Beauty and the Mustache (47 page)

My heart gave a giant lurch and my stomach
tumbled into oblivion. I had to stuff my hands in my pockets to
keep from grabbing my chest.

He was so handsome…so
epically swoony. I wanted to stare at him all day while he read me
field notes. But more than that, I wanted to be with him. Just
be.

I swallowed again and cleared my throat.
“Hi, Drew.”

His eyes flared when I spoke, settled on
mine, and his expression transformed from confused to guarded.

“
What are you doing here?”
He glanced behind me, obviously looking for my means of
transportation.

I thought about that question and how best
to answer it, which version of the truth to tell.

For some reason, my momma’s
words from months ago chose that moment to echo in my head:
Fear don’t count if you really want
something.

She was right. She was so
right. And besides, being completely honest couldn’t be any more
dangerous than flashing a four hundred pound bear Mardi Gras
style.

Gathering every ounce of my courage, I took
a step forward, then two, then three. My voice was shakier than I
would have liked when I said, “I sent you some letters while you
were gone. Did you get them?”

His eyes narrowed on me, a
new shadow of confusion falling over his features, and he responded
haltingly. “I don’t know. I haven’t gone through the mail
yet.”

I nodded, pressing my lips
together, and mounted the steps. “There should be about fifteen of
them. I came by to….” I stopped, feeling a little out of breath for
no reason. I waited until I reached the final step before
continuing.

“
I came by to get them
before you had a chance to open them.”

We were now face to face, just three feet
between us.

His brow pulled low at my confession even as
his eyes—heated, intense—moved over my face. The hunger in his gaze
was a raw, tangible thing. I almost took a step back under the
weight of it, and I wondered if he’d always looked at me this way.
Had he been as obvious before? Had I been so completely blind?

“
Why?” His voice was rough
and the single word sounded like a demand.

“
Because,” I stopped
again, overwhelmed under the intensity of his gaze. Unthinkingly, I
took a step forward.

Drew flinched at the
movement, his hands on the towel gripping it with tight fists. In
that moment he reminded me of a wounded animal and my chest felt
like it might crack from the force of my admiration and love for
him.

I remembered his words
from the notebook, and I realized that my suspicions had been
right. He lived his life in an unfathomable labyrinth, paralyzed by
the depth of his feelings. Poetry was his outlet, his pressure
valve; he held close, a carefully guarded secret.

“
Because Jethro sent me
your notebook.” I said on a rush. He didn’t appear to understand my
meaning immediately, so I used his disorientation to explain the
entire story.

“
Jethro saved your
notebook from the fire and he sent it to me. I thought you sent it,
so I read it.”

Understanding dawned in
his eyes and he straightened, stiffened, and I recognized his panic
because it mirrored my own from just minutes ago. Urgency fueled my
words. I needed to tell him everything before he had a chance to
process this betrayal of trust. “He thought he was doing a good
thing. When I read it, I…I…words cannot describe what I felt. I
immediately wrote you a letter telling you how I felt, how I feel,
how I love you.”

I swallowed the last word
because my own fear had finally caught up with me. I squeezed my
eyes shut and shook my head. I couldn’t look at him and continue
speaking, so I didn’t look at him.

“
I love you, Drew. I love
you. I love you so much. I don’t know how to say it any other way.
I sent you fifteen letters over the last three weeks. They’re love
letters, and they’re the best I could do. And when you didn’t send
me anything back, I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer. Then
Jethro told me that he’d sent the notebook. He told me that you
wanted to burn it. And I panicked. I thought….”

I had to press my lips together because my
chin wobbled and I absolutely refused to cry.

“
I thought your feelings
must have changed…that you didn’t want me anymore…that those
beautiful poems and letters…that you didn’t want me. So I came here
to get my letters back before you could see them.” I ended by
covering my face with my hands. My neck was burning, and I knew my
cheeks and chest were a bright crimson.

Drew didn’t respond; he
was quiet for so long I thought he might have walked away. But then
I heard his boots scuff against the wood of the porch and I felt
the heat of his body as he approached. His fingers gently
surrounded my wrists and he pulled my hands from my
face.

“
Ash, open your eyes.” His
tone was infinitely gentle.

And it scared me, because
this was always how my nightmare started. He would let me down with
infinite gentleness.

“
I can’t.” I dropped my
head so he wouldn’t see my face.

“
Why not?”

“
Because I’m
afraid.”

“
Of what?”

“
Of you letting me down
gently.”

Drew released my wrists
and his hands covered my cheeks, warming them. He tilted my chin
upward, and I felt his lips brush over mine with an infinitely
gentle kiss.

He whispered, “Sugar, open
your eyes.”

I opened my eyes. I peered
up at him, into his quicksilver gaze. I saw desire, I saw relief, I
saw admiration, and I saw love.

Before I could speak, he
said, “I’m not going to let you down, and I’m not ever going to let
you go.”

“
There is always some madness in love. But there is also
always some reason in madness
.”

―
Friedrich
Nietzsche

He encircled my
waist with one arm and lifted me off my feet, his
mouth capturing mine for a kiss that started as a tender, yielding
exploration and quickly escalated to code red situation. My arms
wrapped around his neck, holding him tighter, instinctively
clamoring to get closer.

His big shoulder hit the
doorframe as he tried to navigate his way into the house, jarring
our teeth together, my top lip a casualty in our rush to reacquaint
ourselves. It also had the effect of jarring me back into the
present moment and why I was here.

“
Are you okay?” He asked,
but his eyes were on my mouth even as he pulled the door shut with
his free hand.

I nodded. “Yeah,
but-”

He cut me off, his lips
moving against mine again, as though he planned to devour me with
sensuality and his perfectly choreographed tongue tango. It was
sinful, invading, and conquering, like I imagined a marauding
Viking might kiss in order to establish his dominance.

Despite the delectableness
of his mouth, hands, chest, sides, back, bottom, thighs, arms,
features, and—let’s face it—unruly beard, I couldn’t let things
progress before clarifying what was happening.

This wasn’t some neurotic
need to define everything; at least, I didn’t think so. I just
didn’t ever want to fall into the pit of wine, cookie dough, and
fruitcake sweatpants ever again. Nor did I want Drew’s precious
heart to be put in jeopardy.

I placed my hands on his shoulders and
leaned my head back; the rest of me was pressed tightly to his
front.

“
Wait, wait—first we need
to talk.” I shouted this because I have no idea. Really. I have no
idea why I shouted it. Just know that I did.

He stilled somewhat, his
hold loosening a tad, but he didn’t let me go. Instead, he gently
set me down and pushed off my jacket, biting then licking my
neck.

“
Talk,” he
commanded.

I shivered, exhaled a
sudden breath. “I can’t talk, not while you’re melting my
butter.”

This gave him pause.
Drew’s mouth ceased its assault, and he lifted his face from my
shoulder, his eyes bright with palpable desire, but also
amusement.

“
Melt your
butter?”

I nodded and tried to step
away but failed; his hands gripped my waist like he was afraid I’d
run away or disappear.

“
That’s right. Put me in a
pan and turn me on. Melt my butter.” I was breathing heavily,
mostly because—even though he’d stopped kissing me—he was still
melting my butter.

I could feel myself
growing increasingly apathetic about discussing anything except
whether he’d remedied his condom dearth.

On that note I blurted, “I
don’t have any condoms with me.”

His eyebrows jumped and he blurted, “Well,
are you clean?”

I nodded.

“
I’m clean. Are you on the
pill?”

I nodded.

“
Okay. Next
subject.”

The blurting continued.
“Why did you push me away after our night together?”

His eyebrows jumped
higher, but he didn’t answer; not right away. Instead, he glared at
me—not with malice but with heat—and his grip on my body
tightened.

At last he said, “Ash, I
wasn’t trying to push you away, but I didn’t want to hold you back.
Bethany told me about you many times. Granted, she called you Ash
and let me think you were a man, but she was so proud. She told me
about how you fought your whole life to leave this place, how it
was all you talked about growing up.”

This was true. It was all
I ever wanted as a child. But it wasn’t about leaving Tennessee.
Tennessee was beautiful; its beauty was why I believed in magic as
a child.

I wanted to escape my
father’s awfulness and my brothers’ pedestrian antics. I wanted to
be educated by the world, see it, and find my place in
it.

“
It was never about
Tennessee, Drew. It was about escaping an unhappy situation and
finding something else for myself other than a house full of
perpetual adolescents. I was so blind, Drew. I was so blind to how
you felt. You kept saying you didn’t need me, and I believed you. I
thought you found nothing in me, nothing that you’d ever
need.”

He shook his head before I
finished speaking, his hands moving to my face, pushing my hair
back from my temples. “No. No, Ashley. You weren’t blind. You were
just incapable of seeing anything but your heartache. I watched you
every day for six weeks as you took care of your mother. You could
only see her during that time. She needed you. Your brothers needed
you. And that’s how it was supposed to be. You were here for her
and your family; I understood that. I didn’t want you to feel any
pressure from me. I had no expectations that you would feel for me
what I felt for you. I wanted to be a comfort, not a
burden.”

I watched him through narrowed eyes. When he
finished, I (again) blurted, “Well, start putting some pressure on
me. Start needing me. Start having excessively high
expectations.”

His mouth tugged to the
side like he was trying to suppress a smile, and his hands threaded
through my hair then stroked down my back, eventually coming to
rest on the base of my spine. “Okay. I will.”

I wasn’t finished. “Like,
tell me to stay.”

“
Stay. Stay with
me.”

“
And, not just for
Christmas-”

“
Ash, I want you to move
here.”

“
Yes.” I nodded, feeling
the matter was settled, and I’d work out the logistics later
because I knew in my heart that this was where I wanted to be. I
didn’t want to see Drew. I didn’t want to talk to Drew.

I wanted to live Drew.

Besides, I was a nurse. Nurses were needed
everywhere.

“
And another thing….” I
grabbed the front of his shirt. “Stop making decisions for me and
having discussions about me behind my back. You should have talked
to me before sending me away on Quinn’s plane.”

His mouth flattened, and
the trace of humor in expression transformed into mild frustration.
“That was for your own good. Darrell had been making a fuss all
over town about how his children had stolen from him. Your name was
the one he’d shouted the loudest. We needed to get you out of
town.”

“
Or, I could have stayed
here with you.”

He licked his lips, the
frustration easing. “I didn’t know that was an option.”

“
Well you would have known
if you’d talked to me about it.”

Drew’s eyes narrowed and
he seemed to be inspecting me.

I took the opportunity to
twist my arms around his neck and press my front to his. “Just
think, you could have spent the last ten weeks melting my
butter.”

His hands moved to my
bottom and he squeezed me through my jeans. “Your point is a good
one.”

This made me smile big and
wide and maybe a little smugly. Drew shook his head at my smug
smile then proceeded to kiss it off my face as he walked me
backward to his bedroom.

We navigated the hallway
without incident and soon my scarf was off, and my shoes, and my
sweater, and I was pressing myself against his hot hands as they
grabbed and caressed and massaged my bottom, stomach, back, and
breasts.