Grin and Beard It(49)

“Except I don’t have a girl, so there’s no one I’d be cheating on.” Beau stuffed his hands in his back pockets and rocked on his feet. “So if I were faced with an unattached Sienna Diaz, I would totally—”

“Careful, Beau. I don’t think that’s a sentence you want to finish,” Roscoe warned, then shot me a commiserating glance.

Beau frowned, but didn’t finish the thought. Thank goodness. I didn’t feel much like teaching him a lesson. I was tired. And, if I were being honest with myself, I missed Sienna even though she was lost to me.

But the point Beau had inadvertently raised was a good one. If Sienna and I had continued seeing each other, I would’ve had to deal with a lot more Beaus and a lot more dirty lists.

I opened the front door and motioned for everyone to file in, ignoring Cletus’s frown of concern as he passed and Beau’s searching glare. I hesitated on the porch, listening to Ashley greet my brothers and Jess as they disappeared inside.

The thought of more questions from my family, because I knew they were coming, made my stomach turn sour. And bitter. Truth was, I didn’t feel much like having Duane’s blueberry pancakes.

So for the first time in a long time, offering no explanation or excuse, I left my family and went for a drive.



“You hiding out here?”

I turned, finding Claire hovering at the edge of her gazebo. I’d been meaning to fix several of the rotten deck planks for months. Leaving my family to their breakfast, I drove into Knoxville for parts, where my neighbors wouldn’t question me, then to Claire’s house.

“Maybe.” I gave her a small smile. “Or maybe I was just hoping you’d come find me.”

She rolled her eyes and crossed the deck to stand next to me against the railing. “Do you ever turn it off, Jet? Doesn’t it get tiring sometimes?”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve known you . . . hell, I guess going on twenty-five years now. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen you not be charming.”

I twisted my lips to the side, considering my friend. “You remember me when you were three?”

“Yes, I do. You were eight, and you were trying to charm me out of an ice cream cone.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” she answered simply, her red eyebrows arching over challenging blue eyes. “And maybe that’s why we’re still friends now.”

“Because you’re an ice cream hoarder?” I teased, liking to tease her. She was fun to tease because she didn’t take any shit. Not from me, not from anyone.

“Don’t be stupid.” She smacked my shoulder and laughed. “You know what I meant. Maybe we’re still friends ’cause I don’t go around sharing my ice cream with you every time you bat those big pretty eyes. So, what I’m asking is, don’t you ever get tired of charming the pants off people? Don’t you ever want to just . . .” She cast her eyes around the gazebo, then lifted her face to the sky. “Don’t you ever want to just be free to be yourself?”

I studied her upturned face, warmed by afternoon sunshine, and I wished—not for the first time—I wanted Claire as more than a friend. I wished I felt just a fraction of the draw with Claire that I’d felt with Sienna. Life would be so much easier if Claire and I were married. At first, after Ben died and I cleaned up my act, I think everyone expected it.

“You know,” Claire sighed, her smile small, “I’m not always going to be here. One day you’re going to have to find a new place to hide on Sundays.”

“I met someone,” I said, the words spoken before I knew I was going to say them.

She grinned, but didn’t look at me, keeping her eyes on the sky. “Did you?”

I could tell by her tone she’d already heard the gossip. I frowned, frustrated all over again.

“It’s over.”

Now she looked at me. “Is it?”

I nodded once.

It was over, but I’d dreamed about Sienna every night since. I’d been taking up more than my fair share of time on the weekly schedule in the upstairs restroom. Maybe it made me a creeper, but Sienna had become my only muse.

Sometimes I was licking doughnut frosting off her lip like she’d described. But in one dream I was introducing her to my mother. I’d awoken with a dull, persistent pain in my chest nothing but a long trail run could help.

“Why? What happened?”

I shrugged, feeling more sullen than I had a right to, though I answered. “She was looking for a fling.”

Claire eyeballed me. “And what are you looking for?”

“Forever,” I answered easily, because it was the truth.