Chapter Twenty-two #2
Everyone clinks glasses, some more half-heartedly than others.
I sip mine and glance around the table. There’s a rhythm to nights like this.
I’m starting to feel like me again. Being here, surrounded by my friends, I almost forget everything that’s shifted over the past week.
Then my phone buzzes in my bag, and I don’t even have to look to know who it is.
Rhett leans my direction and asks, “Rach, you driving up solo?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just easier that way, with my schedule and all.”
His brows lift a little, but he nods. “If you change your mind, I’ve got room in my truck. I’m even willing to be generous and let you play your terrible playlist the entire drive.”
I scoff. “That’s sweet of you, Rhett, but there’s really no need to lie. My playlist is objectively excellent.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Still standing by the offer.”
“I know,” I say, softer now. “And for the record, you secretly love my playlist.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. “I will neither confirm nor deny that statement.”
We settle the check slowly, still passing half-eaten fries and unfinished drinks between us. The conversation drifts from the lake house to weekend traffic to Wes’s questionable packing skills. I mostly listen.
“I think I’m gonna head out,” I say, standing first and slinging my purse over my shoulder. Rhett’s eyes flick up to me.
“You sure?” Margo asks.
“Yeah, I’m getting tired,” I say, forcing an easy tone. “I’ll see you all on Friday.”
She nods, but her eyes linger. I give her a small smile and turn toward the door.
The restaurant is cooler than it was earlier, the AC blasting even at night. I step outside into the heavier air. The lot is mostly empty now, streetlights casting a dull yellow glow over the asphalt.
And that’s when I see him.
Ben.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter under my breath.
Ben leans against the driver’s side of my car as if he owns it. His arms cross tight over his chest, his jaw locked hard. He looks furious.
My steps are slow. I draw in a breath and make myself keep walking, steady, eyes fixed on the car. I will not let him see fear.
When he notices me, he pushes off the car. His balance lags half a second behind, loose and unsteady. A crushed beer can sits near his feet, a dark ring of liquid still clinging to the rim.
“You’ve been ignoring me for over a week, Rach. I’m done. I wanna come home.” His voice drags, thick and uneven. He tries for calm, but every word bends sharp. Drunk Ben can be a scary man.
“I’ve been ignoring you because we’re done.” My keys bite into my palm. I don’t look at him. “I don’t owe you anything more than that.”
“You can’t just fucking ghost me, Rachel.”
I shift toward the driver’s door, but he moves with me, one quick step that blocks my path. His shoulders square as if he’s ready to hold his ground. My chest tightens.
“Yes, I can,” I say. “We’re broken up. That’s how this works.” I keep my tone even, though it takes everything in me not to let it break.
“Don’t get smart with me.” His voice sharpens fast. “You owe me a conversation. After everything? You don’t just get to walk away without explaining shit.”
His breath is sour with alcohol. I stop short. My heart kicks up, fast and fluttery, thudding against my ribs. His eyes are bloodshot. I glance down and watch his hands flex open and closed at his sides, like he can’t control what they want to do.
“I don’t owe you anything,” I say, and I try to keep my voice level, but it comes out thinner than I want. “Move.”
He stays where he is.
I step sideways. He shadows me, dragging his feet but planting himself in front of the path to the door. He sets his stance wide, as if daring me to push past.
“You think you can just cut me off like that? After everything?”
“There is no ‘after everything,’ Ben,” I say. “It’s over.”
“No, it’s not.” The words snap out of him. Louder now. His eyes flare. “You said you needed space. You didn’t say we were fucking done.”
“I’m pretty sure I said, ‘it’s over, and it’s done, and move out.’ I’m not sure how you twisted that into ‘let’s take a break.’”
He steps in.
I stumble back until the car stops me. The door handle digs into my hip. He doesn’t slow. He closes the gap, plants his arm against the roof above me, and locks me in place.
Cold rushes through me. Every muscle in my body locks tight. He is too close. If he doesn’t move, I can’t either.
“Get out of my way,” I yell as I squirm beneath him.
“You don’t get to throw us away,” he growls. His face hovers close, his words hot against my skin. “Not after everything I did for you. You don’t just walk out like none of it mattered.”
His other hand twitches, and I think he is about to reach for my face. But right before he does, he stops himself. He curls it into a fist around my wrist instead.
Pain shoots through my arm, and I can’t help but wince.
“We were good together, Rachel,” he says as he presses his hips onto mine. “Don’t you see that?”
My pulse is hammering now. My mind races. I keep my other hand at his chest, pressing into it, trying to create any sort of distance. “Move, Ben.”
He doesn’t budge. He digs in, grounding himself even more, like he belongs there, like my refusal means nothing. I don’t think I could force him to move even if I could somehow summon the strength.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re doing,” he hisses. “You think some fantasy guy is gonna treat you better than I did? No one’s gonna put up with the shit I did. And trust me, babe, I put up with a hell of a lot.” His hand squeezes around my wrist tighter now.
“Ben, you’re hurting me.” My voice cracks slightly, despite my best effort. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink at the sound of my pain.
“You really think those people give a shit about you?” His sneer curls. “You think Rhett’s gonna want anything to do with you once he figures out what you’re actually like? Once he knows I’ve already had you. That you’re nothing but my used scraps. You’re fucking worthless, Rachel.”
Something inside me snaps, and I shove my hand harder into his chest.
“I mean it. Get off of me!”
For a beat, he stares at me. His breathing is ragged, and his eyes are dark.
The rage in him simmers just beneath the surface, waiting for a spark, and I might have just lit it.
He leans in slowly, bringing his face inches from mine, and my whole body stays rigid.
Every instinct screaming, don’t move, don’t escalate, don’t show him fear.
And I believe, in that moment, if I say one more thing, he might really hurt me.
“Hey! Back the fuck up!” Another voice slices through the air behind him.
Rhett’s voice. The sound cuts clean and cold, like steel through bone. Ben pulls his hips from mine, but his hand doesn’t drop from my wrist. His head snaps around, scanning for the source of the threat before he can react.
Relief crashes through me, causing a sharp and overwhelming feeling to course through my body. My knees threaten to buckle, my body trembling from the sudden release. I’m barely holding myself upright.
“I said. Let. Go. Of. Her.”
Every step Rhett takes toward me drains the adrenaline from my veins, leaving a cold, shaking emptiness in its wake.
He moves deliberately, like a predator sizing up its target, and the air seems to shrink around him.
His shoulders are squared and his jaw tight.
His attention is fully locked on Ben. His fists remain loose, controlled, but the power coiled there makes him almost more terrifying than Ben ever could be.
Ben shifts. “We’re just talking, man. Relax.”
“You don’t touch her.” Rhett’s voice is calm, but his eyes are anything but.
Ben scoffs. He tries to smirk, tries to act like he’s not the one about to get laid out. “You don’t even know what’s happening—”
“I don’t need to know.” Rhett closes the distance with one final step, standing almost chest-to-chest with him now.
He brings one hand to me, lightly pushing me behind him, keeping me tucked safe.
“What I know is you had your hands on her, and she asked you to get off her. So for once in your stupid fucking life, listen to her. And back. The fuck. Off.” He pokes Ben’s chest with each final word.
Ben hesitates, eyes flicking between us. He shifts, teetering, like he might try to fight, but he is unsteady. Rhett notices the restless flex of his hands. Rhett’s fists tighten in response.
“Move,” Rhett spits out. “This is your last warning. If I have to repeat myself, it won’t be with my words.”
Ben steps back reluctantly, hands half-raised. His palms open in a show of surrender. He is unmasked now, frail and unstable beneath his anger.
Rhett gives me a glance over his shoulder, making sure I’m still standing before turning back towards Ben.
“She’s the one who started this,” Ben mutters, trying to shift blame. His last ditch effort to make himself look innocent.
“You pinned her against her fucking car,” Rhett snaps. “You so much as breathe on her again, and I swear to God—”
Ben glances at me, as if I might defend him. I don’t. I won’t. I keep my eyes on Rhett, gripping the car behind me because it’s the only thing keeping me steady.
“Whatever,” Ben mutters. “You’ll figure it out sooner or later. Rachel is worthless.”
Rhett moves. And everything happens so fast, I barely process it. I watch his arm wind back, his fist snap forward, and he connects with Ben’s jaw. Right before Ben is about to fall to the ground, Rhett grabs him by the shirt and holds him up.
“You don’t get to say her name,” Rhett growls, each word slow and venomous. “Do you understand me? You don’t ever get to ever breathe in her direction again.”
Ben starts to open his bloody mouth, but Rhett cuts him off.
“Say one more fucking thing,” Rhett cuts in, lethally low. “Call her worthless again.” He pauses. “Touch her again. Even look at her the wrong way—” the words push out as he grits his teeth.
His voice turns to stone. “—and I’ll make sure tonight is the last time you get to put your hands on anyone.”
Ben stares for a second longer, and then Rhett releases him.
He turns on his heel and stumbles off, his steps uneven.
Rhett watches until he disappears into the dark.
Then he turns to look at me. And just like that, all that brutal force drains from his face.
The rage fades. The tension leaves his shoulders.
His eyes meet mine, and every sharp edge softens.
“Are you okay?” Rhett asks, his voice urgent. His gaze doesn’t leave my body. He is taking me in. Memorizing every inch of me, he is making sure I’m intact. I watch as his eyes trace every line of my body.
I want to answer. I try. But the words vanish before they reach my mouth.
Tears press behind my eyes, but I can’t let them fall. I stand frozen, every nerve still alive with the echo of fear. My heart races, but my body feels distant, disconnected, like I’m watching myself from somewhere else. I can’t fully believe it’s over. I can’t process that I’m okay.
“Rach.” His voice softens and trembles slightly, but the urgency doesn’t leave it. He steps closer, closing the distance between us. “Rachel, please. Just talk to me.”
His eyes bounce between mine, pleading with me to answer.
I still can’t speak. My hands tremble, my back throbs where the car pressed against me, but it’s not the pain keeping me still—it’s the shock, the weight of everything that nearly happened.
“Sunny,” he whispers again, more frantic this time. “Are you okay?” He lifts his hands to my face as he cups my jaw. “Baby, please. Say something. You gotta say something. I need to know you’re okay.”
I manage a small nod, the tiniest movement, barely more than a twitch of my chin. It’s the only thing I can force.
His eyes drop immediately to my arm, to the red marks where Ben dug in. Rhett’s body stiffens. His jaw clenches, the muscle ticking hard before locking completely.
“Get in the car, Sunny,” Rhett orders. “I’m taking you home.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer before he walks around to the passenger side door and opens it for me, and waits for me to follow his lead. Reluctantly, I walk around and slide into the seat.
I get why he stepped in. He would have done that for any other woman in my position.
But as the silence stretches during the car ride home, something shifts. The fear starts to recede, slipping off my skin in pieces, and in its place, something else begins to rise.
It’s not relief. I have realized there is no relief for me when it comes to Rhett.
There is only the ache of wanting something I shouldn’t still want.
Because, of course, he showed up. Of course, he stepped between me and the worst-case scenario without hesitation.
That’s what he does. He saves me, over and over, in the exact moment I need him.
Just enough to remind me what it feels like to be protected. But never enough to be kept.
He called me Baby. I heard the word come out of his mouth. I thought I hallucinated it at first. But I watched his lips form the word. He said it as if it were normal. As if he hasn’t spent the last decade of my life making it clear I’m just a friend.
So what the hell was that?
I glance at him, sharp, hoping maybe he’ll look guilty. Or a hint of sheepishness. Anything. But he doesn’t even blink.
I cross my arms over my chest, gripping tight.
I don’t know what game he’s playing, but I’m not in the mood.
He doesn’t get to swoop in, save me, say things like that, and then act like he never meant any of it.
He doesn’t get to look at me and make me think I’m his, then pretend he has never considered it.
I bite the inside of my cheek hard, trying to clamp down on the words that threaten to escape.
And the worst part? Somewhere beneath the anger, beneath the confusion and the pride, there is a small, stubborn part of me that has to hear him say it again.