The next couple days were a struggle. Rhett never called me back. He never texted either. To add to my helplessness feeling, it ended up snowing twenty-some inches in New York. It took the snow plows two days to even start digging the streets out. Not that I had anywhere to go, but being stuck indoors wasn’t on the top of my to-do list for this holiday. Thanksgiving was tomorrow. Afraid of more snow hitting, the Carters had come over one night early.
Mom’s main worry was the caterers and her fear that they might cancel tomorrow. “I can’t cook. We’ll have to order Chinese,” she said, laughing with Mrs. Carter over her fifth glass of Pinot Noir of the day. Her solution to the snow was to drink. An acceptable solution, even I’ll admit that, but I feared what this might mean for dinner tomorrow.
John groaned. It seemed he had the same fear. He’d been in his pajamas for the past two days. For as much as he pushed me to come here with him, he looked about as miserable as I felt. “Sydney—put on your snowsuit, we’re going out.”
“What?” I glanced at the window. All I could see was white and then more white. “Are you insane?”
“No. There’s a small market store less than a block away. I think just in case the caterers don’t show tomorrow, then we’ll need to go get a few things. They probably won’t have any whole turkeys for sale…but maybe some turkey breasts or something.”
“Yikes.” Chinese sounded better than that. “Fine. I’ve got nothing else better to do.”
So John and I bundled up from head to toe in all of our parent’s old skiing gear. We each had a full body snowsuit on, goggles, hats, boots, gloves, scarves—the works. Heath, who turned out of be relatively normal just as John had described, although still not someone I would ever consider dating, decided to come with us. After he was properly dressed too, the three of us rode the elevator down to the lobby. Then we waddled out into the cold. The snow was so high, it took the three of us almost a half hour to walk one block down the street. By the time we walked into the market store, I was sweating like it was summer, somewhere underneath layer after layer.
“We can only bring back what we can carry. So what sort of things do you want to eat tomorrow?” John asked us.
“Pumpkin Pie,” Heath said, rubbing his belly. “I could live on Pumpkin Pie.”
“O…kay,” John replied, shooting me a look. “And you Sydney?”
At that moment my phone rang. It was only my mom. She wanted us to get more wine from the store. “There goes my arm space,” I muttered, hanging up. “I guess I’m in charge of wine. The lushes back at the house are demanding it.”
“You get the wine then. Heath, you get the pumpkin pie ingredients. I’ll see what they have in the meat section. Maybe find some sweat potatoes…or stuffing? I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.” John disappeared off in one direction and Heath went in the other direction. That left me, the eighteen year old, to go choose wine. Splendid.
The alcohol section took up half of the entire store. And even though it was kind of picked over, they had a decent selection. Or at least I think that they did. I knew nothing about wine, not that anyone back home would even be sober enough to care what I picked. There was a man in a big puffy coat and hat also trying to make a selection. I thought about asking him for help, but he seemed pretty deep in thought trying to decide between two different bottles. So I decided to go with whatever was the most expensive. Seemed like a good enough approach.
I grabbed something—yikes, one-hundred dollars for wine?—off the shelf.
“Sydney?”
The bottle of red slipped out of my hand and hit the tile floor. Red wine and glass splattered in every direction, all over my boots, my pants, and even on the other person. The man in the puffy coat was Rhett. I hadn’t even recognized him under all his layers. But I recognized his voice instantly.
“What…what are you doing here?” I choked out, looking up at him. I hadn’t heard from him in three days and now suddenly he was here. In the wine section? I’d never seen him in winter clothes before. Seeing him from behind I hadn’t even known it was him.
He set one of the bottles he held back on the shelf. “I was on my way to come see you. I figured I couldn’t show up empty handed. So I stopped here. Wine seemed like a good ‘meet the parents’ gift. Well, actually, that’s not the full truth. I was kind of killing time…trying to decide if I even wanted to show up.”
My heart went through a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Saying he was on his way to see me—I was thrilled and ecstatic and ready to grab his face and kiss him. Then he said he wasn’t sure and I didn’t know what to think. “Oh,” I muttered. “Okay.”
“The flights out here were complete shit. I spent the last few days just trying to book a flight and then when I finally got one I had to transfer in Chicago and Boston. With the holiday and the snow, everything was a mess—the airport was a mess. Thank God they have an underground subway system in the city or I never would have made it this far. And I’ve lying my ass off to all of our friends, acting depressed as hell over us. And the thing is, I don’t know if it’s an act or if it’s real.” He set the other bottle down, groaning, stepping through the wine mess at his feet, coming a little closer to me. His eyes were so sincere and intense and trying so hard to read something from me. “You’re my girlfriend,” he stressed. “At least, for a moment, that’s how it felt. And I missed my girlfriend.”
He said this with so much conviction that my heart kind of stopped and the world stood still.
“Your brother might hate me, but in time he’ll see that I’m genuine. Because I would never do anything to fuck this up. So if there’s any chance that you might feel otherwise…then I don’t see why…I don’t see why we aren’t together.”
There were so many things I wanted to say to him. But I couldn’t contain my emotions or my excitement, and I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck, pulling his body in closer to mine, and I slammed my lips to his. I was a little rough and a little desperate, but he didn’t seem to mind as he kissed me back. He tasted and felt exactly like I remembered. It was the most comforting thing on Earth being able to touch him and hold him again. We had too many layers of coats and scarves and whatnot between us, but he held me tight like we were naked.
Big tears were rolling down my cheeks. I couldn’t help it. I was so blissfully happy. When it came to Ben, for so long I’d thought I’d been in love with him, but the truth was I knew nothing about love. This was love. What I felt with Rhett was love.
“You’re gonna have to pay for that. You know that, right?” came a voice, interrupting us.
I broke away from Rhett to see a man with a mop staring at us. He was the store manager and he didn’t look happy. “Okay,” I muttered, wiping at my face. Why did I have to drop the most expensive bottle ever? “I can’t believe you took three different planes to get here just for me,” I whispered to Rhett.
He shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“It is to me. And I’m good with the whole girlfriend thing.”
Rhett smiled. And then he really started to smile. He pressed a quick kiss to my lips, taking my hand and tugging me away from the giant mess so the man with the mop could clean. “You look like an adorable snow bunny in that outfit. It’s killing me.”
The mop man shot us a very disgusted look.
“We’d better go find my brother,” I suggested, pulling Rhett off in one direction.
“You break it, you bought it,” the man shouted after us.
Jeez. “I know,” I shouted back, as Rhett and I hurried away from him as fast as possible. We were rounding the corner when I ran smack into my brother. His arms were filled with various food items, no rhyme or reason to them. He looked at me and then he looked at Rhett. I waited for the insults to come flying out of his mouth. But, surprisingly, they didn’t.
“Okay then,” John said. “If you’re going to be here then you can carry all this.” He shoved everything into Rhett’s arms. Rhett quickly moved to bal
ance the items as best he could. One stray orange—an orange?—went rolling off into the unknown despite his efforts.
“Look,” Rhett said to him. “I know you don’t care much for me but—”
“We really don’t need to discuss this,” John said, immediately cutting him off. “Frankly, I’m sick of talking about you. If you’re here, you’re here. Whatever.”
“Well, can I at least say I’m sorry about Shelley? If it helps, it didn’t mean anything to me.”
I slapped my hand to my head. Shelley was the last person Rhett should have brought up at this moment. John wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t fighting or screaming or bitching. Just let it go, Rhett.
“It doesn’t help,” John grunted. “So…yeah.”
“Fine,” Rhett said, dropping the Shelley thing. “What are you making?” he asked, checking out the ingredients in his arms. “Chicken stew?”
“No,” John huffed. “I don’t know. Our mom has never made a Thanksgiving dinner in her life. Every year she gets the meal catered. Now with the snow…well, tomorrow isn’t looking so good. So I’m trying to figure out an alternative. There aren’t many options here. I’ve never cooked much more than pancakes in my life.”
“Right.” Rhett handed the ingredients back to John. “Lucky for you, I can cook. I’ve helped my mom with every Thanksgiving dinner since I was old enough to mash the potatoes for her. Plus, whenever one of the cooks at Chancy’s is out sick or running late, they make me cook. I can help.”
I said nothing. Only watched as Rhett took over Johns little ‘grocery trip’ and started running things. Even when Heath found us, holding nothing but a single can of pumpkin, Rhett started ordering him around, too, making him go find ingredients for the pie. An hour later, the four of us left the store, with wine, pumpkin pie ingredients, stuff to make a couple different casseroles, and a giant amount of chicken breasts. The chicken would have to do since they had no turkeys left.
I was impressed. Even if John wasn’t. And Rhett, with his ability to get along with almost anyone, seemed to have made a friend out of Heath. When we reached the house, Mom and Mrs. Carter were both passed out on the sofa. Dad and Mr. Carter, like two children, had found a sled from God only knows where and were heading outside to ‘try to find a hill.’ I think the only hill they were going to find was a set of stairs straight into a subway station.
That left us kids alone and unsupervised. I took Rhett back to my room, to show him around and also get him alone. My heart started pounding the moment I shut my door. I was burning up inside my snowsuit, and I desperately wanted to strip out of it, but I needed one more answer from him. “Why didn’t you return my call or my text? I tried to reach you three days ago. I left a voicemail.”
“I know. I got your message.” He stepped into my room further and sat down on my bed, almost like it was familiar to him and he did it every day. “Honestly…I was scared you were trying to reach me to end things. And if you were going to end things then wanted you to have to do it in person. If I’d known you were going to be as sweet to me then as you’re being today, I wouldn’t have hesitated to call.”
“Oh.”
“I wanted to call. Pretty desperately.”
“Well, you’re here now.” And I was so happy and grateful. Taking the zipper to my suit in my hand, I started to slowly unzip. “And I missed you so freaking bad.” I kept unzipping, past my chest, then my stomach, and straight down.
Rhett suddenly stood up. “Jesus, Sydney. Nope. Sorry, baby. Nope. We can’t do that.” He started backing away toward my door. He backed into my dresser and nearly fell over, but he righted himself and kept backing. “I want to do that. Believe me, the need to be inside you is already killing me. I’ve been going out of my mind the last few days, not even sure if I’d ever get to do that with you again. But not now, not here with your family. Your brother already hates me…so, actually, I shouldn’t even be in your room with the door closed. He’s probably already assuming the worst. So I’m going to go out there and make that pie for that Heath kid, family friend of yours, since that kid is so obsessed with pie. And…I’m gonna go do that.” He stumbled into the door.
I couldn’t help but laugh. He was flustered and it was sexy as hell. “Okay. But tonight. After everyone goes to sleep. You better be in here.”
He reached for the handle.
“Rhett—I’m serious.”
“I’ll be in here. Don’t worry.” He came back across the room, all confident and cocky now, and pulled me in for one more kiss. It was a kiss that let me know he certainly wasn’t about to deny me sex tonight. It left me in one hell of a turned-on state, feeling like tonight was an eternity away. I moaned in protest against his mouth because I did not want him to go help Heath with that pie. “Fine,” he suddenly said and he pushed the material of the snowsuit down over my shoulders. “You win.”
He was peeling my snowsuit down, kissing so deviously in every spot he could, feeling his way, letting go completely, and now I was the one who had to deny him. “No, you’re right. Now isn’t good.” If we did had sex now then it would just be rushed and I wanted more than that right this second. Turning around, I wiggled away from him. I started to pout, mostly because I couldn’t have him and suddenly I’d never wanted him more.
“Tonight,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “I love you.”
I had no idea if he’d meant to say those last three words or if they’d just sort of slipped out. He’d never said them before and part of me wondered if I’d even heard him correctly. Either way, he didn’t wait around to see if I’d reciprocate.
He only left my room.
And he left me out of breath.
CHAPTER 18:
RHETT
Pumpkin Pie time. Right now. In the fanciest freaking kitchen my poor eyes had ever beheld. And Heath was like a child. He’d never made anything that required cooking before and the guy was fascinated by everything I showed him. The pie we were making wasn’t complicated—the crust was premade and the filling was canned. Then when all that was put together, all that was left was to pop it in the oven and bake it.
John hovered. He pretended not to be paying any attention, but he was. It was obvious that he was curious. He may have even been more fascinated than Heath. Or maybe he was just waiting for me to screw up. Either way, he was lingering and he wasn’t treating me like a leper. Not at the moment, at least. Secretly, I’d googled the recipe just to be certain when the others weren’t looking. I was good, but I wasn’t that good. Like I said, the crust was premade.
Sydney was still in her room. I didn’t know what had come over me when I said it, but I was basically freaked the hell out about my ‘I love you’ drop from earlier. It was no secret—between me, myself, and I—that I loved her. I’d felt this way for quite some time. But to say those words out loud? What the fuck was thinking? She was probably equally freaked out and about ready to take off running in the opposite direction.
My stomach was in knots, as I made the damn pie, and as I waited on her. Before my big word slip, I’d thought I’d finally cracked Sydney’s code. The girl required a few things: sex, patience, a certain amount of humor, kindness, and honesty. She responded well to all of those things. What she didn’t respond well to was…too much too fast. And saying those words now was definitely way too fast.
Finally, to my relief and to my apprehension, she came out of her room and joined us in the kitchen. She’d changed from her snow gear into jeans and a soft sweater. She didn’t say anything at all as she came into the room. But she approached me, as if nothing different had happened earlier, and sat in the empty barstool beside mine. It was all so very causal. And I didn’t know what to think.
“It smells really good in here,” she commented.
“It’s the pie,” I replied lamely. No shit it was the pie. Obviously.
“How much longer on it?”
“Twenty-two minutes,” Heath rattled off like a ticking clock. “Twenty-one now,�
�� he updated as the real clock changed.
“The pie is for tomorrow, Heath. Remember?” I reminded him for about the eighth time in the last half hour. I don’t know what this guy’s obsession was with pie, but I knew we were going to have to eat it tonight anyway, despite my reminders. We were all bored, stuck inside, and I think this was the first cooked anything these people had seen in days.
“Okay,” she said. “Maybe we all could watch a movie while we wait? Or I think there might be some board games in our living room.”
“I’m down for Risk,” John threw out there.
“Sounds good to me.” Sydney hopped up from her seat. In doing so, her fingers kind of brushed my fingers…in a very on-purpose sort of way. She had something in her hand as she did this and she slipped whatever it was into my hand. The others in the room noticed nothing. Whatever she was doing, she was doing it discreetly. “You want to play Risk?” she asked me, not acknowledging whatever message she was trying to get to me.
“I don’t know how,” I answered. “But sure. I’m just going to go find the bathroom first.”
“Down that hall.” She pointed. “Second door.”
I followed her instructions, leaving the others for a moment. Using the bathroom wasn’t my concern, figuring out what I was holding in my hand was. The moment I was alone, I quickly unfolded the piece of notebook paper she’d handed me. The creases in it were old—meaning this wasn’t a fresh piece of paper. I guess she hadn’t had anything new to write on? Maybe this family was so posh that they only used computers to write with in their house. Weird. It didn’t matter though. I was too curious to care at this point. The note read:
Come find me when you’re no longer jail-bait.
Wait. What? For a moment I couldn’t breathe. The words were in my own handwriting. Because I’d been the one to write this note. To her. Years ago. The day we’d kissed beside the dumpsters in the cold. She’d kept it. She’d fucking kept it. I couldn’t even believe it.
Pulled Under Page 17