Plus One (Pig & Barley Book 3)

by Mae Wood

  “What does that mean?”

  “I can’t really explain it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I approached the large, old and well cared for Tudor house with some trepidation. The house looked formal and imposing. And I was in jeans and sneakers. In my quietness, Bert took my hand in his.

  “Okay, Fischer’s not a bitch. She’s just going to try to exact revenge for me being kinda a hard-ass with some of her boyfriends.”

  “So, embarrassing stories of the adventures of Bubs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Excellent,” I said, releasing our hands and drumming my steepled fingers together.

  Bert pushed through the front door with a laugh. “Is that your Mr. Burns impersonation?”

  I nodded. “You like?”

  He shook his head in response. “Well, you and Fischer will either be two peas in a pod or oil and water. Only one way to find out.”

  The cacophony of happiness spilled out the open door. “Care to make a wager?” I asked.

  “No. In this case, it’s best to let nature take its course. Truly, thanks for coming. You didn’t have to, but I’m glad you did. Let’s get you a glass of wine. It won’t be Drachenfutter. And it probably won’t be served in the right glass.”

  “Any fermented grape will be appreciated.”

  “It might be pink and have a baked good on the label.”

  Now I knew he was teasing me. No way was he serving me that. “Oh, the good stuff. Gimme,” I deadpanned.

  We stepped into the open foyer. A room full of heads in the living room swiveled toward us, unabashedly assessing me. I looked to each one in turn as Bert introduced me to his family with a cursory, “This is Drennan. I owe her a glass of wine.”

  He pressed me forward with a firm hand on the small of my back but my feet were frozen to the ground. The bartender was there. The woman bartender at Pig and Barley. The one who I’d quite obviously asked where Bert was. She’s his sister? She didn’t say that. I felt my cheeks flush. Maybe she doesn’t remember me. Oh, hell, who am I kidding. She knows exactly who I am. Both as the wine rep and now her brother’s girlfriend.

  With a glass of a crisp Oregon Pinot Gris in hand, I settled down at the kitchen table with sweet potato pie in front of me and Bert at my side. His sisters sat opposite us, clearly enjoying the novelty of this situation. Both were gracious and charming, but the overly wide grins gave away the game. The game that I had zero interest in playing.

  “Well, this has been fun, but I didn’t come for pie or wine,” I said, licking my fork clean before setting it on my scraped plate.

  “No?” asked Molly, surprised by my forwardness

  “Absolutely not. I came for Bubs’s secrets. Spill.”

  His sisters looked at each other and laughed. Bert smiled over a pint of beer. “Do your worst,” he challenged them.

  And out they came, stories of Bert, er, Bubs, and his three sisters. Stalking them one year in a ninja costume while they trick or treated in order to raid their candy bags at random intervals. Ruining the Tooth Fairy for Fischer because he was upset that his parents hadn’t let him get his driver’s license the minute he turned sixteen. Tailing Molly on her first date to the movies, even though he claimed that it was purely coincidental that he was at the same showing of Titanic, and sitting two rows behind her. The fate of their childhood cat, Pickles, who Bert used to fly around the house, pretending the cat was a fighter plane from Top Gun. Bert and Trip trying to ride their bikes downtown for milkshakes at age nine and how they’d made it to Overton Park before being stopped by police.

  “My only experience in the back of a police car,” Bert confessed quietly.

  “Hello,” called a woman’s voice.

  “Now all three of the Furies are here. Good times ahead. I’m getting a refill. You want one?” he asked me.

  I looked at my glass, wondering if going for number three was the best idea with his family around.

  “Dude,” said Fischer. “Get her a pale ale. I want her thoughts.”

  “Buttercup,” replied Bert, the endearment earning a sneer on his baby sister’s face, “You and the beer. Drennan, would you like some of my sister’s home brew?”

  And what could I say, but “Absolutely”?

  “No,” quickly supplied a third statuesque dark haired beauty that entered the room. “The word of the day is indubitably. It is Thanksgiving, after all. Hi, I’m Rosemary.”

  “Drennan, Rosemary. Rosemary, Drennan,” Bert offered. “And this,” he said, gesturing to the tall man lingering behind Rosemary in a sport coat and khakis, “is the only man I know whose childhood nickname is worse than mine. Let me introduce you to Bruiser.”

  “Hi, please call me Brice,” he said, tossing his tweed jacket on a stool at the island and rolling up his light blue shirtsleeves.

  “Bruiser?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Brice Richards Sumner, the fifth,” said Rosemary. I tried not to laugh. Does she call him Bruiser? Like in bed? Oh, dear God. “And yes,” she continued. “Bruiser is hysterically funny. I mean, he looks like a tennis player, not an offensive lineman.”

  “As always, you are so kind, my love. Fischer, what’d you bring to share?”

  “Pale ale, and I’ll bring you one for outing you on the name, Bruiser,” said Bert as he headed to the garage. For a second I panicked. I was going to be alone with his sisters for the first time. He’d warned me. They’d been nice enough, but I didn’t think the Furies were known for their kindness.

  “So, how long have you been dating Bubs?” Rosemary wasted no time.

  “A little bit now,” I offered.

  “Yeah, since when? End of August? Early September? It’s been a while,” Fischer filled in.

  “You knew?” squealed Molly and Rosemary in unison. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. She’s going to blab. The panic rose and lodged high in my chest. Please, I begged the universe. Please please please let her be cool.

  “Not exactly, but I was working the bar one night and she was in with some friends and asked after him. I thought she was one of his fans. Sorry, Drennan. And I’ve seen her in a few other times.” She stopped talking and took a sip from her pint glass. An angel. I exhaled. Fischer is an angel. But now it was my turn to play cool.

  “No worries. I know he’s got fans,” I said with a snort, thinking of the little fan club outing I’d organized.

  “Okay, we getting the evening started? Ready to go to the attic?” Bert appeared with a slender keg hoisted on his shoulder with Molly’s husband Jason trailing behind him with a stack of pint glasses.

  “Attic?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s movie time. Please say that you don’t have to leave, Drennan. I just got here,” pouted Rosemary.

  “Oh, shit. I meant to tell you. So, we always watch a movie after Thanksgiving dinner. In the attic there’s a TV room. It was the playroom when we were growing up,” explained Bert.

  “And this year, I’m the sober driver! Whoo hoo!” cried Molly with a feigned excitement, complete with a giant grin and some cheerleader style fist pumps.

  I followed the crowd up a narrow back staircase into a finished attic that hadn’t been decorated since the mid-nineties, judging by the hunter green walls, matching floral chintz sofas, two worn brown leather recliners, and a giant big screen TV. The walls were lined with swim trophies and medals hanging from nails.

  “Are these yours?” I asked Bert, staring at the awards.

  “He wishes they all were. Molly’s actually the best swimmer in the family,” said Fischer.

  “True. I swam at Texas. Hook ’em horns,” she said, throwing a longhorn gesture with her fingers. “Even though I’m a whale now, I’m an orca.”

  “Drennan swims,” said Bert, pouring a round of beers.

  “Not like the Forsythe family,” I quickly corrected him. “I swam in high school and I still do it for exercise but I was never good.”

  “Whatever, you did great at the meet,” said
Bert.

  “Y’all are swimming together?” asked Rosemary. “Going to meets together? Who are you and what did you do to my big brother?”

  “Whoa, whoa. If y’all want to swim with me, feel free. Five thirty. Downtown Y. But don’t pick on Drennan because you’re jealous that I can kick Molly’s ass in the water right now.”

  We all settled down with our beers in hand while Molly trundled off for a bathroom break before the movie started. Jason claimed the recliners for him and Molly, and when Rosemary and Bruiser picked a sofa, Bert and I sat on the other.

  “Hmm. No. I’m not sitting with either pair of lovebirds. Move it, Bubs,” Fischer said, shoving him off and waving in the direction of Rosemary. “Now, Rosie, you come over here. We’ll have a girl’s couch and a boy’s couch. This is not a kissing movie.”

  “What are we watching?” I asked, pushing up against the arm of the sofa, trying to give the two Forsythe girls as much space as possible.

  “The Princess Bride,” all four Forsythes said in unison.

  “Cheers,” said Bruiser, throwing me a crooked smile that told me he found this whole thing as strangely ridiculous as I did.

  “Glad to have you here with me on this journey back through time to the early nineties Forsythe Family Thanksgiving, complete with VHS,” said Jason, acknowledging me and Bruiser with a raised glass. In a show of solidarity, Bruiser and I lifted our glasses and I took my first sip of Fischer’s beer.

  I turned to her. “You made this?”

  “Yeah, it’s an interest of mine,” she said.

  “Along with embroidery, croquet, and Elizabethan theater,” Bert filled in, as he fiddled with the old VHS player. “My sister, the Renaissance woman.”

  “Color me impressed,” I said.

  “Oh, hey,” said Bert, tossing a Ziploc on the coffee table at my feet. “Rodents of unusual size jerky.”

  “Seriously?” asked Jason, “I mean, it’s fun for you to make, no doubt, but y’all do realize you are one step away from attending some fan-con in full costumes, right? This some sort of spiced beef?” He held it to his nose before quickly tossing it back on the table. “Dude, that’s straight up swamp.”

  “I didn’t make it. And I wasn’t kidding. Nutria. Those giant swamp rats. Drennan can vouch for it,” Bert said, picking up a desiccated slice and shoving the end in his mouth.

  “Yeah, we got it from this Cajun guy who was having a house party,” I said.

  “He’s taking her to house parties?” I overheard Rosemary whisper to Fischer, and it stung. Was I not good enough to hang out with Bert? But I let it go because I’d probably never see his sisters again, so their opinions really didn’t matter.

  And soon the movie began. The film was wonky in places. The VHS tape showing its age, I guessed.

  “Forgive the quality,” Rosemary said by way of explanation in a whisper to me. “I got this tape for my birthday and since it was the only movie we all could agree on, we watched the stew out of it. Bubs can quote entire passages.”

  “Hey, don’t ruin my party trick,” Bert called from the boy sofa.

  “I get it,” I told Rosemary quietly. “I’m an only child, but my cousin Kenzie grew up next door to me. We have our things, too. ’NSYNC, mainly.”

  “Oh, Fischer had a huge crush on JT. She thought she was being all secret about it, which made it even better.”

  “Either watch the movie or play twenty questions elsewhere,” Fischer stage whispered. “We can all hear you and the rolling down the hill scene is coming up.”

  “Oh, Fischie, Fischie,” Molly teased. “Are you going to reenact that this year?”

  Bert nearly choked on his beer. “I’d totally forgotten!” His eyes grew wide with mirth. “Y’all. So before Fischer’s JT crush, she was all about Westley.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “who isn’t?”

  “No, no. This is good,” he said, picking up steam. “So, she wanted to be Princess Buttercup.”

  “I cannot believe you’re doing this to me. I’ve been so good. Now I’m off to find baby pictures.” Fischer pushed up from the sofa and stalked down the stairs.

  “Anyway, so she was around six and wore this long white dress and had Mom make her a flower crown and she wore it constantly. And then when Trip came home from school that summer, he was over here a lot hanging out with me. We were what? Fifteen? We couldn’t drive, yet. Anyway, she decided that Trip had to play Westley. She insisted that he call her Buttercup and answer her with ‘As you wish.’” Tears were forming around his eyes. “But the best bit was the hill roll.”

  “Oh my God. I’m either going to pee myself or go into labor. Or maybe both,” said Molly, her full belly bouncing with her laugher. “We were at the farmhouse for a party. Fourth of July, I think. She was wearing the costume. Went to the top of a hill and rolled down, screaming just like Buttercup did in the movie.”

  “And rolled right into a big cow patty,” shouted Bert. “Huge.” He held his hands wide. “And fresh.”

  “He’s not exaggerating. Like bovine diarrhea,” said Rosemary with a cringe. “It was awful. Dad made her get in the pond and strip off her clothes. And then Mom kept gagging while she hosed her off.”

  “Pretty sure Mom puked,” said Molly.

  “Kids, kids,” said Jason. “You’re scaring the new girl. And Bruiser over there can still escape.”

  “Nope. Heard about the plague that descended on their drive back from Disney World. I’m still here. A little cow poop isn’t going to scare me off,” said Bruiser.

  “Again, bovine diarrhea,” said Molly. “Mom had to use a Q-tip to get it out of her ears.”

  My stomach lurched at the thought.

  “Oh, good, you’re at the Q-tip portion of the story,” replied Fischer from the doorway with a couple of scrapbooks tucked under her arm. Her face dared anyone to mess with her. “So let’s hit play while I sit next to Drennan and show her just how cute Bubs was as a baby.”

  Bert was not cute as a baby. Scrawny and gangly with an oversized head. Then he skipped over the chubby baby stage and landed in Shar-pei territory.

  “Note the four chins,” Fischer again stage whispered over the movie while pointing at an album.

  I looked at Bert and tried to smile sweetly, tried to contain my laughter. But it was an impossibility. And for all of the ways that Fischer could have embarrassed Bert after telling the Fourth of July story, she went with one that didn’t embarrass me. Regardless of how my time with Bert ended, I hoped I was half as cool as Fischer.

  “Well done, you,” he said, tucking me into his side as we walked to his car after the movie ended and we said our good-byes to his family.

  “Dad, um, hello,” said Grady, hopping down the wide front steps.

  “Oh, hey. What’s up?” said Bert, backing away from me.

  Grady rolled his eyes. This was only the third time we’d crossed paths and though we’d gotten along fine, no one likes to see a parent getting frisky.

  “Can you take me to Mom’s?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you going to stay here? And isn’t she in Connecticut?” Bert responded.

  “No offense, but it’s only nine and Mimi is going to try to make me go to sleep now with the little kids. And Mom’s here. Had dinner with her boyfriend.”

  “Huh. She didn’t tell me,” said Bert.

  “Y’all need to get your schedules straight.”

  ***

  I caught Bert’s eyes trailing over me and there was no doubt in my mind that Grady was about to be unceremoniously dropped off at his mom’s house and I was about to get seriously fucked.

  As soon as Grady jumped out of the car at his mom’s driveway, Bert’s hand found my thigh and trailed his fingers upwards to graze my sensitive parts.

  “Yeah,” he exhaled.

  “Yeah.” I choked out as my pulse began to pound in my temples.

  No other words passed between us as he determinedly drove to his house—the tension crackling between us obs
curing the drone of news radio. With single-minded focus we made it to his front porch, but then he broke. All of the fun and games of earlier gave way.

  His eyes were unguarded and open. Raw. Examining me with an intense curiosity. Like he couldn’t believe I was real. He cupped the side of my face with his hand and kissed my forehead. The breath I didn’t know I’d been holding whooshed out of me. The world fell away.

  He unlocked the door and ushered me inside, both of us still quiet. The harsh slam of the door startled me. “You. Naked,” he breathed.

  His eyes still held me. Capturing my entire being.

  I’d read about men having ravenous looks, but before that moment, I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand that need coupled with electricity looked like nothing else. Felt like nothing else. To be seen, to be truly seen by another and wanted—the pounding pulse in my head moved to my chest and then to my groin where I felt my panties dampen.

  “Now.” Before I could react to his words, his hands took hold of the hem of my cream sweater and heaved it over my head. It landed on the floor, his face in my cleavage and his hands on the fly of my jeans.

  I toed off my shoes, the only contribution I could make at being stripped by him. He pushed the jeans to my feet and I stepped out of them. His hands went to the placket of his shirt and began to finger the buttons. I wanted to help. I wanted my fingers to be the ones shedding the clothes from him, but I couldn’t. I was caught up in him. Caught up in us. All I could do was stand there in my bra and panties, exposed before him like never before.

  My eyes fell on his tattoos. Intricate graffiti on Renaissance marble. Ganesh stared at me. His six arms outstretched. The remover of obstacles. Obstacles didn’t concern me. We didn’t have obstacles. We had oceans of time and space that couldn’t be crossed. Shiva, the god of destruction and regeneration, should have graced him instead. A warning to me that I was going to be torn down until nothing was left and would have to be built again from the rubble.

  As the heaviness sank into my soul, he lifted me without a word and carried me down the long hallway of his house. I landed in the middle of his soft bed, bouncing some before I sank into the plush white duvet. Bed sex? We hadn’t done that since Mississippi. We’d had sex at his place, but it was generally on the sofa or on the floor by the sofa while we binged on TV. Or against a wall. Or in the shower. The shower. A thrill ran down my spine at the thought. But his bed, his bed had only been for sleep.