Plus One (Pig & Barley Book 3)

by Mae Wood

  “I’ll be ready.”

  He matched my pace for a few more minutes before growing impatient and jumping to the front of the pack to pick up the cadence for the last few miles of our long ride.

  Friday rolled around and I was still undeniably in a funk. Grady had decided he wanted to go skiing with his mom for Christmas, so for the first time in eighteen years I was on my own. Thoughts of showing up on Drennan’s doorstep in some lush California vineyard occasionally crossed my mind, but I quickly cast them aside as air castles.

  We’d kept texting during her drive. She even called me laughing when the station she was streaming started playing “Three Little Birds.” But there hadn’t been any talk of a future. It was only light news reports between us. Me of thinking of a post-holidays winter cocktail menu, Grady going to the winter dance with his girlfriend Julia who I’d finally met and seemed nice enough, and my upcoming biking weekend with the boys. From her, musings about podcasts she was streaming and pictures from her cross country drive. The most emotion I got from her was frustration that their East Coast representative had quit without notice and as soon as she got home, she was flying to a few wine events. I could tell she was tired, but her determination was there and I admired it.

  I knew she’d stepped away from the business for a few years and I couldn’t blame her. Grief is a funny thing. I’d seen it first hand with Trip in the past year. His normal laid-back attitude was gone, replaced with a protectiveness over his father and Marisa. I wasn’t sure how much was him becoming a married man or an expectant father or losing his mom. I just knew that the guy who loved women and weed was gone.

  I didn’t know the Drennan of before the crash. But I knew who she was now and I liked that woman more than I wanted to admit.

  ***

  The great thing about your best friend having a little plane is that the six-hour drive from one side of the great state of Tennessee to the other was cut to about an hour. That and, not having to worry about a roadblock with a drug sniffing dog finding the gallon bag of Sid’s homegrown we’d packed. We bullshitted the entire time, talking a lot without saying anything. When we got to Frank’s place, we were in time for drinks and dinner.

  Frank was from Trip’s world, not mine. Nice guy. Really passionate about local foods, which I’d known. His family farm wasn’t a farm at all, but a luxury resort that grew much of its own food and was well known in foodie circles. He was also a bike nut, but this was the first time I’d made the cut for an invitation to ride.

  We met at his old stone farmhouse for dinner. While the outside was rustic, it looked like one of Rosemary’s favorite house magazines inside. Frank’s wife and kids were in New York shopping for the holidays, so he’d decided to fill the house with a slew of guys who liked to bike. About two-dozen men from all over the United States who lived to cycle. Everyone was connected to Frank closer than I was, but since he and Trip had roomed together sophomore year at Brown, when a spot opened up, I was in.

  To kick off festivities, Frank tapped a keg of the farm’s on-property brewed saison and pulled out a deck of cards. Everyone took turns grabbing a beer and pulling a card from the deck. I did the same but I wasn’t sure what was going on. It reminded me of the Sorting Hat from the Harry Potter stories I’d read Grady. Suddenly there was a whoop from Lucas, a patent attorney from Miami who we’d met at the airport. “Aces still high, right?” He looked around the room and once assured his audience was watching, held the card aloft. “Ace of spades. Double bed in the downstairs guest room.”

  Five star resort and I end up sleeping in a little girl’s room on a twin bed decorated in butterflies. Life is funny. Trip drew a three of diamonds and was on an air mattress in the sunroom. Life is even funnier.

  Dinner was a heavy and catered affair from the farm’s improbably qualified chef. I was disappointed that we weren’t going to be dining at the renowned restaurant, but Frank explained it was packed for the weekend. There was a Food & Wine event. At the mention of Drennan’s former employer, my glass of saison paused inches from my mouth.

  “You okay?” asked the veterinarian seated next to me, who stopped his chat about wanting to star gaze and wondering if the farm had any telescopes.

  I shook my head to clear it. “Yeah. Didn’t realize the farm was filled with Food & Wine folks.” Failing to mention that some probably knew my now ex-girlfriend.

  “Don’t worry about him,” called Trip from where he was pouring beers. “He’s just mopey because his girlfriend moved away.”

  “Sorry, dude,” the guy offered before sopping up the remnants of the rich beef stew in his bowl with the crusty bread.

  “No worries.”

  I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and pulled it out.

  Drennan Wine Rep: Trying to figure out how to sneak out of this boozy schmooze fest and go to sleep. I’m a wreck. Three flights to get here.

  Me: Want me to call back with an “emergency”?

  Drennan Wine Rep: Nah. I’m at a resort so I can’t really escape anywhere.

  No. Surely not. The Fates wouldn’t be that kind.

  “Hey, Frank, what kind of thing is Food & Wine having here?”

  “It’s Wine Geek Weekend. Their top sommelier is here.”

  If stranger things have happened, they haven’t happened to me.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but can I find out if a Drennan McCutcheon is here?”

  “Sure.” He picked up his phone and punched a few numbers.

  “Hey, Charity, is there a Drennan,” he paused, placing his hand over the phone. “I’m sorry the last name again?”

  “McCutcheon,” I repeated.

  He parroted it back in the phone and quickly said good-bye.

  “Yes, she’s here.”

  “Thanks.”

  I set my beer down and walked out the door into the night. I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but like hell if I was going to stay away.

  Me: No escape possible? You sure about that?

  Drennan Wine Rep: In the mountains near North Carolina. Nothing for miles.

  Me: Is that wine fucker from the NYT there?

  Drennan Wine Rep: Lancaster? Yes.

  That response made my mind up. She wasn’t mine anymore, if she ever was, but she sure as hell wasn’t his.

  I made my way to the tents that had been set up on the lawn in front of the storybook red barn. No other place for a wine event than that. The night was chilly and I hadn’t packed the liner for my Barbour jacket. But as soon as I pushed through the clear plastic door, the heat from the party overwhelmed me. The place was a zoo of wine snobs. Sport coats, bow ties, natty pocket squares, shined oxfords paired with pulled together women in fashionable outfits. None of them dressed for a weekend at a farm.

  Tables glittering with discarded wineglasses of every shape and size. I looked down at my worn jeans and Chucks and laughed. Surely, this was some John Hughes movie and I was Duckie. Well, if I was going to get shot down by the cool kids, I was going for it. I took a breath and started winding my way through the crowd.

  Drennan stood in profile, off in a corner texting with one hand and a glass of wine in the other. My phone buzzed. I palmed it, thinking about being playful and texting back before realizing that this wasn’t a game. This wasn’t ever a game.

  I stopped a step away from her. She tucked her phone into her tiny purse and looked around the room. When she saw me, her eyes widened and the wineglass bobbled in her hand. I reached for the glass, but she dropped it on the soft earth and reached for me.

  “How, what, why” she kept repeating, as I wrapped myself around her, pulling her into my center.

  I kissed the top of her head, and rocked us back and forth, telling her that the bike trip was here and asking why didn’t she tell me she was coming to Tennessee. “Because Memphis is six hours away. Six hours. I looked it up and it was so far to ask you, and we’d just said good-bye and I couldn’t do it again.”

  “We’re not doing it again. W
e’re not,” I said.

  She laughed, the crown of her head jumping to tap the underside of my chin. “Rough couple of weeks?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t a real question, but just words to move us forward.

  “Better now. So much better now. Wanna get out of here?”

  “Christ, yes.”

  I reluctantly let her go but grabbed her hand. She squeezed mine back and we stuck to the edges of the party to make our escape.

  Once outside, the cold air braced me, reminding me that this was reality. Drennan was with me. Here, at Blackberry Farm.

  “I’m staying at the farmhouse with a bunch of guys.”

  She popped up on her toes for a kiss. No hesitancy. No coyness. No caution. Drennan exactly as I knew her. I slanted my mouth over hers, pressing her into me, and walking us backward to the barn. In the darkness up against the well-tended red wood, we made out. Kissing and groping and reveling in our nearness.

  “Your room. Now,” I spat out as her hands made their way down the back of my pants to squeeze my bare ass.

  “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

  The light bluegrass music filtered out from the tent. My breath puffed smoke-like into the starry night.

  “One of the women here told me that if you walk far enough into the pastures on a clear night you can see the Milky Way.”

  I held her hand tighter, feeling the sinew and bones that made her but didn’t hold her. She was as expansive as the sky. My constant companion, even if she didn’t realize it.

  “Wanna go for a walk?” I asked.

  “Do you mind?” she asked.

  I pressed her hand to my lips in response. Whatever she wanted, ghosts, gumbo, or galaxies, it was hers.

  We meandered around the farm, nabbing a blanket off a cabin’s front porch to wrap around her shoulders, before winding our way to the farmhouse where the bike guys were reliving frat life, based upon the wafting pot smoke, occasional chants of “chug chug,” and name calling.

  “So, my weekend here is a little different from yours,” I said. “These are the guys I’m riding with.”

  “This is a much better party. Can we join?”

  “Uhm, that’s a negative, Batman,” I said.

  “Why not? Seems like fun.”

  “It’s a sausage fest. An intentional sausage fest. Middle aged boys gone wild weekend. No wives. No kids. And especially no girlfriends.” I felt her stiffen slightly at my words. “Yeah, that’s still happening. We’re happening.”

  I tugged her toward the big oak that stood just beyond the arc of light from the farmhouse’s front porch.

  “You know, this blanket is big enough for two,” she said, offering me more than the warmth of the soft tartan wool.

  “Just a little longer. We’ll get there. We’ll get there, I swear, but honest to God I am happy right now.”

  “Me, too,” she said, pulling her body flush to mine, once again tucking her head under my chin and resting into my chest. The heat of her breath swept across my neck, the contrast with the cool mountain night sending shivers down my spine and filing my body with a lightness.

  I began to sway in a slow dance, the noise in the background and the park like surroundings transporting me back in time to campus winter parties in college. But making out with girls then never felt like this.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Drennan

  My feet followed his lead, dancing through the dry grass covered in dew, sending cool drops onto the tops of my feet that were exposed in my wedge heels. The stars peeked through the branches of the large oak that hung over our heads, the last of its leaves swaying in the soft breeze. The raucous sounds from the farmhouse being drowned out by the thrum of his heart and the rush of my breath scuffling along his canvas field coat.

  “Sit down,” he said, his voice barely a whisper but leaving no room for argument.

  Finally, the blanket was going to be put to its rightful use rather than spend the night as my fashion accessory. I began to shrug the blanket off my shoulders.

  “You’ll probably want that. Now, sit,” he said.

  I looked into his eyes, not seeing the color in the grayscale of the night. “Go on,” he encouraged. And I did.

  Surprisingly, my bottom hit a piece of wood. “Let me lift you,” he said and I was placed on a swing suspended from a large branch of the ancient oak. His hands wrapped around the thick cords of rope and pulled back, pulling me into the air. At the apex, when I thought he was going to release me into the night air, he held off. “You’ll come back to me?”

  And I knew I would. Fate. God. Luck. The beating of a butterfly’s wings in Africa. Why and how were gone. My language was one of confidence borne of an innate knowing. This will work. This is happening. This is.

  “Yes,” I said with a nod. And he let me go. The rushing air freezing my cheeks, nose and ears. My body light as I sailed through the sky.

  ***

  Bundled under a down duvet, I woke up damp and sweaty, Bert’s body twisted around mine. The cuddling that I’d found so surprising in September was such a necessary part of my life that the past two weeks felt like an eternity.

  In my childhood brass double bed, with my father down the hall and our dog Bubba’s deep even breathing filling the quiet house along with the ticking from the grandfather clock in the foyer. I missed him. Missed his kindness and warmth and cuddles.

  That was my life, correction that is my life. Just shy of twenty-seven and living with my dad, next door to my cousin and her family. This, this warmth, this ludicrously warm comfort, this isn’t real. No matter how our souls speak, I’m a realist. He has a restaurant. And a child. In Memphis. I have a business in California. Both of us tethered to the earth in two very different places.

  Even if we could come up with a plan, what would it look like? Planes? FaceTime? Text messages? Not this.

  “Hey. Stay here,” he said sleepily, tucking me in closer to him so that my ass bumped against his morning wood. “Just be. Let’s just be, okay?”

  “Don’t you have a bike ride?”

  “Fuck those guys. They’d be here instead, if they could.”

  “Shouldn’t you at least text and let them know you’re alive?”

  “Seriously, fuck ’em.” And with that I was swept to my back as he hovered his body over me, resting his chin in the flattened valley of my cleavage. “Stay here with me. I’m planting a flag.” His cheeks scratched at my soft skin as he pressed my breasts together from the sides and nuzzled in. “Signing my name on the register,” came his next muffled words. “Mine. Please say you’re mine.”

  The word of love had never passed either of our lips. I didn’t need it. I’d heard those professions before. From a high school boyfriend to the trader with a penchant for coke and a fondness for my ass.

  I’d even said them back a time or two.

  But they’d never felt like this.

  I wanted to recant those words. Pull them out of my history and erase them so that they equated with the nothingness that they meant.

  But the words were stuck in my throat, weighed down by the heaviness of the emotions passing between us. I nodded and lifted up to kiss his forehead. His dark hair, slick and cool against my lips. His hands dropped from my sides and moved to frame my face, his face angled in front of mine, our eyes fixed on the other’s and I drowned in the rich caramel and chocolate.

  Gorged myself on the deliciousness of this man, this way with him. I spread my legs out and welcomed him. Without a word, he slowly pushed in, pushing out a breath in me.

  My mind wandered to the last time I’d had sex in a missionary position in a bed. And I couldn’t place it. It seemed too prosaic. Too bourgeois. Too boring. But I was damned wrong. Just slow and intimate, our bodies melting and melding and the world around us disappearing.

  Lazy and satisfied, I stood in the shower on my rubber legs. “Whoa,” he said, grabbing me at the waist as the tiles spun in front of my eyes.

  I looked at him and
the proud smile he wore. “Yeah, you did this to me.” Steady on my feet again, he began to bathe me. Washing me with a thick white cotton cloth and a heavenly jasmine scented creamy soap, the smile at his mouth crept to his eyes, crinkling them in the corners. It wasn’t a smile for anyone. It wasn’t a smile to show. It was a smile that radiated from deep inside. And I was certain I was returning one myself.

  And then the unexpected. A giggle burst through the surface. I was damn bubbling with happiness. With gratefulness. With joy.

  “What?” he asked, his grin beginning to fall with self-consciousness.

  “I’m just so happy,” I confessed.

  And his face lit up even more than before.

  “Me, too. Me, too. So God damned happy.” Once again pulling me into his body and resting his chin on the top of my head, our physical presences mimicking the way we fit together.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Bert

  While it might technically be classified as a walk of shame, there was nothing but pride as I crunched my way through frosted dead grass and fall leaves to the farmhouse. I tucked my hands in my pockets to ward off the morning chill. Rounding the pond, I paused and surveyed the peaceful farm. The Food & Wine crowd and the cyclists sleeping off the night before. Because it is a working farm, in addition to being a crazy fancy resort, I saw a Carhart-clad man trudge toward the dairy barn. Milking the sheep, I guessed. I had to get some of their cheese before I left. What would Drennan pair it with? Something red and full bodied? Or something more temperate in its structure?