Page 107 of Surprisingly Us

I wander into Rhys’s closet. He doesn’t follow. Apparently, he’s still giving me the space I asked for, but his silence is starting to infuriate me. I want more of that back and forth he’d given me outside, if only so I can argue with him and hold this engagement over his head.

My hands make contact with a t-shirt in the drawer. Not bothering to see which one it is, I grab it and walk back out to the bedroom.

That’s when it hits me and I start to giggle uncontrollably.

“What’s funny?” Rhys calls from the other room.

“You were right. You said I would be using all the four-letter words once you were done with me. I was just thinking about how I could give zero fucks right now. Fucks is technically a five-letter word, but it counts, right?”

I start to pull on the t-shirt, but the darkness makes it impossible to find the head-hole. Now I’m wandering around the room lost inside Rhys’s shirt.

Suddenly, hands yank the shirt downward and my head pops through. My eyes blink open to find Rhys standing in front of me.

He stares at me blankly, clearly not amused with me, which is annoying because I was mad at him first.

Without a word, he moves past me to the bathroom.

“I’ve got a toothbrush you can use.”

“Is it new? I don’t want to be using a toothbrush that other women have used before.”

“It’s new,” he says, extending the still packaged toothbrush in my direction.

“Thanks.” I accept it. After a minute of me clumsily pawing at the package, Rhys takes it out of my hands and removes the toothbrush. Like he doesn’t trust me to do anything myself, he spreads toothpaste on the toothbrush, then runs it under the faucet.

“Oh my god!” I gasp in horror.

“What?” he asks, taken aback by my disgust.

“You’re a toothpastethenwater kind of tooth brusher?”

He glances around the bathroom, likely searching for a witness to commiserate with.Is it me or is she nuts?

“Is that a problem?” he asks.

“Yes! You’re supposed to wet the bristles, then put the toothpaste on. Otherwise, you could rinse the toothpaste off while you’re wetting it down, which results in an inadequately wet toothbrush and a waste of perfectly good toothpaste. Everyone knows this.”

Rhys stares down at me with knitted brows. “How drunk are you?”

“I’m not drunk. I’m right.”

He simply shakes his head, refusing to engage further in the wet bristles before toothpaste debate.

He leans casually against the door frame, watching me. It’s like he thinks taking care of me is his job now that he’s my fiancé.

That’s not true. He took care of me before.I push the memories of all the kind things Rhys has done for me away. They’re tainted now. Maybe he was always planning this fake engagement and just wanted to butter me up.

My fiancé. It’s a joke, but I’m not laughing. The anger I felt earlier, the frustration with Rhys for not including me in his plan, bubbles back to the surface. My hand grips the toothbrush tightly, my gums taking the brunt of my anger in this moment.

When I’m finished, I drop the pink toothbrush into the cup on the counter next to Rhys’s and push past him. I’m exhausted, yet not tired at all.

“What do you want, Lettie? What will make this better?” he asks. “You’re mad. I get it, so tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

I lift my arms over my head and fall backwards with a pfft against his navy blue bedding, soaking in the feel of his luxury mattress beneath me.

What do I want from him?

For him to apologize.

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