Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Rhett
Aweek has passed since I last saw Brynlee, and I feel antsy.
I’m still worried she’s met someone in town to reach out to for help with whatever she needs, but I know I would have heard if she’d been in town for more than just a grocery trip.
Which she has. I’ve kept my ear to the ground for anyone talking about the newest member of our community, and very few have said anything, which tells me they have not seen her yet.
The moment they do, she’ll be on the front page of the Copperwood Gazette.
The minute I returned to my house after fixing her AC, I ordered the parts she needs. I even paid for expedited shipping, which was still a week. No overnight shipping for us out here. Sometimes, like now, I really hate living in such a small town in the middle of nowhere.
Worse, I’ve been attached to my phone in a way I haven’t been since I was eighteen and waited for a call from Sandy, the girl I’d lost my virginity to.
It’s been seventeen years, and I’m still waiting on that call.
At least it’s only been a week since I last saw Brynlee.
And she never promised to give me a ring.
I’m not sure how I’m as whipped as I am right now considering there’s zero indication she wants anything more than friendship with me.
Hell, I drank next to nothing at the bar this past weekend just in case she called.
The last thing I want is to lose out on seeing her because I’m too drunk to drive, but she never called.
There’s no reason for me to stop by or reach out to her other than to say hi, and I know every other single man will be doing that once they meet her.
Some of the married men, too. And a few of the women.
Keeping in mind I’m one of the few people she knows, the last thing I want is to come across as a creep.
“Hey, Rhett,” Carter says and walks into my house like he lives here.
I give a nod and study him from my seat at the table. After thirty-five years on this earth, I thought I’d accepted the fact I’m nothing more than average, but meeting Brynlee has me comparing myself to everyone. Including Carter.
His black hair and green eyes are striking enough, but he has to have a chiseled jaw people say could cut stone.
He’s always been handsome, and he’s never had problems getting dates.
When people look at him, they think all sorts of complimentary things.
When people look at me… well, they usually just skip on to the next person.
I’m the only man in my family to have inherited Mom’s jawline instead of my father’s, which gives me a round face. Without my beard, I look at least ten years younger, which doesn’t appeal to many women my age. Or younger women. No women, for that matter.
What I wouldn’t give for a woman to tell me how attractive I am.
To one day be hot to someone who wants more than a short time with me until she finds someone new.
God forbid anyone thinks I’m sexy. And knowing the chisel-jawed single men who live at the gym are my competition with the beautiful blonde with the gorgeous blue eyes, I resign myself to the fact that I’ll never have her. It’s better to accept it now.
“What’s wrong?” Carter asks. “Why are you lookin’ at me like that?”
“It’s nothin’,” I say, realizing I’ve been staring hard at him for longer than is socially acceptable.
He groans and leans back in the chair across from me as he opens the beer he grabbed from the fridge. “You’re not goin’ on in your head about that ordinary bullshit again, are you?”
What I wouldn’t give to be just slightly above average. To be something more than just the nice guy everyone wants as a friend and nothing more. “It’s hard not to,” I admit. “Especially with our newest resident.”
“You haven’t seen Brynlee, have you?”
Something in the way he asks has me on edge.
I’ve known something’s going on with Carter for a while, and I know it’s big.
The small things he has no issue venting and telling me about.
However, when it’s something big, he holds it in and deflects to anything but himself.
Like now. In his weird way of thinking, he believes whatever it is that has him worried won’t come true if he doesn’t vocalize it.
And if I had to put money on it, I’d guess it has something to do with Darla.
He and Darla have been together since high school, and they married shortly after graduation. Being together for twenty years with two kids means they’re bound to have a few disagreements.
Though I’m dying to ask him about it, I know he’ll shut down, and then he won’t come to me when he’s finally ready to talk. As much as he believes he’s putting up an award-winning front to hide what he feels, he’s not. I just don’t have the heart to tell him.
“No, I haven’t,” I answer, and the knowing look on his face annoys the hell out of me. He, better than anyone else, should know that this will only end terribly for me.
“You like her!”
“I’m sorry, but when did I become blind?” I snap at him. “Only a moron wouldn’t be insanely attracted to her.”
“For what it’s worth, I think she likes you, too.”
Rolling my eyes, I look away from him. “Yeah, whatever.”
“Seriously, man. Didn’t you see the way she looked at you when we helped her move her mattress?
You were her hero that day. And then you went and fixed her AC in the Georgia heat.
That’s some white knight shit right there.
You probably had a golden glow around you after swoopin’ in and savin’ the day again. ”
“Yeah, she’s enamored, or whatever those porn books your wife considers romance calls it.
Until she meets someone more handsome. She’ll probably have Tim trippin’ over himself to stop all his playboy ways because he wants her.
And when she looks at him, she’ll see all the pretty babies they’d make. ”
“You have to get over this stupid idea that you’re less than anyone else. Trust me, she was lookin’ at you!” Carter exclaims.
“Of course, she was lookin’ at me! I was the only one standin’ there without a weddin’ ring on.”
He narrows his eyes and shakes his head. “No, that’s not it. It’s more than that. Trust me… That girl likes you.”
Before I can give him some snappy response I’ve perfected over the course of my life, my phone vibrates on the table.
Hardy’s name appears on the screen, and I jump up and grab my keys.
“I gotta go. Somethin’ I ordered just came in.
Make sure to shut the door when you leave this time, so I don’t come home to a rodent friend hangin’ around again.
See you at the bar on Friday. Eight, right? ”
“Yep!” Carter calls after me. “Invite Brynlee to come with you!”
Jumping into my pickup, I drive the thirty minutes to the post office, knowing my younger brother waits for me. I’m so happy this gives me a reason to see Brynlee tonight that I don’t even care if Carter lets a squirrel in the house again. It’ll be worth it.
The post office closes at four-thirty, but Hardy always lets us pick up things rather than wait for Earl to deliver them. “Didn’t you just order all this shit a few months ago?” he asks as I hop out after backing up to the loading dock.
Everyone in my family is married, and all but two of us have kids. I’m the sixth of eight, and it’s embarrassing to be the only one without a spouse yet. Or a prospect for one. Especially at thirty-five when my younger brother and sister are both taken.
“Yeah, these aren’t for me, remember? They’re for a friend,” I say and load them into the bed of my pickup in record speed.
“Yeah? What friend?”
When I’m done, I try to play it cool. “You don’t know this friend.”
“Female friend?”
“She might be.”
“The new hot chick I heard Martha talkin’ about today? Said she met an attractive but very skinny girl at the grocery store. I don’t remember the name, but it was somethin’ kind of weird. From the sounds of it, she won’t be single long.”
I glare at my brother, his chiseled jaw and too long hair that would make me look homeless but make him look relaxed and chill. “You’re married, Hardy.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t take an interest in knowin’ more about the beauty queen everyone can’t stop yappin’ about. Wait, was she a beauty queen?”
Brynlee mentioned something about pageants, but I didn’t ask. “I don’t know.”
“Go get ’em, tiger!” he says and slaps me on the back. “I’ll tell Zoey you said hi on your way to hook up with the hot chick.”
“I’m not hookin’ up with her. That’s how rumors get started, you know,” I say and walk to my door.
“Yeah? And those types of rumors can find you married. Just look at what it did for me, man!”
Climbing inside, I roll my eyes. To this day, Hardy refuses to admit he started the rumor about Zoey and him, but as fate would have it, she ended up giving him a chance, anyway. Now they’re married. That plan would never work for me.
I pull up to Brynlee’s house, and I groan. In my rush, I realize I never called her first. What if she has guests? Or a date? That would crush me.
Brynlee walks out onto the porch wearing a cute black dress with a frilly, white apron over the top of it. “Were your ears burning?”
“Pardon?” I ask as I hop out.
“Did I get that phrase wrong? I was just thinking about you, and here you are,” she says with a bright smile that could get me to do just about anything.
“You were?”
I mentally kick myself as soon as I catch just how high my hopes have risen. She knows almost no one, and I’m a friendly face. The friendliest, according to most of the women I’ve met.
“I was about to call and ask if you’ve had supper. Or dinner. Whatever you call it down here.”
The desperate need to fit in makes me smile. “Depends on who you talk to, but I call it dinner.”