Chapter 2
TWO
Rhett
Present Day
I shouldn’t fucking be here.
There wasn’t a single ounce of me that had any desire to look toward a stage and see a half-naked stripper dancing across it. Or to celebrate Brady Spade—our business partner—and his fiancée’s joint bachelor and bachelorette party. Or to look at my brother and sister—who should know what today was—and Brady’s brothers, along with their best friends, the Daltons, and try to act like I wasn’t slowly dying inside.
Because I was.
Beneath my skin—my muscles, bones, even my blood—felt like it was all dissolving, as though acid had been poured across my body.
Some days were meant to be spent in a room of darkness. On those days, the only energy I wanted to exert was to pull the covers over my fucking head and swallow the whiskey down my throat and exhale the smoke from my joint, hotboxing the bed.
That was what I wanted today to look like.
But I wasn’t in bed, high, drunk, lying in total blackness.
I was here.
I’d been dragged to this strip club by Ridge and Rowan, my siblings, and every second I sat in this chair nagged at my nerves and tested my patience—all of it coming to a screaming peak when I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’d rather be at a club right now.” Ridge’s hand cupped the edge of my triceps.
A dance club.
I wanted to fucking laugh, but I didn’t know how.
A place that would have music worse than what was playing now, where my nose would be filled with the salty scent of sweat every time I breathed.
At least here, all I could smell was despair.
An aroma I knew far too well.
My eyes closed. “That sounds as insufferable as this.”
“You all right, brother?” He waited. “I know the last few months?—”
I turned toward him and barked, “Don’t talk to me about the last few months. Not here.”
Ridge was referring to our father, who had passed away. A day I’d like to forget. But a day that replayed, like the other, causing the knife already in my chest to turn faster and deeper, creating an even bigger hole.
“And not now.”
“I hear you. My bad.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But is that what’s bothering you—Dad?”
I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together, my hand getting ready to tighten into its perpetual fist. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?”
“You know why.” My teeth ground together.
How can he even ask me that?
Why the fuck do I have to spell everything out?
Can’t he read between the obvious lines and stop making this harder on me?
“How about you help me out and just tell me the reason, so I don’t have to keep racking my brain?—”
“The date, Ridge.” My head shook. “What’s the fucking date?”
As his hand rubbed back and forth across the edge of my arm, the recognition finally showed in his expression. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
He knew I was sure.
I didn’t talk about this. I wouldn’t even let the thoughts leave my mouth after a fifth of whiskey. Fifteen years to the day was the last time I’d discussed it, and I’d never spoken about it again.
I preferred to keep those thoughts inside—buried.
But they weren’t six feet under.
They were in my soul.
And they were so powerful that they rumbled and surged and tried to break through the surface.
But I was stronger. Because I knew once they hit my mouth, I wouldn’t be able to stop them from coming out. And then I’d have to talk … and I couldn’t.
I exhaled. “Yeah, I’m fucking sure.” I stood. “I need another drink.”
“Are you going to take off after you get one?”
“If I do, don’t come looking for me.”
I disappeared toward the bar without looking back, without even saying anything to my sister or anyone we’d come here with, and I set my fisted hands on top of the wooden ledge. I’d already drained two whiskeys since we’d arrived. I wasn’t even close to stopping.
But there were only two bartenders and a slew of bastards in line around me, waiting for drinks.
Fuck that.
A full bottle of liquor and a hotboxed bed sounded better than anything I could get here.
As I went outside, I reached into my pocket for the fob of my R8, groaning, “Shit,” when I came up empty-handed.
I hadn’t fucking driven here. We’d taken a goddamn party bus.
It only took a few taps on my phone before I had a rideshare coming to get me.
My feet moved while I waited, pacing the walkway between the club and the parking lot. The small white gravel rocks crunched under my shoes with each step.
I never let my siblings persuade me. I didn’t know why I’d allowed them to tonight.
Coming here was the worst fucking idea.
This week, every year, followed an almost-identical routine.
My housekeeper would make sure my bar was well stocked, I’d hit up the dispensary and buy as much weed as they allowed, I’d shut off my phone, and I wouldn’t go to work, nor would I even enter my home office.
Then what I’d do—the only thing I’d do—was turn off the lights.
Sometime later, around seven days, my family would show up. That was the span they’d give me to drink and smoke myself into fucking oblivion. When it came time to come in, they wouldn’t mess with the doorbell—they knew I wouldn’t answer it. They’d just use their key and walk in.
Dad usually showed up first.
He was the one who’d flip my lights back on.
But this year, that wouldn’t be the case … because Dad was gone.
Fuck.
My fisted hands dragged across my hair, pressing hard enough that it was as if I were tugging on the strands. Right before I relaxed my fingers to grasp a palmful of hair, a set of headlights flashed across the entrance of the club, and a car pulled in. A neon sign sat in the lower corner of the windshield, advertising the name of the rideshare company.
As I walked to the car, the driver rolled down the passenger window and said, “Are you?—”
“Yes.”
I didn’t know what name he’d been about to voice. If it was mine or someone else’s.
I didn’t care.
Once I was inside and the backseat door was shut, I barked, “Drive.”
I sank into the seat as he pulled onto the road, and I held my phone in front of my face. I could send Rowan a text, letting her know I was taking off, but I wouldn’t. Ridge would tell her I wasn’t coming back. He’d remind her of what today was if she’d forgotten, like him. She would then know she wouldn’t hear from me.
And just like Pops, she’d appear at my house within the week.
In the meantime, I was craving what was waiting for me at home.
That time-out that came with a bit of silence when everything in my head was so fucking loud.
I hit the screen of my phone and pulled up Instagram—the only social media site I was on. I didn’t post. I gave zero fucks that the publicist for Cole and Spade Hotels—the high-end international hospitality chain my family and the Spades co-owned—was constantly encouraging me to share shots of our resorts that I visited.
That wasn’t me. That would never be me.
There was only one reason I even had an account.
Just like I did every few days, when I couldn’t bear the anticipation any longer, I pressed the search bar and typed the first few letters of her name. That was all it took for her account to auto-populate since she was the only name I ever searched.
There were new posts.
There almost always was every time I looked at her account.
Just as I was about to click on the most recent photo she’d shared, I happened to glance up and peek through the windshield. Hell, I needed to make sure the driver wasn’t taking me to San Francisco.
Not that it would matter. There was whiskey and weed all over the state of California. I could force a time-out wherever I landed.
But what I saw out the window made me say, “Stop.”
The driver looked at me through the rearview mirror. “Excuse me?”
“Pull over. Right now.”
“But we’re still about fifteen minutes away from your?—”
“Did you fucking hear me?” I leaned in between the front seats. “I said, stop.”
He turned on his emergency lights and swerved to the side of the road. “Listen, man, if you’re going to puke, get it out the window, or it’s going to be a two hundred?—”
I opened the door and stepped out, growling, “Don’t wait for me,” before I slammed it shut.
He thought the reason I barked at him to stop was because I had to puke. But the alcohol I’d consumed tonight was going to stay put. I wasn’t letting a single drop out.
As the driver pulled back onto the road, I walked along the sidewalk until I reached the entrance, passing through the black wrought iron gate that remained open at all hours.
I knew it was open.
Because I’d been here more times than I could count, normally at this hour or later.
The path was narrow, surrounded by grass on both sides. It ran over two short hills—not steep enough to take my breath away, just a slight incline that caused a tingling in my calves. I was about to approach the third mound when I veered off to the right, my feet stopping on a spot about ten yards from the pavement.
The darkness would make it difficult for most people to see.
Not me.
I relied on the brightness of the moon and my memory.
In this spot, a clearing big enough to fit me, I lay down on my back.
I had so much to say, so much to get off my chest, but nothing was coming to me, except for, “I’m tired.”
My temper, which had been roaring at the strip club, was gone. I felt as though a faucet had been turned on and the explosiveness of the pressure had drained from my feet. My hands clenched as the blades of grass tickled my neck, my fingers feeling like they were glued to my palms.
Even with the smell of flowers in the air, I uttered, “I’m so fucking tired.”
I focused on the sky, as if I were talking right to it and the night clouds could speak back.
“How has it been fifteen years?” I asked the darkness. “I can’t believe it … yet I can. Because I’ve felt every single one of those fifteen years, day by day, hour by hour.” My eyes burned. “Second by second.” When the burning became too much, my eyelids closed. “Do you know how many of those seconds hurt?” I waited for an answer. “All of them.” I swallowed, my throat gradually relaxing as the heat began to fade from my eyes. “Every fucking one, and I don’t expect that to ever stop.”
Tiredness was a weight that I constantly carried. Most nights, I was lucky to get a few hours of sleep. It didn’t matter how sleepy I was or how badly I needed rest; my mind would wake me up.
Sleep was the reward, and I was being punished.
But something about being here—my body lying across the grass with the sky above me—caused a heavy wave to come over me. Not a wind. This was a slow crawl that moved inside me and covered me like a blanket.
“I’m so tired of keeping your secrets.”
My eyes stayed shut.
My hands unclenched.
My lips whispered, “And I’m so fucking tired.”
Enough so that the blackness began to take over and a picture began to form behind my closed eyelids. It didn’t immediately happen. It was built by the tiny shards moving through the air, landing one by one, piecing together like the puzzles I did with Daisy, my niece.
First, there were feet.
Legs.
A torso.
Arms, fingers.
A neck.
Finally, a face with lips that said, “Rhett?”
I smiled.
Because I knew that voice.
Because I knew that grin.
Because I knew her mannerisms, her expression.
As I stood, unable to move, my gaze going from her feet to her face, the burning in my eyes shifted to my chest.
It was churning, forcing on a storm that was thick and so fucking strong that the thunder was clapping over me.
“Rhett?”
Yes , I wanted to reply.
I just couldn’t pry my lips apart.
I had so much to get out—and I couldn’t.
But she could speak. “Rhett.” She could also move, closing the distance between us, placing her hands on my shoulders. “Rhett?”
Yes , I wanted to say again, but my mouth stayed sealed.
Her hands pushed down on my shoulders, and when she wasn’t satisfied with that, they moved to my chest and shook me. “Rhett, you’re sleeping. Wake up!”