Chapter Twenty
Rhett
No matter how frustrated I may be that Brynlee’s still marrying that guy from Chicago, I have to admit that I’m impressed at how well she handled the mishap in Mom’s kitchen.
It disappeared the moment Mom pulled me aside after dinner to tell me she loves Brynlee.
She grilled her like all the other prospective in-laws, and she did the best out of everyone.
It kicked me in the gut because introducing her to the family ensures I’m not the only one hurt when she goes back and marries another man.
“We can go to my house,” Brynlee says from the passenger side of my pickup.
I don’t reach out for her hand, and she sits on the far side of the seat. Even though I know it’s for the best, I don’t like the distance. The distance I’ve created.
“My house is closer,” I say. “Plus, I’d rather we get my house dirty instead of yours. You’ve gone through enough.”
“I haven’t seen your house yet. You always stay at mine. Except last night.”
“Yours is nicer,” I say, putting the truck into park and ignoring the last statement.
She turns and looks at me. “Rhett, what’s wrong? I know it’s not work. I know it’s me. Please, tell me what’s wrong so we can fix it.”
I could just tell her. To get the truth, but I’m not ready to say goodbye just yet, even though I know I’m acting like a jackass. The moment she knows I know, she won’t have any reason to stay. Not that she has one to stay with the way I’m acting as it is.
“It’s nothin’.”
Stepping out of the cab, I walk up the front steps and realize Brynlee’s not behind me. I turn to find her still sitting in the pickup. She looks upset, and I feel like a jerk. The biggest jerk.
I walk back down the steps and open her door. “Brynlee—”
“Please bring me home, Rhett.”
“You’re covered in flour.”
Swallowing, she looks at her feet rather than me. “That’s fine. It’s not that bad, and my house is cleanable. It’s just flour. They didn’t tar and feather me.”
“I would feel too guilty. Especially after my family caused this.”
“I don’t think you should have brought me in the first place,” she says, still refusing to look at me. “It’s obvious you didn’t want me there, so please just take me home.”
My heart breaks as I look at her, but it’s immediately replaced by anger. How can she be in so much pain considering she has two men? She’s the one who’s playing me.
Nodding, I shut the door and walk to my side.
She stays silent the entire drive to her place, and I hate how the guilt creeps back in, mixing with the anger and creating a turmoil of emotions I can’t settle.
Even though she’s the reason I’m acting this way, she doesn’t know I know.
To her, she doesn’t understand why. And if I’m hell-bent on being an asshole, why put it off?
Because you love her, idiot.
“Can I stay with you?” I ask as I park in her driveway.
“I don’t think you should,” she says and hops out of the pickup before I can open my door.
“I’m sorry about today,” I say and hurry up the porch after her.
Turning to face me, she gives me a smile that looks oddly familiar. The smile I saw in the engagement picture. The one that doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Brynlee, I really am sorry.”
“I know,” she says. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
She steps inside and shuts the door behind her. Resting my forehead on the door, I call, “Talk to me now. Please?”
“I’m covered in flour.”
I feel torn. Angry as I am, I still love her. “Baby, please? I don’t want to leave like this.”
The door opens, and I rush in, ignoring everything my head tells me, and kiss her.
Salt from her tears hits my tongue when she opens her mouth for me, and I hate that I made her cry.
Maybe if I can stop being a grade-A jerk, I can show her that I can offer her things Kevin Sandoval never could.
I may not have the money or the model looks, but up until yesterday and today, I think I’ve been a damn good boyfriend.
Picking her up, I carry her into the bedroom where we strip out of our clothes, dropping everything to the floor, ready to continue this in the shower.
It’s selfish, I know, but I particularly like sex in the shower because we don’t use condoms. I’m about seventy-thirty in my ratio of pulling out in time, but I know she’s on birth control. It’s less messy this way.
I hate how much I wish she wasn’t on anything.
That I could knock her up because I know she’d stay with me.
It’s not a reason to bring a child into the world, but I love her so damn much.
And I’d love any child we had together. It’s the dream I thought we’d make come true until I saw that damned countdown yesterday.
With our clothes peeled off, flour dusts everything, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s down to just her panties while I’m in my boxers, both ready to go. At least I know she still wants me. That says something, right?
Her phone rings in the purse she tossed to the ground as soon as we entered the room, and she narrows her eyes. “You and Darla are the only people who call me,” she says while I reach for her phone.
Handing it to her, she has the nerve to look surprised when Kevin’s name appears on the screen. She silences it and tosses it on the counter.
“You don’t want to answer that?”
“I haven’t talked to him since I left Chicago, and I know what he’s calling about. I’d rather be here with you than worry about him.”
“I think you need to talk to him, Brynlee.”
In that moment, I know I can’t do this. I can’t sleep with her and pretend she’s mine. She knows how good of a boyfriend I can be, and what kind of husband I’d make. If she hasn’t decided not to marry him yet, that’s her decision. I grab my clothes and put them on.
“What are you doing?” she asks, grabbing her silk robe and slipping it on as I pull up my jeans.
“You should talk to him. I’m givin’ you privacy.”
Brynlee runs after me as I reach the foyer, her hand clutching the robe tightly at the top as she looks at me with confusion. “I don’t want privacy. I… I can call him back in front of you, if you want. There’s nothing between him and me anymore. There was never really anything before, either.”
That hits a nerve, and I whip around. She’s saying there was nothing between them, but she’s going to leave me and go back to him. That’s rich. “You’re marryin’ him.”
“No, I’m not,” she says, and she actually looks surprised.
“I don’t think he knows that.”
“I think leaving while he was gone and taking all of my stuff is pretty clear. Not to mention the note I left telling him as much. Why are you acting like this? Why are you doing this?”
Shaking my head, I hold up my hands. “I’m not doin’ anythin’.”
“You’re trying to ruin this. I don’t understand—”
“I’m not the one with a fiancé, Brynlee.”
“Last I checked, neither am I.”
How long is she going to play this? “There is obviously somethin’ unresolved between the two of you. I feel it, and if I feel it, you have to feel it, too. And so does he because everyone but you seem to have accepted that you’re marryin’ him.”
“What are you talking about? Whatever you’re feeling isn’t because there’s anything between Kevin and me. There’s nothing between us.”
Frustration washes over me, and I need to take a few deep breaths to calm down.
If she would just deal with Kevin, maybe, just maybe, we could move on.
Figure out what it is we’re doing, but until she admits she’s supposed to be walking down that aisle in February to marry a man who isn’t me, we can’t do anything. “There’s somethin’ there.”
“No, there isn’t!” she cries.
“You’re goin’ to marry him.”
“Stop saying that. I’m not marrying him.”
The internet and her friends say otherwise. And I hate being lied to. “Brynlee—”
“I don’t love him. I never did.”
And if that doesn’t just kick me in the nuts. “You were goin’ to marry a man you didn’t love. Yeah, that sounds like the Brynlee I thought I knew.”
“Rhett, why are you doing this?”
“I think you were right when you said we shouldn’t be together tonight. I’m goin’ to go home.”
She runs in front of me and pushes the door shut, leaning against it with her body while still clutching her robe at the neck.
“I don’t understand what I did. Please, just tell me what I did to make you so angry.
You’re pushing me away, and I want to know why.
I need you to explain because I don’t know what I did, Rhett. ”
The tears filling her eyes soften me a little bit. “Brynlee—”
“You haven’t touched me today. You lied about working last night, and I think it was to avoid seeing me.
And I’m pretty sure that if we had sex in the shower like we were about to that it would be nothing more than that.
Just sex. I’m obviously the bad guy, but I don’t know what I did.
Was taking me to see your family a step too far for us? ”
I sigh and lean a hand on the door beside her head. “Maybe it was.”
Liar. It was, but not because of the reason she thinks.
“If that’s the case, we can step back. It doesn’t have to be—”
“It’s not that. I just… I don’t know.”
“Please, just… tell me what I did so I can fix it.”
“You want to be with Kevin.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No, I don’t. I don’t want to be with him. I left him. I don’t even think about him.”
I know it’s a lie. A woman doesn’t just stop thinking about the man she’s marrying. “You’re marryin’ him, Brynlee.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because he proposed, and you said yes.”
“And you were head over heels for Honor. Neither means anything to either of us right now. We both have past relationships, but I don’t know why I’m being punished for mine.”
Sighing again, I move and lean against the doorway into the dining room. “You came to town after leavin’ him, and you jumped right into a relationship with me. There was no time in between.”
“I never loved him. I was in a bad place when he proposed because Mama just died. I did what I thought I was supposed to.”
“See, that’s what I struggle to understand.
How do you know what you want when you just always do what you think you’re supposed to?
What everyone else wants of you becomes who you are, Brynlee.
Do you think you’re supposed to be with me?
Am I just a consolation prize? Someone to be there to take care of you like you were raised if Kevin decides he’s not waitin’ for you to come home anymore? ”
“That’s not fair,” she says, the tears finally falling.
I close my eyes and shake my head. “I’m not tryin’ to be unfair. I’m tryin’ to figure out how I fit into your world. Why you want to be with me.”
“Because I love you.”
“Do you even know what love is?”
Brynlee doesn’t say anything, and when I open my eyes, she’s moved away from the door towards the living room, her mouth open as the tears continue to stream down her face. “You should go.”
“This is comin’ out all—”
“No, I think it’s coming out right. How you really feel. I’ve said how I feel, but the difference is, I do know what I want. You seem to be the one unsure.”
I want her. Only her. “Brynlee—”
“Please, Rhett, I need you to leave. I can’t talk to you right now.”
Her lip quivers, and I just nod. I don’t know what to say anymore, anyway. I open the door and step onto the porch. Before I even turn around, the door shuts behind me, and I hear the bolt lock clicking into place.
Hanging my head, I sigh. It’s what needs to happen, but I didn’t think I would be the one who put the wheels in motion.
I can’t get my head on straight, and instead of convincing her to stay with me instead of going back to Kevin, I just gave her every reason to run far, far away from me.
And if she leaves me, I don’t think there’s anyone to blame but myself.
So much for showing her she’s better off with me.