Page 24 of Rhett

Tripp

The last thingI expected when I showed up at Rhett’s place was to find him woodworking in a shop behind his house. I can’t even say why I came over today. Sure, I wanted to thank him for coming to the party since he disappeared before I could say goodbye, but I could have easily done that by phone.

Now I’ve offered him a job, and he said yes. I’m not one to make rash, spur-of-the-moment decisions like that, at least when it comes to my business or my family, but I hadn’t been able to stop the question, and once I’d asked it, I realized how much I wanted this chance to work with him, to get to know him.

“How long have you been building?” I ask, still looking at his pieces.

“It’s something I’ve been interested in since I was a child, but I wasn’t able to do much of it until recently.”

“Why?” I ask. Is this what East was talking about when he said they didn’t have the freedom to know themselves?

“Life.” He shrugs.

“Yeah, I hear you. That was probably a dumb question. It’s not as if you haven’t been busy. College, law school, being an attorney. You’ve been conquering the world.” I grin at him, but he doesn’t return it.

“Is that the way you see me?”

I stumble momentarily. I’d meant it in a playful, complimentary way, but I can’t tell if he realizes that. “You’ve made your dreams come true. That’s a good thing.”

Rhett seems lost in thought as he runs his fingers over one of the shelves. I notice the calluses on them now. The little scratches and nicks in his skin, signs that he does more than an office job.

“They weren’t my dreams,” he says, his voice soft and deep.

I’m wondering if I misheard, but the doubt is more because it doesn’t make sense to me than because I didn’t make out the words. “Whose were they?” His father’s?

“Never mind.” Rhett shakes his head and takes a step away. The simple touch of my hand on his muscular arm stops him.

“Whose were they?” I ask again.

Part of me worries my question will make him pull away, piss him off, stop this…friendship or whatever it is before it has the chance to bloom, but another part of me feels like Rhett is silently calling out for someone to talk to, someone to connect with. There’s no real reason for him to choose me. He has his brothers. I’m sure he has friends, but do any of them know his secrets? Do they know he has a building full of furniture he’s made and that he will drive hours to get the perfect gift for my daughter, then sit in his truck and second-guess himself? It’s so easy to only look surface level at others. To decide who they are or what they like without getting into the details of who they really are as a person. As I stand here, there’s no denying how curious I am about all those little pieces that make Rhett who he is.

I worry that even he doesn’t know.

“Gregory Swift’s,” he finally answers. “Who else?”

Angry heat rushes up my skin. I don’t know what that man has done to his sons, but I don’t doubt he hurt them. Physically? I wonder. Mentally and emotionally, for sure. How deep does it go? And how can I help make it better?

“Well, now you get to figure out what your dreams really are.”

“I’m too old for that.”

“Hey now. If you’re too old, then I’m too old, and I refuse to believe I can’t spend my whole life finding different dreams and making each of them come true.”

“Youarepretty old,” Rhett says with a surprising half-grin. Who the hell is this man, and why does he intrigue me so much?

“We’re practically the same age.”

“And I already acknowledged I’m getting up there in years. Guess that makes two of us.”

“You’re not being very nice to me,” I tease, and he grins again, almost shyly, then looks away.

When I realize I’m still touching him, I force myself to drop my arm. This isn’t the first time that’s happened with Rhett, and if I were a betting man, I’d say it wouldn’t be the last.

“You need some help?” I ask, nodding toward the work he’d been doing when I came in.

His brows pull together. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Why would I think I have to do that?”

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