Rhys #4
“You didn’t,” he insisted, but the embarrassment dripping off his words and lighting up his face only magnified my curiosity.
Digging my own phone out of my pocket and activating the flashlight, I shined the beam onto the plank. There were letters carved into wood there.
‘K.A + R.K’
My jaw dropped, my eyes widening as if my brain wanted to absorb and record the visual in as much painstaking detail as it possibly could, while Kendall groaned in embarrassment, covering his face with his palms.
“I totally forgot that was there,” he admitted, his voice muffled by his own hands.
“This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” I breathed out, brushing my fingers over the texture reverently. “The second cutest,” I clarified, glancing up to watch him part his fingers to peek at me with one eye through the gap. “Yes, I meant you.”
“Oh my god,” he whined. “What are you doing?”
“Taking my new lock screen photo,” I responded, lining up the picture so the carving was perfectly lit up by my flash. I felt as light as air, like my entire form was made of joy and I’d be completely impervious to fear and shame and doubt for the rest of my life.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You have no idea how nice it feels to not be the one dying of embarrassment for once.”
A laugh bubbled out through his hands, but he shook his head. “I can’t believe you saw that.”
I braced my hand onto the wooden plank to help heave myself up, staring at him.
He was beautiful, the moonlight spilling through the treetop glowing on his hair like a halo.
I wished I could talk to the younger Kendall who’d carved our initials into his secret little sanctuary and tell him everything would be okay.
I wished I could tell him not to worry so much and not to be so sad, because one day he would grow into the most amazing person I’d ever known, and I would be so fucking in love with him that I could hardly stand it.
My breath caught in my throat, nearly choking me as my vision zeroed into one tiny pinprick. My heart smacked up into my ribs, one single crack like I’d been struck with a baseball bat. My palm slipped off the wood, the ragged edge slicing through my skin in a messy rip.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
I was in love with Kendall Austin. I was done for. Completely fucking gone.
“Rhys!” His voice sounded far away, like he was at the end of a tunnel. “You’re bleeding! Did you cut yourself?”
When he moved toward me, I stumbled back, raising my hands up in a defensive gesture, out of pure instinct. My blood was pumping like a panicked deluge in my veins.
I was in love with Kendall Austin. There was no turning back now. I’d fucked around and let myself fall in love with him. I wasn’t sure I’d live through it if I screwed things up with him the way I’d screwed up my marriage. I couldn’t live through disappointing him. What would I do if I lost him?
“Rhys… Baby, what’s wrong?” He asked, sounding wounded and scared by my reaction.
Fucking idiot, I scolded myself. He was already feeling vulnerable because of me finding the initials, and now it was like I was rejecting his attempt to help me. Could I be any more of a fucking moron?
“Ah, nothing!” I said quickly, forcing the words out from my desert-dry throat. “I just… Um… I didn’t want to get blood on you! Because you’re so… You’re so…”
Perfect. The most perfect thing I’d ever stumbled upon in my entire existence and all I wanted was to spend every night with him snuggled up against my side and every day listening to him talk about anything he wanted to talk about.
I wanted to know every thought that went through his head, no matter how insignificant or silly.
I needed him with me because I’d never been able to be so open with anyone, and I couldn’t go back to the old me.
He was everything I’d needed and hadn’t even known to want for.
I didn’t know a relationship could be this fucking good.
“Clean,” I finished weakly.
He blinked, giving me an odd look. “Don’t be silly. I have a water bottle in the car we can rinse it with, and a first aid kit at the apartment. Come on, let’s get it bandaged up before germs get in it.”
I followed behind him, a mass of emotions I didn’t exactly know how to navigate yet. But I would figure it out. I’d screwed up so many things in my life already, but Kendall was something I couldn’t screw up. He was the key to my happiness. He was my everything.
I just needed to figure out a way of letting him know that was actually worthy of him. Someone so perfect, who’d given me so much, deserved more than a weak confession in a dark yard, whispered under my breath so we wouldn’t get the cops called on us.
As we walked, he slipped his hand into mine, the one that wasn’t dripping and leaving a blood trail behind us.
“Don’t worry about a thing, baby,” he said. “I’ll take very good care of you.”
I knew he would. For the rest of my life. I just had to figure out how to let him know that I knew that for absolute certain now.