Chapter 41
Chapter forty-one
Rhett
At the time most people would be eating dinner, we roll down a seaside street full of expansive homes and lush gardens.
With the windows of the rental Jeep down, the verdant smell of cypress, jasmine, and sea salt fill the car.
The humidity also feels different from home, the way only the ocean can provide, but it’s beautiful here, there’s no doubt about that.
The glinting sparkle of the early evening sun catches on the ocean that peeks between the stately lots, and I try to relax, even though the shirt Audrey picked out for me is slightly too tight around my biceps.
She insisted that a button-down linen shirt under a navy sports jacket would bring out my eyes, complete with dress pants that somehow feel like air.
Audrey said it’s some new designer fabric and wouldn’t let me see the price tag.
Either way, I was here, feeling like a fish out of water, but that didn’t really matter.
My thoughts—and gaze—tonight are reserved for Audrey.
Her chocolate hair is clipped at the nape of her neck with loose strands and curls that fall around her face and make me think of ‘sex hair’.
When she slipped on the long pink dress, my jaw literally dropped.
I joked I was arriving at a Hollywood party with a celebrity, and she just blushed, asking for the third time in a row if she looked okay.
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And I still didn’t understand how we came together like this, what stars had to align for a match like this, but as I hold her hand in the front seat of this rented Jeep, I decide once and for all to stop questioning it.
As we get closer, the nerves build in my stomach.
I consider myself a pretty tough guy, but Audrey hasn’t put her family, especially her father, in a shining light.
She told me to put on a tough skin because I could be the president, and her father would still find a reason to criticize me.
I nodded, going along with it, wondering what the hell her ex did to win him over.
Though I already knew it was probably fake or unethical.
Either way, as nervous as I feel, it’s trumped by the nerves radiating off Audrey.
There are small things I’ve noticed about the woman I fell in love with this summer.
Like the way she sniffs her coffee before the first sip, the way she crinkles her nose when she laughs, and how she starts to play with her hair more than usual when she is tired.
But I also know that when Audrey is nervous, she goes inward.
And I’ve been the one talking this entire drive from the resort to the house.
My observations have been interrupted by a few words from her, but her hands keep rubbing the tops of her thighs: another nervous tick.
I put on her favorite playlist and let her have quiet time until cars start lining both sides of the street, classic signs of a party, forcing me to slow down.
“We are here…” Her voice trails off, and she pulls her hand from mine, sitting up straight in the passenger seat. I can’t imagine arriving at my mom’s home riddled with nerves like this.
“You can park here. I don’t want to get trapped in the driveway,” she instructs abruptly, and I do as she says, parking behind the catering van across the street from a house that looked like it was out of a movie.
“Hey, look at me.” I grab Audrey’s chin, forcing her to face me.
Her hazel eyes focus on me, but I have a feeling she isn’t really in the car with me.
Her mind is already walking through the door of the home she felt she didn’t belong in.
“I’m here with you, darlin’. You give me the word, and I will whisk you away from here.
Nothing bad is going to happen to you, not while I'm around.” Audrey smiles weakly at me. “I love you.”
“Thank you for doing this. I love you, too.”
Pulling her close to me, I place my lips gently on hers, she softens under my touch. Selfishly I think about keeping her here, safe, and reminding her how brave, strong, and beautiful she is, but I know we have to face this. And I wasn’t going to let her go in there alone.
Audrey walks beside me as our feet crunch on the pebbles beneath us.
The driveway, a semi-circle, is meticulously landscaped, featuring the greenest grass and hydrangea bushes so vibrantly blue, they look hand-painted.
I wasn’t expecting a beach bungalow, but I also didn’t anticipate a house with more windows than I can count.
Three stories of gray shingles tower over us.
“You grew up spending your summers here?” I ponder aloud, my thumb rubbing her hand as we walk together.
Audrey peers up at the house as we approach the oversized arched front door.
“Kind of. In between different summer camps, this is where I’d be.
The property has been in the Elson family for five generations now.
It was built in 1905 or something like that.
My father inherited it.” She exhales a heavy breath, her eyebrows shooting up as she turns to me. “And Andrew will get it next.”
“Not you?” My eyebrows crinkle as I look at Audrey. She lets out a small, cynical laugh.
“It’s lovely here.” She squeezes my hand. “But this isn’t me. I was more than happy to let Andrew have it. He’s the one who wants to carry on the legacy.”
“And you want...” I ask, as we are frozen on the front stoop.
“I want to build my own legacy. Whatever that may look like.”
Instinctively I put my arm around Audrey, pushing the front door open.
“Let’s do it, then.” I wink at her, taking a step inside.
Live music fills the entire property, full of people arriving and chatting throughout the backyard, which overlooks the bay.
The inside of the house is beautiful, filled with ambient light, but somehow feels cold, too.
I couldn’t imagine a child running around in here, because even though this is supposed to be a beach home, there is nothing welcoming or casual about it.
Even at thirty I barely feel comfortable walking on the floors.
Audrey pulls me through the kitchen, where the catering staff is busy organizing trays of food. She leads me out a side door onto the expansive deck.
“Audrey.” I turn towards the deep voice as Audrey slightly tenses beside me before dropping her hand from mine.
“Dad.” Her reply is clipped, and they embrace quickly. I don’t love the way he is looking at her, like he is evaluating, scrutinizing everything about her. And I don’t like how she diminished herself the moment we pulled onto this street.
“Dad, this is Rhett.” Audrey gestures, touching my arm lightly.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Elson.” Our hands meet, his grip tight as he peers into my eyes behind the sunglasses that he likely thinks hide the judgment.
“Rhett,” is all he says as other people shuffle around us, their eyes on the man shaking my hand.
“Is Mom around?”
Samuel flashes a quick, pearly white smile at his daughter.
“She was talking to the Claremonts’ a moment ago, making her rounds, as she does.”
We nod in sync, and I plaster on my best smile, waving quickly at her father who dismisses himself.
“I need a drink,” she mumbles through a fake smile.
I agreed and we made our way to an outdoor bar set up near the sparkling pool.
Audrey decides to not wait for the absent bartender and starts mixing us drinks.
She claims homefield advantage and I can’t help but watch in awe as she balances two glasses in her hands, pulling the top of a whiskey bottle open with her teeth, her eyes flashing up to me, devilishly.
She spits the top onto the ground, wiggling her eyebrows at me. This is the Audrey I know.
“It's not snake eyes. That's what I need right now. But this will do, right?”
I clear my throat and nod because I want nothing more than to wrap my hands around her tiny waist, pull her into my arms, and whisk her away from here, kissing her until she begs me to stop.
“Neat?” She holds the bottle out arm’s length showing me the label. “It’s the good stuff.”
“However you want to make me, baby.”
She hands me a glass, slips her hand in mine, and pulls me away from the party.
“I want to show you something.” Audrey takes a gulp of whiskey as we walk around the back of the pool house into a garden of blue hydrangeas. Her shoulders finally relax when we are hidden out of sight.
“This is where I would hide during family parties.” She plays with the gold necklace around her neck. “I didn’t think I'd need to keep running away at this age.” She casts her eyes down, but I lift her face back to mine.
“You don’t need to protect me; you know that right?” Audrey bites her lip. “There’s no more hiding. I can’t hide my love for you Audrey, and I have a feeling you can’t hide it for me either. Let’s go back out there. You might have felt like you needed to hide in the past…but you didn’t have me.”
She curls herself into me, kissing me. “I probably look pathetic.” She huffs, worry still on her face. “It’s just I instantly shut down when I'm here. Or anywhere with them. I wanted it to be different this time. So badly.”
My heart aches as Audrey downs the rest of the whiskey, and I pull her in for one more kiss, breathing in her sweet jasmine perfume and running my hand along her back, beckoning her back up the path to the party.