Page 71 of When You're Gone
He nodded but tilted his head toward her. “You know he’s going to want to talk to you.”
“I know.”
“Maybe we could put him on speakerphone and call him together?” he suggested.
She nodded sleepily. Together.
Chapter twenty-seven
Rhett
Heslammedthefrontdoor behind him and strode into the house. It was just after ten o’clock. He had made the drive from Virginia in less than eight hours. Well, he hadn’t made it himself—he didn’t trust himself to drive in his current state—but he promised to double his driver’s annual salary for the year if he got him home as fast as he could, and Charlie had come through big time.
Rhett had spent the whole ride in his own personal version of hell. He knew next to nothing about what had actually happened: just that Fielding Haas had shown up uninvited, drunk and belligerent, last night. He had coerced Tori out of the house. There was broken glass involved. He had been fucking around on the diving board above the empty pool. And he had admitted in front of Jake, Tori, and Dempsey that last summer, on the eve of Tori’s egg retrieval procedure, he had handed Rhett the keys to the car he crashed that night.
Rhett had spent the entire eight-hour car ride trying to make sense of it. Absolutely nothing about Fielding’s confession jogged his memory. He didn’t even remember seeing him the night of the accident. He remembered Dempsey—Dempsey taking his keys, Dempsey calling Jake. The last thing he really remembered was feeling deep-seated disdain for Dempsey Haas as he rested his head in his hands on the raw-edged bar at The Oak.
Everything about the situation made him nauseous. Aside from not being able to remember any details about the accident, there was Fielding’s total lack of care and respect for Tori. How the fuck could he do this to her?
His anger was accompanied by a frustrating twist of déjà vu. How many times would they go through this? How many more calls would he get that required him to rush to Hampton or race back to Virginia? He couldn’t keep living like this—straddling the line between two physical places—feeling constantly pulled to be someplace he wasn’t.
But he couldn’t not show up for her now. Not after he heard the fear in her voice last night. He knew her too damn well to just brush off the meekness of her request. Tori’s default setting was independence beyond reason. She so rarely asked for help. Any request in which she actually admitted she needed him was an unconditional yes in his mind.
His eyes scanned the living room and landed on his best friend sitting on one of the couches. “Where is she?” he demanded over his shoulder as he started to move toward the stairs.
“Hey,” Jake whispered, one finger held up to his mouth as he pointed to his lap with his other hand. Rhett did a double-take and realized Tori was right there: curled up in a ball, buried under a blanket, her head in Jake’s lap.
He huffed out a deep sigh of relief as he pivoted and sank onto the couch opposite them. His hands itched to pull her into his arms, to hold her the way Jake was cradling her now. But he didn’t want to wake her just yet.
“She finally fell asleep about an hour ago,” Jake offered in a hushed tone as he mindlessly ran his fingers through the dark blond hair that was fanned out across his lap. Rhett’s gut wrenched with a jolt of jealousy, but he didn’t outwardly react. He knew his feelings were displaced anyway: it wasn’t Jake who had threatened his wife.
“She tried to stay up and wait for you. She was mid-sentence when she finally dozed off.”
Rhett nodded and leaned forward, tenting his hands and resting his elbows on his knees. “Tell me all the things I’ve been coming up with in my imagination aren’t as bad as what actually happened here last night.”
Jake shook his head sadly. “I don’t really know. She wouldn’t tell me how it happened. Or she couldn’t. I think she was waiting for you. She called me in a panic. By the time Dempsey and I got here, she wascoveredin glass, bro. Standing in a pile of it, with little shards all over her body and in her hair. It was a fucking mess.”
An involuntary growl escaped Rhett as he shoved to his feet. He couldn’t help it. It was a visceral response to knowing his wife had been threatened, injured,maimed, at the hands of someone she trusted.
“Tell me again what Fielding said,” he demanded, pacing back and forth in front of the couch. This was the part he just couldn’t work out.
Jake ran his free hand through his hair and sighed. “Don’t quote me,” he started. “But I told Fielding to leave—we werealltelling him to leave—and that he’d just have to deal with the shitty consequences of his actions. Then he said something about howyoudidn’t have to deal with any consequences from your actions when he handed you the keys to my car last summer.”
Rhett froze in place and looked his best friend in the eye. So much of what they knew—what they thought they knew—was turned on its head. Fielding’s confession didn’t change the facts of what had happened last June. Rhett had made the decision to go to The Oak and drink in excess that night. He had made the choice to drive. He was the only one responsible for crashing Jake’s car.
But damn if the revelation didn’t justify every negative thought he had ever had about Fielding Haas. The guy hadn’t just come after his woman. He had endangered his life.
“Dem and I have been texting about it all morning. We both heard it and interpreted it the same way. And the way Fielding just bolted as soon as he said it… Do you remember? Do you remember seeing him or talking to him that night?”
Rhett gritted his teeth and flexed his fist open and closed. “I honestly don’t. It’s all so blurry. Between the alcohol… then the concussion from the crash… Fuck. I wish I remembered more. I remember being pissed at Dempsey. I remember mouthing off to him, giving him a hard time because he had taken my keys. And I remember thinking he was going to call you. That I know for sure—in my mind, Dempsey called you that night. Then the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital before Tori went to her appointment.” Rhett shook his head in frustration and resumed his pacing.
Jake was quiet for a minute as he read through something on his phone. “I feel like an idiot. Dem says he texted Fielding about you that night to get a hold ofmebecause I had told them not to bother me unless The Oak was literally on fire. Dempsey thought Fielding talked to me—he thought I sent him to deal with you.”
Rhett’s eyes lit up at that, and Jake returned his wide-eyed stare.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Never in a million fucking years.” Jake sighed as he ran his free hand over his hair.
“So Fielding showed up, Dem thought he was there on my behalf, and according to Dempsey, Fielding asked for your keys. Dem and Cole had to finish closing, so they let Fielding take you outside. He didn’t come back in, so they just assumed it was handled. Then the next morning, once I started texting them about the accident, Dempsey confronted his brother. Fielding said you wrestled him for the keys and insisted you were going to sleep it off in the car. Between your hospital stay and Tori’s procedure… then dealing with the insurance company and the fallout… I never questioned it. Fuck… I was so mad at you that I never even pressed anyone for details about what actually happened that night.”
