Never The Best (Savannah's Best #5)

9. Rhett

CHAPTER 9

Rhett

I had agreed to attend the Savannah Lace summer party at Forsyth Park to avoid going to a Vance party. Josie had been disappointed, but when I lied that this was about work and networking, she relented. However, she made sure I understood that these priorities would have to shift after we were married.

Every day with Josie was a trial. She insisted that we move in together, but I held off, wanting to wait until we were married…or maybe never .

I looked around at the long stretches of green lawn dotted with picnic tables and tents. The live oaks gave the whole scene a quintessentially Southern feel. A section of the park had been set up for softball, complete with bases marked out in chalk and a small set of bleachers that were already half-filled with laughing Savannah Lace employees, their partners, and families, holding plastic cups of beer, lemonade, and sweet tea. There was a food truck serving tacos parked near the edge of the field and another one doling out ice cream that already had a long line. It was relaxed and easy, tempting even Savannah’s elite to loosen their ties and trade their summer linen suits for casual button-ups and sneakers.

I stood near the first baseline, sipping an iced tea and watching the game in progress. My team had just finished a close one—too close for my liking—and I was grateful for a break to catch my breath and observe.

As I'd gotten used to doing in the past months since Pearl came back to Savannah, I sought her out. She was leaning against the outfield fence. Her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and she was wearing shorts and a tank top. She looked good. There had been many changes in Pearl since I used to know her—but hadn't we all grown up since we were teenagers?

Pearl carried herself with more confidence. Was it because she'd lost all that weight? I never had a problem with her curves. I liked them. Even when I was a stupid teenager, I thought she was beautiful. How different would our lives have been if I'd had the courage and conviction to tell the world that Pearl was my girlfriend all those years ago by the pool?

“You know, it’s rude to stare,” a voice said from behind me, cutting through my thoughts.

I dragged my eyes away from Pearl. I had been caught staring, lingering over her beautiful face, the curve of her generous lips.

I turned to find the owner of the voice. Luna Steele was taking a sip from her water bottle. I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed—her aviator sunglasses, reflecting the park in miniature, hid her eyes and any hint of emotion behind them.

Luna was usually impossible to miss—her biker-babe chic style always stood out, even among Savannah’s polished elite. Today, she wore tight black shorts, a fitted tank top that showed off her intricate tattoos and sculpted shoulders, and a pair of well-worn sneakers. She had that kind of effortless cool that drew people in, even though she had no hesitation telling you exactly what she thought, whether you liked it or not.

“I wasn’t staring,” I defended myself, but the way she grinned told me she didn’t believe me for a second. It also told me she wasn’t angry with me, just amused.

“Sure, you weren’t.” She took another long sip of her water before glancing back toward the field.

I shrugged.

"My brother speaks highly of you," she told me.

I nodded, smiling stiffly. I knew Lev Steele well—he was part of Royal's friend circle, and I'd recently started to spend time with Lev, his friend Dominic Calder, and a few others. "I have a lot of respect for Lev."

Lev was a few years older than me, so we didn't interact much in high school and went to different colleges after.

"You know I have no filter, right?" Luna tilted her head as she studied me.

"It may have been mentioned." I was unable to keep a smile from tugging at my lips .

Luna smirked. “Yeah, I’m not much for sugarcoating. But I’ll admit, you’re a bit of a surprise.”

“How?” I was genuinely curious.

She set the water bottle at her feet and stretched her arms over her head. “You’re not what I expected.”

"What did you expect?"

"An asshole, based on your reputation."

"That was many years ago." I wasn't being defensive but rather explaining where I was coming from. Hadn't we all done things we regretted when we were young and foolish? “I’m not proud of who I was back then.”

Luna looked at me speculatively as if trying to gauge the sincerity of my words, just as Nina had done a few weeks ago when I took her to lunch. Finally, she nodded. “Not many of us are.”

We stood in silence for a moment, watching the game as one of the players hit a grounder to second base. The crowd cheered, and someone yelled for the runner to slide. My attention drifted to Pearl. She was cheering, too, her voice bright over the crowd's noise. Or maybe I could hear her because I wanted to.

"You're engaged to Josie Vance."

"Yes."

"Then I suggest you stop watching Pearl like she's a tasty morsel and you haven't eaten in a while."

I was too stunned for a moment to say anything.

"I told you, no filter," Luna informed me cheerfully.

I hesitated, unsure how much I wanted to admit to a friend of Pearl's, but then threw caution to the winds. “I regret hurting Pearl. I know there is no way to change the past, and I'm not seeking her forgiveness. What I did was the worst kind of bullying. In any case, it looks like she got over it.”

"Does it?" Luna cocked an eyebrow. "How did you figure that out?"

There was heat in her voice, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. "She told me."

"And you believe her?"

I considered her question and then shook my head. "No, I don't. But she wants me to, and what the hell else can I do?"

Luna nodded slowly. “Pearl is strong. Stronger than she realizes, sometimes. But she’s also had to deal with a lot of crap from people who were supposed to care about her,” she paused, turning to face me fully, “which includes her family and you.”

“I know,” I said quietly.

“You know, I can’t reconcile the man you seem to be now with the kid I’ve heard about.”

I gave her a small, humorless smile. “I can’t either, honestly.”

Luna’s lips twitched into a smile. “Well, good luck figuring it out." She picked up her water bottle and drank it empty. She three-pointed it expertly into a trash can. “And Rhett?”

“Yeah?”

“You're engaged to another woman; if you want what I think you want, you're going to have to go against God and all of Savannah society. You may have changed, grown up and all that, but the fact that you're engaged to that crazy, lunatic bitch tells me you're still more that boy than the man you want to be."

With that declaration, she walked away from me.

I watched her for a long moment, contemplating what she'd said before turning my gaze back to Pearl. Luna was right. About several things. First, I was engaged to a crazy, lunatic bitch, and that said more about me than my fiancée. Also, while I was engaged to another woman, I had no business staring at a woman hungrily. I was not a cheat.

But is looking cheating? Yes, it is when your intentions are not platonic.

Fuck!

So, I was all but cheating on the fiancée that I didn’t want. Could my life be more of a shitshow?

Since I didn’t have a solution for where my life was at, I focused on the ball game instead of the woman who had been crowding my dreams, nightmares, and conscious mind for the past months.

The late afternoon sun was relentless as I rolled the softball in my hand, weighing its familiar heft. The game had been surprisingly competitive—Savannah Lace employees didn’t mess around. Both teams were hooting, shit-talking, and shouting encouragement from the sidelines as we neared the last inning.

Since I was trying hard to avoid looking at her, the universe decided to throw me a curve ball. Pearl was up to bat.

I stood on the makeshift pitcher’s mound, gripping the ball, as I watched her step up to the plate. Her hands were wrapped around the bat, and her stance was solid.

My focus, to the detriment of my team, was on her cut-off shorts and those gorgeous legs that went all the way up and down. Her sneakers dug slightly into the dirt as she planted her feet. Her ponytail swung slightly as she glanced at me, a teasing smirk pulling at her lips.

"Hey, Vanderbilt, don't mess this up," Diego Perez, one of Savannah Lace's partners and a member of my team, called out.

"Not gonna," I said cockily. "You wanna slow ball since you're…you know, not too experienced playin' ball?" I was going to treat her, I decided, as I had been all the other players. Easy, comfortable, and casual.

“Don’t go easy on me, Vanderbilt,” Pearl called out, her voice carrying over the chatter of the crowd around us.

I grinned despite myself, shifting my weight. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Beaumont.”

The outfielders shifted slightly, readying themselves as I wound up. The ball left my hand with a clean arc, spinning toward her just over the plate. Pearl swung, the sound of the crack sharp and satisfying as the ball soared into the air.

“Go, go, go!” Nina shouted.

Pearl dropped the bat and took off like a shot, her sneakers kicking up small puffs of dirt as she sprinted toward first base. The ball arched high into the sky, heading toward left field, where one of my teammates fumbled the catch.

“Run, Pearl!” Luna’s voice rang out from the sidelines, followed by cheers and laughter from her team.

Pearl rounded first base and barreled toward second, her ponytail flying behind her as the outfielder scrambled to recover the ball.

“Throw it in!” I yelled, gesturing wildly toward the infield, but the roar of the crowd drowned out my voice.

By the time the ball reached the shortstop, Pearl was already diving into third, a cloud of dust rising around her as she hit the base. I worried she'd hurt herself, but she stood up quickly, her grin wide and triumphant as she glanced toward home plate.

“Go for it, Pearl!” one of her teammates yelled, and the crowd erupted into a frenzy of cheering.

I jogged toward home, bracing myself as the catcher took position behind me. The outfielder was throwing the ball back in now, but Pearl had already taken off, sprinting down the baseline with a determination that made my chest tighten.

“Tag her, Rhett!” someone on my team shouted, but I was frozen, caught somewhere between watching the ball and watching Pearl.

The ball came flying toward me, but Pearl’s sneakers hit the plate a fraction of a second before the ball landed in my glove. She skidded to a stop, laughing and breathless, her hands on her knees as her team exploded into cheers behind her .

“ Safe !” the umpire called, and the crowd roared.

Pearl’s teammates rushed the field, surrounding her with high-fives and shouts of celebration.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Luna yelled, pulling Pearl into a playful hug.

I couldn’t stop smiling as I jogged back toward the mound, shaking my head. My team groaned good-naturedly, a few of them muttering about needing new outfielders.

Pearl glanced over at me, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright with the kind of joy that was impossible to fake.

Luna was right about me, I thought, as an epiphany struck me.

Back then, as a teenager, I’d buried how I felt about Pearl beneath layers of cowardice and cruelty, convincing myself that fitting in with my so-called friends mattered more than the truth. They had mocked her, betrayed her, humiliated her—and I’d let their voices drown my feelings, too scared to stand up and admit what was in my heart. It had been easier to join them than to risk being cast out.

Now, standing on this makeshift softball field with the sound of laughter and cheers echoing around me, I knew that I hadn’t changed as much as I wanted to believe. I was still a coward, still hiding behind the mask of the man everyone expected me to be. I was engaged to a woman I didn’t like, playing the role of someone who had it all together, all the while, the one person I truly wanted—had always wanted—stood just twenty feet away, celebrating a victory with a grin so bright it made her eyes sparkle like stars .

As I watched Pearl, laughing and radiant, something inside me unfurled, something I could no longer ignore. I’d spent years running from the truth, and the truth was Pearl. It had always been Pearl.