Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Brynlee
Waking up the next morning, I smile at the bear Rhett won me clutched in my arms as I lie in nothing but his open flannel shirt. The moment he left, I regretted not inviting him inside. With him, I don’t feel as though I need to worry he’ll decide after one night together that he’s done with me.
In my bones, I feel he’s the one I’m meant to be with. The man I’ve waited my entire life to find, and I wonder whether or not I should truly stick to this rule I’ve had since I was sixteen.
For the past ten years, it’s kept me relatively safe, but I’m not certain I want to play it safe anymore. Not with Rhett. With him, I feel truly protected. I’ve never had that before.
Getting ready, I smile as I see his Good Morning text, and I know he wants me for more than what I look like. That he sees me. Not the beauty queen. Not the woman who almost married into one of the richest families in Chicago. He sees Brynlee.
I quickly eat a piece of toast—the last piece of bread I have in the house—and I know I need groceries. I cannot eat another meal of tater tot casserole.
Looking in the mirror by the front door, I check to make sure I have my game face on, thanks, Mama, and head into town.
I should just let things happen the way they will. As much as I don’t want Rhett to leave me in the morning, I know he has a normal Monday through Friday job. He doesn’t have the luxury of making his own hours like I do. But I don’t want to wait another week to finally let him inside.
I felt like I was about to explode last night after I shut the door. It took every ounce of strength I had not to swing it back open and tell him I don’t care. Tempting him after he told me he respects me wouldn’t be fair, though.
“Oh, hey,” someone says, pulling me from my delicious memories of last night as I walk towards the store.
I jump, startled, and step backwards. Honor Phillips. “Hello.”
“You’re Brynlee, right? Rhett’s girlfriend?”
As much as her voice drips with sweetness, her face reads the same as it did Friday night. This isn’t my first rodeo with a mean girl, and I can spot one a mile away.
“We haven’t put labels on anything yet, but I was with him on Friday for Carter’s birthday.”
“It was Everett’s birthday, too. They’re twins, you know.”
The way she says it tells me everything I need to know. She thinks I’m stupid. “I don’t know Everett, but I know Carter. And I was aware they’re twins.”
“I’m Honor. I’m sure Rhett’s told you all about me,” she says, flipping her hair over her shoulder.
“Just that you two dated for a bit,” I say, playing it coy.
A smirk appears on her face when I expect her to be outraged he didn’t proclaim his heartbreak over losing her.
“So, no labels, huh? I get it. You’re not sure you want to be seen with him, especially after meetin’ all the other hot guys in town.
You don’t want to hurt his feelin’s. I’ve been there. ”
She’s been there, but she didn’t have the pick of men she wants me to believe. Not for more than a one-night stand. “Is that right?”
“Trust me, I know what you’re thinkin’. And while he’s amazin’ in the sack, and it’s really the only place he has real confidence, you want to turn out the lights to pretend you’re with someone else while his beard tickles your thighs. Girl, I understand.”
Leaning back, I cross my arms under my chest. “Excuse me?”
“He’s one of the few men who are more than happy to go down, and his tongue is fantastic.
He’s also so well-endowed, it’s hard to tell which is better.
Not to mention how he can get a little domineerin’ in bed that you want to keep him locked up in your bedroom forever.
Just as long as you don’t have to go out in public with him. Girl, I get it!”
It doesn’t sit well with me that she knows Rhett as intimately as she does. “Is that right?”
“He’s not the type who’s willin’ to be a secret, but trust me, even though we know he knows what to do with what he has, it’s not worth the public humiliation.”
“Public humiliation?”
Twirling a chunk of her hair around her finger, she looks like she’s sharing a secret with her best friend.
A look I’ve seen on women in higher positions than she’s in who can pull it off a lot better.
“You know what I’m talkin’ about. Pretty girls like us bein’ seen with a man so…
average-lookin’? That’s enough to get you downgraded and never sought after again.
At least, unless you cut him loose soon enough like I did. ”
“Well, not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t take him to bed,” I say.
Her eyebrows lift in shock. “Oh, you’re not sure what you want to do. I get it, girl.”
“Okay, let’s cut the act. I’m not your girl. And it’s not that. I just don’t hop into bed with men right away. I like to get to know them first. Make sure we have something in common outside of the bedroom.”
I bite back my smirk as she scowls, and I know I hit a nerve. “And I’m the type to do that?”
“Look, what you do in or out of the bedroom, and with whom, really doesn’t concern me. But I’m not going to give you details about my relationship with Rhett so you can gossip.”
“I’m in a relationship. Have been for almost two years now, bitch.”
“The friend of Rhett’s you slept with right after dumping him. I know all about how you used Rhett to help your reputation.”
Her scowl disappears as she stares in shock, her jaw slacked. “Excuse me?”
“I just find it strange you’d compliment a man’s sexual prowess while simultaneously talking badly about him to a woman you know next to nothing about.
Rhett Dillon is a decent guy, and he deserves better than what you’ve put him through.
You hurt a friendship and caused a rift between brothers.
Twins. Now, I’m not one to judge, but I think you might want to re-evaluate how you talk about Rhett and to whom. Namely me.”
Turning on her heel, Honor huffs and stomps away.
“Does that mean we’re not going to be best friends?” I call. “Shoot!”
I walk into the store and grab my cart, giggling to myself.
Confrontation isn’t my favorite thing, but her comments made my blood boil.
Rhett doesn’t deserve any of that, and Honor should have never had him.
It’s beyond cruel letting someone fall for you knowing you have every intention of walking away.
I’ve seen it too many times, and I’ll never understand using people.
Probably because I watched Mama use countless men. Or how often I saw it in the circles I ran in. It’s never something I’ve enjoyed or wanted to do.
The first aisle has snacks Mama never let me eat because they’d make me fat. But crackers are on sale, and I imagine bringing a cheese plate with crackers as a snack to Rhett. In bed. With him naked. Plus, it’s quick and easy.
I place the box in my cart, but I freeze the moment I hear my name in the next aisle. “What kind of name is Brynlee, anyway?”
“You know she’s from Chicago, right? Her grandparents may have been Kathleen and Jensen, but she doesn’t belong here. And that accent! Midwestern accents are just gross. I can’t figure out why all the guys fall at her feet.”
Midwestern? I had a college friend from Wisconsin, and I know I don’t talk like her. Just because I don’t have a drawl like everyone else, I have a Midwestern accent?
“She has to be runnin’ from the mob, right? I mean, from what I heard Carter tellin’ Darla, she just packed up and left Chicago in the middle of the night. You don’t move from a city like that to a small town without a stoplight if you’re not runnin’ away from somethin’.”
Some of the voices sound familiar, and I know I talked with them the other night. Even though we shared little more than introductory platitudes, I thought we were at least cordial.
“I think she was a stripper. I mean, have you seen her when she wears heels? No one walks that well unless they’ve danced in them before. And they’re not normal heels. They’re stripper heels.”
Looking down at my feet, I lift a foot to inspect my shoes. They’re designer heels, but I don’t think they’d constitute being called stripper heels. I’ve never gone to strip club, but I doubt exotic dancers wear them on stage.
“Maybe she’s a prostitute. Probably a stripper-turned-prostitute. I mean, that would explain how she ended up beddin’ dangerous men she’s clearly runnin’ from. No one would look for a street walker here.”
“Did you hear her braggin’ about bein’ a model? She’s far too tacky to be a real one, so I think that was just a lie to hide the fact she used to get naked for money. Either on a pole or on a pole.”
“And there’s no way she was Miss Ohio. I call bullshit.”
People think I look tacky? Tacky enough to be a call girl?
“How much work do you think she’s had done?”
“A lot! You can see the botched job on her nose when she turns her head, and the light hits it just right.”
My hand touches my nose absentmindedly. Something’s wrong with my nose? They think I had work done? No, not just work. Botched work.
“And her tits. God, did she go to some third-world country just to save a buck? Those things are far too perky to be real, but I bet the moment she gets naked, her nipples turn in opposite directions like those googly eyes my kid sticks on everythin’.”
Again, I glance down at myself. My chest isn’t that perky. Gravity and age have already started to show, but who would get fake boobs this small?
“How old do you think she is? I heard she told people she was twenty-six, but I’d put money on her bein’ at least forty. Get enough work done, and you can pass for younger. For a while.”
They all laugh, and I can only imagine how Mama is having a fit in the afterlife right now. Forty? They think I could be forty?
“And she’s just usin’ poor Rhett. Just like Honor did.
He’s too blindsided by her fake, over-the-top beauty to see she’s only lookin’ for someone to take care of her.
And he’s so desperate that he’ll fall for anyone who gives him a second glance.
I mean, she’s obviously a gold digger. Ran out of money in Chicago, assumin’ that’s where she really came from. ”
“Yeah, her sugar daddy probably saw her in decent light and realized she’s too old to pay her lifestyle any longer. Honor talks about how well-hung Rhett is, but I suspect with Brynlee, it’ll be like a hot dog down a hallway.”
That one hurts, and I swallow back the lump in my throat. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
“She’s probably the only person with more experience than Honor when it comes to sex. At least Brynlee’s name isn’t ironic.”
“Oh! I bet I know how she’s a model. She probably sells those feet pics on the internet. Or maybe she does those porn sites you have to pay for. What are they called? Cam girls?”
“Modelin’ naked. She’s not lyin’, I guess.”
Tears sting at my eyes, and I can’t help but wonder why these women I barely know, if at all, feel the need to say such terrible things about me. The assumptions made solely on my looks. I’m used to being torn apart by competitors, but I never expected small-town gossip could hurt worse.
“She’s stupid, right? I mean, she has to be.”
“She’s clearly only ever gotten by on her looks. She’s probably lookin’ for some poor sap with some land she can exploit, and Rhett’s just her way to find her next big score.”
It’s like these women have been given a cheat sheet about my biggest insecurities to cut me the deepest. I stare at my torso to make sure I’m not actually bleeding from the wounds they’ve inflicted with their words, because it feels like someone stabbed me repeatedly with a hunting knife.
Talk in a small town wasn’t unexpected, but this level of cattiness wasn’t what I had in mind.
“Hey!” Darla says, and I jump, avoiding looking directly at her. “Are you okay?”
“I have to go,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
She points at the cart as I back towards the front door. “You don’t want to buy the crackers anymore?”
“Do you think she even graduated high school?” someone says over the aisle.
“Yeah, but she only did because she slept with the teachers. Even the female ones. Brynlee looks like the type who will sleep her way to the top, no matter who she has to climb on to get there.”
Shaking my head, I hurry outside, doing my best not to run and draw attention to myself.
The last thing I want is those women seeing me.
To know I heard everything, but more than that, I can’t let them see the effects their words have on me.
I learned a long time ago to never let people see me cry.
I just can’t believe how much they hurt me.
My skin used to be much thicker than this.
Darla runs after me, but I barely glance in the mirror as I hurry back to the house. I’ll starve before I go back into the store today.
Bursting through my front door, I finally let the tears fall, and I climb into bed. I cling to the bear Rhett won me and sob.
Is it fair to keep dating him if this is how everyone sees me? How they’ll see him?
He said he dated Honor despite her reputation, and that he was the only one who wanted more than just sex from her.
I can only imagine the comments he had to endure about her and their relationship.
Knowing him as well as I already do, he defended her.
I know he did. Making him do that all over again doesn’t feel fair.
No matter how much I like him, how much I know I could fall in love with him, I don’t want to put him through that.
He’s one of the only friends I have in Copperwood, and if I lose him, I’ll lose Darla. And Carter. What’s the point of staying? Everyone else thinks I’m a trashy bimbo who sells pictures of various body parts on the internet.
I can’t prove them wrong, and I learned a long time ago that it does no good to even try. Nothing I do will ever matter. They’ve made up their minds about me, and that’s that.
For the first time since I left Chicago, I desperately miss the anonymity of the city. Being invisible would be really, really welcome right now.