Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
Rhett
Idon’t know why I agreed to build a pergola in the middle of July, but I try to focus on my girl next me as I cool down inside her blacked out SUV, the AC blowing straight onto my overheated chest.
We’re breaking our rule—no seeing each other during the work week—but I was beginning to wonder why the hell we made that rule in the first place.
“You know, Desi said the girls haven't stopped talking about the rainbow cake y’all made last weekend. They want one for their birthday, apparently.”
Audrey laughs to herself. “I’d love to make them one, when is their birthday?”
“Not for another ten months,” I reply, driving my point home that Audrey has quickly become a star in my family.
She smiles sweetly, but I can tell she is distracted by something.
Worry comes in the form of a sudden headache, something I'm not used to. That is…not used to caring if I fucked up with a girl. In the past I’d count my losses and cut ties, but now all I want to do is fix what’s wrong, without pushing her further away.
The car idles on the street outside the house I’m working on.
The rolling roads of Forest Hills are lined with lush trees and sprawling lawns; the kind that look almost too perfect, like the grass has been spray painted deep green.
I prefer a more natural landscape, but Audrey fits right in today.
Her hair is sleekly pulled back, and she’s wearing a navy skirt with an cream top; jarringly different from the casual, carefree look she has on weekends with me.
She’s impossibly elegant, polished, and at home here, as if she could effortlessly occupy any one of these houses.
I’ve never given much thought to the neighborhood she grew up in, because she hasn’t opened up about her past much, but I reckon it was probably similar to this one. I know she’ll share in her own time when she’s ready. I’m not planning on going anywhere.
“There’s a park down the street we could eat at, or I’m happy to sit right here with you,” I offer, finally cooled down, hoping I can get some clarity on her aloof behavior.
I bought us lunch and she picked it up from a bistro down the street, but we still sat in the idling car with the bag of food resting in between us.
Both her hands stay clutching the steering wheel as she slowly turns away from me.
“I… uhm…I want to show you something if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” The headache pounds away.
She pulls away from the house, but we don’t leave the neighborhood. Instead, we drive deeper in, winding down a road where the properties are somehow even more massive.
Audrey doesn’t speak as we drive slowly, and neither do I.
But it’s not a comfortable silence either, like it usually is when I'm driving her around in my truck. There’s tension in the air as she slows down at the end of the cul-de-sac, pulling up to a gated driveway of an expansive Tudor style home with a manicured lawn.
A ‘For Sale’ sign is perched just outside the gate, and I watch with bated breath as she types in a code, the gate opening before us. We pull forward slowly.
“What are we doing here?” I ask as she shifts the car into park, unbuckles her seatbelt and leans back, resting her head against the leather headrest, still not making eye contact with me.
“It’s a nice house, yeah?” she all but mumbles, and it takes a minute to register she is actually talking to me.
I dip my head to peer out the window at the house stretched before us. It stands tall and studious, its gray stone covered in ivy. It reminds me of a fortress.
“Yeah, it’s nice,” I say, but it comes out like more of a question. “Are you thinking about buying it?” I tease, studying Audrey, but she is unmoving.
“No.” She rubs her palms on her legs, turning to me. “I’m selling it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Will you come inside with me?” she asks without further explanation, and I step out of the car with her.
We approach the enormous mahogany front door, and she pulls out a key, pushing it open.
Her shoulders sag, and I’m jittery in my work boots entering the dark foyer behind her.
She moves to flip on a light, and I peer up at the massive chandelier twenty feet above us.
My heart stammers wildly as Audrey wrings her hands together, bouncing on the heels of her feet.
“Rhett, this is my house,” she lets out with a humorless chuckle.
“I don’t understand,” I speak slowly, and Audrey bites her lip, nodding in quiet acknowledgment.
“Jackson bought it for me.”
Holy shit.
She offers me a small smile and beckons me to follow her down the hallway and into the great room.
Huge floor to ceiling windows run the length of the kitchen and living room, flooding it with natural light.
A large yard with pruned shrubs and short cut grass sits outside the windows like a picture book.
It’s beautiful and grand, but seeing Audrey standing here now, I can’t say it fits her.
At least not the version of her I’ve gotten to know the past month.
Audrey places a palm cautiously on the enormous marble island.
“We bought this house a year ago, but never moved in. We were renovating it…and all the work was finally completed this week. Jackson signed the house over to me when we split.” She lets out a dry laugh, tapping her pink fingernails on the stone.
“I think in his own fucked up way, this was supposed to be an apologetic gesture. He really thought I’d want to live here after everything.
” She sucks in her lips, and I want to wrap my arms around her, but Audrey moves to the window, gazing out at the property.
“My parents told me it was foolish to list this place. And for a minute, I let that consume me, wondering if there’s something inherently broken in me—like maybe I’m destined to reject everything good, as if I’m wired for ruin, drawn toward my own self-destruction.
And—” she was rambling, but I cut her off, wrapping my arms around her waist and spinning her to face me.
“No, you’re not,” I say firmly, clutching her chin in my hand.
“Screw what everyone else thinks. What do you want?” I pause, as Audrey's lips tremble, her eyes misting.
I kiss her lightly and pull back so I can look into the hazel eyes that have become permanently etched on my mind.
“And no one in their right mind would want to live in a home this large by themselves.”
This gets a small chuckle out of her.
“You live all alone,” she muses.
“Yeah, and I didn’t realize how much I hated it until I met you.”
Audrey’s eyebrows twitch, her breath pausing. “Oh yeah? Is that so?”
“It is.” I pull her into me, kissing her hair, and she rests her head against my chest. “You going to tell me why you brought me here today?”
“I didn’t want to hide this anymore. I’ve been so worried you’d judge me if you knew. Or maybe think I’m ungrateful. I just didn’t want you to see me differently.”
“Different than what?”
“Than how I feel when I'm with you. Because…” She steps back and gestures around the great room that’s the size of my entire house. “This isn’t who I am anymore.”
“I know that. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I’d love you even if you were penniless. Your money has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”
Audrey pauses, her eyebrows lowered over eyes that could stop my heart right in its tracks.
“You love me?” Her voice cracks, sharp and raw, and the silence around us feels heavy.
I didn’t even realize I’d said it. But if I’m being honest, I think I fell in love with Audrey the moment I met her on the rooftop.
“Yeah, I think I do.” My heart pounds in my chest as she stands frozen, worry filling every inch of me, thinking that I just fucked up, that this is it.
This is the end, where she high tails my ass out of this house, or tells me this is all too fast, like I can take back words.
But she doesn’t. Her palm moves to rest on my chest, and surely, she can feel the way it surges at her touch.
“I think I love you, too.”
Those words hang in the air, raw and exposed; words I’ve never spoken to anyone before. Maybe they were always only meant for Audrey.
Tipping her chin up, I plant a soft kiss on her mouth. She pulls back, peering up at me.
“You know, I never actually spent any time in this house, other than with the designer and checking in on the renovations. I want to change the way I remember it, though. I don’t want it to be a black mark in my past.” She clasps her hands in front of her chest and bats her eyelashes.
“Will you eat lunch with me here?”
She could’ve asked me anything at that moment and I would’ve said yes.
So, we eat our sandwiches, sitting on the stone floor, our backs against the kitchen cabinets, laughing about nothing and everything. I make her give me a tour of the house, telling her I’m going to kiss her in every room of the house, so she remembers nothing but the good.
Because damn, all I want is to be good for her. Audrey makes me want to be the best man I can be. She unravels me to my core, piecing me back together each time she shows me another hidden part of herself.
And when we are done, and she locks up the house again, saying goodbye one last time, I have nothing but respect for her.
Most people wouldn’t understand why she prefers my farmhouse with its small rooms and creaky floors, or the yard full of wild plants, but I understand it.