“Huh . . .” Beau studied me, like I’d revealed something important about myself. Then, out of the blue, he said, “Jennifer Sylvester, you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”
I stared blankly at Beau, frustration and disappointment warring with feelings of being flattered. During my date with Billy, when he had called me gorgeous, I experienced similar emotions. Like any normal person, I appreciated compliments about my exterior, but they also just felt like confirmation that my father was right. My outside was what people were interested in, and that my face and body determined my value.
Cletus stiffened beside me but said nothing. When I glanced at him his expression was carefully blank.
“Oh, thank you, Beau,” I said, trying to focus on the positive. It had been a very nice compliment, even if it had been in reference to something that wasn’t even really about me. I had no control over the color and shape of my eyes.
“No, thank you.” His spreading grin was both sweet and seductive. “You should come with us on Saturday. I’ll drive you.”
“Where are you going?”
“Cletus and Claire tried out over the summer and made it to the semifinals in a big-deal talent show. Saturday is the last round. There’ll be record labels, the whole nine yards.”
I eyeballed Cletus. He maintained his air of determined inscrutability and took a gulp of his coffee.
I couldn’t read Cletus’s thoughts on the matter, and I didn’t want to overstep. “I appreciate the invitation, but I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“You wouldn’t be imposing.” This assurance came from Cletus and he paired it with a soft smile. “If you want to come, you should come.”
“Good.” Beau nodded, grinning at me happily. “It’s a date.”
“It’s not a date,” Cletus contradicted, casting a frown at Beau.
I didn’t know if he realized it, but Cletus was still holding my hand and his grip tightened as he challenged his brother. He’d linked our fingers together and held my palm pressed against his thigh. His hands were magnificent, strong, and beautiful. A thrilling current of energy raced up my arm at the contact.
“Not you, dummy. Me.” Beau wrinkled his nose at Cletus and grabbed a muffin. “Jenn and me.”
“Jenn and you?” Cletus looked and sounded mystified.
“That’s right.” Beau spoke around a bite of muffin, then moaned, looking at me. “What the hell did you put in these things?” He chewed, finished the first muffin with one more bite, then grabbed a second. “When we get married, you should make these every day.”
I smirked at this, because years of people watching meant I knew how Beau operated. He was a shameless flirt.
“Slow your gourd, Beauford.” Cletus pulled the plate farther away from Beau, his voice rising with irritation. “Don’t eat the whole plate, greedy britches.”
“There are at least twenty muffins here, Cletus. Slow your own gourd.”
“I want them to last,” he argued.
“Or, she could just make more. Because, I have to tell you, Jenn, I’ve never had a muffin this good before.” Beau pointed a remarkably attractive and flirtatious smile at me; it was one I recognized well from every time he attempted to put the moves on Darlene Simmons. His voice was deep with lurid suggestiveness.
However, and sadly, his suggestiveness—the real meaning behind his words—mostly flew over my head. I hazarded a guess, but decided to look up how a muffin might be a euphemism for intimacy.
“Hey, hey. Switch off the high beams, Beauford Winston.” Cletus snapped his fingers in front of Beau’s face. “Jennifer isn’t one of your lady prospects.”
Beau lifted a dismissive eyebrow at Cletus, then slid his eyes back to me, mischief written all over his features. He winked. “I was just complimenting her muffin.”
“That’s it.” Cletus grabbed the plate of muffins, administering a severe glare of disapproval to his younger brother, and turned back to the office door, bringing me along with him where our hands were linked.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
“You’ve lost the right to these muffins.”
“Cletus,” Beau’s shout was ripe with strangled frustration, “you can’t have all the muffins.”
“I can and I will,” he called over his shoulder, then tilted his chin toward the bolt. “Jenn, unlock that for me, please.”
Flustered, I obliged and he pushed the door open with his elbow.
“When you get home, you and I are going to have words.” Anger seeped into Beau’s tone and the unexpectedness of it had me turning back to Cletus’s brother. His usually friendly gaze was harsh with fury.
Cletus hesitated, a deep crease appearing between his eyebrows, and then he turned his glare on his brother. “Beauford Fitzgerald Winston, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. But you need to sort it out. I’m giving you a month.”
With that, Cletus steered us out of the office and left his brother to stew.
CHAPTER 15
“But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within.”
― Paulo Coelho, Adultery