CH 6 - #friends
Riley
Songs: “What If I Never Get Over You” by Lady Antebellum
and “Black Betty” by Ram Jam
“I SAW THIS big-time breakdown of yours coming,” Macie said, waving her hand up and down in front of me.
My sister nodded. “So did I.”
“I wish y’all had told me because I didn’t see it until I found myself lost in Rhys on the dance floor,” I choked out.
“He got lost in you, too, BFF. When you laid your head on his shoulder, he closed his eyes and had the most serene expression on his face. He looked like he was in heaven just as you did.”
“At that moment, I felt like I was.”
“I watched you and Rhys the entire time you danced, and when you outlined his lips with your fingertip and traced his jawline, I thought he was going to kiss you. I could tell that he was thinking about doing it. Did you want him to?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “Then reality hit me. That’s when I started falling apart.”
“What about reality made you do that?”
“The loss of Rhys and me. How badly I hurt him. And then there’s Chad. I feel guilty about letting things go as far as they did with Rhys.”
Rachel squeezed my hand. “Don’t feel guilty, sister. I’ll tell you like I told Rhys while dancing with him. Y’all needed to have that one last dance for closure.”
“But closure didn’t happen. At least it doesn’t feel that way to me.”
There was a light knock on my bedroom door. It was my momma. “Are you doing any better, honey?” she asked, concern showing in her eyes.
“A little. It’s just…” I shrugged and wiped my nose with a Kleenex.
“I know. If you need me or your daddy, come get us.”
“I will. Love you.”
“We love you.”
After she closed the door, I looked at my sister and Macie. We were sitting on the floor with our bags of snacks from earlier.
“Give me some of your Lemonheads,” Rachel said, holding out her hand toward me.
I gave her the box because I couldn’t stomach anything. When I offered Macie my bag, she shook her head no.
“What I want isn’t in there,” she said.
“Taco Bell run?”
“That’s not it, either. I want you to talk to Rhys again. You cannot leave town with things like this between you and him.”
“There’s nothing else to say.”
“There’s plenty to say that you won’t say because you’re a big chicken. It’s time you stopped hiding how you really feel about Rhys.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “What do you want me to say? That I’m still in love with him? That I regret ending our relationship and moving to Fort Worth? That I think about him all the time and dream about him too? How about I tell you that I imagine it’s him fucking me when Chad is? Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“How did it feel to get the truth out finally?”
I cut my eyes over at Rachel. She shrugged her shoulders and popped a Lemonhead into her mouth.
“I can’t do this with y’all,” I said, getting up off the floor and walking over to my bed to lie down.
I was pulling back the covers when I heard something hit the window closest to me and I gasped. Stepping over to it, I thought, Surely not , as my heart beat even faster. Then I saw Rhys standing in the front yard, looking up at me.
Like he used to do when we were in high school, he had thrown a pebble at my window to get my attention just now. I’d lost count of the times that he came over past my curfew, wanting to see and kiss me one more time before he went to sleep. He could’ve texted me to get me to sneak out on all those occasions but preferred the old-fashioned approach.
Macie and Rachel walked up beside me and waved at Rhys. After he waved back, he pointed at me and motioned for me to come outside. I looked at my girls.
“Just go!” Macie ordered. Then she and my sister spun me around and pushed me toward the bedroom door.
As soon as I stepped onto the front porch, Rhys’s eyes met mine. Seconds later, we were face-to-face, standing on the walkway.
“Riley, I had to check on you because you’ve got me worried,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Considering how upset you got at Cheers and Beers, I couldn’t help but worry. Before you left, I asked you why you were crying and you said I didn’t want to know. But I do. Will you tell me why now?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Memories of you and me came flooding back.”
“The same thing happened to me. As a matter of fact, it started happening when I saw you and the girls in front of the grocery store, and it hasn’t let up.”
“Rhys, it feels like I’ve stepped back in time with you.”
“It feels the same way to me about you.”
“I apologize for touching you so inappropriately while we danced. Between our song playing and my memories of us, I got caught up in the moment before I knew it.”
“Me, too, and I apologize for how I touched you. It won’t happen again.”
The words between us stopped, and we stared at each other. Rhys’s blue eyes were sparkling and pulling me in, so I looked away and cleared my throat. Then, I focused back on Rhys.
“I haven’t been coming home to see my family and Macie like they’ve wanted me to because I was avoiding running into you. Everything that happened between us today is exactly what I feared would happen,” I admitted.
“I don’t want to keep you from coming home, so I tell you what. If I see you again whenever you’re in town, I’ll turn around and walk in the other direction or leave if we show up at the same place. That way, neither of us has to go through this again.”
“So for the rest of our lives, we’re just going to act like we don’t know each other?”
Rhys shrugged. “I guess.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Then what do you want?”
“To be able to do what we’re doing now. Talking to each other as two civilized human beings. As friends.”
“I’ve always been your friend, Riley. You were my best friend and still know me better than anyone around here.”
“You were my best friend, too, and you still know me better than anyone around here. Including my sister and Macie.”
Rhys kept looking at me. I knew he wanted to say something but was holding back for some reason.
“What is it?” I asked.
“When you ended us, it felt like a death to me. I grieved and went into a dark place for a while. What I missed the most about having you in my life was being able to talk to you. You were my greatest confidante.”
“I’m so sorry for taking that away from you,” I choked out, feeling a tear roll down my cheek. Without hesitation, Rhys gently swiped it away with his thumb.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry, and I didn’t want an apology. I just wanted you to understand how much your friendship meant to me. It still does. You and I have known each other for too long not to be friends. At least I feel that way.”
“So do I.”
“Okay. Officially friends again?”
“Yes.”
Rhys shook his head. “On another note, congratulations on your engagement. The guy is lucky to have you as a friend and a future wife.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you happy?”
“Yes.”
“Does the guy treat you well?”
“Ye-yes.”
“Good. All I want is for you to be happy and treated like a princess because you deserve it.”
I looked over Rhys’s handsome face while recalling how he treated me the whole time we were together. He put me on a pedestal and treated me exactly like a princess. He also used to call me that, along with “mia bella,” which meant “my beautiful.” Occasionally, he’d also say “ma’am” to me, purposely adding more twang to his Texas accent than he already had.
“Are you happy?” I asked him.
“Right this second, I am because of this.” He pointed back and forth at us. “But I don’t want our friendship to cause any problems between you and your fiancé.”
“It won’t.”
Rhys glanced up and grinned. “Rachel and Macie are looking out your bedroom window at us.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“This is like it used to be.”
“I know—them watching us, and also you throwing a pebble at my bedroom window to get me to come outside.”
“What can I say? I’m still old-fashioned.”
“Don’t ever change that about yourself.”
Rhys looked down at my lips and swallowed hard. “I better go now. I don’t want your girls mad at me for keeping you out here.”
“You’re the last person they’d get mad at for doing that. It is getting pretty late, though, and I imagine you’re tired.”
“I’m okay.”
“Before you leave, tell me how the B&Bs are doing.”
“They’re doing great! Booked all the time.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“I don’t know if you heard, but I bought the old Jefferson house on the lake six months ago and am fixing it up. When I’m done with it, it’ll be another B&B.”
“Rachel told me about you doing that.”
“I’ve been living in the house while making the improvements and have enjoyed being by the water.”
“It’s gorgeous out there. Have you seen any ghosts in your house or around the property?”
“No, but I have felt a presence. Things also get moved from where I know I put them.”
“You have a mischievous ghost on your hands,” I chuckled.
Rhys smiled and nodded. “Cypress Hills is like Ghost Central.”
“One of many things that I love about it.”
We kept looking at each other, then I stepped up to Rhys and hugged him. He wrapped his muscular arms around my waist, hugging me in return.
“Thank you for coming here and talking to me,” I whispered in his ear.
“Of course.”
After telling each other goodnight, Rhys returned to his black Chevy Z-71 truck parked in the driveway. On the day he got it—the same day as our first date—he named it “Black Betty” after the song by Ram Jam. It was played at every football home game as the Cypress Hills’ varsity team busted through the breakaway banner that my cheer squad and I had made—Rhys always smiling and winking at me as he passed by.
Those memories were still as pristine as ever, just like the ones that Rhys and I made inside Black Betty. The night I lost my V-card to him in the front seat was crystal clear in my mind. So was the first time I tasted him and when he tasted me. His body used to be my playground and mine was his.
There were occasions when we just fucked each other to get our lusty fix. The majority of the time, though, we made love. Slow, deep, emotional love. The kind that heals parts of you that you didn’t even know needed healing.
Rhys reached for the driver-side door handle and then looked over his shoulder at me, still standing on the walkway. “If I don’t see you again before you go back to Fort Worth, I want you to be careful. Lots of crazy drivers out there on I-20,” he said.
“I’ll be careful.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
After he drove off, I returned to my momma and daddy’s house. Walking upstairs, I prayed to God, giving thanks for bringing Rhys and me back together as friends.
When I opened my bedroom door, my girls ran up to me, grinning from ear to ear.
“Give us the juice! Now!” Macie demanded.
“Rhys and I had a wonderful talk.”
“It looked like it.”
“We’re friends. I mean, he said he’s always been mine. Anyway, that’s where we are.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“Relieved. Happy. It was so nice to have a real conversation with Rhys again. Everything naturally flowed.”
“Like it used to. Question, though. Do you think you and Rhys can keep things at a friendship level? I ask because of how y’all were with each other at Cheers and Beers.”
“I understand, and yes, Rhys and I will be fine. We addressed how far we allowed things to go between us on the dance floor. Memories of us affected him like they had me, and we both got caught up in the moment. But we’re good now.”
I turned to Rachel and noticed a look of concern on her face.
“Spit it out, sister,” I told her.
“Are you going to tell Chad about you and Rhys talking again?”
“I haven’t even thought that far ahead, but Rhys did mention not wanting our friendship to cause problems between Chad and me. I don’t see why it would.”
Macie huffed. “I do. Chad is possessive as hell of you.”
“ Protective. ”
“Call it whatever you want, but I wouldn’t tell him about you and Rhys if I were you.”
“It’s only right that I do.”
“Then get ready for an alpha male showdown between your annoying fiancé and amazing high school sweetheart.”