Chapter 25 – Rhett #2
Tell me you’re staying. Tell me you want this for forever. Tell me we can do long distance. Tell me you see me.
Tell me you won’t leave me again, Jael.
“It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can have your career, travel the world and still end up in my bed,” I say, offering a lifeline and feeling desperate.
She smiles as she traces one of my pecs with her finger and then kisses it gently.
“I don’t know, Rhett. Being here for a month, it’s easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of old feelings with you, but when reality sets in, what will you want?
What will I want? I don’t have a steady career here like I do in Richmond.
What would I even do for work? Doctor Walker said there isn’t currently a position at the hospital for me…
” she trails off and that has me wondering, did she ask?
Was she looking into staying but there’s no jobs available? Is that the real problem? If so, I’ll go talk to my sort-of brother-in-law Hayes Walker right now and beg him to make her an offer that she can’t refuse.
“I mean, Christopher ended things so abruptly with me, I’ve been on the run avoiding him ever since. I don’t really know what I want.”
She’s wrong. She’s so fucking wrong because she wants me. I know it. She’s just refusing to say it now. But I’ve heard her whisper it at night when she comes, I’ve watched her beg for me. And that goddamn ex-fiancé has her confused again.
I’d be glad if I never heard Chris’s name again. I know I can’t push her; it isn’t fair with the career that she’s built, but I also want her to know that I’m not unsure of what I want. I want her.
“There’s no hesitation from my end. I know what I want and what I will want in the future.
I want you, Jael. But I understand that probably isn’t fair for me to tell you.
You’ve got a whole life you’ve built that doesn’t include me and a career that you’ve worked hard for.
I just want you to know where I stand so there’s no confusion. ”
She gives me another weak smile before pressing a soft kiss against my lips. “I want you too, Rhett. I just don’t know what that looks like anymore.”
Long distance. I’ll promote Lark to manager so that I don’t have to do so much. Fuck, I’ll fly to wherever she is. I’ll beg Hayes to give her a job so she can stay. I don’t get to say any of that though because she’s standing up, wrapping the sheet around her tightly like she’s ready to leave.
“Tonight was a lot of fun, but I should go back to my hotel. I need to get some rest before my next 12-hour shift tomorrow.”
And though I don’t want Jael to leave my backyard, my home, or this small town that we both grew up in, I know it’s the right thing to let her go so that she won’t be exhausted for her shift and put her patients at risk.
We dress, and I load her up in my truck, making the short drive back to the hotel where she’s staying. I open the door of my truck for her, helping her hop out and pausing her because I want her to know that the conversation we started tonight isn’t over.
“Let me walk you up to your room so I can be sure you make it in there safe.”
She smiles at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me in for a kiss.
“You’ve always been looking out for me, haven’t you, Rhett?” I hold her like that, savoring the slowness of her kiss. Something about it always holds me captive. When her lips open slightly, I take it as a sign to sweep my tongue inside, tasting me and her on her mouth and loving the way it feels.
“What we talked about tonight, I’m not finished. Will you let us pick that conversation back up when you’re done working this week?”
Her green eyes are softer when she nods. “Yes.”
“Um. Jael?” a voice says from somewhere off to the side, interrupting the moment.
Jael freezes, dropping her arms from where they were gripping my hair as if she’s been shocked. We both slowly turn to see a man standing in the entrance to the hotel, his hands shoved deep in his pockets watching us.
He looks embarrassed, as the fucker should for interrupting our private moment, but there’s something else about him that tells me I’m going to hate this guy vehemently.
“Christopher?” Jael asks in shock, and my heart immediately sinks.
“Uh, yeah, hey Jael. I thought I’d come down and surprise you because I had the weekend off and haven’t heard from you in a few weeks. Wanted to see where you grew up and if we could maybe talk for a few minutes?”
He looks about as comfortable as a fly on a toad’s tongue as he slowly steps towards us. Bold of him to assume we’d want him close. I sure as hell wish he wouldn’t.
Awkwardly, he reaches an arm out as Jael gives him what looks like is a stiff hug. Meanwhile, I’m glaring at him like if I stare hard enough, he might disappear back to Virginia and out of our lives forever.
“Oh, sorry, let me introduce you both,” Jael says as if I give a shit to ever remember this guy’s name again. “Christopher, this is one of my old childhood friends from the trailer park I grew up in, Rhett Miller. Rhett’s mom used to watch me after school.”
“Oh, right, your neighborhood friend,” Christopher says as he reaches out a hand to mine.
Neighborhood friend?
Call it what it is, Chris, we grew up in a dirty trailer park.
I grip his hand in mine, giving it a firm shake and hating that Jael introduced me as just a friend. Another little detail that I’ll wrestle with later tonight when I leave her.
“Hello, Chris.”
“I actually go by Christopher.”
And I actually don’t give a fuck.
“Sure,” I respond, not correcting myself or apologizing.
Jael looks nervously between both of us for a few seconds until I finally decide to be the bigger man.
There’s no point in getting in a pissing competition with him when I know I have the upper hand.
Jael wants me. She loves me, she just hasn’t said it yet.
And though it kills me to let these two talk, maybe this is that closure she alluded to needing.
“Well, I’ll let you get some rest before your twelve-hour shift tomorrow,” I stress that second part to make a point for Chris to know that he shouldn’t keep her up late.
She nods softly as I walk towards my truck, never turning my back on them.
“Thanks Rhett. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
I slide into the driver’s side but put it in idle. I know I shouldn’t stay but I want to make sure he doesn’t take up too much of her time. Plus, I already hate the guy.
“I need to work tomorrow early, can we catch up in the evening?” Jael asks Chris who looks disappointed but nods his head.
“I’m staying here at the hotel. Give me a call when you get off,” Chris says tentatively before leaning in and pressing a kiss to her cheek.
Heat rushes through me so fast it’s like my veins are on fire, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to throw the door open and rip into him.
He has no right—no right to touch her, no right to talk to her.
He’s the one who ended it. He’s the one who walked away from the woman she was because he wanted to stick his dick elsewhere.
And yet there she is. Talking to him. Giving him her time, her eyes, her attention. Why? Why is Jael even letting him breathe the same air, much less stand close enough to speak?
They walk slowly into the hotel together, side by side, and it takes everything in me not to follow them, just to make sure they go to separate rooms.
My insecurities rear their ugly head, and I can’t stop them.
Memories of Jael and Owen from when we were younger resurface, how she’d lied to me about them breaking up before she slept with me.
Yes, we weren’t together, so it didn’t really matter, but it still hurt.
They drag up all the emotions and shit I thought I’d buried a long time ago and I hate how out of control this version of me feels.
“Fuck!” I shout, my voice echoing in the empty parking lot as the hotel doors slide shut behind them.
Jamming the keys into the ignition, I start the truck with a roar and tear out of the lot, tires screeching against the pavement.
I don’t know where I’m going, but I know one thing for damn sure: I can’t go home. Not now. Not to the place where Jael’s scent clings to every corner, a constant reminder of what’s at stake if she leaves.
And especially not when her piece-of-shit ex-fiancé is back in town, probably trying to worm his way into her life again.
I pull out my phone and hit dial, calling my half-brother Lawson. He’s a few years older than me and wiser, he’ll know what to do.
“Hey Rhett. What’s going on?”
“You home?” I ask roughly. “Need to talk.”
He doesn’t even question it. We may have only recently found out that we’re related, but the Marshall’s have always accepted me as one of their own.
“Come over. Beckham’s at his mom’s, and Dani’s at girl’s night.”
I hang up, taking a sharp right into town directly towards the Marshall’s farmstead.