Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-three
RHETT
The silence in the car is thick enough to choke on, and I’m pretty sure Rachel wants me to.
She hasn’t said a single word since I got behind the wheel.
Her arms are crossed so tightly over her chest, I’m half-worried they’ll leave bruises.
Her eyes are fixed straight ahead, and her body is rigid as stone.
She has only looked at me once, and even then, I’m not sure she saw me.
I don’t even know if she’s breathing normally.
I don’t try to fill the silence. I know exactly what she is feeling. She is pissed. There’s nothing I can say right now that wouldn’t aggravate her more.
I keep my hands loose on the wheel, gripping when I need to, letting the car move us forward, letting the quiet stretch.
I knew this would happen the second I stepped in back there.
Her angry, me driving and the space between us is full of everything we’re not saying. But I’m sick of keeping it all inside.
I don’t ask if she’s okay. I already asked and already fucked that up. The worry hit me the second I saw Ben with his hands on her, the moment I realized how scared she must have been. I was so focused on her safety that ‘baby’ just slipped out.
God, I hated that it slipped out. I’ve been so good at keeping that tucked into the deepest corners. All she gave me was a nod. That’s it. One tiny nod. Even after I saw the marks on her arm. Even after I watched her blink away tears as if they didn’t matter.
Ben is lucky he’s still breathing.
If I hadn’t walked in when I did—
I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw me.
I pull up to her place and kill the engine. Still nothing from Rachel. Not a word. She spares me no glance. Not a breath that tells me she’s going to let me in.
When I’m convinced she is going to stay in the car, she finally moves. She unbuckles her seatbelt, shoves the door open and climbs out without so much as a look my way.
I follow her lead. Rachel can be pissed all she wants. Her emotions don’t scare me; they never have.
She unlocks the front door fast, swinging it open and walking straight into the living room. All the lights are off except for the one by the window. It’s almost too calm for the way she’s moving: quick, tight steps. It’s like she is holding herself together by sheer force of will.
I shut the door behind me, and the second it clicks, she spins.
“You don’t get to do that,” she snaps.
I blink. “Do what?”
“Step in. Handle things. Act as if I’m yours to protect.”
“You want to run that by me again?” I challenge.
“I said—” She jabs a finger at my chest. “You’re not my protector, Rhett. You don’t get to make decisions for me.”
I step closer. “I didn’t make a damn decision for you. You were pinned against your car after you asked him to back up. He doesn’t get to touch you like that. I don’t care if he is your boyfriend. You were scared, Rach. I saw it.”
“That doesn’t matter. It wasn’t your place to get involved.”
I laugh once, almost bitterly. “Not my place? His hand was on your wrist so hard it left a fucking mark. His face was inches from yours. What exactly did you want me to do, Sunny, wait until he forced himself on you or hurt you worse?”
Her eyes flare. “I was about to get him off me.”
“Sure you were.”
Her body betrays her, and I watch as her eyes flick down towards my mouth and back up. Could she feel it too? Could she feel the pull, the quiet, steady heat that has been simmering under the surface between us for years?
“Don’t patronize me, Rhett.”
“I’m not, Sunny,” I snap, stepping closer. “I don’t even understand how you’re mad at me right now. I’m not watching you get hurt again. I already did that last week, in case you forgot.”
Her breath comes fast, and her shoulders rise with each inhale. “Oh, really? Baby? What the hell was that, Rhett?” She screams, throwing her hands in the air. “You’ve made it so clear over the last decade of my life that I’m not yours, then stop acting like it.”
“Don’t you think I would if I could?” My voice comes out ragged.
I can feel the tension climbing in me, begging me to just tell her how I feel.
“Do you think I want to feel like this all the damn time, Rachel? To walk into a room and scan for you without even realizing it? To see you smiling at him and act like it doesn’t gut me? ”
Her mouth parts, but I don’t let her speak. She has said enough over the last week and a half, and it is my turn now.
“Do you think it’s fun for me to picture him touching you?” I grind the words out, my fists tight at my sides. “To wonder if he gets the version of you that laughs a little louder when you’ve had a drink? Or the one that curls up on the couch to watch movies?”
Her chest rises and falls so fast I can feel it from where I stand. Her jaw tightens, and the tension in her body mirrors my own. I know I should stop, preserve the friendship, but I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to be just her fucking friend anymore.
“I have spent every single second of every day convincing myself to let you go,” I blurt out.
Her brows pull together, and she asks, “Why?”
“Why what, Sunny?” I ask, dragging a hand through my hair, pulse hammering against my ribs.
“Why do you care so much?”
I step closer, and her brown eyes stare back into mine. Something cinches behind my ribs.
“Why do you think?”
Her arms drop from their crossed position, fingers curling slightly at her sides. She shifts her weight, and for a second, I see her hesitation. For a fleeting moment, her hesitation feels like agreement, like she is standing on the edge of the same precipice I am.
“Well, maybe I don’t want you to,” she mutters, and the words slip out.
“That’s not how this works,” I offer, motioning vaguely between us.
She steps back until she hits the edge of the kitchen counter. While her eyes never leave mine, I take one step closer to her, closing the space she created.
“You don’t get to care like this if you never plan on doing anything about it, Rhett. It’s not fair to me,” she spits out.
I take the final step forward, as if wanting alone could close the distance between us. I’ve come this far, I’m going to be completely honest with her now.
“Once I do something—once I act on it—I won’t be able to stop, Sunny.
” My voice drops, rough with everything I’ve swallowed for years.
“I won’t be able to pretend I don’t feel this.
You’re not some fling to me, Rachel. These aren’t spur-of-the-moment feelings.
” I swallow, the truth heavy and unmovable in my chest. “You’re it for me. It has only ever been you.”
Her eyes go wide, and the sight of it sends something fierce and reckless through me. I’ve never felt so good letting the words exist out loud. Letting her hear them.
“If I don’t create some distance,” I continue, “I’ll close what little space is left between us, and everything I’ve spent years holding back will come undone.
Every look. Every touch I’ve imagined—” My hand lifts slowly, to her face.
I graze her cheek with my knuckles. “None of it will stay in my head anymore.”
Her breath catches. It is soft, almost nothing, but it hits me like heat flaring underneath my skin.
“I’ll lose myself to you, Sunny,” I murmur. “My hands won’t be able to keep still. I’ll touch you like I’ve wanted to touch you for years. I’ll learn every place that makes you gasp.” My hand hovers near her jaw as I place my thumb on her bottom lip. “Every sound you make will be mine.”
Her eyes go wide, pupils blown dark. Her palms flatten behind her on the island like she needs something solid to keep herself upright. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t tell me to stop. Her lips part just barely, like she’s trying to form a thought and can’t quite find it.
I swear I can hear her heartbeat from where I stand.
The words are finally out of me, and for a moment, I feel weightless. I’ve finally stopped lying to us both. But the silence stretches, and that weightlessness turns sharp. I need her to say something. To step toward me.
My hand drops to the counter beside hers, knuckles brushing her fingers.
The contact is accidental, too light to matter, and she still shivers.
Goosebumps rise along her skin, and my jaw pulls as I watch it happen.
Her throat works as she swallows, her eyes flicking to my mouth before she forces them back up.
“Why the fuck are you even with him, Sunny?” The words come out strangled, scraped raw from a place I don’t let anyone see. Even whispered, the desperation bleeds through.
Her eyes flare. I know I’ve hit something sharp. Her mouth opens, then snaps shut, and finally she blurts, “I’m not with him!”
I almost don’t believe the words as I hear them.
My body goes rigid, lungs forgetting their job as my pulse roars in my ears. I’ve dreamed about hearing those words. Prayed for them in the quiet corners of my head where no one could see. And now they’re real.
“Is that what you wanted to hear, Rhett?” she asks. “That I’m not with him?”
Her anger fractures, softening at the edges, and the truth spills out in a whisper meant only for me. “That’s what that was all about,” she says. “I broke up with him when I came home from your house. I told him I was done—that I don’t love him. I made him move out, Rhett.”
She is pinned between my arms now, the countertop solid at her back. There is nowhere left for her to retreat to, though the way she looks at me tells me she wouldn’t even if she could. Her gaze drifts to my mouth again, slower this time, then crawls back up to my eyes.
My control is hanging on by a thread.
I lift a hand and sweep a strand of hair behind her ear, looking for any excuse to be closer to her. My fingers linger there, not quite touching her neck.
“No one touches you like that anymore,” I say, my voice low, dangerous. “Do you understand me, Sunny?”