25. Rhys
CHAPTER 25
RHYS
“Stop judging me, cat.”
Cleo has curled herself on the end of my bed, a place she seems to have claimed as her own.
Every night.
She won’t leave me alone. And now she’s watching me work through my promo lines the writers sent with her paws tucked tightly in front of her and a judgmental fucking look on her kind-of-cute face.
“We don’t even like each other,” I add for good measure.
She just purrs. This cat is always purring. Wakes me up purring at 3 a.m., kneading my chest like she’s rolling dough.
Annoying .
I tug my mask down over my face and step away from the world’s worst sidekick, taking my place in front of where I’ve propped my laptop. The backdrop of a plain concrete wall makes it look like I’m living in a bunker, but that’s fine. It’s unidentifiable, and more than anything, I want to keep Tabitha and Milo clear of any media attention.
This is their safe space, and I will not fuck it up by tipping off my more unhinged fans. Not when this place has started to feel like home over the past weeks. Life has become busy in the days since the wedding, but we’ve fallen into a rhythm. Morning coffee under blankets on the porch across from Tabitha. She works, I take Milo. I work out at the local rec center or hit up my new favorite yoga class, she takes Milo. We grocery shop together and hold hands in public.
I think we both find it easier to talk to each other all the time—just not about the hand-holding. Or the kissing. Or how irrationally jealous her stupid high school boyfriend makes me.
Tabitha cooks the best fucking meals I’ve ever had in my life, and I eat so much that I worry I might need to cut down hard and fast when I get back to work. We go our separate ways at night, and I fist my cock in the shower, thinking about my wife. Then I fall asleep, forcing myself to list all the reasons crossing that line with her is a terrible idea for what is already a tenuous setup. Milo is—and needs to remain—our number one priority.
I check the mail daily, but the marriage certificate has yet to arrive. I know it’s my ticket out of here. And I try not to overanalyze the way I feel disappointed and relieved all at once. Because I love my work, but I’m starting to love being here too.
I tip my wrist up to check my watch and realize I need to get this promo squared away quickly. It won’t take Tabitha long to drop Milo with her parents, and I need to get to bowling sooner rather than later.
A quick click of the mouse gives me a three-second countdown to get in position. I’ve slicked my hair back, and the black T-shirt I’m wearing clings to my skin. Intimidating is the vibe, and this works. Anthony’s email said to send a threatening message to Million Dollar Bill, otherwise known as Will. I need to challenge him to a matchup next month at Pure Pandemonium—the biggest professional wrestling event of the year.
When the tone sounds, I leave Rhys behind and become Wild Side. It’s part of what I love about this job. I get to be someone else for a brief time. Someone tough, strong, and commanding—not an insecurity or worry as far as the eye can see.
Being Wild Side was my ticket out of a tough upbringing, and slipping into character always feels like tugging on a favorite old hoodie. It feels like peace.
I heave my shoulders once and stare down straight into the camera, curling my lip in a subtle sneer. “I may not be there in person, but I’ve got a special message for Little Willy, as I like to call him.”
A quiet snicker sounds from behind me, and my eyes close. I don’t even need to turn around to know that Tabitha is somewhere near the top of the stairs, watching me.
I sigh heavily. “Tabby.”
“Wild Side.”
“ Tabitha .”
“Sorry,” she squeaks back. “Little Willy broke me.”
Tugging my mask off, I turn to face her. She’s huddled at the top of the stairs, peeking through the railings, one piece of unfinished lumber in each hand, face visible through the gap. Like a little kid caught spying.
“I need ten minutes.”
“You really expect me to go upstairs and pretend you aren’t doing this down here? You overestimate my maturity, Dupris. If I’m not sitting here, I’ll be holding an empty can up to the door to eavesdrop.”
I say nothing, opting to glare at her and cross my arms. It’s getting harder and harder to keep this unaffected front up around Tabitha. Between the wedding, the odd outburst of sexual tension, the constant touching in public, and me spilling my guts to her at the rose field, we’re feeling a lot more like friends who want to fuck than enemies who want to fuck.
We’re feeling complicated and inevitable all at once.
“Let me help you,” she says, surprising me with her offer. Then, without an invitation, she marches down the stairs and heads straight for my laptop.
Anxiety swirls in my gut. I have never merged these personal and professional worlds in any major way. But Tabitha waltzes across the divide with such ease and eagerness that I don’t have it in me to stop her.
Instead, I stand back and watch her approach the screen and start the video over from the beginning. My cheeks go hot as it plays back. It’s one thing to know she’s watched me on TV and another thing to stand here and experience it.
“Do you like this background? It looks like you’re being held hostage.”
My lips twitch. “That’s fine. It’s unidentifiable and all one color.”
“You look fucking jacked in this T-shirt.”
I scrub a hand over my mouth. “Thanks?”
“Yeah. But the lighting is all wrong. We need you to pop . We need…” She tilts her head, her body doing this shimmy thing which does absolutely nothing except draw my attention to her perfectly round ass. The faded black Levi’s she’s wearing just add to the shape, and I have to think about something gross to stave off the hardness in my boxers.
A long piece of hair that you can feel but can’t get off.
The liquid on top of sour cream when you open the container.
Band-Aids in a public pool.
“I’m just going to…” She moves around the unfinished basement, flicking lights on and placing the bedside lamp into a strategic spot. Then she goes to stand where I was and peers back at the screen. “Okay, the lighting is better, but the camera on this thing sucks. Let’s do it on your phone.”
“What?”
“I’ll record you. That way, I can zoom in and shit. I do aesthetic food videos for the bistro all the time.”
She holds a palm out in my direction, and I stare down at it. “No.”
“Yes. As your wife, I refuse to let you turn in a shitty mouth-running video.”
“It’s a promo,” I correct petulantly.
“Whatever. As Mrs. Wild Side, I demand they only portray you in the best light possible. Literally and figuratively.”
Her fingers curl in a hand-it-over motion. My brows furrow, and I don’t know why I feel shy. I’ve taken my fair share of acting classes. I film these in front of people all the time.
But Tabitha isn’t just people.
“Chop, chop, big man.” She taps at her bare wrist impatiently. “We’re child-free, and I’ve got a girls’ night to get to.”
With unfamiliar butterflies in my stomach, I approach the spot with the words we’re child-free swirling in my head. It’s how she said we. The familial term slipped from her tongue so naturally.
I have never been part of a we .
That’s why I hand her my phone.
She holds it up, examining it with a speculative gaze. “Okay, you know what you’re going to say? I don’t want my arm to shake. I already fucked up one take.”
It’s funny. I’ve spent all these years hiding what I do, avoiding conversations about it, feeling wounded when people have something to say about it. Oh, it’s so fake. Steroids aren’t good for you. That’s trash TV. And here I am, married to a woman who is—I don’t even know. Invested? Supportive? Even excited?
I’m not sure what to make of it.
But I like it.
“Hello?” She waves. “Earth to Rhys? Put that mask on. Let’s go. It’s time to shit talk Little Willy.” Her lips clamp together, but she doesn’t let the laugh out. She just looks… happy .
I hesitate to put my mask on. I’ve only worn it in front of work people. Doing it here, in a quiet basement with Tabitha, feels fucking weird.
But I can’t deny her shit. So with an irritated eye roll, I pull the mask over my face, securing the straps over the back of my head so it stays in place. Then I force myself to look her in the eye. I expect to see a tinge of mockery in her gaze, but I don’t. Her dark eyes are sparkling like the lake at night as her tongue darts out over her plump pink lips in concentration.
“You’ve got…” She trails off, and I quirk my head in question. Her finger points up toward my head. “You’ve got—you know what? Here .”
She steps forward, and the scent of her citrusy perfume hits me as she pulls in close. It suits her perfectly. It stops me in my tracks.
Her arm lifts, and her fingers slide into my hair. Gentle and a touch tentative. And fuck if my heart rate doesn’t ratchet straight up.
“Is this okay?” she whispers, gaze moving back down to meet mine. “You had hair sticking out. Hard to look like a badass with messy hair.”
All I can do is nod.
And think about kissing her.
And I don’t mean the polite, nothing kisses we exchange in public for appearances’ sake. Or the ones I pretend are just for show.
Because there’s nothing polite about the things I want to do to Tabitha Garrison. Even just knowing she’s walking around with my ring on her finger makes me hard.
Soon her fingers flatten and smooth my hair. “There.” Her head tilts as if inspecting her handiwork. “That’s better.”
It’s just cool enough that I can feel the warm dampness of her breath against the side of my neck. She’s too fucking close.
Her eyes drop to my mouth. And god, I want to do it. I want to kiss her. But my fear of fucking it all up tugs me back. One step away and her magnetic pull lessens. A second step and I can breathe again.
With a firm dip of my chin, I grumble, “Okay, let’s do this.”
“Okay,” she replies breathlessly. I could swear her cheeks are more flushed than they were before, lips a little glossier. “Just say when.”
I get into position, close my eyes for a beat, and straighten up. When my lids open back up, I’m Wild Side. Tabitha counts down on her fingers and then points at me.
And without overthinking the fact that I’m doing this with her , I point at the camera with authority, and talk. “I’ve got a special message for Little Willy. And it’s that he better be ready to lose at Pure Pandemonium. He’ll be wiping his tears with all the money he never earned. Because that belt is going to be back where it belongs”—I gesture to my waist—“and that’s with me: a real champion.
“Yeah, I’ll let him borrow my belt just long enough to make a fool of himself. He can traipse around in his fancy suit, running his mouth, relying on cheap shots and brass knuckles—as every loser in this company needs to when they try to beat me. But none of that is going to work, because I’ll be ready. I’ll be training where he and his goons can’t find me.”
I pause for dramatic effect before continuing. “In fact, I’ll be the one to find him. And when I do, you better believe I’m gonna drag that pathetic trust-fund baby to the Wild Side, take his ass over the mountain, and show him how real men settle the score.”
I wait several seconds and then nod. Tabitha is grinning like a total loon when she nods back and lowers the phone.
I tug my mask back instantly and glare at her. “What?”
Her cheeks twitch. “Nothing.”
“You’re smiling like the Joker. That’s not nothing.”
She shrugs, staring down at the phone. “I just didn’t have you being an overgrown drama nerd on my bingo card.”
Hands on my hips, I look away to cover a smile.
“ Gonna drag that pathetic trust-fund baby to the Wild Side ,” she imitates with gusto. My first reaction is to go on the defensive, but then she adds, “God, that was amazing. Do you make that shit up on the fly? I could never.”
I watch her smile down at the screen as my gravelly voice filters from the device. With only a few long strides, I stand beside her, looking down at the recording. And she wasn’t wrong. The lighting is better. She even zoomed in slowly so that you get a good close-up as I deliver my parting words.
I put an arm over her shoulder, mask dangling from my hand, and pull her in for a side hug. Partly a weird attempt at being friendly but casual, and partly because I itch to touch her. I want to tell her how special it is to me that she jumped in and helped with this.
But where Wild Side is just fine with expressing himself, Rhys is more like squeezing blood from rocks where emotions are concerned.
“Thank you, Tabby,” is what I settle on. It’s simple, but it gets the job done.
She turns her smile up at me. And fuck, it’s blinding. “Mrs. Wild Side to the rescue. Do we get to do more?”
My brows jump in surprise. “More?”
“Yeah. Like… again? Will I get to see my clip on TV?”
“ Your clip?”
“Oh yeah.” She scoffs and mimes brushing dirt off her shoulder. All it does is draw my eyes down the front of her soft black sweater—the one with the plunging neckline and layered gold necklaces. From here, I can see a peek of a red bra, and I swallow the groan that surges up in my throat at the sight. “I’m your official camerawoman now. In fact…”
I’m so busy gawking at her that my reaction time is slow.
She grabs my mask and spins out of my hold, hiking it over her face in one fluid motion. “I think I need a headshot and video credit.”
“Absolutely not.” I reach for her, but she turns away again.
“Never mind this wedding band. I need a matching mask,” she calls over her shoulder as she hustles away, laughter floating through the chilled basement.
I go after her, covering the ground in long strides. I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s one of several masks. Nothing special, really. Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to follow her around. “Tabitha.”
She turns and strikes a pose with a hand beneath her chin at the base of the stairs. The lime-green lines on the mask pop against her dark hair. “Admit it. I look cute like this.”
“That’s not the word I’d use,” I grumble, reaching forward with a chuckle as I make a feeble attempt at unmasking her.
Her sweater slips between my fingers as she jogs up a few steps before taunting me. “How are you going to catch Little Willy, Rhys? You can’t even catch me.”
And then my wife, wearing my mask, holds her fingers up in a peace sign, sticks her tongue out, and snaps a selfie on my phone.
I take two steps with one stride, and this time, I do catch her. My hands snag on her waist, and I drag her down onto my lap as I turn. And then I’m seated on the stairs, back pressed to the steps behind me, with Tabitha straddling me.
I peel the mask back and toss it over my shoulder, gaze burning across her features.
My plan ends there.
I’m met with flushed cheeks, wide eyes, and parted lips. Her mouth. God. I can’t stop staring at her mouth. The light from upstairs shines down on us, illuminating her in the most enticing glow. What started out playfully suddenly feels serious.
“Caught you,” I rumble. “Now what?”
“Now…” she breathes, but doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, her head drops closer, body arching toward mine. Then she fists the front of my shirt and kisses me.