Chapter 3
THREE
Rhett
Sixteen Years Ago
I f Lainey Taylor had been looking in my direction when she walked into our classroom three seconds after the bell rang, she would have seen my mouth drop open. She would have seen me grab the edge of my desk. And she would have seen a wave of heat move across my face, turning my cheeks dark red.
But she wasn’t looking at me.
She was smiling at our English Lit teacher, mouthing, Sorry I’m late , before she put her head down and rushed through the aisle, taking the only empty seat in the second-to-last row.
Which was right beside me.
I sucked in the deepest breath while she reached into her bag and pulled out a pencil and notebook, her eyes now pointed at the whiteboard. My hands stayed glued to the desk. My foot was silently tapping the floor, pushing out all the excess energy suddenly in my body.
What the hell is she doing here?
And why didn’t I know she was coming back?
A goodbye a few months into our freshman year that I couldn’t fucking forget—that was the last time I’d seen her.
I’d had so much hope when she climbed into her parents’ SUV and rolled down the passenger window so she could speak to me while I stood outside the door. I clung to that open window frame and leaned my face in, listening to her promise that she’d keep in touch.
But she didn’t.
Once her father made his way out of the driveway, the vehicle disappearing down the street, I never saw or heard from her again.
Wrecked.
That was how I had felt—and still did, even though that had been over two years ago, at the start of our freshman year, and now, there was only a month left of our junior year.
“Lainey …”
Her back straightened from the sound of my whisper. Her head slowly turned, her eyes widening when they connected with mine. Several seconds passed before she said, “Rhett,” in the smallest, quietest voice.
There was a buzzing in my body, like a million bees were flying from my head to my toes, their wings stirring up my blood as if waves were splashing through my veins. I couldn’t breathe. Words were failing me, and my thoughts were so jumbled; I couldn’t make sense of anything.
I swallowed, hoping that would settle something—anything.
But it didn’t.
It only added to the intensity in which everything was spiraling.
“You’re here.” I kept my voice low so I wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention, and I crouched down to hide my face from the teacher. “I thought …”
What did I think?
Was I even making any fucking sense?
“I know. I thought I was gone forever too. But here I am.” She rubbed her finger under her bottom lip, and I could be wrong, but it looked like her hand was shaking.
I couldn’t think of anything to reply with. I could only stare at her. At her pretty face and curly light-brown hair and perfect smile with teeth that were no longer covered in braces. Hazel eyes that made my pulse pound. This wasn’t a pounding like the headaches I sometimes got after practice when I hadn’t eaten or drunk enough. This was a pounding that went straight to my dick. Enough so that I had to adjust myself or Lainey would get quite the sight.
My freshman year, when I’d initially laid eyes on her, I’d felt the same way. It was the first day of high school, and we were in gym class. I was positioned across from her, a volleyball net between us, her shorts riding high up her thighs when she jumped for a block. She was, by far, the hottest chick in our school, and as I stared at her, I decided right then and there that she was going to be my girl.
Within a week, she was eating lunch with me at the football table. We held hands after my third home game when she came onto the field to greet me. We almost made out at the homecoming dance, but we were interrupted by her sister, and the opportunity never presented itself again because she’d moved across the country the next day.
“You’re here … for good?” I asked.
I tried to keep my stare on her face, but my eyes had a mind of their own.
Lainey’s brace-less smile wasn’t the only thing about her that had changed. Her chest was twice the size, and I couldn’t stop gawking at it. And her legs, they were longer, and her waist, even as she sat behind a desk in the khaki skirt uniform, looked curvier.
If she’d been hot back then, she was fucking gorgeous now.
Her bottom lip caved inward, and she bit it, nodding. “Dad was hired to run the whole LA office. We’re not going anywhere.”
His job was what had sent them to the East Coast.
“And Penelope?” I asked. “She’s here too?”
For someone who didn’t know Lainey’s face as well as I did, they’d have a very hard time telling the identical twins apart. Eyes, hair, mouth, height, and body were mostly the same—aside from Lainey’s dimple on her right cheek and a freckle to the left of the bridge of her nose. I thought they looked as different as their personalities. Penelope wanted to be the center of attention. She wanted every eye on her at all times and would do anything to stay in the spotlight. Lainey wanted to blend into the background. She was perfectly happy, going unseen and unappreciated.
“I’m sure you’ll see her within the next few periods or hear her in the hallway at least.” She smiled and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, revealing a cartilage piercing she hadn’t had before.
I let out a quiet breath. I wanted to talk to her, and I couldn’t really do that in here, so I asked, “What period do you have lunch?”
“Mr. Cole,” I heard.
Busted.
I slowly looked toward the aisle, where our teacher was standing in between our desks, a stern look on his face.
“Would you like to join the rest of the class?” he asked me. “Or would you like to continue talking through my lecture and spend this afternoon with me in after-school detention?”
I tapped my pencil against my notebook. “Sorry.”
“Miss Taylor, why don’t you stay after class for a few minutes, and we can discuss what you need to do to get caught up?”
“Okay,” she replied.
As the teacher spent the next forty or so minutes boring us from the front of the class, I focused on Lainey, stealing nonstop glances at her. I didn’t take a single note or hear anything the teacher spoke about.
All I could think and see and hear was her.
My mind filled with questions the longer I sat here.
Does she still like me in that way?
Did she ever think about me?
Did she miss me the way I missed her?
We had been so young back then. I’d barely even kissed a girl at that age—unless you counted our babysitter, who I’d laid my lips on in seventh grade after my brother dared me to. That was why it had taken me so long to try to kiss Lainey; I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing, and I wanted to make sure I did it right. Homecoming was when I finally got the nerve. But Penelope fucked that up, and my whole plan had gone to shit.
I held that regret for a long time.
But now … Lainey was here.
She was within reach.
And I wanted a do-over.
When the bell rang, Lainey looked at me. I could tell she wanted to say something, but her lips stayed sealed as she got up and headed for the teacher’s desk. I wasn’t going to give up this chance to talk to her. I didn’t care if I was late to my next class.
I left the room and pressed my back against the wall right outside the door. I wasn’t there long when Ridge stopped by. He had freshman English this period, and we always passed each other in the hallway when I was on my way to Trigonometry.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I adjusted my bag. “You’re not going to fucking believe this.”
“Believe what?”
Something caught his attention since he was no longer looking at me, and his mouth opened, the shock clear on his face. “Oh my God, Rhett, is that Lainey Taylor? Or Penelope? Regardless, what are they doing here?”
Lainey was coming out of the classroom, heading in the other direction from where we were standing.
I needed to catch up to her.
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
I jogged to her side. “Hey.”
“Hi.” She grabbed the strap of her backpack and held what looked like a school map in her other hand. “I thought I’d remember how to get around this school, but freshman year feels like a million years ago. I’m going to be late for Trigonometry if I don’t figure out how to get there. I’ve got to hurry.”
“You don’t have Mrs. Lynch, do you?”
“I do.”
Another period I got to spend with her.
Fuck yeah.
“So do I. I’ll walk you there.”
I didn’t know how to bring it up. What to even say. I didn’t want to sound pathetic and dwell on the past—freshman year did feel like forever ago.
But I’d never forgotten her.
And I’d always wondered what I’d done wrong because she never once tried to contact me.
“Are you happy to be back?” I asked.
She rubbed her lips together, her fingers turning white as she continued to cling to the wide strap of her backpack. “Yes. But, ummm … I’ve been so nervous about it.” She gradually looked at me. “I still am.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. To see my old friends and … you .”
“Why would you be nervous to see me?”
“I don’t know … I …”
I needed that answer.
There was a utility closet at the end of the hallway that was constantly left unlocked, which had become a spot where my friends and I smoked weed between classes. The door was kept a little open, but it could be locked from the inside. As we approached, I gently grabbed her arm and pulled her in, twisting the knob so no one could barge in.
Lainey glanced around the small room. “Where are we? And what are we doing in here?”
“We need to talk, and we don’t need the bell or anyone interrupting us.”
“Rhett, we’re going to be late?—”
“I play football with Mrs. Lynch’s son. She has a soft spot for his teammates. Don’t worry, we won’t get in trouble.”
She pushed her back against the wall, and even though the open space was compact, the move added some distance between us. “What do you want to talk about?”
“The reason you were nervous to see me.”
“Oh … that .”
She glanced down, but I reached for her chin and lifted it until her eyes were back on mine. While I held her, something happened to my fingers. There was a tingling, and it moved through my arm to my chest.
“You didn’t call or anything, Lainey. You just left. Didn’t you miss me?”
“Of course I did.”
I felt my head shaking. “Then, why didn’t you ever reach out?”
Her expression was softening, like the time we’d walked to the pet store and she played with the golden retriever puppies. “Because I never thought my family would ever move back here. And because of that, I thought it would hurt even more to talk to you every day, you know? I didn’t keep in touch with anyone—it wasn’t just you.”
“What did you think about when you found out you were returning? You could have called me then—and you didn’t.”
She searched my eyes. “Oh, Rhett …” She stopped to take a slow breath, and I heard a shyness in her voice and in the way she inhaled. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, Lainey, it does.”
She pressed the back of her head against the wall and, with my help, tilted her chin even higher. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
She exhaled several times. “I thought about what it would be like to see you again.”
“Now that you’re seeing me, what does it feel like?”
“I didn’t expect you to be in my first-period class—that’s for sure.” She let out a quiet laugh that felt more nervous than funny.
“That’s the only thing that ran through your head? That you didn’t expect to see me in English Lit?”
“No.”
I spread my fingers, stretching from her chin to her cheek. A quick peek at her neck showed goosebumps were rising over her skin.
“I wondered what you would look like. If you’d have facial hair”—she touched the back side of my cheek, where I’d let my patchy scruff grow—“if you’d have an overgrown mop, like you did back then, or if you’d keep your hair short and buzzed. And how much taller you’d be. You’re really, really tall now, Rhett.” Her chest was rising much faster. “I wondered if working out for football would change your body.” She gave a short nod. “It has in a big way.” Her eyes briefly closed. “And if you’d have a girlfriend.” When I said nothing, her eyes opened. “Do you?”
“If I did, would that bother you?”
She shrugged.
I laughed. “That’s your answer?”
“I mean, if you do, what can I do about it? I didn’t call, like I’d promised, so I can’t exactly be pissed off if you’re dating someone.”
“I’m not.”
She blinked several times. “Oh.”
“How does that make you feel?”
A smile came across her face. “Relieved.” She took a breath. “And a slew of other things.”
“Do you know what I felt when you walked into the classroom this morning—once I got past the shock of seeing you?”
“What?”
“That there’s no way I could let you out of my life a second time.”
Emotion immediately hit her eyes. “Rhett …”
“And do you know what I’m thinking about right now?” The tips of my fingers teased the strands of her hair. “That I have to fucking kiss you—something I should have done our freshman year.”
I hadn’t had the balls then.
I sure as fuck did now.
My other hand moved to her face, and I lowered my head, my mouth hovering above hers. “I’m sure there’re a lot of other things I could say and places I could take you to and moments that could lead up to this, but I don’t want to waste another second, Lainey. Somehow, someway, we’re getting another chance, and all I want to do is kiss you. But first, I need to know … do you still care about me?”
“Rhett”—her hand went to my chest, and I waited for her to push against it, but she didn’t—“I never stopped.”
The response I’d wanted.
The response I’d needed.
I fit my mouth between her parted lips, and my body instantly exploded. This was what I’d been waiting for. What I’d dreamed about. What I’d been regretting since she’d left.
This feeling.
The one that was catapulting through me, causing everything to harden and ache.
I breathed her in before my tongue slid into her mouth, and I pulled her even closer so I could feel her on me. She tasted of toothpaste and something citrus, like she’d eaten an orange on her way to school or sucked the lemon from an iced tea. And she felt exactly how I remembered—her soft skin, her smallness that got lost against my broad, wide-receiver frame.
But her taste wasn’t what stood out the most.
It was the way she wrapped her arms around my neck and melted against me. The way she showed me just how much she cared—because when I went to pull back, she wouldn’t let me. And the way this kiss solidified every question in my mind.
Lainey Taylor was once again mine.