Rhodes #2
"Rhodes." He turns his head, and those green eyes hold flat. "I know there is a woman. I have a suspicion, but I want to hear it from you."
"You've lost your mind, Reeves. I guess now that you've found love, you think you're some kind of love sleuth?"
"I saw how you worked very hard not to ever touch her in Italy, but then somehow were always there with a sparkling water before she ever finished the first one. I know the tells. You can't bullshit a bullshitter."
That's the tell. I'd been proud of how careful we were. He watched us not-touch and read it the other way.
I could give him another nothing. The shape of it forms, and I let it go instead. Two weeks he's been sitting on this. He drove out here and rode with me and didn't say a word until now, which is so Reeves.
"We may be sleeping together, but it's not what you think," I say finally.
He nods once, like I confirmed the color of the sky. "I knew it. Does Cooper know?"
"Not yet."
I drink, and then I just say it, because I've never said any of it out loud.
It turns out I want to. "We actually kissed for the first time here, after I brought her out to ride.
Then Italy happened, and I guess we'd already broken the seal, so we both said fuck it. " I roll the bottle between my hands.
Saying it feels better than I expected. One person knows now, and if I had to pick a Stone to trust with it, Reeves was always going to be the safest bet.
"You okay with it?"
"I mean, yeah. The sex is good."
"I know it isn't just sex."
"Yeah." I nod, looking out at the field. "I think it's more than sex."
He takes his first drink then, a long one, and sets the bottle on the step beside his boot.
"Then you need to tell her," he says. "If anyone knows that, it's me."
Reeves spent years keeping Charli at arm's length because he thought losing her would hurt less if he never really let himself have her. He learned that one the hard way.
"I know."
"So why haven't you?"
"Timing's not right." I turn the bottle. "She has a lot of shit on her plate, and Coop's out of the country, so I want to be able to talk to him out of respect."
Reeves studies me a second longer, then nods, done with it. He picks the beer back up.
"Coop will be fine," he says. "Don't let that hold you back."
"I know." I finish the beer but don't go for a second. "It's not Cooper. She has to get through this bullshit with Oak Moss. Banksie gave her twelve weeks, so she wants to get on the other side of that before making any big decisions about her life."
"Ah, so that is what is hanging over this? It's the land problem."
I'm done talking about this with him. I don't need him analyzing why we are keeping things on the DL. As much as I hate to admit it, he's right, and maybe that's what rubs me the wrong way. If it weren't for Oak Moss, I feel like things would be different.
He tips his head back against the post. "You coming to Stone Intermodal after graduation?"
He lets it drop, which is the good thing about Reeves. He doesn't circle a thing to death, especially when he can sense I don't want to talk about it anymore. Rolling the bottle between his palms, he looks back out at the field, and then back at me, wanting an answer.
"That's what Ridge says. I'm not sure I've ever seen myself as the corporate type, so it's almost like it isn't real. But yeah, that's the plan."
"You'll be great," he says. "You're a Stone. You'll find your way."
I look at the tree line going gold at the top. "I suppose so."
Reeves drains the last of his beer and pushes up off the step.
"I need to get back before Charli sends a search party. Benjy's got some tank show he wants me watching by seven or the world ends."
"Go, then. I'll load up the bikes."
"No, I got you, brother. Let's go."
We gather the bottles. He drops his in the cooler, and I drop mine on top, and we roll the bikes up the ramps and strap them down, working easy, not talking much. The one beer I had over the whole long sit is nothing. My hands are steady, my head is clear. I'm good to drive.
He claps me once on the shoulder, hard, and gets in his truck.
He flips me off before kicking up dust as he peels out.
I flip him the bird before jumping in my own truck, following him out, nose to tail.
Dust hangs pink behind me, and at the gate his brake lights flare before he swings left toward the bay and Charli and his son.
I sit there for a minute before I turn right toward New Orleans, with four words riding shotgun in the dark. "It's the land problem."
The porch light's on when I pull in. I kill the engine and sit a second in the dark yard, the house glowing yellow at the top of the steps like it's waiting on me.
Inside, her keys are on the hook by the door. Her boots are crooked against the baseboard where she always leaves them, one standing, one tipped over. The house is dark past the front hall, telling me she's gone to bed, even though we promised to pick up where we left off this morning.
I guess she was too tired to wait up. I don't turn on lights because I know this house in the dark.
My bedroom door's open and as soon as I walk in, I see she's in my bed, on the far side. She's got the sheet kicked down to her waist and one arm thrown up over the pillow, dead asleep. Her phone lies face down on the nightstand.
I empty my pockets onto the dresser, putting down my wallet and keys and a folded receipt I don't remember. I plug my phone into the cord that lives on my nightstand.
Something crosses in me while it's in my hand, half of Coop's grin about the twenty-ninth and half of what Reeves said out at the field, the two of them touching just long enough to make my thumb move.
I get as far as Coop's name in the thread and the empty box under it before I lock the screen and set the phone face down.
I strip down and slide in behind her.
She shifts back toward me in her sleep, the way she does every night now. Her spine finds my chest and her cold feet find my shins. I get my arm over her, and she settles.
I asked her once at Cowbell, over a burger. I put it out there plain and simple, and she told me she had too much moving until Oak Moss was settled. Asking didn't break anything. We're still here. But it didn't move her either, and I'm not going to ask again.
I'm asleep before I can think of one thing I'd trade for this.