Chapter Six #2
After a day of shopping and dinner in Bennington, complete with loads of teasing about Jack, Ellie decided to accept Rhett’s offer to crash at her place.
“Wine?” Rhett asked.
“Yes, please.” Ellie pulled the slippers from her just-in-case duffel bag and slid her socked feet into them.
“Let me see what I have.” Rhett went to the wine rack and pulled out a bottle. “Syrah?”
“Yum.” She leaned against the doorframe while Rhett got out a corkscrew and a pair of glasses. “Oh. I didn’t tell you about meeting Bea.”
“Bea Castleton, the pickle heiress who hired you as part of her multi-million dollar renovation of the historic mansion she bought as her private residence?”
Ellie laughed. “Yes, that one.”
“How did it go?”
“Eh?” She tipped her head back and forth. “It was okay. She’s…a character.”
“What do you mean, she’s a character?” Rhett popped the cork and eyed Ellie with curiosity.
Ellie wagged a finger. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what that means. You’re from the South.”
Rhett poured wine into the waiting glasses and handed Ellie one. “Oh, no. That’s an umbrella term that covers all manner of sins. Calling her a character might mean she’s a hoot, and it might mean she’s a raging asshole.”
She let her shoulders slump. “What do you call someone who’s a hoot one minute and a raging asshole the next?”
“My mother.”
Ellie snorted. They’d been friends long enough for her to know Rhett was only partially kidding, but she didn’t apologize or prod. They’d also been friends long enough that Rhett would tell her if something new happened and she needed to vent.
“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.” Rhett lifted her glass in playful resignation and took a sip. “Seriously, though. Was she an asshole to you?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Ellie took a sip of her own wine while she decided what to say. “It’s just, I get the feeling she could be, you know? Like cross a line with her and look the fuck out.”
Rhett nodded slowly. “I’m familiar.”
“It makes me sad because she’s queer and what she wants me to do with the murals is so cool. But I don’t feel like I can let my guard down.”
“You should trust your gut, though. You’re so good at reading people. If that’s the vibe you’re picking up, that’s the vibe she’s putting out. Whether she intends to or not.” Rhett tipped her head and stared at seemingly nothing in particular. “It’s a shame.”
“Yeah.” Fortunately, Ellie didn’t anticipate seeing much, if any, more of her.
“Did Jack share your read?”
She flinched, sending her wine sloshing over the rim of her glass. Just enough to leave a dark, purplish-red splotch on her light pink T-shirt. “Shit.”
“You okay? What did I say?”
Ellie rolled her eyes. “Nothing.”
“Obviously not.”
How could she describe the icky feeling she got when Bea practically draped herself on Jack without sounding idiotic or, worse, jealous? “I didn’t talk to him after she left.”
“Okay. Reasonable. But that doesn’t explain your Miss Butterfingers moment.”
Ellie groaned. If she couldn’t be an idiot in front of her best friend, what was the point? “Bea was all over him. Like, all over. It was gross. You just reminded me of it is all.”
Rhett leaned forward, propping her chin on her fist. “Is the nature of your ew rooted in her behavior in general or the person on the receiving end?”
“The nature of my ew?” God, she loved this woman.
“Don’t evade with a critique of my rhetorical choices.”
“I’m not evading.” She huffed. “Okay, I am. Mostly the behavior in general. But a little the fact it was Jack.”
“Because?” Rhett asked, all innocence.
Ellie laughed. “You know, I can’t decide whether I’m irritated that he would lap that up or worried that he doesn’t know better and might get himself into trouble.”
“Fascinating.”
It so didn’t help that Rhett now lived next door to Jack. “I mean, I find him attractive. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“But he’s so damn aloof, I’m not sure I want to be in the same room as him.” Which was painful to admit as a girl whose identity had a lot tied up in being able to bring out the best in people.
“Oh, you’ve got it bad, don’t you?” Rhett’s expression was equal parts teasing and pity.
“Yep.” She gulped her wine, oddly relieved to have admitted it.
“What are you going to do about it?” Rhett asked.
“Nothing.” She lifted a finger. “Well, not nothing. I’m going to be my usual charming self, and it’s either going to wear him down or drive him bananas. And I’m going to be okay with either.”
Rhett laughed so hard she had to set down her glass and wipe her eyes. “Yeah you are.”
She shrugged, resolved as much as relieved now. “Ball’s in his court. We’ll see.”
“You know how badly I want to make a balls joke, right?”
Rhett might be the wisest and most insightful person in her life, but it didn’t mean she didn’t also have the mentality of a thirteen-year-old boy at times. “I do know. Does that mean you’re going to exercise restraint?”
Rhett sighed. “Restraint is overrated.”
They both joked about that, but when push came to shove, neither of them made a habit of being reckless or impulsive.
Not in life and not in love. Rhett had stayed in a crappy marriage a lot longer than she should have, and Ellie had fallen in love but managed to steer clear of the kind that might truly break her heart.
“Hey, you got me to admit I have the hots for him. That has to count for something.”
“A doorknob would have the hots for him,” Rhett said. “At least one whose general attractions included trans guys.”
Rhett did not fall into that category, but Ellie loved that she made a point of appreciating things outside her own scope of desire. So many people—queer or otherwise—went out of their way to put on blinders in that regard. It was so pedestrian. “Well, this doorknob loves her a trans guy.”
“Even if he’s cranky?”
Ugh. So ridiculous. “Even if he’s cranky.”