Page 40 of Rhett & Moses
“I’ve never doubted it,” he murmured, his eyes dropping briefly to my lips before he stepped back, giving me space to finish my preparations. The momentary separation felt both like relief and loss.
I completed the cocktails with a flourish, garnishing each with a twist of orange peel and a Luxardo cherry. Handing one to Rhett, I raised my own in a toast.
“To unexpected reunions,” I offered.
“And to the courage to face the past,” Rhett added, clinking his glass against mine.
We sipped in appreciative silence, the complex flavors of bourbon, bitters, and sugar melding harmoniously on the palate. Rhett closed his eyes briefly, savoring the taste.
“This,” he declared, “is why you’re the mixologist and I’m just an architect.”
I laughed, pleased by his enjoyment. “Architecture and mixology aren’t so different. Both require precision, creativity, an understanding of how different elements work together to create something greater than the sum of their parts.”
“Poetic,” Rhett commented, taking another sip. “Though I’ve never had a building get me tipsy.”
“Then you haven’t been in the right buildings,” I countered, enjoying the easy banter between us. This, perhaps more than anything, had been what I’d missed in our years apart, the effortless connection, the way conversation flowed between us like water finding its natural course.
We settled into the comfortable leather sofa in the corner of the bar, close enough that our knees touched. The space around us was dim, lit only by the soft ambient lights behind the bar and a few candles I’d placed on tables. Outside, Gomillion had gone quiet, the small town settling into evening stillness.
“It’s strange,” I mused, swirling the amber liquid in my glass, “how different everything looks now compared to a week ago. Same town, same bar, same people, but it all feels... shifted somehow.”
“Perspective changes everything,” Rhett agreed. “A week ago, I was dreading this reunion, expecting it to be a superficial parade of false nostalgia and carefully curated life updates.”
“And instead?”
“Instead, it became about truth. Reconciliation. Second chances.” His eyes met mine, earnest and warm. “Finding you again.”
The simple sincerity in his voice touched something deep within me. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to find me,” I admitted. “After what you believed I’d done, after how I left things...”
“I was angry for a long time,” Rhett acknowledged. “Hurt. Confused. But there was always a part of me that couldn’t quite believe the story. The Moses I knew wouldn’t have destroyed something that mattered to the town, wouldn’t have thrown away everything we had without reason.”
“And yet I did leave,” I pointed out softly. “I could have reached out over the years, tried to explain, but I didn’t.”
“Why not?” he asked, the question gentle rather than accusatory. “Even after Soren was gone, even when you were established in Atlanta with your own business?”
It was a fair question; one I’d asked myself countless times. “Fear,” I said finally. “Not just of rejection, but of disrupting the life I’d built. I’d convinced myself that what we had was teenage intensity, not meant to last. That you’d moved on, found someone else, someone who didn’t come with my baggage.”
“There were others,” Rhett admitted, his voice soft with remembered emotions. “Relationships that should have worked on paper but never quite felt right. Something was always missing.”
“For me too,” I confessed. “I dated in Atlanta, men, women, people who were kind, interesting and attractive. But there was always a part of me that stayed closed off, that couldn’t or wouldn’t fully connect.”
“And now?” he asked, setting his empty glass on the coffee table, his full attention on me.
I considered the question, feeling its weight, its importance. “Now I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for twenty years, and I’m finally learning to breathe again.”
Rhett’s smile was slow and intimate, warming me from the inside out. He reached out, taking my glass and setting it beside his own before capturing my hand in his. “I know exactly what you mean.”
The touch of his skin against mine; simple, chaste even, sent electricity coursing through me. Twenty years melted away, and I was eighteen again, dizzy with the thrill of first love, yet also firmly in the present, a man who knew what he wanted and was finally ready to reach for it.
“Rhett,” I began, not entirely sure what I wanted to say, only knowing that I needed to bridge the small remaining distance between us.
He saved me from having to find the words, leaning forward to capture my lips with his own. The kiss began gently; a question, an invitation that I answered by sliding my hand to the nape of his neck, drawing him closer.
What started as tenderness quickly evolved into something more urgent, years of longing and separation fueling our desire. His hands found their way under my shirt, warm palms skimming over skin that seemed to ignite at his touch. I responded in kind, tugging at his clothing with an impatience that might have embarrassed me under different circumstances.
“We should..." I gasped as his mouth found a particularly sensitive spot beneath my ear.
“Yes,” he agreed, though neither of us had clarified what we should do. Move to my apartment upstairs? Stop before things progressed too far in a public venue, even one that was closed for the night?
