Chapter Twenty-Two
Rhett
The moment I saw Brynlee, I felt guiltier than I did last night. I know I’m the reason she feels as badly as she does. She looks beautiful because she’s always beautiful, but she looks ill. And it’s all my fault.
As much as I want to go and join her in the shower, I sit at the island with my leg bouncing on the stool. It’s been over two days since I last made love to her, and I’m itching to touch her, dinnerbe damned. But just as I stand to jump in the shower with her to show her I’m not really the asshole I was last night, I spot her phone on the counter.
I shouldn’t. No, it’s an invasion of privacy.
But even as the thought crosses my mind, I’m already reaching for it. I can’t stop myself, and I enter the passcode she told me. If she didn’t want me looking through her phone, she wouldn’t have given it to me, right?
Yeah, justify being a shitty dude. That won’t backfire at all.
Her text messages show a few one-sided messages from Kevin, and I feel a little better knowing she doesn’t respond. That seems strange for someone who plans to marry him, and maybe there is something to Carter’s theory that there’s an explanation for the wedding countdown.
Feeling a little more confident, I’m about to lock her phone and set it back on the counter. This should be all the proof I need, right? But, of course, I’m a glutton for punishment. I click on her call log, and I feel sick myself. She had a fifteen-minute phone call with Kevin that ended right before I showed up for our date.
That might be why she doesn’t feel well. She knows she’s finally in a position where she needs to decide between us. I guess I should feel somewhat flattered that it’s not an easy and quick choice for her. But at the end of the day, I can’t give her half of what he can.
How much more can I put us through? I know she’s going to marry him, so why am I just sitting around, waiting for her to be the one to leave? The waiting makes me crazy, and I’ve turned into a stalker who just went through his kind-of-girlfriend’s phone. I mean, what label can I really use in this scenario? What am I if she’s engaged to another man? Besides a sucker.
I play on my phone until she comes out almost exactly thirty minutes later, and I swear she’s been crying. Even as upset as I am, I hate seeing her this way.
“Ready?” I ask as she pulls her purse over her shoulder.
“Yes.”
We walk to the door, and I stop her. “Don’t you want your phone?”
“Why? Everyone I talk to will be at the bar,” Brynlee says with a shrug.
“Not everyone,” I mutter, and shut the door behind us.
She doesn’t wait for me to walk to the passenger side of the pickup, and I can’t stop thinking it’s probably best for the both of us if we just end this. Maybe it’s time.
A delivery van pulls up behind my pickup, and she looks confused. “I didn’t order anything.” Hopping out, she meets Earl, an older man with large ears I’ve known since I was a kid.
“Bryn…lee? Did I get that right? Brynlee Carmichael?”
“Yes.”
“I have a delivery for you,” Earl says with a toothy grin.
“From where?”
I walk with her to the back of the van as he pulls out a vase of red roses and hands it to her. “Where do you want the others?”
“Others?”
He points to the back of the van where vase after vase sits in special crates to keep them from tipping over. “All of these are for you.”
“Who in the world…” Pulling the card from the vase, she crumbles it and sighs. “Can I pay you to bring these somewhere? A nursing home or hospital?”
“You don’t want any of them? There are five hundred long-stem red roses in here,” Earl says in awe.
My eyebrows lift. That’s a spendy flower bill, and Brynlee just shakes her head. “No, I really don’t. I appreciate you driving outhere, though. I’m sorry you had to make the trip. How much do I owe to bring them somewhere else?”
He waves a wrinkled hand in the air. “The old folks will be so delighted to get these; that’s payment enough. Do you mind if I take some home for my wife?”
