Grin and Beard It(94)

“Jethro?” Her eyes were wide, her features bracing. My silence and the look in my eye must’ve been making her nervous.

“I was just thinking,” I tempered my expression, gave her a warm smile, and kissed her shoulder, “we should get Daisy’s doughnuts every morning.”





CHAPTER 25


“Aging is not 'lost youth' but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”

― Betty Friedan





~Sienna~

Susie arrived just as Jethro was leaving. He tipped his hat with a rumbly, “Ma’am,” needing to bend at an angle to clear the trailer door because he was so tall.

She didn’t say anything, just turned her head as he walked past, her eyebrows suspended over a stunned blue gaze. We both watched him saunter away through the south-facing window.

Then she said, “Whoa.”

I nodded, my eyes still on him and his audacious stride. “Yeah. Whoa.”

He turned the corner, slipped out of view, and we both sighed.

“Nicely done.” Susie patted me on the back.

I grinned, biting my lip, feeling oddly shy. “I know, right? And he’s more beautiful on the inside than he is outside.”

“How is that possible?” Susie looked back to where he’d disappeared, frowning out the window.

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know.”

“He looks like he’s good with his hands.”

Immediately, I flushed scarlet, because I now had intimate knowledge of how very good he was with his hands. But then my heart twisted, because I might never know how good he was with other parts.

Namely, his penis.

And I really, really wanted to know what he could do with his penis. Based on the way he rolled his hips when we made out, I was pretty sure he was a master dill pickler, if you catch my meaning.

Susie’s gaze slid to mine and she gave me an impish smile. “Aha.”

I laughed, hiding my face behind my fingers. “Ahhh. I like him so much.”

She pushed my shoulder. “Good. You’re a gorgeous girl, but your real beauty lies within, doll. You deserve someone in your life who makes you happy.”

“Thank you, Susie.” She may have been my employee, and we might always have that barrier between us, but I didn’t realize until that moment how much I’d needed someone to be happy for me. On that note, I needed to call my mom, because I suspected she’d be happy for me.

But then Susie had to add, “And makes you moist.”

“Thank— Ugh!” I gagged, laughing again.

She laughed too, wagging her eyebrows. “I’m serious. I was worried about you last year. Tom is pretty, but I knew he wasn’t the one for you.”

“Well, what can I say? His looks and star-power made me stupid for five minutes.”

We turned to the interior of the trailer, and she began setting up to do my makeup.

“But what’s interesting,” I continued, reaching for my coffee as I sat, “now I don’t find him attractive at all. I mean, I can see he’s good-looking, but he does nothing for me. It’s like, I see him, and my vagina—afraid of his impotency—plays dead.”

She grinned at that. “So, not moist?”

“No. Not moist.” I chuckled. “More like a damp, wet blanket.”

“Yes. I agree.” She snickered, applying the undercoat to my face and neck.

We were quiet for a while, and I found myself smiling at intervals, remembering events from the morning, some small thing Jethro had done or some detail about his face. And then I would frown, because of the giant celibate elephant in the room. And then I’d smile again, because he’d kissed me senseless before leaving.

I was lost in these reflections when Susie, who apparently had been lost in her own reflections, broke our comfortable silence and offered philosophically, “Think of how much better the world would be if people craved compliments about the beauty of their heart rather than the beauty of their face.”

The unexpected wisdom of her words startled me. She smiled softly at my surprised expression, and I found myself looking at her, entranced.

I noticed, maybe for the first time in our acquaintance, she had wrinkles around her eyes and her mouth, deep crinkling creases made deeper by her grin.

They were laugh lines.

And they were breathtaking.

And so was she.



“Why do I feel so weird about this?”

Jethro slid his eyes to mine, then back to the road. “I don’t know. She doesn’t bite.”

I stared at the artichoke dip I held on my lap. “You have dinner with her every Sunday.”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“I’m meeting the woman you’ve had dinner with every Sunday for over five years. She’s not a relative. She’s a friend. A good friend.” I reiterated the facts.