His grin is immediate, but I can tell he's no more interested in me than I am in him. He looks distracted, if I'm being honest. In fact, I think he's searching for someone as he looks around.
My poor aunt is going to have to wait on all those babies she wants me to pop out. She probably dragged him out here.
"What brings you to Tomahawk?" I ask conversationally.
Population? Three hundred.
"Just moved here."
Correction, three hundred and one.
"Why?" I ask reflexively.
"Lilah!" my aunt scolds.
"It's a reasonable question. Ninety-five percent of the country doesn't even know we exist. The other five percent like to pretend we don't."
Liam laughs under his breath, glancing down at his feet for a minute. "Long story. Your aunt tells me you do some online graphic designing."
I just nod, deciding not to go down that boring road of what we each do for a living.
"Have a seat, Liam. Lilah, you sit next to him," my aunt says without an ounce of subtlety
"It's less painful if you just roll with it and let her think she's winning."
"I can hear you," Aunt Penny grumbles.
Liam's grin only grows as I say, "I know. We can hear you too."
Per the usual, I take a seat by Benson on the forever long picnic table, and he elbows me gently. "What about that cougar?" he asks as Liam sits down on my other side.
"Cougar?" Liam asks, intrigued.
I shrug, not looking at either of them as we start passing plates around. The food is in the center of the table, and you scoop something out of the bowl in front of you and pass it to the next person.
Liam catches onto this pretty quickly, even though it's his first time.
"Big momma cougar with a nasty temper," I finally say.
Cougars aren't that uncommon around here, but it's rare they chase you down … unless there's a damn cub involved.
"What were you doing out in the woods without a gun?" Benson asks, a little bit of an edge to his tone.
I cast him a sidelong glance, but he's practically glaring at me. All you can see on his face are his eyes, most of his nose and a little of his forehead, because … black beard. A lot of black beard.
"I was in the woods with my brothers, who both had a gun."
"Brothers?" Liam asks, and Benson grunts like he's irritated with the interruption.
I face Pretty Boy. "I have two brothers. We're Triplets. I'm the only one who survived the womb with a sense of self-preservation and common sense. Or maybe it's because I was the only one of the three who was blessed with a vagina."
To this, the entire table laughs, except for my aunt, who is groaning and covering her face, shaking her head as though she's embarrassed.
"Are they here?" Liam asks so innocently, bypassing the whole vagina remark.
Idly, I wonder if he's embarrassed to talk about the female anatomy, and grin to myself, filing away that information for future use.
When no one answers him, he asks the question again. "Seriously, are they here?" He looks around the table like he's searching them out.
More laughter ensues, but not from Aunt Penny. "Those heathens aren't allowed over here anymore when I entertain," she tells him, passing a plate along. "Not for a long while. Hopefully they'll grow up."
Aunt Penny will lift the ban soon. She always does. My brothers will be back over here in no time and she knows it. She can't help herself, because she loves them.
I scoop out more of the yams and pass the plate along to Liam.
"We went into the woods looking for the right tree. Those jerks broke my bed-"
"Broke your bed?" Liam interrupts, arching an eyebrow.
I really don't like what he's insinuating, but since he's doing it with a playful smirk that I can see because there's no beard on his pretty face, I let it pass.
"They were standing on my bed to try and steal my ceiling fan after they broke theirs. Our cabins are side by side. They break in. All the time. No boundaries, those two. So, the bed broke under their combined weight, and I planned to make them build me a new one with a tree or two of my choosing."
He blinks at me. But Benson is the one to chuckle, drawing my attention back to him.
"Your bed wasn't strong enough to support two people?" the bearded man asks me, eyes twinkling with humor.
I narrow my eyes on him. "Do you think any guy would make it to the bedroom with my brothers next door?"
He cocks his head like he's thinking about it. "Good point," he concedes.
"I have to travel when I want to get mine."
The humor leaves his eyes, and I grin while tugging his beard a little. He grunts, and I turn back to see Liam smiling broadly at me. Oh, yeah. I probably shouldn't be talking so openly in front of him.
Plates finally stop being passed, and I start eating mine, leaning a little on Benson since I don't know Liam and don't like brushing up against strangers over and over. Plus, I'm really tired. And Benson never minds being leaned on.
Liam's eyes flick between us, probably getting the wrong idea, but I don't really care. I have no desire to pop out little Liam babies.
He glances around at all the beards-literally. Then he reaches up and touches the side of his baby smooth face. I'll be honest, I am tempted to do that too. I can't remember the last time I saw a smooth face on a full grown man.
Well, I can. Three years ago, which was the last time I had sex. The guy was passing through, and I decided to pass through his cabin rental. He didn't mind. It was a really great night.
Sigh.
If I had known it'd be three years' worth of drought after that, it would have been even more fun.
"So, how'd you end up with the cougar if your brothers were out there?" Benson asks, even as Liam continues to glance around, probably wondering if they're in a bearded cult.
"Those pricks left me out there before I realized it. Next thing I know, there was a cub, and a likely momma cougar, and gunshots, and I climbed the nearest tree."
Benson tenses, but the rest of the table snickers. Well, not Aunt Penny.
"I've told you to stop going out into the woods with those two!" she snaps.
They wouldn't have left me alone if they'd known there was a cougar, but I sure as hell don't defend them. They were just trying to get out of sawing a tree down for me.
The chainsaw is messed up, so it was going to have to be done the hard way. No one in this town is stupid enough to lend them anything of theirs, so borrowing a chainsaw was out of the question.
"I'll come build your bed," Benson offers.
He usually ends up fixing whatever they've broken, since they tend to do a shitty job at fixing it themselves. Not that they can't fix it, it's just the fact they love to annoy me to the fullest extent.
I grin while leaning against him a little more. He always smells so good. "Thanks, but I'm going to make them do it. They broke it, after all."
He narrows his eyes at me, and I mimic the motion. He rolls those eyes before looking back down at his plate, and I push my food aside as I finish eating.
"I notice I have a distinct lack of facial hair," Liam says, eyeing the fifteen or so other men. Yes, it's me, Aunt Penny, one baby-smooth skin Liam, and fifteen-ish beards.
"Get used to it," I grumble. "I was fifteen when this started," I add, gesturing to everyone, and once again tugging on Benson's beard, ignoring the sting when he reaches back and pinches my side in punishment. "That was nine years ago."
"When what started?" Liam asks curiously.
"The beards. All the fucking beards," I groan. "It's a town-wide challenge. The first one to cut their beard has to swim naked across the lake during the summer. That lake stays cold. Like really, really cold. Even in the summer." I gesture around like I'm pointing to the current season we're in. "So they all look like mountain men."
Benson chuckles, and I roll my eyes.
"You all grew those for a challenge?" Liam asks, pointing at some of the hideous bushes they wear with pride.
"A true Tomahawk man never backs down from a licensed challenge," my uncle says with an affirmative nod.
A few grunts follow that, also sounding affirmative.
I half expect the men around the table to start beating their chests like gorillas at any moment.
"Licensed challenge?"
No one answers that, because, well, Liam is an outsider, after all.
"They'd rather their faces look too similar to Sasquatch than worry about bothersome things such as ever getting laid again."
"I get laid," Tim pipes up.
"You're married," I deadpan. "And God bless your wife."
They all chuckle.