Page 36 of Barbed Wire Fences
God, he’s so handsome. Older in all the right ways. Only better with time. He’s letting his beard grow in, and the lines around his eyes tell of wisdom that I missed and years of laughter. He looks happy. I’m relieved to see that.
Maybe I need to slow down on the drinks because something about the way he’s watching me, the way his attention feels like a physical touch, has me so turned on that I can’t think straight.
“Alright, everyone! We’re playing UNO first—house rules!” Lainey calls out from the other side of the room, her voice slicing through the charged moment between me and Rhett like a cold splash of water.
Rhett leans back slightly, his smirk softening into something more playful as he shifts his attention to the game. But I can still feel the lingering heat of his presence next to me, and when he sits back to listen to Lainey explain the rules, his arm stretches casually and rests behind the back of the couch, almost touching me.
Even as I reach for my cards, my fingers trembling just the tiniest bit, I know that whatever tension is between us will come to head tonight.
The next hour turns into the most chaotic, gut-cramping, game of UNO I’ve ever experienced. Every Draw 2 card means pointing at two people to take a shot, while a Draw 4 has four unlucky victims scrambling for their drinks to chug.
With only eight of us playing, it doesn’t take long for the alcohol to start flowing faster than the game can progress. By the time we’re halfway through, Lainey and I are a heap of laughter on the floor, clutching our stomachs like we might pass out.
Then Lark announces the new Wild card rule: if you play one, you get to make up a rule on the spot. All hell breaks loose. Someone declares you have to yell “Ride ‘em, cowboy!”every time before playing a reverse card. Another one of the guy’s mandates that you skip backwards across the room before skipping someone’s turn.
It’s pure, ridiculous chaos, and it isn’t lost on me that this is the hardest I’ve laughed in years.
By the time the second game finally wraps up, I’m crawling back onto the couch, my cheeks hurting and my stomach sore from laughing. My head has a nice buzz from the shots, and I feel relaxed. Rhett is still seated there, grinning like he’s having fun too, his legs stretched out in front of him easily.
“Having fun?” he asks, his voice low and easy, that grin softening into something quieter as he leans back and studies me.
“I haven’t laughed this hard in years,” I admit, wiping tears from my eyes. When I glance at him, his face is only inches from mine now, and I can see the slight glassiness in his hazel eyes.
Maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe it’s the quiet connection that we’ve always had, but the moment stretches between us longer than it probably should.
“I like you with this smile on your face,” he says softly. His fingers reach up, brushing gently against my cheek before cupping my chin tenderly. The touch is light but sure, and when he tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear, I swear my heart skips a beat. “I hate seeing you with those sad, tragic eyes.”
My mouth opens like I’ve got something smart to say, but it snaps shut just as fast. Because really, what do you say to that?
Do I have sad eyes? Probably. I didn’t roll into town radiating joy to be back here. If anything, I dragged a storm cloud in with me.When I think back on the last decade, it’s been one long stretch of miserable, tragic and lonely even when I was technically with Christopher. “Tragic eyes” sounds about right. Eyes that have seen too much but have somehow survived. And Rhett knows best about the reason for them.
The alcohol is humming through me now, warm and bright in my veins. Not enough to make me weepy, just enough to shake loose something I thought had gone dormant months ago: my libido.
And Rhett… God, Rhett only makes it worse. He smells like fresh soap and warm skin, looks like sin in a flannel button-down. It’s unfair how every little detail about him feels like an invitation and lethal the way that he smells.
My gaze drops to his scuffed work boots, a detail I’d noticed the second he walked into the house, and a completely inappropriate fantasy flashes through my mind. I picture him bending me over, gripping my hips with those strong hands while I catch glimpses of those boots behind me while he drives into me, making me scream out his name.
I wonder if he’s a rough lover now that he’s older and more experienced, or if he’s still soft and gentle, taking his sweet time like he did when he took my virginity. The truth is, I’d love any version of Rhett.
What are you doing, Jael?
It’s like my body is working on autopilot, driven by some primal instinct that I can’t control instead of taking a step to think this through. There’s something about Rhett that’s so raw, so masculine, and yet so deeply familiar and comforting that it’s messing with my head and my hormones.
Lainey’s earlier words pop into my head like a taunt:‘Just fuck a bunch of random guys to get back out there.Screw Christopher and his moving on.’
Except right now, I’m not thinking about random guys. I’m thinking about only one: Rhett, and that’s a whole other problem steeped in way too much history and pain.
“How’s my smile different?” I ask, looking for a distraction and wanting to hear his deep, raspy voice again.
“It’s the smile,” Rhett says, his voice rough, gaze still pinned on mine, “the one you used to have when I said something you thought was funny, and you couldn’t hold it back. Before the big city sucked you up, spit you out, and you got too good for us.”
The smile fades from my lips like it’s been slapped away. Rhett knows damn well it wasn’t my move to Virginia that stole that smile from my face. It was so much more than that—history, hurt, and the weight of everything that I left behind here in Whitewood Creek.
Is that what he thinks about why I left town and never came back? That I thought I was too good for this place? Because that’s far from the truth.
My lips are so dry from laughing. I drag my tongue across them slowly, trying to bring some life back to them.
Rhett’s eyes drop to my mouth like he’s helpless to stop himself, the same way they had earlier, lingering there for just a second too long. When his gaze lifts back to mine, it’s heavy, his pupils are dilated, holding me in place like he’s daring me to acknowledge the tension that’s clearly between us.
