THE RIDE
1454 Words
NOLA
By noon, the walls are closing in.
It is not Rhett’s house itself. The space is beautiful in a quiet, masculine way. Clean lines. Warm wood. Everything intentional. It is the silence that gets to me. The waiting. The way time stretches like it has nowhere else to be.
I sit on the couch with my legs tucked beneath me, flipping through my phone for the third time in ten minutes, scrolling without really seeing anything. Outside, sunlight pours freely into the world. I can hear distant laughter drifting in from somewhere down the road. Life, happening without me.
Rhett stands near the window again. Always the window.
“You’re pacing,” he says without turning.
“I’m breathing,” I correct.
His mouth twitches. “Barely.”
I drop the phone onto the cushion beside me with more force than necessary.
“I can’t do this.”
He turns slowly , arms folding across his chest. “Do what?”
“Sit here. All day. Every day. Like I’m made of glass.” I push to my feet, the hem of my shirt sliding against my hips as I stand.
“I need to do something. I need noise. People, Fun, I am twenty one, Rhett, not eighty.”
His gaze tracks the movement unconsciously, then pulls back to my face. “Fun is not a priority right now.”
“Well, it is for me.”
Silence stretches.
He studies me like he’s weighing something heavier than my words. “What do you want to do?”
The question catches me off guard. “What?”
“You said you need fun,” he exhales. “So tell me,what do you like?”
I blink. “You don’t know?”
“I know what you liked at sixteen,” he says evenly. “I don’t know who you are now.”
Something in my chest tightens.
“I like music,” I start slowly. “Loud music, I like places where people are laughing and nobody knows me, I like games, I like animals. I like water. I like sunsets, I like feeling like the world is bigger than four walls.”
His eyes stay on me, listening.
“And what don’t you like?” he asks.
I don’t hesitate. “Feeling trapped.”
That one lands.
He nods once. “Get your shoes.”
My heart stutters. “What?”
“We’re going out.”
⸻
The arcade is louder than I remember.
Lights flash overhead in bursts of neon. Machines chirp and buzz. Music thumps through the floor, vibrating up through my legs. The air smells like popcorn and soda and something electric.
I laugh before I can stop myself.
Rhett pauses just inside the entrance, scanning the room instinctively. He looks absurdly out of place in dark jeans and a fitted jacket, towering over teenagers and couples half his size. Dangerous and contained all at once.
“You’ve never been here, have you?” I ask.
“No.”
I grin. “This is going to be fun.”
I drag him toward the games before he can object, Skeeball first. Then air hockey. Then something involving shooting aliens that makes him frown in concentration like the fate of the world depends on it.
“You’re very serious about this,” I tease as he lines up his shot.
“I don’t lose,” he replies calmly, then proceeds to annihilate the scoreboard.
I gape. “Okay, that’s not fair.”
“Want a rematch?”
“Yes.”
I lose again.
Somewhere between laughing too hard and teasing him about being competitive, something loosens. He smiles more. Not fully, but enough that it softens the edges of him. When my shoulder brushes his arm in the crowd, he doesn’t flinch away. When his hand settles briefly at my back to guide me through a tight space, it lingers a second longer than necessary.
I feel it.
Every time.
Afterward, we go horseback riding.
The stables sit just outside town, fields rolling wide and green beneath an open sky. The horse beneath me shifts restlessly as Rhett adjusts the reins.
“I’ve never done this before,” I admit.
“I have,” he says.
Of course he has.
He mounts behind me, his body close, solid warmth at my back. The horse moves, and instinctively I lean into him. His chest rises against my spine, steady and controlled.
His hands guide mine on the reins. Not touching. Hovering close enough that my fingers tingle.
“Relax,” he murmurs near my ear.
His breath brushes my skin.
I swallow.
The rhythm of the horse is slow, rocking, intimate in a way I did not anticipate. Every movement presses me back against him just enough to be aware. Of his thighs bracketing mine. Of the quiet strength holding me steady.
My thoughts turn traitorous.
I focus on the horizon.
By evening, we’re at the beach.
The sun dips low, painting the water gold and amber. We sit side by side on the sand, shoes discarded, the cool grains slipping between my toes, the wind tugs gently at my hair.
“This,” I say softly, “this is perfect.”
He watches the sunset, his profile sharp against the fading light. “You always liked the ocean.”
“You remember.”
“I remember more than you think.”
The words settle between us, warm and heavy.
On the drive back, the car sputters.
Then dies.
We sit in silence for a moment.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter.
“I think the battery might have died,” Rhett says
“What can we do now,” I ask
“To be very honest I don’t know, maybe if there’s an oncoming vehicle we can ask them for assistance,”
We wait a while, but the road was as lonely as a graveyard
The bus stop is dimly lit, the road quiet. Leaving the car at the corner of the road we walk to the bus stop.
“So what’s going to happen the the car,” I ask coming off concerned.
“I don’t know, I’ll figure out something tomorrow, but for now I just need to get home,I am beyond exhausted,” Rhett replies , rubbing his fingers on his forehead like he was trying to release tension.
We take a sit on the bench, I swing my legs back and forth, and hum away, waiting for the bus, while Rhett sternly concentrates on his phone.
When the bus finally pulls up, it’s nearly empty.
Nearly.
stepping into the bus with Rhett
“There’s one seat left,” I say.
Rhett looks at it, then at me. “Sit.”
“There’s nowhere else.”
“I’ll manage.”
My face heats, “Rhett.”
He meets my gaze, steady. “It’s fine.”
I hesitate, Then nod.
I sit carefully, but before I do, he stretches out his legs and leans back on the the bus seat causing me to sit right between his legs, every nerve ending screaming. I sit fully on his middle, fully aware of what I was doing. I never got over Rhett, I just got better at hiding my feelings. As I sit, I gently rock on him slowly, causing my butt to press against his d**k, luckily his jeans are light, I feel him get hard under me, his breathing get heavier. I smile, I like it when I make him feel this way. The bus runs over a gallop causing a bounce, he lets out a soft moan under he is breath, he feels it too, he is so hard, at this point I’m thinking his d**k might tear open his trousers and into my cunt.His hands hover at my sides, not touching, muscles taut beneath me.
The bus lurches forward.
I brace instinctively.
His arm comes around me without thinking, firm and protective, holding me steady, my breath catches. His chest is solid at my back, his breath warm near my temple.
Neither of us speaks.
The ride stretches on.
Too quiet.
Too close.
When the bus finally stops, neither of us moves right away.
His voice is low when he says, “We should get off.”
I don’t immediately.
Because standing means breaking the moment.
And sitting here feels dangerously like wanting.
When I finally rise, his hands fall away instantly.
The night air feels colder without him.
As we walk home side by side, the silence hums again.
And I realize something that makes my pulse quicken.
Fun didn’t fix anything.
It only made the pull harder to ignore.
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