Rhys ran his hand down his face. “I know. This isn’t me. I’m not this jealous type of asshole normally.”
I was in shock. Not that I was scared of Rhys, but this was a side of him I had never seen before. It wasn’t one I wanted to see again. Even in high school when guys would hit on me he would blow it off because he knew I loved him, and only him. What in the hell had happened to cause him to react like that?
“Are you okay, Mandi? I’m so sorry, baby.”
He ran his hand down my arm and I nodded. “I’m fine,” I whispered. “Can we just go home now?”
“Of course.”
I was too tense to drive, so I pushed Rhys towards the driver’s seat and handed him my keys. Connor waved as we climbed into my car. Rhys looked tense as we drove. As we got closer to my house, the tick in his right cheek became more noticeable.
“Rhys, what’s going on in your head?”
“Nothing. I’m just happy I’m here with you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “We promised not to lie to one another.”
He sighed. “Amanda, I’m not lying. I’m just trying not to beat myself up over the fact that I hurt you in a very stupid, very public way. God, I could have cost you your job.”
I stared out the window for a few minutes. He was right. He could have cost me my job if Shane hadn’t backed off.
“Can you explain why you reacted like that? You know Connor. You also know his very beautiful, very pregnant wife,” I said mocking him. “Do you not trust me?”
“That’s not it at all. I can’t explain it, something inside me just snapped when I saw him touch you. I saw red, Amanda.”
“Quit calling me Amanda, either call me Mandi or Shortcake, but damn it you need to quit calling me Amanda because bad things happen when you do.”
He shot me a look out of the side of his eye. “What are you talking about?”
“Before you left you called me Amanda for two days.”
He was quiet until we pulled into the driveway. His silhouette seemed stark against the light streaming in from the window.
“I’m sorry.”
He said it so softly I almost missed it. I cupped his face in my hands and turned him towards me.
“Rhys, just talk to me. Please don’t shut me out.”
When he nodded I felt a little better, but it still freaked me out that he wouldn’t look me in the eye. He let me lead him into the house and we had a good dinner despite his somber mood. Nothing I said could help lift his mood. We went to bed that night with his arms wrapped around me, but when I woke up the next morning his pillow was cold.
The sense of déjà vu hit me as my fingers wrapped around the paper lying on his side of the bed. It was difficult seeing his bold handwriting. I tried to keep the tears at bay while I read the six words written on the paper.
I’m so sorry. I love you.
For almost a week I walked around in a daze. No one knew what happened, and I wasn’t going out of my way to tell them. I played the part of the best friend and everyone seemed to buy it. When I told Rhys he would hurt me worse if he left this time I wasn’t lying. I was broken and nothing was going to fix it this time.
Little warning bells went off in my head when I decided to call Rhys after my third glass of wine, but did I actually pay attention to them? Of course not, because why would any sane person do that? The phone rang until voicemail picked up. At least I knew he wasn’t deliberately sending me to voicemail. That is, if I remembered this in the morning.
“This is Rhys, leave me a message and I’ll call you back.”
“Rhys. Rhys Brooks. You sir, you’re an asshole, but I love you so fucking much.” I could hear myself slurring, so I tried to slow down. “I wanted to love you forever, but you left me. Again. Why is it that you don’t think I’m good enough for you? I would’ve spent my entire life living in a little shack in Washington if you had just let me love you. We would have had kids. God, I wanted like twenty kids with you, but nope. That’s never happening, I’m old as hell now, and my eggs are all dried up. Oh and guess what! I’m going to start looking for sperm donors next week because I want a kid so bad I’m willing to do it all on my own. So forget you! No man wants me, so I’m not waiting anymore. I can do this all by myself. It doesn’t matter anyway because I compare every single freaking guy I date to you. Every. Single. One.”
I took another large gulp of wine.
“Wine is good,” I mumbled. “Rhys, why are you so freaking selfless? You ruined our future and I want to forgive you, but it’s so damn hard. I think you should know, I’m still in love with you. I just wish you loved me back. I’m so sad you left me again. What did I do that was so bad? I was a little scared, but if you had stayed, you could have helped me through it. You just ran after you made love to me. Things got….dark after you left. I needed you to help me through it, but you weren’t there like you promised me you would be. You didn’t do what was best for me like you promised.”
I looked down and my fourth glass of wine was gone. “Huh, I’m out of wine again. Hey! You know what Rhys?” Was that really my voice? God, I needed to stop the word vomit. “You’re a pussy. You’re. A. Fucking. Pussy. And you’re too fucking scared to man up and actually admit that you want a relationship with me, so you run. I’m not sad anymore, I’m mad. Because you’re a dick and I love you. I don’t want to love you, but I do. I don’t want to love you because you always think you’re protecting me by leaving. All it does is hurt me. If you quit leaving, maybe we could actually work things out.”
The call disconnected, but I wasn’t sure if it was something I did, or if the recording time ran out. I stared down at the phone stupidly. Maybe I just needed more wine to make things better?
I woke up with little men shoving ice picks into my brain and a mouth like the Sahara. There was a niggling feeling in the back of my mind telling me I had done something stupid, but I couldn’t remember exactly what it was. First things first, I needed water and ibuprofen, and maybe massive amounts of coffee.
My phone chimed next to me, and I squinted at the text message.
Brunch with the girls at Flint @ 11:30.
I flopped back down on the pillow. If I was going to make it, I had twenty minutes to rally. This was the first time Taylor was getting out of the house since Stephen had come home from the hospital. There was no way I could skip it. Groaning, I sat up and waited for the nausea to pass. The three minute shower was better than sex, and the water I drank afterwards was freaking heaven. Grabbing the first thing I saw out of my closet, I got dressed in record time and dashed out the door.
Taylor waved me over to the table when I walked in the door. Violet, her sister-in-law Sophia and their two friends from Georgia, Lexi and Emmy were there already. Sophia waved and I patted her shoulder as I passed her to get to my seat. It was hard not to stare at her baby bump that I was so jealous of. We sat down, and I steered clear of all the flowing alcohol. The need to detox my body was strong. Plus I still needed to figure out what I had done the night before. Dread filled me every time I thought back. I just prayed that everything was a bad dream and not an actual memory because if I had actually done what I thought I did, I wouldn’t be able to face anyone if they found out.
Conversations went on around me and I tried to contribute, but it wasn’t happening. I was too distracted and my mind wasn’t in the right place to even pretend to keep up with what was going on. I placed my hand on Taylor’s arm to get her attention. She turned towards me with a smile on her face, but when she saw my expression the happiness dropped quickly.
“When’s the last time you talked to Rhys?” I asked softly, trying not to attract attention from our friends.
She bit her lip while she thought about it. “Um, last week sometime.”
“Is he okay?”
She shot me a suspicious look. “Yeah, why?”
“I can’t get ahold of him.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, and I tried not to wince. “You owe me so
me dirt on that situation, ma’am.”
I sighed. “I know I do. Drinks tomorrow? I’ll explain everything.”
Satisfied, she nodded, and we turned back towards the conversation going on around us. Lexi was explaining her plan to go back to New York, but she wanted to come back to visit Stephen soon. At least things weren’t as tense between Lexi and Taylor as they had been at the hospital. Everyone had taken turns keeping those two from ripping the other’s throat out.
We sat there for two hours and talked about everything possible. Taylor checked in on Stephen every thirty minutes and it was adorable. That was the kind of love I wanted. Violet picked up on my mood and tried to deflect so I wouldn’t have to talk much. I really did have the best friends ever.
I didn’t want to break up the party by leaving, so I sat quietly and waited until I could go sleep off the remainder of my hangover. Between my sour mood and the pounding in my head, I wasn’t fit company. Finally Lexi mentioned that she had to catch her plane, and I said a quick goodbye and left before anyone could try to get me to come hang out.
Luckily I’d been able to push Taylor off for a few days before we had the scheduled drinks. For the first time in a while I wasn’t the one who was late. Taylor came in looking like the cat that ate the canary though, and I was more green-eyed than I wanted to admit. She deserved some happiness after the past few months of ups and downs with Stephen.
“I’m sorry I’m late. Stephen needed help with his sponge bath.”
I pretended to gag.
“Spare me the details. I don’t need to know about how you sucked his cock.”
“Actually we totally got it on.”
“Isn’t that a little soon? He’s supposed to be taking it easy.”
She smirked. “He didn’t do any of the work.”
“Taylor! Can we move off the topic of you and Stephen having sex?”
“Fine, we can talk about you and Rhys.”
Damn it.
“There’s not much to say.”
She narrowed her eyes. The waitress chose then to come and take our drink orders. I was so grateful for the interruption I could have kissed her. When she left to go and get our drinks Taylor stared at me expectantly.
“Go on with it.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, damn it. I want to hear everything. I know you held back because you didn’t want Stephen to freak. You slept with him didn’t you?”
“Do you have some freakish superpower that tells you when people have sex?”
“I saw the sparks between you two even when you were so pissed at him you could have thrown him off the top floor of the hospital.”
“Okay. So we may have had sex. It wasn’t the first time, so no big deal.”
“How was it?”
I couldn’t hold back my grin. “Phenomenal. But then he got all weird the next morning. I’ve talked to him once since then, but I’ve tried calling him several…times. Oh shit.”
“What?”
“I might have done something really stupid.”
She stared at me blankly.
“I got really, really wine drunk and called him.”
“Is that why you looked like hell at brunch?”
“Yep. Oh God.” I laid my head on the table. “I’m such an idiot.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“I vividly remember calling him a pussy at some point in my drunken tirade.”
She winced. “Ouch.”
“Taylor, what am I going to do?”
“You’re going to finish up dinner with me, then you’re going to go to Vegas. I know where he is. He checked on Stephen before he left the other day.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m going to Vegas.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“I have something else to come clean about.” I took a sip of water before continuing. “I’m going to retire from acting for a while. I want to have a baby.”
“Wow.”
I grimaced. “Too much?”
“Nope. I want to hear everything.”
“I’ve already accepted the last role I’m going to do for a while. It’s actually opposite of Connor in a romantic comedy.”
“Wait, Jaxon’s brother, Connor?”
“Yeah. I got the call when I was in Paris. We started filming last week. Things went…badly, while Rhys was on set. He threatened to punch Connor if he touched me again. We had a huge fight about it.”
“When were you planning on telling me?”
“You’ve been a little distracted,” I said pointedly.
“Amanda, Stephen has been out of the hospital for almost two weeks. Not only that, but he’s been out of a coma for almost a week before that. I get that you’re a private person, but seriously, I could have used some good news to help cheer me up.”
“I wasn’t trying to keep it from you.”
She took my hand in hers. “I know that, sweetie. I just want you to know that you can come to me with stuff. You had exciting news and I don’t want you to think you couldn’t come to me with it. No matter what’s going on I’m still your friend. Now, back to the baby thing.”
“I’m not getting any younger and I’m sick of waiting to fall in love. Obviously I’m cursed when it comes to men.”
She snorted. “I’ve seen you with some devastatingly handsome men, Rhys included. If they aren’t what you want though, I think you should go for it.”
“I’m debating what to do now that Rhys is back in the picture,” I admitted. Nervously, I ran my finger around the rim of my glass. “When we were younger we wanted a family, the whole American dream, two point five kids and a dog. We even had names picked out for our kids.”
“Here’s the thing, he’s either going to be on board or he’s not. If he’s not, then that’s his issue, not yours. You need to make yourself happy. Be a little selfish on this one honey.”
I nodded. She was right. I shouldn’t wait for Rhys on this one. We weren’t even talking at this point, so why should I hold out on something I wanted so badly. The waitress brought our food and we finished dinner with lighter topics. I never really stopped thinking about Rhys though. Taylor knew where my mind was, but she didn’t push. She wrapped me up in a huge hug before we left and told me she would text me the information when she got home. My stomach flipped as she squeezed me one last time.
I was actually early to catch my flight, but that meant it was harder to stay incognito until the plane boarded. People always gave you funny looks if you wore a hat and sunglasses in the airport, but it was required if I traveled by myself. My hair was tucked up in a ponytail and I was wearing a hat, but I drew the line at sunglasses. I prayed that if I shoved my face in a book I wouldn’t be recognized.
I made it forty-five minutes before someone came up and asked for an autograph. Most of the time I loved my fans, but today wasn’t the day that I wanted to be social. My nerves were already shot because I was chasing after a man that I wasn’t sure still wanted me. Airline security eventually escorted me to the gate so I could load early because of the ‘scene’ I was causing. It was foolish of me to even attempt something so normal.
My eyes closed as I leaned back into the plush chair. First class did have some perks at least. Was I really going to go and track down Rhys and try to get some kind of explanation?
“Ma’am, would you like a drink?” I blinked my eyes open. The sweet stewardess placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a comforting smile.
“No, thank you though.” I flashed a quick smile. “But if I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”
“Okay Ms. Connelly.”
“Please, call me Amanda.”
The woman was probably in her mid-fifties. She seemed like the motherly type, someone I wished I would have had in my life growing up. My parents thought the solution to every problem was to shove a credit card in my face.
“Let me know if you need anything at all, Amanda.”
I smiled and she went to check on oth
er passengers. The short flight was my only saving grace because I wouldn’t have enough time to think about Rhys. This was possibly one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had, but damned if I was going to let Rhys leave me again without a fight. My plan, if you could call it that, was to show up at Rhys’ bar and beg him to reconsider, or at least demand an explanation of why he’s such a pussy. He had to let me explain my god-awful, drunken voicemail. Surely he wouldn’t be able to ignore me in skin tight jeans and sky high Louboutins.
The plane started its decent, and I reined in my nerves. I wasn’t a good flier, but now I was nervous about getting to Vegas. A few hours from now I would know if I was going to be done with Rhys Brooks once and for all, or if we could try to make a relationship work.
The bar was exactly as Taylor had described it, dark and full of the promise for trouble. There was something electric in the air that made you feel like wild things could happen here. I glanced around when I walked in the door. Luckily Rhys wasn’t behind the bar, so I was able to get in the door without being spotted. This was definitely the type of place that no one would care if I was famous or not, and for that I was incredibly thankful.
I ordered a whiskey sour and was paying when the first sounds of guitar strums filled the room. Turning towards the makeshift stage at the back, I saw Rhys messing with the cords of his guitar. My mouth dropped open when I realized it was the same guitar I bought him for his high school graduation present.
He kept it all these years?
Maybe Rhys really did feel the same way I did. Was it possible that he was as scared of getting hurt as I was? Hope bloomed in my heart. I took a long sip of my drink, resolving that I would speak with him by the end of the night. I hadn’t come all this way to avoid him, even though the thought made me feel like throwing up.
Selfless: A Relentless Series Novella (The Relentless Series Book 3) Page 6