Page 58 of When You're Home
“I said, GO AWAY!” she screamed, her voice cracking on the last word. She was crying and trying to hide. Rhett inhaled slowly. He could handle this. Sad, crying Tori was easier for him to connect with that angry, spiteful Tori.
“Please just let me in, beautiful,” he tried again, rattling the door handle a few times to get her attention. He felt more desperate with each passing second.
“I’m not opening the door for you, Wheeler.” He heard the determination in her voice when she spat out his last name. He knew he was running out of options.
“Tori. Please.”
“No means no, Everhett. Go downstairs. Send up Lia. Or better yet, send up Fielding.”
Fucking Fielding.
She had obviously found her mark. Maybe Fielding wasn’t exaggerating—maybe something had happened between them earlier tonight. He shuddered as he thought about how the other man had staked his claim in the hot tub.
“Unlock this door right now,” Rhett demanded, breathless from a surge of anger inspired by the thought of Fielding Haas. He felt white-hot panic rise in his chest when she didn’t respond.
“Goddamnit, Tori!” he hollered, smashing his fist into the door before resting his forehead against the barrier between them. A stinging warmth pooled in his hand from the force of impact. He immediately regretted raising his voice, but the fury that had built up in his body throughout the day had nowhere else to go. Now that he unleashed his rage all the words he had held back all night started to pour out of him. “Stop acting like you’re innocent in all of this! I didn’t do this by myself! The only reason Chandler is even in my life is because you insisted on it. She’s only here because of you! Did you really think no one would get hurt? Did you think we’d come out of this unscathed? Your shitty arrangement has consequences, Victoria.”
A muffled sob carried through the door and snapped him out of his tirade.
Fuck. What was he doing? He had to make sure that she was okay; he had to make sure that they were okay. He was willing to do anything—to try anything—to just get through this night.He reached up above the door in search of the key. His fingers connected with the small metal ring as a puff of dust released from the doorframe. He fumbled once to insert the key into the hole before he felt it catch.
“I’m coming in,” he warned.
Tori was attempting to scramble to her feet as he opened the door. She gave up when she laid eyes on him. She was a defenseless animal trapped in a corner, her body out of fight. She sank back down in his walk-in shower and let her head rest against the wall.
“Damnit,” he muttered under his breath, rushing over to be by her side. He resisted the urge to gather her up in his arms and instead forced himself to sit down across from her on the tiles of the shower. He was afraid to get any closer. They sat in silence for almost a minute before he couldn’t take it any longer.
“Hey, look at me, beautiful,” he prompted.
Tori lifted her gaze without raising her head. Her hair was wild around her, her eyes red and swollen as tears continued to fall. He could tell she was seething: mad at him for how everything had gone down that day, pissed at herself for being out of fight. Rhett was feeling the whiskey he had drank before she took the bottle from him. He could only imagine the thick fog that must have a hold on her by now.
“What do you want?” she hissed.
You. But Rhett didn’t speak his answer out loud. He had no idea what to say or how to make any of this better. He cursed himself again for not standing his ground earlier—he never should have handed her that Gatorade bottle. He shouldn’t have let her get in the hot tub. Hell, there shouldn’t have even been a party at his house tonight. The weight of every wrong decision he had made throughout the day crushed him. He felt so hopeless—but he needed to hang on for her.
“Why are we up here, Rhett?” Her words were heavy, laced with exhaustion and whiskey.
She shifted onto her knees, clumsily closing the small area between them and pressing her hands into his chest. She pressed into him with her full body weight, leaning into the space he was trying to give her. “Need me to rub one out for you?” she taunted. Her bright red lips slanted toward his mouth but then changed course and landed near the shell of his ear. “Were you hoping for a quickie before you go back downstairs to your girlfriend?”
Rhett’s whole body recoiled at her jab. “Tori,” he scolded, placing his hands on her robe-clad arms and trying to create more space between them.
“Answer me, Everhett. Why are we up here?” she demanded as she sat back on her heels.
“I just wanted to talk. Things felt too intense down there. I thought if we could come up here alone, we could figure this out together.”
“I’m not in the mood to hear anything you have to say to me,” she snarled.
“Today just needs to be done,” he declared. “This has all been too much. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am for how everything went down today, beautiful.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation. It was over the moment we walked into Clinton’s, and we both know it.”
“Damnit, Tori!” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Stop saying it’s over. You were mine twelve hours ago!” He felt the end of his nerves begin to fray. He was so close to unraveling.
“Don’t kid yourself, Rhett,” she replied coldly before leaning toward him again. “I was never yours.”
He knew she was drunk, angry, and desperate to hurt him, but her words still stung. There was no hope of getting through to her. He needed to put her to bed and put this whole night to rest. They needed to be done trying to destroy each other tonight.
Although he knew better than to try to fight her anymore tonight, he couldn’t resist putting a final stake in the ground.
