Rhys
I tugged at the collar of my t-shirt for some ventilation as I walked through the doors, grateful for the cool blast of air conditioning and glad we’d decided on somewhere I could dress casually.
Much to my ex’s dismay, I’d never been into fashion or formal wear.
I’d suffer a suit for a wedding or a funeral, but I’d be itching the whole time.
The place was pretty packed, and the large TVs all had a different game on display. We were smack dab in the middle of baseball season, and the NBA finals weren’t too far off, so at least I’d have something to drag my eyes to if I got bored.
I spotted Brie at a booth near the back, along with a guy I’d been on the varsity football team with, and the girl he’d brought.
Brie looked great tucked into a short little denim dress and cowgirl boots, with her long, blonde hair spilling down her back.
I’d already known she looked great though, because she’d been sending me selfies all week from the gym or when she was lounging in bed.
I slipped into the booth next to Brie, and ordered a pitcher of beer when the waitress came around.
The conversation mostly consisted of asking what I’d been up to, which I avoided answering with any honesty, keeping my answers as vague as possible.
I discovered David and Michelle were married with two kids, and that Michelle was Brie’s best friend.
Once we’d moved on from the slightly painful reintroductions and catch-up, the girls chatted about what was going on around town.
When the subject shifted to the abandoned house on Mulberry, I was slightly interested in the conversation again.
I remembered how weirdly sad Kendall had seemed about the fact it was close to being torn down, and how he’d wished he could buy it.
“Ugh, finally,” Brie said, making her feelings about the old place clear. “Maybe we can get something good there, like a Starbucks or something.”
“A Starbucks?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow. “In the middle of a residential neighborhood?”
“Well, why not?” She asked, poking her lip out in a little pout. “Anything’s better than that big old eyesore.”
“I heard the company that wants to buy it is one of those short term investment firms,” Michelle piped up. “They’re going to put one of those little prefab houses there once they bulldoze the other one, and list it on all the rental sites.”
“Who the hell would rent an Airbnb in Cherryvale?” I wondered, but the idea of that old house with all the interesting architecture being torn down for some boring, modernist get-rich-quick type affair was pretty sad.
I knew Kendall would hate it. I wasn’t exactly sure why he would hate it, or what his attachment to that falling down house was.
But it had obviously upset him to think about.
And the idea of someone like him, someone who was almost certainly in the running for title of Sweetest Human Alive, being upset about anything was just incredibly unpleasant.
The thought of those big green eyes welled up with tears, slipping down over those pretty lashes felt criminal.
Had I ever seen him cry? I didn’t think I had.
He was probably in that rare, tiny percentage of people who could actually manage to look cute when they cry, instead of a snotty, blubbering mess.
“Don’t ask me,” David said, clearly agreeing with my sentiment. “Maybe cheaper than staying in a hotel in the city.”
I ordered another pitcher of beer and we all talked a bit more, reminiscing about high school and people we knew, and how a bunch of those people still lived here and what they were up to.
Mostly quiet lives, married with kids. I couldn’t decide if I was envious or not.
I think I’d wanted kids, at one point in my life.
But within the first year of being married to Hailey, all my wants had faded away, shifting into settling for whatever would keep the peace.
We’d fought all the time, and could never agree on anything.
I didn’t know why she’d married me when she wanted a guy she could parade around to her fancy, high-end friends.
She didn’t know why I’d married her when I wanted a woman who I could have chill nights at home with, just talking and watching TV and enjoying each other’s presence.
Why had we done that? We’d only succeeded in wasting each other’s time and making each other feel like shit.
I’d actually forgotten how it felt to hang out and talk to someone who wasn’t making me feel like shit, where I didn’t feel like I needed to act a certain way or watch what I say to avoid sparking up an argument, until I’d sat down with Kendall the night of my dumb little welcome home dinner.
I was pretty sure I’d been chasing that feeling ever since.
I’d gone out of my way to talk to him so many times.
Even the surprise meeting at the store, a complete coincidence, had been totally welcome.
I usually hated seeing anyone I knew when I went out, because I hated small talk and chatting when I wasn’t mentally prepared for it.
But he was so easy to talk to, it didn’t feel like a chore or like I needed to put on a performance.
“Hey.” Brie’s voice cut through my thoughts, snapping me back to the present. “Wake up, Rhys. Are you even paying attention?”
“Huh? Yeah,” I answered. I hadn’t been. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, sliding her hand under the table and giving my upper thigh a quick squeeze.
I glanced down to where she was touching me.
Her nails were long and professionally manicured, pale pink with white tips.
They looked nice, but it just made me think about what Kendall’s nails had looked like at the cabin.
His were pink too, but clipped short and with silver glitter that sparkled in the light when he’d moved his hands.
How was he, a 24-year-old guy so cute? And it seemed to come so naturally to him. Like he didn’t have to try.
“As long as you aren’t thinking about another girl,” she finished teasingly.
“Nope,” I answered honestly, tipping back my frosty mug to drain the rest of my beer before filling it again.
If I’d been thinking about another girl, I wouldn’t have felt so fucking weird about it. Why was I thinking about him? I had a beautiful woman right next to me, who was clearly interested in having sex, which I desperately needed.
It was weird. Even though Hailey and I hadn’t done anything in forever, my libido had basically deteriorated down to nothing.
I’d rarely even bothered to jerk off in the last couple of years.
But I’d been popping random boners nonstop like I was going through puberty again, ever since I’d come back home.
The conversation moved on again. I was having an okay time, and tried not to worry about the fact that basically all my enjoyment was being derived from the social aspect, conversing with everyone, and nothing to do with Brie constantly stroking her fingers over the back of my hand or my thigh.
Eventually, there was another lull, and Brie spoke up again.
“These glasses are so different for you,” she observed.
When she reached up to pull them off my face, I had to stop myself from snatching them back.
My eyesight had gotten really bad in the last few years, what with being on a computer most of the day at the marketing job I’d gotten fired from.
Without them, everything around me was basically a blur.
“They don’t really seem like your style. ”
“I need them to see,” I responded flatly.
“Well, maybe you should think about contacts or something,” she suggested, before slipping them on her own face. “Oh my gosh, you’re totally blind.”
“Why would I get contacts?” I asked, irritation crackling along my skin. To counteract it, I threw back another mug of beer, hoping it would dull whatever part of my brain sent out signals of being annoyed.
“Well, I don’t know. These just don’t seem like something you’d wear. Like, I can’t imagine the Rhys I know wearing these.”
“You mean when I was a teenager?” I deadpanned. “In high school?”
“Yeah!” She answered, definitely not understanding the irony in what I’d asked or what she’d answered.
Repressing the urge to grimace, and taking in a deep, slow breath I reminded myself to be nice.
I needed this. I needed companionship and intimacy and sex.
Mostly sex. What would a normal guy who wasn’t a complete asshole say in this situation?
What would Kendall say in this situation?
He was way better at this kind of thing than I was.
“You know, maybe I will think about getting contacts,” I lied, forcing a grin onto my face. “Not too keen on sticking myself in the eye every day, though.”
“Oh, it’s easy,” she assured me. “You’ll totally get used to it.”
To my relief, she handed my glasses back, which I stuck back onto my face so I could fucking see.
It wasn’t too much longer before David and Michelle said they needed to get home and relieve their babysitter.
I got the impression Brie had only asked them along as a buffer so it wouldn’t be awkward between us, which was fine.
Once they were gone, I endured more mind-numbing small talk and anecdotes about people we’d grown up with.
It wasn’t that she was bad at carrying on a conversation.
She was fine. I just couldn’t force myself to focus on her, for whatever reason.
I could have cried tears of joy when she finally asked me if I wanted to get out of there. I paid both our tabs, and followed her out the door. Her little sedan was parked right over by my dad’s car. As we walked over, she gave me a sidelong glance, her eyes dancing with obvious intent.
“So… Were you thinking of inviting me back to your place?” She asked, steering me toward the door of the car until my back was pressed against it.
“I’m staying with my parents right now,” I reminded her. How the hell had she forgotten that? I’d mentioned it so many times.
“Oh, right,” she said. “Well… My place is free.”
When I realized I didn’t feel any actual enthusiasm for her offer, I quickly plastered a look onto my face to make her think I was.
Why was I not excited? This was the entire reason I’d come out tonight.
Maybe I was just sabotaging myself because I was freaked out about hooking up with someone for the first time in so long.
When she closed the gap between us, raising up onto her toes to kiss me, I turned my head at the last second. She didn’t seem to realize I’d deliberately dodged, and instead latched her mouth onto my throat.
Please don’t leave a mark on my neck, I silently begged, cringing as I resisted the urge to push her away.
After a bit of that, along with her pressing the length of her body up against mine, I felt her hand wedge between us and go straight for my crotch.
Her fingers pressed into the front of my jeans, searching.
“Did you drink too much?” She asked, the words hitting my ear in an accusatory way that I really didn’t like. I’d knocked back a few beers for sure. But too much felt overdramatic.
“No? I had a few beers. That’s it.”
“Well… You’re not getting hard, so I just wondered if maybe that was why.”
My initial instinct was to laugh in her face.
Of course I was hard. A cool breeze was enough to get me hard these days.
My dick had probably spent more time in the past two weeks being hard than the rest of my life combined.
But when I realized I actually wasn’t hard, a jolt of nerves and embarrassment shot through me, concentrated in my stomach.
“Yeah, well, I have a lot on my mind, okay?” I retorted, finally giving in to the urge I’d had since she’d started rubbing herself on me and nudging her away. “I’m tired.”
“Rhys, I-I wasn’t-”
“Look, I have to go, okay? Sorry. I’m just not feeling that great.”
She looked stunned and kind of hurt, and under other circumstances I might have felt bad, but the humiliation of coming out here and doing all this just to be told my dick wasn’t hard had my blood pumping through my veins like a fucking deluge.
I scrambled into the driver’s seat of my dad’s car, trying not to whip out of there like a criminal, but I wanted to be as far away from her as I possibly could, like the painful, burning embarrassment was tethered to her and I could escape it.
I thought about my parents, who were probably sitting at the kitchen table, waiting to bombard me with questions about how my date went the second I walked in the door. I didn’t want that.
And I didn’t want to go back home, back to my fucking childhood bed, still a pathetic, touch-starved 28-year-old who couldn’t even go on a normal date without messing it up.
What the hell was my problem? Why did it feel so difficult?
Sitting with her, talking with her, letting her kiss me, it’d been like a metaphorical root canal.
I’d hated almost every second of it. Did she remind me too much of Hailey?
But they really weren’t anything alike, in looks or personality.
I didn’t think I could use that as an excuse.
So what the hell was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be more into it?
Getting hard was the bare minimum of normalcy when an attractive woman was kissing your neck, and I’d definitely not been experiencing anything adjacent to erectile dysfunction as of late.
I’d even gotten hard at the fucking store, talking to Kendall.
Kendall.
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel as another equally jarring jolt of nerves hit me.
That’s who I wanted to see. That’s who I wanted to talk to.
He wouldn’t have humiliated me by pointing out my soft dick in that accusatory tone.
He wouldn’t have complained about my glasses which I needed to fucking see.
He would have sat, blinking his stupidly long eyelashes at me, nodding and listening so obviously intently, making me feel like I was the most interesting person in the world.
I wouldn’t have struggled for conversation topics.
I knew because it’d been like that with him at the cabin the whole damn time.
He was the only person I’d felt truly comfortable with in so long.
He would have told me how amazing I am, and how happy he was to be on a date with me.
I was sure of it. Why couldn’t she have done any of that?
It should have been obvious that I’d feel weird going out for the first time since breaking it off with my ex-wife.
She should have known that I’d need reassurance and comfort and praise.
Kendall would have known. Everything was so easy with him.
A groan crawled up from my chest out of my throat as I realized what I was actually considering. The stages of grief flashed through me in a sickening whirl, before I landed at acceptance.
I wasn’t going home.