The Belle and the Beard by Kate Canterbary (carter reed TXT) 📗

This was the wrong time to run away with wild ideas about marriage and—Jesus Christ—babies. I'd told myself for years I didn't want any of it and I had to remember that some good times with Jasper wasn't meant to change anything. I preferred a solitary life. I didn't want anything else. Marriage and kids weren't the paths for me. Too complicated, too messy, too tenuous.

I believed that as devoutly as I believed in the religion of nature. And yet, when I gathered a sleeping Jasper into my arms and closed my eyes for the night, I thought about all the lives we were allowed to live with the time we had, and I whispered into her hair, "I wish you were mine to keep."

20

Jasper

I dropped two slices of bread into the toaster and asked, "Do you happen to have a nail gun I could borrow?"

Linden belted out a tremendous belly laugh from behind the Sunday newspaper. As he set it down on the kitchen table, he gave me a fond smile that did terrible, terrible things to me. Just the worst. "Why do you think you need a nail gun?"

"I don't think I need one." I frowned down at the cherry tomatoes on the cutting board in front of me. "I know I need one. It's going to take me two years to finish the porch if I have to bang every single nail into place. A gun would make it much quicker."

"Also quicker to nail your hand to a board."

"I wouldn't do that."

"No one thinks they're going to shoot themselves with a nail gun. It's always an accident, Jasper." He shook out the newspaper, folded it in half and then in half again. "Why not work on something else?"

"I've done everything else. Generally speaking."

"What does that mean?"

I fussed with the burrata and basil for a minute. "It means I've cleaned out most of the house and done most of the work I can do on my own. You know, without a nail gun."

I didn't need to detail or justify my avoidance of Midge's bedroom. It did not need to be said this morning, not when it was a bright, sunny October day that had started out with the kind of maybe we're asleep, maybe we're awake, maybe we're a little perverted sex that legends were made of and I had this gorgeous pint of tomatoes to drizzle with balsamic glaze. I wasn't popping that bubble with my inability to step into Midge's room without crying.

"And you're sure you won't let my sister take care of it for you?"

I'd die. I'd drop dead. "That won't be necessary."

"She'd love to do it. She used to live in my aunt's house, actually. Up on the North Shore, in Beverly. Aunt Frannie. She moved to New Mexico a couple of years ago and handed the place off to Maggie because she was in between apartments—and other things. Once Frannie left, Magnolia renovated from top to bottom."

I grabbed the bread when it popped up. "Then she understands how much excitement comes with it."

"She understands how much of a pain in the ass it is."

"That too." Once I finished arranging the cheese and tomatoes, and topping it all with the balsamic glaze, I carried the plates to the table. "I hope this is okay. The burrata wasn't doing what I wanted it to but these tomatoes are really nice and—"

"It's more than okay, Jas." Linden hooked an arm around my waist and yanked me into his lap. He held me tight, his chin on my shoulder and his beard tickling my neck. "You don't have to cook breakfast every day. You think you do but you don't."

I did. I absolutely did. And I could've done so much more. I should've, really. I should be able to plow through Midge's room and finish the porch and get a job and fix my life. Breakfast was the least I could do.

"Not touching that one, are you?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Didn't think so." He gave me a final squeeze before easing me off his lap and patting my ass. "Do you want some coffee?"

There wasn't much of the locally bottled cold brew Linden favored left and he usually went for two or three refills. I shook my head again. "No. I'm all set."

He stared at me for a beat. "You're sure? You haven't had any?"

I pushed his plate toward him. "I'm sure this toast will chill if you don't stop talking and start eating."

I shifted my gaze down, my focus glued to my plate as if the tomatoes would run away if I didn't keep a close eye on them. That was the problem with Linden. Not that tomatoes fled in his presence but that he noticed things. He noticed when I passed on coffee or sidestepped a question about my family or withered a bit at his offerings of assistance. He noticed and I couldn't gather myself up tightly enough to hide from his notice.

That was how I ended up staring at crumbs and running my palms up and down my thighs, the thighs once again clad in the matte black leggings I used to wear on the rarest of occasions. There was something disconcerting about being comfortable in clothes I'd once deemed inappropriate for my body and safe only for tasks like cleaning the house. I couldn't trust that comfort. Couldn't accept it.

And Linden noticed that too. He'd cover my hand with his when he caught me rubbing my legs or tugging the hem of my shirt lower. He'd invent reasons to dress me in his flannels or hoodies, and though he always looked at me like he wanted to take a bite, he never pushed an inch more than I could manage, even when I didn't know the exact location of that limit.

"Well, that was fucking amazing. Again," Linden said, his plate clean. "Here's what I