Cider House Fools, page 16
He lets go of the scarf. I gasp as pastel colors explode into neon against my eyelids. I ride out the orgasm, not carrying if I’ve soaked his pants. When I come to a stop, he pulls the scarf down, away from my eyes. He rubs the back of my neck as he withdraws his hand. He inspects his shining fingers, before popping them in his mouth. “Fuck. A taste isn’t going to be enough. I’m going to need more.”
“I thought you needed a tree?” I pant.
He bursts out laughing. I’m stunned at the way it lights up his face. “Do you really care what kind of tree you get?”
“I could care less. But I would like to watch you chop one down,” I waggle my eyebrows and try to leer at him suggestively though a sex-sodden grin. He pops the door of the side by side open. My smile fades. “I missed you Whittaker. I’m aware the words cheapen the sentiment. I haven’t had a single comfortable silence since the last one I shared with you.”
His eyes widen, his swollen lips parting. He shuts the door. “Fuck the trees. Let’s get them already cut and get out of here.”
“Let’s.” His fingers wind through mine as he turns us around and heads back. I spend the whole drive wishing I never had to let go.
Chapter fifteen
December 1 Thursday
Balthasar
Franklin steps out of the house as soon as I pull up. He jogs around the truck, and I take a moment to appreciate his cleanly trimmed beard and neatly spun bun. Franklin is the perfect mix of metro masculinity and thick, beefy dad bod. He hops in the truck. I nod to the beverage holder. “Brought you coffee.”
He lifts the to go cup out of the holder. “I appreciate that.” He inhales, then takes a long swallow, rolling the beverage around in his mouth like it’s a wine. “Damn that’s good. I can taste the vanilla bean and the apple flavor is crisp.” His fingers turn up, pinched in a chef’s kiss motion. “What brand of coffee is this?”
I pull out of Gran’s driveway. “That, my fine friend, is good old Dunkin Donuts coffee and a creamer I make myself.”
He turns and stares at me in amazement. “This shit is gold. Can you maintain the quality if you were to mass produce? This would fly off the shelves.”
I shrug. I should be experiencing pride that two chefs in one week are fawning over my product, but praise alone does not get one’s goods out into the market. “I’d love to manufacture and sell that. I’ve got packaging and a marketing campaign mocked up, but I have no idea how to get started. I’d love to make enough to finance my real dream.” He takes another drag of his coffee, closing his eyes and humming appreciatively before he swallows. I can’t help chuckling. “Is that moaning and groaning over good eats and drinks a chef thing?”
“I think it’s a foodie thing,” he answers. “Tell me, what’s your real dream? You don’t strike me as the multigenerational type of farmer. I would have pegged you as a craft hobbyist.”
“How shallow of you to judge me on my looks and wardrobe alone,” I sniff. I toss him a grin to show him there are no hard feelings, and my dick stirs when he smiles back. Franklin has gorgeous teeth. My shoulder tingles, right where I’d like him to bite me.
“Please, you love it. Now, ferry my fine ass to the grocer’s, James. We’re going to prepare a feast fit for our grieving queen tonight.” He slides a small notebook out of his jacket. “I’ve got a menu of all her favorite things. I want to make sure everyone is fed well, though, so I’d like your input.”
“First tell me what your expecting tonight?” I watch him frown, his lips puckering as he ponders. His eyebrows knit before his face smooths out and he shrugs.
“I don’t know. Bennett is my best friend. She’s talked about the three of you, told me you all grew up together and were tight. She’s also alluded to the fact there’s romantic history between the three of you.” He shakes his head. “I just don’t get it. it’s obvious there’s a lot more…dynamic between the four of you than I realized. And her reaction to her Gran dying…I understand she loved her, but she’s never gone home, not even when she was sick. No one but Melanie came out to see her through the whole ordeal. If you all meant as much to each other as it looks like you all did…it doesn’t add up.” He shrugs, changing the subject like he didn’t just drop a bomb. “I was going to make a beef roulade and roast chicken, how does that sound? Bennett will kill me if I make a turkey.”
I’m already punching on the brakes and cranking the steering wheel to compensate when I interrupt him. “Whoa whoa whoa. What do you mean when she got sick?” The truck slides to a diagonal stop and Franklin tosses me a dirty look as some coffee sloshes into his mustache and dribbles onto his jacket.
“I mean when she started che— fuck. Oh boy.” He sighs, shaking his head. “You have no idea what I’m talking about. Nope, not my place. You’ll have to ask her. Or wait for her to bring it up. She’ll kill me and rightly so. It’s not my place.” He emphasizes the last sentence. He sets his coffee cup in the beverage holder and carefully he dabs at the blob of coffee. His voice becomes nasal with his chin tucked in. He stares down, examining his shirt, trying to catch the beads of coffee on his finger before they soaks into his shirt. “It’s not my place,” he mutters again. “I don’t know why she’s…” He sneaks a glance at me and his mumbling peters off. Rage red curls around the edge of my vision at first, turning the winter landscape bloody, but that quickly fades as panic and worry spill out of my churning gut. I knew it. Bennett has a secret. Something, something besides losing her gran, is terribly wrong with our girl. I need to find out what that is, but damn if I’m not scared as hell to know. I hit the gas and fishtail around the corner. My heart is pounding in my ears. The animal part of my brain that used to warn my ancestors that a predator is around the corner is blaring the alarm that I need to find a place to hide, that a mountain of pain that is going to bury me if I don’t move and escape the tiny moving tin can that has become a trap. What is he talking about? What does he mean when she got sick?
“Franklin, what are you talking about?” I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly very dry. My heart pounds as possible solutions to his riddle swirl through my brain, faster and faster as I try to grasp the right one and whittle it down to something simple. I want to laugh and tell myself I’m being a fool, but a dark, insidious dread is spreading through my heart like tar.
“Didn’t you, let’s see, how did she put it? Devour her like her name was Last Supper?” he arches an eyebrow, scowling. The change of subject knocks me for a loop and when I turn to blink at him incredulously the van jerks to the right with me.
I overcorrect, rocking us both to the left as we approach an intersection. His scowl deepens. “What does that have to do with her being her sick?” I hit the brakes again and slide right through a four way stop. As soon as I see there is no oncoming traffic, I turn back to Franklin. I’ll be damned if I let him get away with dropping something like that and then changing the subject.
“Slow down!” His hands brace against the dash. “Do you need to pull over for this discussion?”
“Maybe, but I’m not going to. Quit dicking around and tell me.” I glare at him. “I’ll call her. Right now. Maybe she doesn’t want to hear those kinds of questions after picking out Gran’s casket.” Zero fucks or shame comes with the statement. I don’t give a fuck what Franklin thinks of me. I need to know what’s happened to my girl.
“I don’t have a point. Well, I am a little surprised you managed to get a taste of her without getting her…nope. Not nice Franklin.” He scolds himself, stopping again before spilling the beans, My brows draw together as I echo his scowl. Franklin resumes speaking. “I guess my point is, maybe we need this dinner. If we’re all going to be involved in getting Bennett through the next few weeks, we need to all be on the same page.”
“Isn’t that going to depend on her, and what she’s willing to say? Maybe she isn’t going to want to spill her innermost feelings and guts to all of us at once. If you haven’t noticed, she isn’t an oversharer.” An overwhelming urge to protect her from my brother and Whittaker replaces some of the impending doom. Smith is the bastard who started this whole thing. If he hadn’t slunk off and left us all for the military, setting off the cascade of reactions that imploded our lives, I might have spent the last decade of my life with the only woman I’ve ever been in love with. I know Whittaker’s steadfast refusal to leave the family farm was the final straw that pushed Bennett out of town and out of our lives. She might have stayed, had Whittaker not locked into such a narrow focus on his family farm. We might have found some kind of feasible solution that would have allowed the four of us to stay together.
All of these years I assumed she took off because of the one two punch Smith and Whitaker gave her. Smith disappearing in the middle of night with no word, and then Whittaker being singularly obsessed with making a go of his father’s farm. I’ve always blamed Smith abandoning her, and by extension the family we were forming, as the catalyst for Bennett leaving town. Whittaker’s rigid inflexibility was the final straw. She had nothing left to give me after grieving those two short sighted assholes.
“I can hear the gears spinning in your head Balthasar. Let’s get the food and go home. I’d love it if you could be my sous chef this afternoon.” Franklin is staring at his watch, a creased forehead and a frown marring his handsome face. “I want to make a mash and a roulade. Do you like cold soups? I want something light and refreshing to start off the evening, even though it’s colder than a witches…” He cringes, glancing quickly over to me to see if I caught on to what he was about to say.
“No need to finish that,” I respond stiffly, keeping my eyes on the road. How dare he make a joke about breasts when Gran just died of cancer.
“I’m sorry. That was incredibly crass,” he apologizes.
“It was,” I answer, even though his statement doesn’t require a response. I’m pissed off my morning has soured so quickly. I was looking forward to spending the morning with Franklin. A smart man would keep his long-lost love’s bestie further than arm length. Franklin can spout all the bullshit he wants about them being best friends, but he’s full of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he circled her three times and marked her as his territory in front of the three of us tonight. Franklin might be doing his damnedest to keep things platonic, but besties isn’t the relationship he really wants with Bennett. I was feeling sorry for the guy, watching him struggle to contain himself and stay in his lane when everyone showed up to tend to Bennett’s boo-boos.
I consider overstepping my bounds and having a chat with the guy. He’s more than Bennett’s hottie best friend. Aside from the bullshit he’s pulling right now, he’s a genuinely a good person. It’s a judgement call I feel good making, in light of the fact that we are all deeply grieving Gran. None of us need the added drama highly charged, overemotional miscommunication will bring.
Franklin knows things. He’s been right there beside our girl as she grew into a bad ass chef and restaurateur. But he doesn’t know what we know. We were there at the beginning, witness to and a part of every event that formed the core of the woman he’s suddenly realizing might be more than a best friend.
Good luck you hot AF sexy lumber snack. I sneak a glance at the giant sitting next me. He’s bigger than me everywhere, except, I’d confidently bet, in his pants. He’s taller, his shoulders are broader, even his feet are at least a few sizes bigger than mine. Franklin’s imposing size doesn’t affect my confidence at all. He’s well-groomed, but plainly dressed. A man who cares about health and hygiene but doesn’t possess an overinflated ego or vanity. He’s fiscally sensible, a businessman as well as an artist both in the kitchen and in the office. Therein lies the problem. There is nothing I want more than to convince Bennett to remember she’s in love with me. Except for her to give up the ghost on this cockamamie best friend crap with Franklin and include me in the festivities.
Fuck.
Considering the dynamics between the four of us is enough to make my head explode. I love Bennett. I’ve always loved her, since we were kids with missing teeth and scraped knees. Deep down, I love Whittaker’s cranky ass. And, of course, I love my brother. I haven’t felt whole since our fledgling family dissolved. Having Bennett back should be enough, but I know what’s going to happen if her and Franklin don’t hash it out.
“She’s going to need help,” I muse. They are going to need help. The kind of help I am more than willing to give. Poor Franklin. He’s going to require some loosening up. Perhaps a hard core, physical session of going heels to Jesus with the right person would help him rise above his fears and accept the possibility of a reality where a relationship that fulfills all of our needs exists.
“Balthasar, excuse me but, what in the hell is going on with you?” My eyes refocus on the road as I’m jerked out of my musings and back into reality.
“I’m going to the grocery store, you fuckwit, just like you asked me to.” I crank the steering wheel to the left and duck. A dull thunk followed by an irritated “Ow!” curls the corners of my mouth up. “I always forget that speed bump is there,” I offer by way of apology, letting the smirk on my face show him I’m not the least bit sorry.
“Where are you this morning? I get the distinct feeling you’re not in this truck with me.” Franklin makes no move to unbuckle his seatbelt as I stop the truck and throw it in park.
Mrs. Sinclair, my retired sixth grade English teacher, exits the sliding doors of the grocery, carefully picking her way over the packed snow while wrangling the cart. “See that woman? In the turquoise and red coat?” I ask.
Franklin sighs. “Yes. I do.”
“She was my teacher. She was married to another teacher. He had a heart attack when he was thirty-one. He was up at deer camp with his buddies. Fell out of his tree stand dead. She had two small kids she raised herself alone. Until the youngest went off to college. Now she lives on a farm co-op.”
“How lovely for her,” Franklin comments drily. He unsnaps his seatbelt. “I’ll just run in and get what I need.”
“With four other women.” I turn to him. “This community has more Christian based churches than Carter’s got liver pills, but no one bats an eye at Mrs. Sinclair or her partners.”
Franklin’s eyes widen in surprise as he glances back at the sliding doors of the grocery store. “Are they actually together or are you just assuming that because you like the idea of it?”
“I know they are a poly group because she told me. Because I asked her when I was seventeen and all I wanted was to spend my life loving Bennett and Whitaker. I wanted someone to tell me that it was possible to carve out a life with an unconventional, unaccepted by society, family unit. I wanted her to tell me it was okay to love the way I did, that I wasn’t being selfish and that there was nothing wrong with us. That I could have my heart’s desire in the place I’ll always call home.” I pull the keys out of the ignition and hold up the one to the truck. “I’ve driven this thing since I got my license. I’ve lived in the same home since I was born. I love this truck. But I’d give it up for a Prius. I love my parent’s dusty old farmhouse and our family’s orchard, but I’d give it up for an apartment surrounded concrete and metal. Because I love my people more than my material property. Bennett and Whittaker, and Smith, they are my people. My family. I’d go anywhere and do anything for them.”
I watch him still and take in my words. I wonder if he’s aware of how his reactions flit across his face. I steel myself for disinterest, defensiveness, perhaps more frustration that I’m wasting his time. Instead, I’m emboldened. The tiny trickle of hope inside of me transforms into a swollen river of possibility. Franklin doesn’t look bored or irritated. He isn’t dismissing me. His fervor to get out of the truck and into the store is gone. He leans forward, hope blooming, as longing for the picture I’ve painted seeps out of his pores and shines like the summer sun.
“I let her go. I let them all go. I wallowed in my insecurity and used my obligations to my family and our farm as a reason to not go after the one thing I desired above all else. I blamed Smith for abandoning us and took his leaving as him saying he didn’t want us without ever asking him. I assumed Bennett’s need to thrive away from here was her rejecting us.” A hard lump forms in my throat, forcing me to whisper as I confess my biggest sin. My voice is a thready but thick with emotion, as I hang my head and stare at the worn leather cover on my steering wheel. “I’ve spent the last ten years watching Whittaker fade. Instead of telling him how I felt I blamed him for not having the courage to do what I couldn’t.” I lift my gaze to Franklin as he reaches across the seat and takes my hand. There is nothing awkward in the kind gesture. I breathe a sigh of relief. There is no judgement, only compassion. He’s silent, rubbing my hand with his callused paw, managing to comfort me and give me the space and time I need to think. I’m incredibly grateful. His consideration reaffirms that what I’m about to say is right. “I’m done lying to myself. The awxons I laid eyes on her…I’m finished railing at the universe for taking my life away. I know what I have to do. I want my family back Franklin. I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
He blinks rapidly, looking away as he withdraws his hand. “I wouldn’t stand in the way of anything Bennett wants. The restaurant, our business, it means jack shit to me if it isn’t what she wants. She’s my person Balthasar. I…I want nothing more for her than her happiness.”
“What about your happiness Franklin?” I reach over and pick up his hand, rubbing my thumb slowly over the back of his hand. Just like he did for me but with more intention. “I like you Franklin. A lot. I can see clearly why Bennett loves you. Do me a favor and be honest. Say it. Say what you were going to say, and don’t be afraid of what it means.”
His eyes open wide, his nostrils flaring in surprise. “You’re reading into something that isn’t there,” he warns, taking his hand back. He straightens, defensively creating distance between us.
