22. Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Arlo
The last two weeks have been, dare I say, quiet?
Rina took on a last-minute custom piece for some restaurant in Rosedale, so she’s been tucked away in her lair for much of that time. After what happened in her workshop the last time I was there, we both decided it was best to give her space to actually work and not be distracted.
What that time apart has done, though, is give me time to throw myself into therapy and really think about what I want moving forward with Rina.
Two weeks ago, everything changed. I could feel the physical shift between us, and it wasn’t just the sex. We wordlessly decided we wanted more than friendship.
That’s not to say that we’re jumping right in to where we were before I fucked things up. God knows I wouldn’t expect that, but we’re both wanting to make the effort to try.
That’s why, today, I’m asking her on a date. A proper one.
We’ve never actually been on a proper date. Everything we did was in secret, and I want a way to show this time would be different. This time, I will shout to the world that Rina Hutton—Steel—is finally mine.
Hopefully .
Maybe this is too much for her but it’s worth the attempt, at the very least.
I’m currently sitting in my office, mulling over how to ask her out while sipping coffee. The gossip committee has been strangely quiet of late, and I’m not expecting that to last for too much longer. Audrey has the day off, and the silence has allowed me to think about a lot of things.
I had my second injection a couple of days ago, and my scan is scheduled in two days and we’ll be able to really see if things are helping. I’m scared but hopeful. My back has been feeling light years better, so hopefully, that means things are progressing how they should.
It still makes me nervous, but I’m trying not to stress until I get definitive answers from the scan.
“Knock, knock.” I look up, confused by the voice I’m hearing.
“Hey,” I say softly as my eyes confirm it is indeed the woman I’m in love with.
“Long time, no see. Thought I’d stop by and check on you.” She gives me a cheeky grin, and I love that she took the initiative. She’s never been shy, per se, but this grown-up, assertive Rina has my heart pounding and my dick hardening.
“How sweet of you, Marina.” The use of her full name always pisses her off a little, and that fire in her eyes gets me hot every single time. That probably says more about me than it does her, but I’ll own it.
Her eyes narrow on mine, and I chuckle at the exact reaction I was hoping to get.
“Anyway, it’s shockingly quiet in here. What are you up to?” she asks.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Trying to avoid Alice and Mabel, drinking some coffee, relaxing,” I say casually .
“Sounds boring as fuck” —she shoots me a look I can’t decipher— “and I’m jealous.” It’s then that I really look at her. Dark circles under her eyes let me know she’s been working too hard. They make me want to take care of her, scold her for working too hard, and find a way to carry some of her load all at once.
“How’s the table coming along?” I ask instead of saying what I really want to. Something like, Come home with me. Let’s snuggle and binge-watch TV so you can sleep without judgement or stressing about what job is next.
“Done. Thank God. I finished it about” —she pulls her phone out to check the time— “Twenty minutes ago.”
And her first stop was here.
I want to analyze that more, but I’m not sure she really wants to scrutinize it. I need to remember to take things slow.
“What’s on your agenda the rest of the day?” Do I sound nonchalant? God, I hope so.
“I … have no idea,” she says, sounding lost, and I decide it’s the perfect time to move forward with my plan.
“Would you, maybe, want to go out to lunch? Together?” Jesus, I sound so unsure of myself, and I hate it. I hate that I’ve put myself in this position with her, but gaining back her trust is more important than feeling uncomfortable.
Her head tilts in question. “Like a date?”
“Exactly like a date.”
I let the concept seep into her brain. I wonder if she’s coming to the same realization I had about never actually going on a date before.
“Where? ”
“Sal’s?” It’s the only place outside of Grind Time and Mullin’s Pizza, and neither of those seems like enough of a date.
“You’re sure about this?” she asks.
I’m entirely unsure if the hesitation in her eyes is anything to go by.
“I think this is the surest I’ve been in a very long time,” I say. I hope she can see the honesty on my face.
She bites her bottom lip, gnawing on it as she thinks. I’ll wait for her all day if that’s what it takes for her to say yes.
“If we do this, we’ll be the talk of Bluebell Falls for the foreseeable future,” she offers like that’s something that would change my mind.
“Yep.”
She studies me like I have some wild ulterior motive, but she won’t find anything but the truth there.
Letting out a heavy sigh, her whole body seems to decompress. “Okay, let’s do this.”
I scramble from behind my desk, not wanting to give her a moment to change her mind. I bang my hip on the edge of my desk, cursing as the pain radiates through my leg. I’m usually more careful around that hip, but apparently this woman makes me reckless.
“Oh shit, are you okay?” She rushes over to me and bends over to check my denim-covered hip. I’m not sure what she’s expecting to see, but her worry for me causes warmth to bloom in my body.
“I’m good, just got a little too eager.” I chuckle, but the look on her face tells me she doesn’t find it amusing.
“Now that I know about your injuries, I swear you stress me out with shit like this.” She shakes her head.
“I’m fine, I promise. I’m a lot tougher than I look,” I joke .
“Don’t I fucking know it,” she mutters, and I have to hide my smirk by biting my lip.
“Let’s go eat.” I grab her hand as I stand to my full height once more and pull her out of my office, through the front door and into the warm Texas air.
Immediately, Jim Mathews catches my eye before looking down at our connected hands. An arched eyebrow looks back up at me, but I give him no response. This means the entire town will know in about ten minutes.
“Wow, that’s got to be a record,” Rina says quietly as she watches Jim scamper away into Grind Time, presumably to tell whomever he finds there about this new development.
I’m sure anything having to do with me is news around here since usually they can’t get any information out of me. And given Rina’s well-known dislike for me, this is definitely news-worthy.
Making our way to Sal’s, we walk in and it’s like a scene from a movie. A hush falls over the entire dining room, and everyone turns to stare at us. Fuck, maybe this was a terrible idea.
“Booth in the back is open,” Kelly Adams, the owner of Sal’s, calls from behind the counter.
“Thanks Kelly,” Rina says and then drags me to the open booth. She plops down on one side, and I slowly take my seat opposite her, trying to figure out if leaving is the best option here. I expected the gossip; I didn’t expect the gawking.
“We can—”
“Geez, it’s like we’re the next coming attraction,” she says at the same time.
“We can leave if you want. I didn’t expect it to be this bad. ”
“Hell no. If we’re really going to do this—and I want to—we need to face the peanut gallery, however annoying it is. Now, if they come over here and try to interrupt our lunch, I will have a talking to with the whole damn town.”
God, I love her.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say with the biggest smile on my face.
She rolls her eyes and picks up the menu by the window so she can look at it. I’m not entirely sure why since we’ve all had the menu memorized since we were in high school. Maybe it’s nervous energy. If that’s the case, she’s hiding it extremely well.
“Alright, kids, the burger and the club?” Kelly asks as she comes over.
I nod, telling her wordlessly that my usual is fine. At the same time Rina sighs, tossing the menu down, and taps her finger on the table.
“Yep, thanks, Kelly.”
I almost laugh at how annoyed she seems to be at the menu, or rather the lack of needing it, but I wisely don’t. I’m trying to stay on her good side today.
She glances at me before shifting her eyes, then quickly looks back. The double take makes me absolutely sure that I’m smiling like a loon at her.
“Why are you smiling like that?” she asks accusingly.
“Like what?”
She waves at my face. “Like you’re enjoying this!” she says, exasperated.
I do laugh then. “Because I am. I mean, not how uncomfortable you look right now, but the date overall? Best day ever.” I lean back in the booth and watch the emotions scuttle across her face .
“I’m sorry. I just realized how very little of these I’ve actually been on, and it freaked me out, and then I got super nervous, and I looked at the fucking menu I’ve known from memory for too many years to count, and then I just looked stupid.” She sighs before slumping back.
I won’t touch on the fact she just told me she rarely dates. The confirmation is something I didn’t even realize my caveman ass needed to hear, but damn does it make me happy.
“You didn’t look stupid. Look, there is no pressure, no expectations, none of it. Although this aspect is new, we’ve known each other for years. That hasn’t changed in the walk over here. This isn’t an average first date, but we’re still just us, okay?”
She tips her head back onto the booth’s back and lets out a breath. “I know. This just feels so … huge, you know? Like, yes, it’s a date, but it’s a date with you and that feels so much more monumental.”
It is monumental. It’s nothing short of miraculous that my wife is willingly sitting across from me, wanting to give things a try, showing off our new relationship to our small town.
Shit, I really need to tell her about not filing the divorce papers.
Not now; this moment feels too fragile.
“I get what you’re saying. Let me try something.” I clear my throat, straighten my seat, and prepare to hopefully make her laugh. “I’m so glad you agreed to our date. What do you do for work?”
Her eyebrows furrow. “You know what I do for work. What the hell?”
“That sounds super interesting. Did you always know you were going to go into furniture building?” I plow through her confusion, hoping she catches on.
The twinkle in her eye transforms into a bright smile. “I actually took a woodworking class in high school, and it changed the course of my life. I found I was not only good at it but that I loved it as well, and I just ran with it.”
“Fascinating,” I murmur. And it is. Even though I know this story, she tells it with the same excitement she did when she decided to really lean into her love of working with wood and went to college for it. I’ve never known anyone who loves what they do as much as Rina does, and it’s still inspiring to this day.
“What about you? You’re in law enforcement?” She plays along, and I already see the tension in her shoulders lessening.
“I am the sheriff of the lovely Bluebell Falls. I had intended to be career military, but that fell through.” I keep it light, mainly because I don’t want to talk about it. Therapy is helping me with that, but this isn’t something I want to bring up at the moment.
“Alright, folks, club and a burger,” Kelly interrupts and sets down our food. We say our thanks and wait for her to walk away before continuing our first date narrative.
“Do you miss it?” she says softly.
I exhale. “Not as much as I thought I would, if I’m being honest.” This is something I’ve been really trying to isolate with my therapist, and I concluded that I miss the idea of being a career Marine more than I miss what that actually entails.
“Can I break this really cute thing you did to get me out of my head?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
“I think you were always meant to be our sheriff.” She takes a bite of her burger like she didn’t just blow my world apart with her thoughtful words.
“I—” I try to come up with a response, but I honestly don’t have one .
“Everyone loves you.” She wipes her mouth quickly. “You go above and beyond for every single person, even the really annoying ones. Do you know how many times I’ve delivered something to someone in town and they brag about something you did? Maybe that’s a huge part of why I was so angry with you too. It was like you were always being talked about; but not just talked about, raved on. You do so much damn good, and I just wanted you to be an asshole to everyone. Sure, your surly attitude is one thing, but your actions show a different side of you.”
“Rina…” I’m speechless. I’ve never once thought about my job as sheriff like that. I just do what I’ve always thought I was supposed to do for the job.
“Sorry, that was probably a little much. I just wanted you to see yourself how the town does.”
“And what about you? How do you see me?”
She puts her burger back down on the plate, wiping her hands on a napkin before giving me her full attention.
“I see a grown-up version of the man I loved all those years ago. A man I’m scared shitless to fall for again. But I really want to give this a real try.”
I reach across the Formica table and grab of her hand.
“I know none of this is going to be easy, Emmerdeur, but I’m going to try like hell to get you back.” It’s as much of a promise as any truth I’ve ever spoken.