Beard With Me: Winston Brothers

by Penny Reid

  His kiss was the opposite.

  Billy’s mouth was soft. So soft. The feel of his tongue against the seam of my lips gentle, teasing, yet seeking, asking, wanting. And since my body wanted whatever he wanted, I opened my mouth and he slid right in, groaning as soon as my tongue touched his.

  All those vacant, neglected rooms and all those brand-new spaces filled to bursting as his lips and tongue moved, as his fingers twisted around my hair and tugged my head back, opening my mouth wider. My mind swirled, my head dizzy. I might’ve been suffering from heatstroke.

  It shouldn’t have felt so good—having someone else’s tongue in my mouth—so delicious. So necessary. For one thing, I had no idea what I was doing. For another, I wasn’t thinking straight. I was frantic with wanting everything, to experience everything, to feel everything. Also, I was mindless. My mindlessness meant it should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. It was sweet and beautiful and luscious, better than the best dessert. Better than Thanksgiving dinner. Better than friendly laughter and a warm fire and a soft bed.

  It was perfection.

  And then, he pulled away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  *Scarlet*

  “Kisses open doors, I've noticed. That one gesture can unlock secrets, ease open feelings. It can't be prevented—these kisses just are. It's how they work. They break into basements you never knew you had.”

  Susan Fletcher, Eve Green

  “I can’t stop thinking about kissing Billy Winston.”

  There. I’d said it. Out loud. Unfortunately, saying it out loud had done nothing helpful.

  Huffing into my cupped hands, I snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag and tried to think gently warm thoughts; kittens and puppies and Ben McClure’s sweet smile, for instance.

  Instead, I conjured Billy. Again. And now everything in the vicinity of my rib cage was hot and sore.

  “What the hell, Scarlet?” I said to myself. “Stop it. Cease and desist!”

  I’d been thinking about him nonstop since yesterday afternoon when he’d kissed me and then pulled away, staring at me like I was a bomb about to go off.

  So of course I said, “Leave me alone!” and ran away.

  Don’t you give me that look!

  What in tarnation was I supposed to do? He’d kissed me. KISSED! ME! ON MY LIPS!

  I’d never been kissed and now I felt besieged by the memory of it—besieged, I tell you!—maybe sorta how Troy had felt when those Spartans had attacked. The cinnamon buns on Friday had been his Trojan horse and his words and glances and laughter and looks and patience were the soldiers tucked inside. Especially his eyes. Yes. Those eyes. My favorite color.

  Great. Now both my chest and my neck were hot. “Dammit.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, but that didn’t help at all. I saw his face, smiling at me in that reserved way of his, or with reluctance, or playfulness, or just plain amusement. His deep voice saying quietly, “I’ll take a serenade from you anytime,” and “The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts,” as his gaze speared mine.

  More like impaled.

  Strange thing about that gaze, it still reminded me of icicles. And even more strange? How peculiar icicle eyes could make a person feel when they were looking at you with warm attentiveness instead of cold disinterest. Somehow, over the last several days, the intensity of Billy’s stare had altered and felt more than good. It had felt vital, an oasis. Like a cold drink of water after going without on a hot day, or a—

  GAH! I don’t want that!

  I didn’t want Billy to be my oasis. I didn’t want him to be vital. I didn’t want to count on him, I didn’t want to crave his company, and I didn’t want to miss him when he was gone.

  What I wanted was to forget this weekend had ever happened. I wanted everything to go back to the way it was. I’d been fine before. I’d been happy before.

  And now I was miserable.

  I huffed again, turning from the dead fire and pressing my palm to my neck. If my neck insisted on randomly being hot, the least it could do was warm my freezing fingers.

  “You wouldn’t be freezing now if you’d just gone to the old Oliver house last night and slept inside,” I reminded myself, grumbling.

  But then I gulped, shivered, my eyes flying open, and I shook my head. No. No, no, no. Sleeping in Billy’s room now was impossible.

  When I’d stayed over Thursday through Saturday, I’d been reluctant, true. But my weakness for a warm bed and Billy’s impressive ability to persuade had eclipsed my good sense. I’d slept soundly every night he’d insisted I stay, and in hindsight I was grateful he’d insisted. My body needed to recover from Tuesday. Besides, I hadn’t been thinking about Billy obsessively then.

  But now, I would never step foot in that house again. Just the thought—sleeping in the same room as Billy—made me sweat even though I was presently colder than a tin toilet seat in the Yukon. Not that I’d ever been farther north than Bob’s Bait and Tackle on Main Street, but still. I had an imagination, didn’t I?

  “I sure do,” I moaned miserably.

  For hootenanny’s sake, all I’d been doing was imagining and reimagining our time together. I’d tried drowning out my imagination with music, but of course my Walkman had gone dead. It needed new batteries, and so I was left at the mercy of my overeager brain.

  But, gosh, our time together had been so nice. Nerve-wracking, confusing, discombobulating, but nice. And that kiss . . . That kiss had me imagining new things, Billy touching me other places with his hands and with his mouth. These new things left my stomach feeling all tight and twisty, my brain in chaos, and my heart doing one long, continuous thunk ka-thunk, thunk ka-thunk, thunk ka-thunk.

  Stupid Billy Winston and his stupid kiss! Taking over. Invading. Leaving me with no peace. And stupid me for liking it so much.

  Sigh.

  I supposed most people were destined to have a first kiss. I’d never really thought about it for myself. It was part of the future, a hazy blob of maybe one day I didn’t have time to think about while I was walking across Green Valley and dodging my father’s men. To school, to the library, to the store; thinking about my next meal, and the one after that, rationing food and water; working out how long the money I had would last.

  Even with my variety of crushes, like Ben for instance, my brain had never moved past the general warm feelings of being in like with someone. Plus, folks at the Dragon Biker Bar weren’t big on kissing mouth to mouth, so it’s not like experiences from my childhood had set an example.

  Yeah, bikers kissed their fuckbuddies. It just wasn’t ever the main event and it always looked messy and uncomfortable, sloppy, like people were eating each other’s faces off. Nothing at all like what Billy and I had done.

  Plus, when the men had their big parties in the main room of the club, they seemed much more interested in the pantsless portion of male-female (and sometimes female-male-female) relations. And thinking about doing that with anyone made me feel sick to my stomach.

  Except . . .

  Scrunching my eyes, I held my breath and did my best not to imagine Billy lifting my shirt to touch me here, or sliding his hand into my jeans and underwear to cup me there—

  “Ah!” I shook my head, my eyes flying open, and I shoved the sleeping bag away, staggering as I stood and gulping deep breaths of frosty morning air. “Don’t think about it! Don’t think about it!”

  I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  My brain on overdrive, my body strangely achy and trembling—and not from the cold—I growled at nothing. Somewhere, not terribly far away, the early birds answered, making a ruckus, announcing to the woodland creatures that it was day.

  Catching my breath finally, the cold sobering and chasing away most of my shameful imaginings, I glanced at my sleeping bag. I debated crawling back inside. No. No you will not.

  I couldn’t miss another day of school after skipping Tuesday and Wednesday. Folks might notice and then they’d ask questions. I
hated it when school administrators asked questions they really didn’t want answers to.

  Absolutely no skipping school to hide from Billy Winston, Scarlet.

  I nodded, agreeing with myself. Besides, I was pretty good at hiding in plain sight. I didn’t need to hermit to hide.

  Exactly. Time to rise and shine. And if you see him, you just turn yourself around and run in the opposite direction.

  Okay!

  Good. It’s settled.

  . . . My heart hurt.

  “Pssst.”

  I flinched, startling easily because I was on edge. But then I closed my eyes and shook my head. Only one person ever pssst-ed at me.

  “Cletus.” I closed my locker and there he was, leaning against the rectangle two doors down from mine. “No, I don’t need to go to the library.”

  He frowned. “I know. I wasn’t going to ask you that.”

  Glancing over my shoulder, I watched a cluster of students walk past. They paid us no mind. Good.

  “Then what do you want?” I whispered, even though I didn’t need to whisper.

  His frown deepened, his sharp, intelligent eyes searching mine. “Scarlet. You haven’t—uh—stopped in for the last few nights. Roscoe is starting to question the veracity of fairies.”

  Sucking in a breath through my nose, I gave Cletus a small smile and shrugged, feeling guilty but not knowing what to say.

  He was right. Today was the Wednesday ATK (After The Kiss) and I’d successfully avoided talking to Billy, which included no picking up the fairy food and no spending the night at their house. Obviously.

  But that didn’t mean I hadn’t seen Billy. I’d seen him plenty, surrounded by his friends, intensely debonair—Yes. Debonair. I meant what I said—despite his fuzzy beard and wearing one of his signature stoic expressions and penetrating looks. He’d spotted me too, a few times in fact. But I’d been able to maneuver away quickly enough to avoid interacting with him.

  Although, to be fair, he’d never chased after me as far as I could tell. Maybe you don’t need to maneuver after all. Maybe he doesn’t care.

  I rubbed my chest just beneath my collarbone. It was suddenly sore.

  Cletus continued to stare at me, like he was waiting for me to offer some sort of explanation. I had none, so I turned from my friend and walked in the direction of my next class. Social Studies. We were discussing Ancient Greece. I was looking forward to it. These days, I was looking forward to anything that might hold my attention and keep my mind off Broody Billy Winston and his lips.

  “Pssst!”

  My shoulders bunched, and I looked to my left. Cletus had caught up with me and was now pssst-ing while hovering at my elbow.

  “Would you stop that, please?” I asked. Usually, I found him funny and cute. Today, not so much.

  I hadn’t been sleeping well. But on the plus side, I’d made it to school early every morning this week. Waiting for the empty parking lot to fill, I would step back into the shelter of the woods to fill the time, sitting in a ball with my arms around my legs to warm myself.

  And, you know, try and fail to not think about Billy.

  But again, on another bright side, thoughts of him had helped me stay warm and kept me from thinking about food. The last good meal I’d had was Sunday afternoon, a delicious turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce and stuffing and gravy that Billy had brought for lunch, one for each of us. It was Thanksgiving dinner, but in a sandwich. I’d thought I’d gone to heaven.

  But no. That happened later, when he transported you there with his lips.

  “Shut up, Scarlet,” I muttered under my breath, huffing at myself. I’d been huffing quite a lot lately.

  Cletus wrapped a hand around my forearm, bringing me to a stop. “Talk to me. Please. What’s going on?”

  I didn’t meet his eyes, instead tracking another group of students and a few stragglers coming up the stairs. They, also, paid us no mind.

  “There’s nothing to say and I got to go. I don’t want to be late for class.”

  “You won’t be late. We have another ten minutes.” His eyebrows pulled together and I got the sense he was scrutinizing me, trying to solve me or something.

  He might’ve been right about the time, he might’ve been wrong. I didn’t know what time it was even though I still had Billy’s watch. I’d tucked it in my pocket Monday so I could drop it off to the school secretary.

  I couldn’t bring myself to part with it, nor could I bear to look at it.

  So it moved from pocket to pocket, a watch with no purpose except as a trinket for me to grip tightly when thoughts—of Billy, of loneliness, of hunger, of cold, of being touched and kissed—felt too overwhelming.

  Cletus released my arm, reached inside his pants pocket, and pulled out two yellow hall passes. I gaped. Yellow hall passes were also automatic tardy excusers, which meant they were the double triple platinum of hall passes.

  He then took my hand and placed both slips of paper in my palm.

  “Take these, you’ll need both.”

  I glanced between him and the precious passes which had been signed by the assistant principal and were the equivalent of get-out-of-jail-free cards with teachers. “What? Where’d you get—how come—I don’t need—”

  “Come with me.” His gaze suddenly shifty, he indicated with his head in the direction I’d already been traveling, and then took off, clearly assuming I’d follow.

  Staring at his back for a half second, I did eventually follow. But I wasn’t certain if I was following him or going to class. I still hadn’t made up my mind when Cletus ducked into an alcove I’d never noticed before. My feet slowed as I approached, and I stared at the navy blue door set a way back from the hall.

  Cletus, his hand on the door handle, waved me forward as he opened it a crack. Perplexed, I stepped forward, glancing between him and the slightly ajar door.

  “Cletus, what—”

  “Trust me,” he said, opening the door all the way and hurrying to usher me inside the small, dimly lit space. I got the sense it was some kind of closet. “You can thank me later. I accept cash and dog treats for Lea as payment.”

  I was about to turn, because it was obvious Cletus hadn’t followed me in and he’d already closed the door, when I became aware of another person in the closet.

  And not just any person.

  Thunk ka-thunk.

  Oh God. Oh no, oh no, OH NO!

  My eyes adjusted quickly. He stood a little way back in the space, enough so that I didn’t feel trapped even though this was exactly that. A trap. He wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt, dark jeans, sneakers, and an expression I couldn’t read. But his eyes pinned me, that intense stare holding me in place more effectively than any strong grip ever could.

  “Billy,” I said. Or breathed. Or maybe I just thought his name. I couldn’t tell. A shock of panic was currently coursing through my body, making it impossible to think.

  “Scarlet,” he said softly, and then proceeded to chew on his bottom lip. “How are you?”

  “Oh. Fine. And you?” My voice was high and breathy, I was sweating, and my heart was such a bastard, jumping around like all my insides were trampoline surfaces.

  His lips curved into one of his friendly, barely there smiles as his gaze moved over me, his Adam’s apple moving up and down.

  “Honestly? I’m not doing so great,” he answered.

  “Really?” Dammit. My voice was still high and unsteady. Calm down, Scarlet!

  “No.” He took a step forward, and it was like the entire space shrunk to half its original size. “I’m worried about a friend of mine. She won’t talk to me, after I did something stupid.”

  . . . After I did something stupid.

  My heart stuttered; my stomach sunk. His words sobered and saddened me, enough to cut through the frantic disorder of my thoughts.

  “You did something stupid?” I crossed my arms, lifting my chin but needing to drop my eyes to his neck. A cold, rising suspicion had me gritti
ng my teeth. Dear God in heaven, hear my prayer. If Billy says kissing me was stupid or a mistake, please give me the strength and agility to knee him in the gonads and leave. Amen.

  Vaguely, I noted he still hadn’t trimmed his beard.

  “I’m not sure.” He took another half step forward, his voice now just above a whisper. “But if kissing you means you don’t want to know me anymore, then yeah. It was stupid. And I would be very sorry.”

  His words were a riddle. I shifted on my feet, unsure what to do or think or say. Leaving seemed like the logical, wise thing, but I couldn’t get my body to move or turn.

  “Scarlet,” he said, close enough now to tuck my hair behind my ear, which he did, his fingers sliding down the column of my neck.

  Damn, that felt good.

  I had to stop myself from leaning into his touch. I also couldn’t seem to get enough air. I was breathing much harder than I should’ve been given the fact I was holding still, like the running of my mind impacted my oxygen levels the same way actual running might.

  “Was it stupid? Do I need to apologize?” he asked, his voice rough like sandpaper as his hand dropped from my skin. “Or may I please kiss you again?”

  My gaze cut to his, my lungs feeling like they might burst at the restrained and respectful—and yet not at all respectful and barely restrained—look in his eyes, and abruptly, something he’d spoken to me over the weekend bubbled up to the surface of my mind.

  It’s okay to have dreams, to want things.

  Oh, how I wanted to kiss Billy Winston again. I’d wanted nothing else, had been able to think of nothing else or dream of nothing else for the last three days. I couldn’t shake the want even though I’d convinced myself wanting Billy was foolish, impossible. I’d convinced myself wanting anything at all was dangerous.

  Why had I done that? As though in answer, more of Billy’s words came to me, the quote, “The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”