The Belle and the Beard

by Kate Canterbary

  I didn't need to detail or justify my avoidance of Midge's bedroom. It did not need to be said this morning, not when it was a bright, sunny October day that had started out with the kind of maybe we're asleep, maybe we're awake, maybe we're a little perverted sex that legends were made of and I had this gorgeous pint of tomatoes to drizzle with balsamic glaze. I wasn't popping that bubble with my inability to step into Midge's room without crying.

  "And you're sure you won't let my sister take care of it for you?"

  I'd die. I'd drop dead. "That won't be necessary."

  "She'd love to do it. She used to live in my aunt's house, actually. Up on the North Shore, in Beverly. Aunt Frannie. She moved to New Mexico a couple of years ago and handed the place off to Maggie because she was in between apartments—and other things. Once Frannie left, Magnolia renovated from top to bottom."

  I grabbed the bread when it popped up. "Then she understands how much excitement comes with it."

  "She understands how much of a pain in the ass it is."

  "That too." Once I finished arranging the cheese and tomatoes, and topping it all with the balsamic glaze, I carried the plates to the table. "I hope this is okay. The burrata wasn't doing what I wanted it to but these tomatoes are really nice and—"

  "It's more than okay, Jas." Linden hooked an arm around my waist and yanked me into his lap. He held me tight, his chin on my shoulder and his beard tickling my neck. "You don't have to cook breakfast every day. You think you do but you don't."

  I did. I absolutely did. And I could've done so much more. I should've, really. I should be able to plow through Midge's room and finish the porch and get a job and fix my life. Breakfast was the least I could do.

  "Not touching that one, are you?" he asked.

  I shook my head.

  "Didn't think so." He gave me a final squeeze before easing me off his lap and patting my ass. "Do you want some coffee?"

  There wasn't much of the locally bottled cold brew Linden favored left and he usually went for two or three refills. I shook my head again. "No. I'm all set."

  He stared at me for a beat. "You're sure? You haven't had any?"

  I pushed his plate toward him. "I'm sure this toast will chill if you don't stop talking and start eating."

  I shifted my gaze down, my focus glued to my plate as if the tomatoes would run away if I didn't keep a close eye on them. That was the problem with Linden. Not that tomatoes fled in his presence but that he noticed things. He noticed when I passed on coffee or sidestepped a question about my family or withered a bit at his offerings of assistance. He noticed and I couldn't gather myself up tightly enough to hide from his notice.

  That was how I ended up staring at crumbs and running my palms up and down my thighs, the thighs once again clad in the matte black leggings I used to wear on the rarest of occasions. There was something disconcerting about being comfortable in clothes I'd once deemed inappropriate for my body and safe only for tasks like cleaning the house. I couldn't trust that comfort. Couldn't accept it.

  And Linden noticed that too. He'd cover my hand with his when he caught me rubbing my legs or tugging the hem of my shirt lower. He'd invent reasons to dress me in his flannels or hoodies, and though he always looked at me like he wanted to take a bite, he never pushed an inch more than I could manage, even when I didn't know the exact location of that limit.

  "Well, that was fucking amazing. Again," Linden said, his plate clean. "Here's what I need to know: Do you eat anything else for breakfast? Is it only toast?"

  I lifted a shoulder as I chased a tomato through a drop of balsamic. "Nope. Just toast for me. But I should mention that toast isn't just for breakfast. I'm happy eating it all day."

  "What about French toast?"

  "Not my style. I'm not into sweets as much."

  "Then"—he cocked his head to the side, his brows lowered—"does that mean you don't eat banana bread?"

  "We're back on the banana bread bullshit?"

  "I just want to know if you know what banana bread is supposed to taste like," he said. "Or pecan pie, for that matter."

  This would've been a great moment to get up and busy myself with fixing a cup of coffee, but seeing as that wasn't an option I held up my hands and let them fall. "I've tried both, if that's what you're asking. I don't eat them often."

  Linden leaned back, nodding slowly. "That explains it."

  "If that's what you want to think, I won't stop you."

  "What is it about toast?"

  I shot him a bratty eyebrow. "I have to justify toast to you? Does that seem right?"

  "If you ate toast like a regular person, no, I wouldn't say a thing about it. But you wake up in the morning and say, 'Mmmm, I can't wait to make toast.'"

  He made me sound like a cartoon character and that chafed but not enough to stop me from laughing. "I've always loved toast. Even before I realized I could make it fancy, I loved it. There's just something that makes me so happy about a slice of warm, perfectly browned bread."

  He gave me another slow nod, like he couldn't comprehend this, like he couldn't comprehend me. A chill chased through my shoulders and I had the urge to drop into a small, quiet place or lash out at him for criticizing this one innocent thing of mine—or both, yes, both, I'd lash out and then I'd leave and—

  "I don't know how you do it. It wouldn't occur to me to make all these different things with toast."

  It took me a second to gulp down the old fight-then-flight reflex that surfaced more often than I wanted. "It's fun," I said. "And it's inexpensive because you can stretch the ingredients. It's also better than cooking a whole big meal. Especially when it's just me."

  "It's not just you."

  I glanced at Linden before snatching his plate for washing. He liked to pepper comments like that one into conversation as if they were totally ordinary. As if my life wasn't a million pieces spread out before me and the instruction manual nowhere to be found. As if it wasn't just me and I wasn't making my way all by myself, not anymore.

  "Then it's an extra slice of bread or two. No trouble." I pushed away from the table and filed the plates in the dishwasher. "It's not like replacing a porch with the same tools as the pilgrims used."

  "Look at you, talking about pilgrims. If you stay here much longer, we won't even be able to find the South in you anymore." He came up behind me, brought his hands to my hips. "I bet I'll find it if I look real hard."

  I dropped my chin to my chest and closed my eyes as Linden pushed my hair over one shoulder and dragged his lips along the nape of my neck. "Haven't lost it after all these years away from Georgia. Won't lose it now," I said as defiantly as anyone could in this position. "Even if I do find myself in Plymouth Rock country."

  "I could say something about giving you all the Plymouth Rock you want"—he pressed into me, his shaft hard against my backside—"but I don't think you'd appreciate that comment as much as I'd enjoy making it."

  A soft laugh shook my shoulders. "Lin, you did say it."

  He kissed the nape of my neck then smoothed my hair back into place. He was careful though a bit clumsy about it, obviously unaccustomed to handling long hair. A ripple of tingles moved down my body and I was relieved he couldn't see my face because I knew my smile was delirious.

  "Why don't you show me what you've done next door? I want to see everything you've accomplished."

  "Is that the prerequisite for lending me a nail gun?"

  "Baby, I don't have a nail gun. I have nine kinds of chainsaws and zero nail guns. I just want to see what you've been doing there the past six weeks."

  Though my hair was back to rights, Linden continued running his fingers through the strands, tugging only enough to light up my scalp with the kind of warmth and softness that made me feel loose everywhere. "Then you're not trying to keep me away from power tools?"

  "I am definitely trying to keep you away from power tools. I'm also interested to see how the house is coming along."

  "We could stay
right here instead," I murmured.

  He sighed into my neck. "I love your hair."

  I blew out a breath, my eyes still closed and his shaft still heavy against my ass while those words soaked into me like the sun's rays in winter—strained, filtered, and inarguably true.

  "It's always so soft," he continued. "I don't understand how anything could be this soft."

  I nearly explained my shea butter conditioning mask but stopped myself in time.

  "And you always smell so…lovely," he added.

  Again, the shea butter mask. "Thank you."

  He banded his arms around my torso and gave me a great squeeze, his face pressed to my neck. As he held me, a rumbly growl sounded from his throat, a noise that wasn't nearly as predatory as it was possessive. Like he was deeply satisfied.

  I stepped out of his hold and away from the dishwasher. "What do you want to see first?"

  It hadn't occurred to me that Linden would be critical of my work on Midge's house though when I led him through the front door, a blast of preemptive defensiveness flooded me.

  "Obviously, I'm not an expert when it comes to any of this," I said.

  "Wow, it looks so much better in here," he said, stepping away to travel the length of the living room. "Such an improvement over the bat cave."

  "Well, anything would be an improvement over the bat cave."

  He kneeled down, ran his fingertips over the floor. "The hardwood needs a good refinishing but it's in decent shape. I wasn't sure if there was water damage."

  I twisted my fingers in the hem of my shirt. "I don't think there's any. Not in here."

  He stood and turned to face the wall, his brows pinched. "You painted this room, right?"

  "Yeah, the walls were not pretty. I found a bunch of paint in the basement so I just used the colors Midge already had in the house." He continued staring at the wall with that pinched brow gaze until I snapped, "What's wrong? What's the problem?"

  He gave a quick shake of his head and stepped toward me. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. What else is there to see?"

  I pointed out the freshly painted walls and ceilings in the hall, the spots where I'd pulled up the old carpeting, the rotted cabinets I'd ripped out from the kitchen. Linden murmured and nodded at the right moments, though I was still poised on the edge of a defensive cliff. I could fall off—or jump—at any moment.

  When I led Linden into the little room I'd claimed as my own, he dropped both hands onto my shoulders with a rough groan.

  "What? What's wrong?" I barked.

  "Nothing is wrong, Jas. I just hate that I let you stay here alone—and that was before you did all this work."

  I pointed to the wide windowsill where the cat slept, as he often did when the morning sun shone in. "I'm never quite alone. This guy is always nearby."

  Linden chuckled. "That's funny. I've never seen him as much as I have since you moved in."

  "He's waiting for me to finish the house," I said. "Then he'll go back to his wild woodland life."

  "That cat is as concerned about you and tools as I am." Turning to the opposite wall, he asked, "What kind of paint did you use?"

  "I don't know. Regular paint. Paint from a can. Paint paint."

  "Are you sure you used interior paint?"

  "What do you mean, interior paint?"

  "Okay. Let's go exploring." Linden steered me out of my room and toward the back of the house, moving through the kitchen and down into the basement. He stopped us in front of the long row of cans I'd organized on a shelf near the nonfunctioning washer and dryer. It was right across from the nonfunctioning water heater and the barely functioning electrical panel. Good times.

  With one hand on my shoulder, he gestured to the label on one of the cans. "Exterior paint."

  I wasn't on the defensive cliff anymore. I was in the self-sabotaging swamp again, the place where I could help myself but never did.

  "What—what's the difference? Does it matter? Really? It doesn't. It doesn't, it can't. It looks fine. It looks like paint and it's fine so it doesn't matter. Right? Right? Did I screw the whole thing up? What does that mean? I can paint over it with the right type or—oh my god, please tell me I don't have to tear down the walls. Please, Lin, please tell me I don't have to replace the walls because I didn't notice it was exterior paint."

  He closed both arms around my shoulders and chuckled into my hair. "Jas. Peach. It will be fine. But this is why I'm not putting a nail gun in your hands."

  I followed Linden off the trail, deeper into the woods. After I'd started yelling "Why! Why? Why are you exterior?" at a paint can, Linden had ordered me into his truck.

  With a long gaze at his denim-clad backside, I asked, "Why are you still single?"

  His step faltered for a moment but then he called over his shoulder, "Is that what I am?"

  "Unless there's something you need to tell me, yeah."

  He gave a slight shake of his head. "If I'm single, what are you?"

  Oh, no. No, no, no. We weren't going down the what is this? path. We were already lost in the woods, as far as I could tell, and there was no need to define what was most definitely a fling.

  Since we weren't doing any of that, I replied, "I have been in a codependent relationship with my job since I was a teenager and laboring under the belief that a job would fulfill all my emotional and spiritual needs. That's what I am." I caught up to him, elbowed him in the side. "Back to you. Why are you single? Your fingernails are clean, you only hurl obscenities on selected occasions, and you don't appear to be involved in anything illegal. You're a catch, Lin."

  "Is that all it takes? I never knew." He pulled out his notebook and flipped through the pages for a minute. "Seems like we should be talking about that codependent relationship."

  I groaned. "Haven't we done enough of that?"

  "I would agree if you didn't make it sound like a present-tense type of situation. Thought you quit that, Peach."

  "One does not simply walk away from a career after fifteen-plus years in it. Even if they recently realized they hated parts of their job and maybe-probably engaged in big-time self-sabotage. One does not simply toss all that in the shredder."

  He chuckled, still paging through his book. "Then what's your plan?"

  "I wouldn't call it anything as sophisticated as a plan but I have been talking with a few folks about some consulting projects. Nothing solid. Optics are so important right now. No one wants to risk it at this point."

  "And if that doesn't pan out? What then?"

  "I could always write a tell-all book, which would then require me to become a commentator because you don't spill all the secrets and cross your fingers, hoping to get a chief of staff gig the next day. That kind of reincarnation takes ages."

  "Would that make you happy? The commentator thing?"

  "Probably not, which is why I'd sell Midge's house before I resorted to that."

  He glanced up from the book. "And then what?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. This is a seat-of-the-pants season for me and it's more stressful than I can possibly quantify. That's why I need something else to obsess over, something less tragic and preventable. So, tell me why you're still single."

  "You should've prefaced it with that," he replied, peering up at the tree.

  I paced between the trees for a minute. "It seems like you prefer being alone."

  "That's true," he said. "You know I'm a triplet. I grew up flanked by my brother and sister at all times. Never alone, never. When you're that close to people, you drop into your own world, and that's great because you always have a friend, always have a playmate. But it's also tough because you never learn how to think without another set of voices in your head or how to function outside that separate world. It's true what they say about multiples having a sixth sense with each other but I think it's mostly a result of spending every living minute together."

  "I thought we were talking about how you liked being alone."

  "We were." He shoved
the notebook in his back pocket and pulled out a long belt-looking-thing. He looped it around the trunk and then secured it to his waist and—holy shit—climbed right up the tree.

  "A little warning the next time you do that, okay? I need to prepare myself."

  It was downright hypnotizing to watch the simultaneous flex of his thighs and shoulders, the way his backside tightened in those jeans, how he made this look like the most natural thing in the world.

  "Move over to the left," he called as he unsheathed the knife attached to his belt. "Stay there. Don't move." A dead branch dropped to the forest floor. "One more coming."

  I moved another step to the side and watched as Linden sent a second branch to the floor. He studied the treetop for a moment, shaking several other branches as he shimmied along the trunk.

  I was reminded of meeting Linden, that first day when I'd arrived here from D.C., when he was out in the front yard. I never would've guessed that burly bear of a man could climb trees like a grizzly. I never would've guessed I'd invent reasons to spend time with him or look forward to our walks in the woods. I never would've guessed it would be my rude, mansplainy neighbor, the one who said not two hours ago that I couldn't be trusted with paint, to make me feel like I belonged here. Like I belonged with him.

  "Coming down," he called.

  He walked backward down the trunk, the belt sliding with him along the bark. It looked remarkably easy, the same way home renovation shows—which never talked about separate paint for interior and exterior—made everything seem remarkably easy. Which meant it was far more difficult than I could comprehend.

  "So, you just do that?" I asked when he was back on the ground. "You just…climb the tree."

  "I just climb the tree."

  I motioned to the belt as he pulled it from around the tree. "Simple as that."

  He nodded. "I can't explain it any other way."

  I glanced at the tree and the spot where he'd removed the branches. It was really high up there. "You didn't even wear a helmet or anything."

  He slapped the trunk. "This old girl? No need. Just a quick touch-up, no reason to pull out all the equipment."