Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Blythe

I lifted my wineglass to my lips for a sip, only to discover it was already empty. If I didn’t slow down, I was going to get drunk, and I needed to keep my wits about me, at least as long as Rhodes was in my house—or, rather, my brother’s house.

Dinner had consisted of chicken enchiladas—one of the meals that had been taking up space in Tristan’s freezer—homemade Spanish rice, and charro beans. My kids managed to make a dent in the meal, and with Rhodes here, there wasn’t a leftover in sight, so maybe my brother would finally quit bitching about my stress cooking and his lack of freezer space.

Sitting at the kitchen table with him and my kids was... surreal. There was no other word to describe it. I’d been convinced I would never see this man again, and now we’d managed to share a meal. I couldn’t say the evening had been comfortable, but it hadn’t been the worst.

The conversation between the two of us might have been stilted, but between my three kids, they managed to keep things from getting too awkward. It was clear that Ainsley liked Rhodes, but then, my baby girl liked everyone. It was Avett and Adeline I was most surprised by—Addy, especially. Avett was a friendly kid, but he was usually so into his own thing that it took a lot for someone to catch his interest the way Rhodes had.

While Adeline was quieter about it, as was her way, I could see her curiosity in Rhodes had been piqued, and she’d spent dinner asking questions, trying to get to know him.

More than once I wished that Tristan didn’t have to work late, knowing his presence would act as the barrier I needed between Rhodes and me, because, like my kids, I was way too curious about the man sitting across from me. And if history had taught me anything, having those feelings would lead nowhere good.

I had no business wanting to know more, wanting to dig deeper and see what the past two decades had been like for Rhodes. That interest should have been severed when he told me we didn’t have a future before walking away from me for good. But I wanted to know what his life was like now. I wanted to know about his time in the Army, and how long he’d been out. I wanted to know if working for Lincoln was everything he used to think it would be. I knew that being a part of the Alpha Omega team had always been a dream of his, then, as he got older, a goal he was determined to work toward. Despite how badly he’d hurt me, and how much I wanted not to care, I was still happy to see he’d made that particular dream come true.

I’d made a conscious effort for years not to ask my best friend, Sunny, about her oldest brother. I’d made her promise never to bring his name up. At first it was out of spite, then necessity. After enough time had passed, I convinced myself I didn’t care. I had a life of my own, a good one, and there was no room for Rhodes Bradbury.

If only I’d been able to get the damn man out of my head. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, thoughts of him managed to creep up when I least expected it. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Elliott. I really did, I just couldn’t stop my brain from making comparisons every now and then.

Guilt ate away at me whenever that happened. I felt like the worst wife in the entire world, simply because of thoughts I had no control over. Who knew my husband never suffered from the same crisis of conscience.

“So, you were like, a real-life soldier?”

Avett’s question pulled me out of the past, and I set my empty wineglass on the table, pushing it back so I wouldn’t be tempted to pour a third glass, and leaned forward in my seat to better hear Rhodes’s answer.

“Yeah, little man. I was a real-life soldier.”

His eyes went bigger. “What was it like?”

Adeline chimed in then. “Did you ever have to deal with bad guys?”

That caught Ainsley’s attention. “Was it scary?”

Rhodes chuckled like he was taking their questions in stride, but I didn’t miss the way the skin around his eyes tightened with discomfort.

“It was scary at times, yeah. And unfortunately, I did have to deal with some bad guys. But I signed up for that because I wanted to help keep people safe. It was important to me, and that’s exactly what I did.”

Something told me there was a lot more he wasn’t saying, but it wasn’t my place to push, not anymore. No matter how badly I might have wanted to know.

“Cool,” Avett said on a breath. “I wanna be a soldier when I’m grown up.”

The tines of my fork scraped loudly across my plate at that declaration, every muscle in my body growing tight as fear knitted around my lungs and squeezed. The past six months had been bad enough. I didn’t need my kids trying to force me into cardiac arrest.

“Why don’t we talk about what you’re going to be when you grow up in another decade,” I suggested. “By then maybe you’ll see the value of being an accountant. Or a dentist.” I never heard of a dentist dying on the job.

His face scrunched up, the holes from his missing teeth reminding me he was still my little boy—at least for a little while longer. “No way! Dentists are the worst . And I don’t wanna have to smell people’s stinky breath every day.”

He had me there. Looked like I was going to have to push the accountant gig hard when he got older.

“I’m gonna train tigers when I grow up!” Ainsley proclaimed loudly.

I dropped my fork onto my plate. “Okay. How about you guys clear the table before you give your mom a heart attack? Dishes in the sink, then you can have thirty minutes of screen time before showers.”

They grumbled as they cleared the table, but they still did it, so I considered that a win.

As soon as the dishes had been dumped in the sink, the three of them took off to different parts of the house. I didn’t realize my mistake until Rhodes came into the kitchen behind me, carrying his own plate and wine glass as I turned on the water.

“There anything I can help with?” he asked, his presence shrinking the space around us. That had always been the case when we were younger. There was just something about him that filled all the tiny spaces in every room he entered. His presence was unavoidable and intoxicating. He’d been formidable when we were kids, and that had only grown stronger since. I didn’t think I could handle being alone with him for any amount of time.

“Oh, no. That’s not necessary.” I cast a small smile over my shoulder, hoping it didn’t look as fake as it felt. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do?—”

I knew he wasn’t going to make this easy on me when he pushed his sleeves up, revealing even more of those thickly carved forearms. “Not at all. Besides, you cooked, it’s not fair for you to have to handle cleanup too.”

Something painful stabbed into the center of my chest. A familiar burn formed behind my eyes as I lowered my head and stared down into the sink. With Elliott’s betrayal having come to light, it was easy to lose sight of all that I had truly lost, but it was times like this that I was reminded, when the good of the past slammed into me like a freight train.

Elliott had always insisted on cleaning up after dinner. I cooked, he cleaned, that was how it had always worked. Until it didn’t. Until I lost my partner, the person who had always been there to help me carry the burden so I didn’t have to do it alone.

“Hey.” Rhodes’ gentle voice yanked me out of my memories. He laid a hand on my arm, wrapping his fingers around my bicep tenderly to turn me toward him. “What just happened? Did I say something wrong?”

I sniffled, wiping my nose with the back of my hand as I shook my head. I caught the briefest glimpse of concern in his amber eyes, and it only made the tightness in my chest that much worse.

“No, it’s nothing. Really. I’m fine. It’s just...”

His finger came beneath my chin, lifting my gaze to his. It was something he’d done when we were together, whenever he wanted my attention on him, and the movement was so familiar it was painful.

“It’s just what? Blythe, talk to me. You can tell me anything.”

I pushed down the ache his sweetness caused. I couldn’t focus on that or I’d lose the already-fragile hold I had on everything, sending me spiraling. I couldn’t afford to spiral, not when I was all my kids had left.

“Ever since I found those pictures...” I had to stop to swallow down the sickly taste of bile that slithered up my throat at the thought of those fucking pictures. “Since then, I’ve been so angry I’ve forgotten to be sad.” I shook my head and let out a sigh. “Then something will happen and I’ll remember that before I was mad, I was heartbroken.”

The look in his eyes was bad enough, but when he breathed out, “Angel,” it nearly killed me.

I took a step back, breaking contact. “Don’t,” I said in a ragged whisper.

Angel was what he’d given to me when we were together, when we were so in love we were all the other could see. Angel was special. It meant something. And he’d taken it away. He couldn’t just use it again whenever he felt like it.

“Don’t do that. Don’t call me that. Just... don’t. Please.”

He dropped his arm, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists at his sides. When he spoke, his tone was like gravel. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice not to betray every little thing I was feeling. We worked in silence for a while, side by side. I rinsed the dishes and passed them to him to be loaded into the dishwasher. The tension in the air was so thick it could have been cut with the knife Rhodes just loaded.

It took a while, but I finally managed to muster up the courage to ask the question that had been weighing on my mind all evening. Hell, if I was being honest, it was the question I’d had on my mind for days.

“Have you, um, have you found . . . anything?”

Rhodes let out a breath that had me turning my head in his direction. It appeared it was his turn to avoid eye contact. “I thought it would be better if Linc took lead on that. I didn’t...” Those amber eyes of his landed back on me. “I thought you might prefer if it was him.”

I didn’t have the first clue how to feel about that. There was relief, then there was disappointment that I couldn’t even begin to understand. Instead of saying anything, I nodded, and we went back to silence.

It was the easiest way with us.