 AM, eating ice cream for breakfast, the flirting.

  Oh. I guess he has been here the whole time. Huh.

  Splitting her attention between me and Ben—the look of concern lingering behind her eyes every time they met mine—she answered his question with sweetness and patience. “Of course I make pie, Benjamin. But having Daisy’s apple pie on Thanksgiving is a tradition because it’s better than mine. Now, if only I could find someone to make me pecan pie, I’d be all set. What are your plans for Thanksgiving?”

  “Oh, we’re spending it at home,” he answered. “My aunt and uncle are driving over from Nashville.”

  “Bringing their family?”

  “Uh, no ma’am. It’s just them. They never had any kids.”

  I swallowed reflexively, doing my best to follow the conversation, but my mind was still a riot.

  For goodness sake, Scarlet. Calm. Down. So what if he’d seen my back, my scars, the new cuts. So what? All the Wraith kids who lived at the compound knew about it, what my daddy did to his kids. I suspected my submission to being cut had made me earn their respect. It also made them afraid of me.

  Because if he cut me and he “loved” me, which he claimed he did, what would he do to them?

&nbs
p; But I didn’t wish to think about that. Thinking about that made me want to vomit, and I had a belly full of strawberry ice cream. Ugh . . .

  Mrs. Winston tilted her head in plain confusion as she studied Ben. “I thought your momma said your aunt was adopting a little girl?”

  “That didn’t work out.” Ben said this just as Billy came to stand at his mom’s side.

  My eyes decided to look at him without checking with my brain, which was a mistake. Our gazes met. His eyes seemed warmer than usual, and he was wearing that faint smile of his, directing it only at me. It was the one where I couldn’t tell if it was amused or sinister or . . . Wait.

  Was that Billy Winston’s version of a friendly smile? I was so deep in my own mind, miring in the muck of mortification, I couldn’t make sense of his intentions. But then, with Billy, I always seemed to be gauging him wrong.

  “Hello, William.” Ben stuck his hand out to Billy, taking a step closer to me as he did so.

  “Big Ben.” Billy’s monotone response came as the smile fell right off his face and the warmth extinguished in his eyes, like a light switch being flicked from on to off. He accepted Ben’s hand, shook it, let it go. He then placed his arm around his mother’s shoulders and turned to her, opening his mouth as though he was going to say something.

  Ben spoke before he could. “Saw your game on Friday. Kind of a bloodbath, wasn’t it?”

  Billy glanced at me, then at Ben, looking supremely bored. “It was what it was.”

  “Y’all didn’t take any mercy on them, did you? And on their home turf.” Ben shifted his weight again, his arm brushing against mine. “Didn’t even let them get away with a field goal. Pretty heartless of you.”

  I watched Billy; the sixteen-year-old’s cold, unflinching eyes frozen solid as they bored into Ben’s sunny ones. The blond was older by over two years, but—seeing them together—it was Billy who looked older. Maybe it’s because he has that lumberjack beard?

  Whatever the reason, and for reasons I couldn’t figure, Billy looking older than Ben made me sad . . .

  Wait. I could figure the reason why it made me sad. It made me sad because in every way but age, Billy was older than Ben McClure. It also explained why Ben had thought I was already sixteen. I wasn’t mature for my age, I was old for my age. And I supposed the same could be said for Billy.

  In this way, we had a lot in common.

  A stretch of tension followed, during which I worked to stifle my embarrassment—as well as all thoughts related to yesterday’s events—and indulged in a mindless moment of looking between the two. Ben wore a smile, but it wasn’t one I recognized. It looked hard and mocking and I’d never seen it before. Whereas Billy wore no trace of a smile—at all—his dislike of Ben McClure obvious as the nose on his face.

  Billy is always honest, even when he says nothing at all.

  Also obvious, he wasn’t going to address Ben’s question or statement.

  Bethany made a sound of distress, drawing my attention to her. She seemed pained, helplessly glancing between Ben and Billy, twisting her fingers. Clearly, she was uncomfortable, and she needed rescuing.

  “HOW ABOUT YOU?” I asked way too loudly, grabbing not only her attention, but also a mixture of irritated and perplexed glances from the other patrons. I felt like a dummy and I sensed the weight of Billy’s gaze too. I ignored it. My stomach was throwing a fit every time our eyes met.

  Instead, I tried again at a lower, normal volume. “Y’all staying around here for Thanksgiving? Or are you traveling somewhere?”

  Mrs. Winston gifted me with a grateful smile. “Yes, dear. We’re staying here. We have a fairy to feed, after all.”

  I chuckled at that, her sweetness cutting through my boiling discomfort, lowering it to a simmer. Unthinkingly, I looked to Ben. He was smiling at me quizzically, like he was certain he’d missed something.

  But then his stare turned introspective and he tapped my shoulder with the back of his index and middle finger. “Speaking of Thanksgiving plans, you should come over to our house, Scarlet.” After he said this, his fingers trailed down the length of my arm, catching my hand.

  My lips parted in surprise, and for motives I’ll never understand, I looked at Billy. I caught the tail end of him glaring at my hand in Ben’s. He blinked once, now having shifted his stare to someplace over my head. Scanning the diner, his bored expression seemed fixed in place as though it had been carved of granite.

  Giving myself a shake—because why would I care what Billy thinks about where I spend Thanksgiving? Just because he was nice to me yesterday, saw my scars, didn’t mean I owed him anything—I managed a smile for Ben. “I don’t want to intrude.”

  He threaded our fingers together. “Don’t be silly. You got nowhere else to go. You’re coming, and that’s that.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to go.” Billy’s flat-tire voice brought everyone’s attention back to him.

  Squinting, irritated at Billy’s flagrantly surly attitude, I squeezed Ben’s hand and answered for myself. “No. I do want to go.” I’d gone to my father yesterday in big part to protect Ben. Of course I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with him. I earned it.

  Billy leveled me with his frank stare, giving me the sense I frustrated him. “Then you should just say so, Scarlet. Say what you want instead of assuming you’re a bother. You got other options. Don’t let Big Ben here make you think he’s doing you a favor.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Mrs. Winston, still visibly flustered, turned to her son and placed her hands on his big shoulders, pushing him toward the counter. “We have a pie to pick up, and we’ll see y’all later. Good to see you Ben.”

  You too, Ms. Bethany,” Ben said good naturedly. Then, nodding his head once, ground out, “William.”

  Billy sent Ben a piercing look, full of meaning. I couldn’t read it, but it was impossible to miss. Without saying a thing, Billy allowed his momma to steer him to the far end of the diner counter, the farthest point from us in the entire restaurant.

  “Unbelievable,” Ben muttered, watching them go.

  “What?” Tearing my gaze from Mrs. Winston and her second son, I removed my hand from Ben’s before he could feel how damp it was. I needed a deep breath to slow my racing heart, and I looked at the tall boy at my side. He was shaking his head.

  “It’s nothing.” Breathing in through his nose, he sorta rolled his eyes and faced me. “Actually, here’s the truth. I can’t believe Jethro is related to Billy. In fact, I can’t believe Bethany is either.”

  “You mean—”

  “They’re so different, right? Jethro is so friendly, a good guy, you know?”

  Wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans, I lifted an eyebrow at Ben’s statement. Jethro Winston had always been good to me, but everybody knew he stole cars for the Iron Wraiths. Whereas Billy was at home, or working, or at practice, or at school, taking care of his family and managing himself like he was thirty-six, not sixteen.

  How could Ben not see this?

  But Ben made a face, like he could read my thoughts. “There you go again, defending him.”

  “I didn’t say anything.” I slipped back into the booth, careful to move slowly and keep my back from touching the bench seat behind me. I needed another pain pill. It was starting to hurt more than just a throb.

  “You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your pretty face.”

  I ignored the pretty comment for now—admittedly, I’d probably bring out the memory later and let my stomach and heart feel all squishy—and focused on the facts. “You know, Jethro is a criminal, right?” I didn’t feel like I was spilling a state secret. Everybody knew.

  “I’m aware folks accuse him of things, but he’s never been charged. And we’ve been friends since forever and I know him. This is a phase he’ll outgrow. I believe in him. People are their choices, yes, but they’re also how they treat others. Jethro treats everyone with respect, and—”

  “You mean, Jethro treats everyone with respect except
the folks he allegedly steals cars from?”

  Ben chuckled, and the laugh left behind a dazzling grin. “What can I say? He’s my best friend. I’m always going to be on his side.”

  “Fair enough.” I shrugged. I wasn’t going to argue the anti-Jethro perspective with much conviction because I cared about the oldest Winston brother too. He was just one of those people who were hard to dislike. Strange how I could justify Jethro’s bad behavior because I liked him so much. “I understand. It’s good he has a loyal friend in you.”

  “Yeah. He can’t really count on his brother, that’s for sure.” Ben looked over his shoulder to the far counter where the Winston siblings and their momma were. My attention, as though magnetized, followed.

  Billy was sitting on one end, his head tilted toward one of the twins, listening and nodding at something his brother said. The sister, Ashley, was having trouble with the other twin, who’d just poured sugar in his water or soda or whatever it was. She looked exasperated and the kid wouldn’t drop the glass sugar container. Bethany was helping, but between the two ladies it was obvious the redhead was more than a handful.

  Then Billy lifted his head. Frowned. Said something to the misbehaving boy. The redhead ducked, immediately letting go of the sugar. In the next minute, the boy moved to sit on Billy’s other side, his face and posture showing his repentance. The other twin laughed behind his hand.

  “Hey.”

  I flinched, my eyes coming back to Ben. “I’m sorry, what?”

  He studied me, leaning to the left, blocking the Winstons from view. “You know, you and I have a lot in common.”

  “Oh? We do?”

  “Yep. We’re both only children.”

  I frowned, confused. But then, when I realized what he must’ve thought, I smiled instead of correcting him. I wasn’t an only child. My daddy had more kids—all sons as far as I knew—by all sorts of different women. I’d grown up with them in the compound coming and going. I’d taken care of some of them, for a time, until their mommas figured out how things were and moved on.