8. RHETT
RHETT
I’m not sure what I’ve just walked into. The house is eerily quiet; none of the kids are running around. The TV is off for once with Rowan and Callie sitting at the table looking through a shit ton of paperwork.
“Come on, Alison!” Callie growls into the phone. “There’s gotta be something else we can do.”
There’s a moment of silence as she listens to whatever Rowan’s company lawyer tells her. It’s clearly not what she wants to hear, but she seems resigned to the fact when she puts the phone down.
“I’m guessing she told you the same thing she told me?” Rowan exhales in frustration.
“You’re not getting divorced, are you? That shit’s messy, and I don’t want to pick sides because Callie wins. Hands down.”
“Not funny.” She levels me with one of her glares before standing to her feet. “We need you to sign a report on Avery’s injuries.”
“Sure. Once she allows me to take a look, I can write you whatever you need.”
“You’re not going to let it go, are you?” she asks me the same question Avery asked a few days ago when I last saw her.
“Nope.” I lean back on the breakfast bar, realizing that I’ve spent more time in their home or thinking about their home this week than ever before.
There’s something about Avery that I can’t put my finger on, but I can’t stop thinking about her. About all the things she said the other night, because I do understand some of what she’s going through. Maybe not from her exact perspective, but enough to know that this is the calm before the storm.
“I think I’ve managed to calm her down enough to nap.”
I turn to find Avery standing in the doorway I just came through.
Her eyes are red, and the swelling that’s already gone down some looks puffy from tears.
She looks almost as tiny as Callie engulfed in the same sweatshirt she was wearing the night that Rowan called me here to look her over.
Her bare feet curl as she sags into the doorjamb.
“Alison said that unless we do this formally, we can’t expect a judge to throw out the paternity case. I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to, but…”
“I don’t want to be charged with kidnapping my daughter either, so I guess I have no other choice.”
“You can go back to DC, stay at your dad’s house, and get your bearings from there.” Callie gives her an option that doesn’t actually sound like one from her gritted tone.
“I can put someone on you, make sure Carl doesn’t step out of line,” Rowan tells her, all his usual humor still nowhere to be seen. “But you must know that I can’t do much more in terms of Iris.”
Avery looks at me, brushing her long hair from her face. It never ceases to surprise me how beautiful she is, even with all the injuries she’s sustained. There’s a light in her eyes that’s so compelling especially with the circumstances she’s in.
“Would you, umm, would you…” Her voice trembles, making my chest tighten.
“Anything you need.” I try to smile at her even though catching my breath seems almost impossible.
“Alison said that we need a detailed report and photos,” Callie says, her voice quieter than before.
She’s worried, and if that’s the case, then so am I because Callie doesn’t worry without cause. She’s the kind of person that believes in her ability to tackle anything that comes at her. She’s got that in common with Rowan.
“You can use my office.” He starts past Avery, leaving her staring at me in his wake.
Her eyes have this hypnotic catch that makes it impossible for me to look away. It draws me closer the longer we stand in silence.
“Umm.” Callie clears her voice. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Avery looks between the two of us before shaking her head. “That’s okay.”
I follow her to Rowan’s office; the room feels smaller than usual as I watch her come to a stop in the middle of the space.
The warm light gives her naturally golden complexion an otherworldly glow.
It’s staggering how she’s still holding herself up, still pushing through all the pain evident in her stiff movements and glistening eyes, and I know I’m not the kind of man to delve deeper than the surface, but she…
Avery makes me curious. She makes me want to unpick all her knots so I can see all there is to her.
So that I can open her up to me, maybe ease some of the haunting ache that’s stolen her smile.
It’s all I’ve been able to think about since she walked out of this room days ago.
“I’ve cleared the desk, and if there’s anything else you need…
” Rowan pauses beside me. He’s giving me a warning look and I have no idea what it’s for.
I don’t know what he’s warning me about, but it doesn’t matter because all the alarm bells are going off inside me already.
Loud sirens that fail to drown out all my thoughts and the anger that’s been twisting and winding within me.
A part of me wants to tell him to get someone else to take my place. He knows people. He doesn’t need me. But at the same time, I can’t stand the thought of letting another person near Avery. And that’s a problem. That’s major trouble…for me. For her.
“I’ll be right outside,” he states, gaze narrowing with meaning.
“Sure.” I clear my throat, trying to shake the thoughts out of my head.
Maybe if I stop the wonderings, I’ll be able to keep her out of my mind completely. It’s what I keep telling myself, but so far it hasn’t worked.
Avery looks nervous as I come closer. Her eyes dart between my hands and my feet as though she’s trying to figure out which to fret about the most.
“Are you sure you don’t want Callie here?”
“No.” Avery shakes her head adamantly, fisting her hands at her sides when I stand in front of her.
“It’s okay if you do.”
“No.”
“Avery…” I don’t know why I say her name, but I like how it feels on my lips and on my tongue.
The way her eyes widen on mine in the silence that follows, as though she really is opening herself up to me.
Trusting me. It makes my chest tighten with the need to protect her from her own hurt. It’s an impossible task, though.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” I take her hand and look it over, unfurling her fingers to splay over my palms. “You’re going to talk me through what happened, and I’m going to listen to every word so I can sign that report for you.”
“Okay.” She swallows, staring at her hand resting in mine. “I thought you said you had to see and umm…”
“Talk me through it, Avery. Where does it hurt the most?”
“I don’t—” Shaking her head, she sputters a sob that she’s obviously tried to contain. “I don’t know.”
“Does your face hurt?” I thumb the solitary tear that rolls down her bruised cheek, feeling the swollen, tender bump to her temple where her eyebrow is lightly scabbed over.
“The cream helped.”
That makes the tightness in my chest ease a tad. The notion that in some way I have already alleviated her pain warms me. “Good.”
Tilting her head back gently to get a look at her neck, I catch a hint of her clean, sweet scent, and it takes almost all of my control not to breathe her in until my lungs protest.
“We were arguing, and he struck my face.” Avery cups her injured cheek with one hand while keeping the other in my palm. “I think we tussled…maybe, but then I tried to get away and—” A panicked sputter breaks her voice.
Forcing my composure once more, I control the urge to pull her to me.
But I’m not sure what happens—it’s as though my restraint undoes her control, and the tears she’s been holding on to rivulet down her cheeks.
Drop after fat drop. My lungs burn with her stammered gasp for air as sobs rip from deep in her gut.
I lose my mind. Every rule. Every protocol. Every single thing I have lived by throughout my career goes out of the window in that second, and before I can stop myself, I pull her into me.
“It’s going to be okay, sunshine.” Fuck only knows what’s possessed me, but I can’t stand by and watch her suffer. Not on her own.
Nobody should feel the anguish that’s so clearly consuming her as Avery allows me to hold her.
“We’re going to help you.”
“I can’t let him take my daughter.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
Hands pushing at my chest, Avery gathers herself. “You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. You’ve got every one of us and Callie.”
“And Callie,” she chuckles without an actual smile, but the sound on its own is beautiful. It warms through me.
“She’s a force of nature all on her own, and then you have Rowan too…and me.” I add the latter quietly.
“I didn’t want everyone to see it…how bad it is.”
“Chances are that no matter what you show me, I’ve probably seen something worse. Besides, I’m a great doctor, haven’t you heard?”
The smallest of smiles tips up one side of her face. “I think I have.”
“I already know it’s not great from the way you tense every time you move. You can’t twist your body, and you’re using the left side to compensate for the damage to your other side.”
“He dragged me down the stairs,” Avery murmurs, her hands pulling up the right side of her sweatshirt until her hip comes into view. “I wanted to get Iris and leave, and he pulled me down by my ankle. I didn’t get a chance to catch myself or break my fall.”
Another sob leaves her trembling lips while I crouch in front of her to get a better look.
“Iris is a pretty name.” I’m hoping to distract her and maybe myself. “It’s a flower, right?”
“Yeah, it is, but it also means rainbow in Greek. My dad loved wet, sunny days.”
I listen to her tell me about how her dad loved the rain because it was a good omen. All the while, I try to be as gentle as I can as I examine every inch of mottled skin she allows me to.
My previous statement about having seen something worse comes back to haunt me.
It’s impossible to see something as awful as the damage her asshole husband caused her.
My blood scorches through my veins like molten lava while my heart pounds viciously in my chest. The bruising rhythm making it the hardest it’s ever been to get my feelings under control.
How could someone hurt anyone like this?