Page 6 of While You're There
“Yeah,” Tori confirmed. “Yeah, it would be.”
Rhett’s face erupted into a grin. Tori felt the blush rise in her cheeks at his eagerness. The timing of their engagement and the rush to the altar didn't take away from the fact that she was irrevocably in love with the man sitting beside her. There was so much they had to figure out and discuss, but Tori had no doubt in her mind that marrying Rhett was all kinds of right.
Chapter three
Tori
“Alright,Ithinkweshould divide and conquer to get this done as quickly as possible,” Rhett announced as he unlocked the apartment door and held it open for them. Maddie walked in first, turning her head to roll her eyes at Tori.
“Put me to work,” Maddie offered as she stretched her arms over her head and yawned.
Rhett set down the stack of flat boxes he’d carried up from the car. “I’ll work on packing up my bedroom. Maddie, if you don’t mind unplugging the TV and my gaming system and packing up everything in the living room, that would be great. And V, can you clean out the fridge and kitchen cabinets? I want to keep the beer glasses and the cookware, but you can pitch almost everything else. If you’re not sure if you should pack it, just pitch it. I want to take as little back with us as possible.”
“What about the furniture?” Maddie asked.
“My buddy Tanner’s coming by tomorrow morning. He’s taking the couch, the bed, and the kitchen table. I’ll just buy new stuff in Virginia.”
Maddie nodded before grabbing a few boxes off the stack and walking further into the room. She moved through the apartment easily, like she already knew her way around. That made sense, but it reminded Tori of how foreign this place was to her.She glanced around the apartment. It was a newer unit, painted in light greys and whites. It wasn’t homey, per se, but it was certainly nicer and cleaner than should be expected for a single college guy’s apartment.He wasn’t exactly single when he lived here,she reminded herself.
“Is this weird?” Rhett asked. He took a few hesitant steps toward her, outstretching his arms as he approached. Tori walked to meet him without hesitation and let him wrap her in a hug.
“It’s okay,” she muttered into his sweatshirt, her head buried into the crevice between his arm and his solid chest. She couldn’t lie. It wasn’tnotweird to be in the apartment that he had shared with his ex-girlfriend, the woman she had required him to date so he could be with her.
“I want us to pick out everything for the Virginia apartment together.” He spoke softly into her hair, not breaking their embrace. “That’s why I’m not bringing much home. I know you can’t move to Norfolk with me right away, but it’s going to be my place just as much as it's going to be yours.”
“I’d like that. Let’s just get this done so we can focus on celebrating you tomorrow.” She squeezed him for extra emphasis, then rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him. He responded to her kiss by weaving his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck. He teased his tongue against her lips, willing her to open to him, to let him deepen their connection.
She smirked against his mouth and shook her head. “Look alive, Wheeler. We’ve got work to do.”
They spent the next several hours packing boxes and filling garbage bags. Tori felt her mood deplete with her energy as the afternoon dragged on. She assumed she’d come face-to-face with parts of Rhett’s past this weekend, but she hadn’t been prepared for the near-constant reminders of Chandler.
First it was the start of a grocery list on the dry erase board on the fridge, each item scrolled in a loopy handwriting that definitely didn’t belong to Rhett. Then it was the half-empty bottle of spiced vanilla sugar hand soap at the kitchen sink. By the time she had pulled out the third container of expired light Greek yogurt, she’d had enough.
Knowing that Rhett had a longtime but not exclusive girlfriend back in Easton hadn’t bothered her before. Hell, she had been the one to insist on it. But seeing the physical evidence of the other woman’s presence in his life grated on her nerves in the most jarring and unexpected ways.
“How’s it going out here?” Rhett asked as he emerged from the bedroom.
“Just great,” she clipped out, slamming the door of the fridge closed so hard it rebounded and popped back open.
“V…?” he dragged out the question as he approached her. He offered out an arm, inviting her into a hug, but she refused to lean into him. The rational part of her brain knew that Chandler was out of the picture for good, that he was committed to her, and that they were engaged. But all the subtle reminders of the other woman had completely soured her mood.
She had been the one to insist that Rhett date other people if he wanted to do the friends-with-benefits thing with her. But how, and more importantly why, had that caveat evolved into what appeared to be a full-blown relationship with one single person? He said he was never serious about Chandler. He told her he’d never committed to being exclusive with Chandler. Yet the evidence of just how deeply she had been intertwined in his life was undeniable. Undeniable and upsetting.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded in frustration as she folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the fridge.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she snapped. “I just wasn’t aware how much you loved key lime pie light and fit yogurt.”
“Oh shit,” Maddie muttered from the living room.
She had no real reason to be defensive. But she couldn’t stop herself from lashing out. She wasn’t even upset with Rhett. The only person she was actually mad at was herself.
“Tori,” he finally whispered as he figured out the root cause of her outburst. She watched as the realization clicked in his mind. He reached out for her again. “Come here… please?”
She huffed out another breath but closed the space between them and let him pull her into his arms. He held her gently against his chest, one arm wrapped around her waist while the other hand cupped the back of her head. She felt part of her anger melt away on contact. His embrace served as a physical reminder of where things stood now.
“Please don’t let being here get under your skin, beautiful. I can’t even tell you the number of times I wished you were here with me over the last three years.”
That was the heart of the issue. She didn’t want to let any reminders of Chandler take away from what they had now or where they were heading. She had the utmost confidence in her relationship with Rhett. But that didn’t mean she’d be able to just forgive herself for requiring the arrangement that had brought the other woman into their lives to begin with, or that she could easily forgive him for actually following through.
