Page 55 of While You're There
“Wasn’t expecting you home this weekend after some of those texts last night.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? He didn’t even remember texting Jake last night. He wasn’t willing to tell him that, though. He ran his hands up and down his jeans a few times to stop his twitchy palms from reaching for his phone and checking his messages.
“What can I grab for you?” he asked instead, desperate to change the subject.
“Nothing. We’re good here. Field, will you take all the Clinton’s stuff so Tori can go?”
Rhett didn’t miss the dismissiveness in his tone. Tori hadn’t missed it either, based on the terse look she shot at Jake as she transferred everything she and Rhett had been holding to Fielding’s arms.
“Thanks, Haas,” Rhett acknowledged before taking a few steps back. What was going on with Jake? Rhett knew he’d been working a lot, helping Mike to get ready for the grand opening of The Oak. But his anger was obviously targeted at him since he seemed fully capable of speaking to Fielding and Tori with a sense of civility.
“I think he’s just stressed about the grand opening,” Tori assured him quietly as she stepped into his space. Rhett nodded once to acknowledge he heard her. But he knew Jake well enough to know there was more on his mind.
He was determined to try one more time, not willing to leave things so tense. “You working tomorrow, bro?”
Jake let out a disgruntled gaff. “I’m working tonight, I’m working tomorrow, I’m working every damn day next week.” He ticked off each day on one hand.
“Cool. I’ll come in early to help with brunch prep.” Rhett turned on his heel before Jake could object, taking Tori’s hand and guiding her down the little brick path that cut through the Green.
“Bye, boys!” she called over her shoulder as they made their escape. “Don’t forget to clock me out, Jake!”
“I got you, baby.”
“You know I don’t have to work tomorrow, right?” Tori asked as she reached for his hand and interlaced their fingers. He didn’t miss how she gently caressed his hand with her thumb as she held it. He needed the little extra reassurance after that encounter with Jake.
“I know. You don’t mind if I go in though, right? I won’t stay too long. And I’ll bring food home so we can have breakfast together.”
“Ohhh, are you going to let me eat in bed again?”
“Depends.”
“Depends? Depends on what?”
“On if you’re going to eat something that requires syrup.”
“Ha!” she laughed out loud. “I knew the whole ‘you can eat in bed’ amendment wasn’t going to last. Joke’s on you, though, Mr. Wheeler. I’ve been eating in your bed all week.”
He looked both ways for them before they started to cross the street to their cars. “You stayed at my house this week? Why didn’t I know that?”
Tori shrugged. “I didn’t really plan it. I went home every morning to take care of Penny and have breakfast with my dad. But I like being in your bed when you’re not there. It smells like you.”
“Our bed,” he corrected.
“Our bed,” she confirmed. “Okay, so we’re going out to dinner tonight, and you’re letting me eat breakfast in bed tomorrow, but what are we doing this afternoon?”
“I have a few ideas,” he replied as they reached her car. “We’ve got the house to ourselves, and I’m going to make us a late reservation so we have the whole afternoon together. Let’s go home, beautiful.”
Rhett’s “few ideas” were dead on arrival once he got home and checked his emails. A huge storm had torn through Norfolk unexpectedly around noon, washing out two bridges that connected to their main port. Dozens of staff couldn’t get to work, and the entire weekend’s docking schedule was going to be affected because of the storm.
He spent the afternoon stationed in the sunroom, on the phone and glued to his laptop as he worked with his logistics and ops teams to reroute or reschedule all that weekend’s shipments. The storm was going to cause a ripple effect over the next several days, and it was going to cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. The whole process was made more complicated by the fact that his team was gathered in a conference room at the office while he was sitting at home in Hampton. Because of Tori’s first egg retrieval appointment on Monday, he wasn’t due back in the office until Tuesday. The timing sucked.
He switched over to speakerphone as he made his way around the bar to refresh his drink. He peered out the sunroom windows and watched as Tori floated in the middle of the pool. She was wearing the navy-blue string bathing suit he loved, and she had the straps undone. Rhett smiled to himself as he poured his drink. He helped her slather on SPF 50 before she went out there. Those strings weren’t hanging precariously in the water because she was worried about tan lines.
What he wouldn’t give to hang up the damn phone, jump in the pool, and tug on those little strings dangling in the water. But he owed it to his team to stay on task as they worked through their emergency response plan. He had two cohorts on the ground in Virginia: his core staff at the office rescheduling shipments and freight carriers, then an auxiliary team trying to get in touch with all the dock staff scheduled to work that day, just to make sure everyone was okay. He’d been in touch with his granddad several times throughout the afternoon, too, but Jonathan trusted him to take care of the job he’d been hired to do.
He sat down at his makeshift workstation at the bar and glanced at the time. It was only four p.m. He had stupidly made their dinner reservation for seven, thinking they’d get to enjoy a swim and a nap and maybe an orgasm or two before going out that night. None of that was going to happen now.
Tori must have taken extra care to ease the sunroom door closed. If he hadn’t felt her presence, he wouldn’t have known she was there.
