Rhys #2
He hadn’t grown much in the sense of height, he was still more than half a foot shorter than my 6’2, but the awkward little nerd who I’d watched spend countless hours glued to my brother’s side was gone.
He didn’t look like someone who’d geek out over video games and tabletop story campaigns, or loudly and unashamedly sing along to show tunes in the car with my mom.
He looked like one of those pretty boy models I’d been seeing trend on social media for the last few years, the kind that companies would fight over to use in campaigns and beg him to wear their products to promotional events so they’d show up on all the trending pages.
His hair was longer than it had been, probably to his shoulders if he hadn’t pulled it back into a stubby ponytail.
His bangs were parted in the middle and long enough to frame his face on both sides.
I remembered it as a quiet and mousy color, but now it was a fascinating shade of not quite pink and not quite blond.
Rose gold. I remembered because Hailey had demanded an iPhone in that color.
“Rhys,” he greeted me. He didn’t come forward to hug me like the women had done, that would have been weird and unprecedented for our relationship, but his sweet smile stayed locked in place as he raised a hand in a friendly little wave.
“Sparkles.” The dumb but playfully ribbing nickname I’d given him when we were kids popped out without me even consciously remembering it.
He blinked in surprise, before a huff of laughter tumbled out of his mouth.
“Please, no,” he begged, wincing. “Nobody’s called me that since you left.”
“Might be time for a change,” I pointed out, not quite able to prevent the corner of my mouth from perking up into a smirk. He snorted, his green eyes sparkling as he gave me a smirk of his own and stuck out his tongue. There was a metal stud pierced through it.
I felt lighter as the finishing touches were put on the food and we all sat down at the dining table to eat.
It wasn’t exactly the unpleasant scenario of pitying looks and awkward questions that I’d expected.
No one asked me what I was going to do now or if I’d made any decisions, which I’d been dreading, since I had no fucking clue what I was going to do now.
I’d never been in a situation like this before, with no prospects and nothing to work toward.
Spearing lettuce and a cherry tomato onto my fork as I listened to Josie and Benjamin excitedly talk about the pieces they’d been procuring for the baby’s nursery, my eyes wandered across the table. When they landed on Kendall, I realized he’d already been watching me.
It wasn’t totally surprising. He’d had a very obvious, and admittedly flattering, crush on me for as long as I could remember.
He was probably curious how I’d turned out.
I wondered if my appearance was disappointing to him.
Surely the fact that I’d never ended up actually playing football in a professional sense was.
I was fairly certain he and all the girls who’d swooned over me through high school had done so in large part thanks to me being quarterback first for JV, and then the varsity team.
I was pretty good looking and I’d mostly kept up my physique with regular gym visits, especially in the last few years, since I wasn’t playing sports anymore.
But I wasn’t delusional. My potential, the thing that had dazzled everyone in this stupid town and made them put me on some ego-enhancing pedestal, was gone.
I was a waste. I hadn’t done anything with my life, and I hadn’t put Cherryvale on the map.
And now I was a (nearly) divorced, jobless loser living with his parents again.
“Are you looking forward to going out to the cabin, Rhys?” Josie asked. “I know it’ll be your first time.”
I wasn’t. Part of me wanted to ask if I could stay home and sleep for the entire week.
“Is there really room for all of us?” I wondered, trying not to sound hopeful.
“Oh, totally!” Benjamin answered. “There’s four bedrooms! One, two, three, four,” he counted, pointing first to our parents, then gesturing to he and Josie, then Kendall and I, like I wouldn’t understand what the sleeping arrangements would be.
“Great,” I answered flatly.
“You’re going to love it,” he promised me, as usual unable to detect my intense lack of enthusiasm. “The swimming is great! And we can go tubing, and there’s hiking trails, and stargazing at night.”
“Oh boy,” I responded, but was mostly drowned out by my parents chiming in with anecdotes of previous trips to support his assertions. I nodded, forcing a polite smile onto my face as they reminisced.
When my eyes drifted back over to Kendall, I could see he was biting down into his lower lip, his shoulders shaking with the effort to keep from laughing at my obvious misery.
He, at least, could tell I was not particularly enthused though he obviously did not feel sympathy for my plight.
But the look on his face was contagious, and I once again felt my mouth tugging into a slight grin.
He stared back at me, and this time when he blinked his lashes, I noticed how plush and dark they were, almost brushing his cheekbones with the movement.
That was kind of a weird thing to notice in a guy, even one as undeniably pretty as him, but it wasn’t exactly my fault if they were obscenely noticeable.
After we’d finished dinner, Kendall encouraged us to try the cookies he’d brought over. When I bit into one, it melted in my mouth and nearly brought me to my knees. The flavors of chocolate and cherry exploded on my tongue, the perfect balance of sweet and tart, chewy and indulgent.
“You made these? Like with flour and eggs and stuff?” I asked, and he chuckled.
“And stuff,” he agreed, before going on to explain that baking had become his actual full-time career.
He was the go-to guy in town for catered sweets like custom cakes for birthdays or bachelorette parties.
On top of that, he had an online business shipping out limited batches of pastries, which was massively helped by the fact that he had a pretty big following on his social media accounts, where he routinely went viral with little clips of him giving baking tips and hacks.
I was pretty sure the whole adorable pink-haired twink thing was not hurting him in that department.
“You rent out a space for all that?” I asked, and he gave a dramatic sigh, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling somewhat pitifully.
“I wish. I’d have to go out of town, and with transport back and forth, my time and what I’d spend on gas, it wouldn’t even be worth it. I’m doing everything out of my apartment for the time being.”
It sounded difficult and irritating, but he was making it work. For someone like me, who’d definitively not been able to make it work, it meaning literally anything I’d ever wanted to do, that was impressive.
After a bit, everyone decided we should all go out onto the back patio and relax in the cool evening air.
I was still exhausted, but I knew there was no point in complaining.
I followed them out and plopped down onto the comfy, padded sectional situated around the little stone fire pit.
It wasn’t lit, way too warm for that, but I imagined it’d be pretty cozy once it cooled down.