#outer range fic

[fudgebuggyy]

The Disappointment Club

Pairing: Rhett Abbott x Fem!Reader! Summary: After a rough couple of years in California, you move to the quiet pastures of Wabang to work in your sister's bakery, finding solace in the life she's built for herself there. A fresh start would've been a lot easier if a certain six-foot, blue-eyed cowboy hadn't waltzed into the shop with his Stetson pulled low. Wordcount: 13.239k (sorry) Warnings: SMUT! (it gets filthy pls don't look at me - oral sex f!receiving, fingering, handjob, spit play??, corny dirty talk), Soft Dom!Rhett Abbott, Possessive!RhettAbbott, Sub!Reader, Sub Space (adjacent? Sub-space-ish?), Mentions of Daddy Kink, Massive Praise Kink, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Porn with a lot of Plot, Angst (can't write anything without it lmao), Fluff, Humor, Slow Burn, Mentions of Drug/Alcohol Use, Implied Bar Fights, Reader has a troubled past, CORNY THIS GETS SO CORNY. A/N: (this is my belated unsolicited two cents on the Sabrina Carpenter album cover discourse, like let a woman SUB BRO let a gal be a whiny bottom!) Yes, I've been temporarily Rhett-Abbott-pilled...Yes, I've been yee-haw-ed so hard...this was a one-time thing to exorcise my demons

The Disappointment Club

The first time you saw Rhett Abbott, you were behind the counter of your sister’s bakery, piping lemon-thyme curd onto a fresh batch of muffins with the precision of someone who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a piping bag—or a convection oven; or anything sharp, really; anything inside of a bakery, possibly. 

“So, you’re the new hire?” The man said, all six feet, Wyoming drawl, and his Stetson pulled so low all you could see was his mouth. 

You were about to speak up when a glob of curd plopped onto your boot. 

“That’s my little sister, Rhett,” Maya warned, kicking open the swinging doors as she emerged from the kitchen, a batch of mint-green pastry boxes piled in her arms. “So you better not get any funny ideas.”

“Alright, I hear you.” He huffed a low laugh, rifling through his wallet before handing your sister a couple of bills. “I’ll make sure to keep my ideas void of humor.”

“Good, and keep them to yourself while you’re at it. Greet your mom for me!” Maya added with biting faux sweetness that had haunted you throughout your childhood. She handed him the pastry boxes, and the two of you watched in silence as he lumbered out of the bakery. The ding of the shop bell, the cuff of his boots on the tiles. He looked back once through the shop windows, the brim of his hat revealing a surprisingly tender face. The shape of it there, for a moment, in a soft bar of sunlight—before he disappeared from view. 

You lowered the piping bag and took a long breath. 

“Don’t even start.” Maya thwacked you with a dish towel. 

“Who the fuck was that?”

“Someone you will not get involved with.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cowboy McDreamy—”

“Stop. Don’t start with your funny ideas.”

“My ideas are famously hilarious.”

“Trust me. Rhett Abbott’s the type of guy who goes for buckle bunnies and tourists—"

"Buckle-what?"

"—and you are very much neither, so how about you make sure those blueberry muffins don’t look like someone assembled them with their eyes closed, hm?” She cocked a brow at your army of malformed swirls. You scoffed. 

“You know what?” Defiantly, you lifted the piping bag and proceeded to squirt the rest of the curd into your mouth—before scrambling to the back, dodging your sister's ardent attempts at skinning your ass raw with a dish towel. 

· · ❁ · ·

The second time you saw Rhett Abbott, you were on a date at The Longhorn. It was the only bar in town that had decent enough beer and a dancefloor that wasn’t slick with liquor and vomit past ten PM.

Your sister had set you up: He was the son of the game warden, Adam or Adrian (you’d long forgotten), awkward but polite, built like a shy greyhound, and stealing glances at your cleavage in intervals growing shorter and shorter the further he worked his way down a bottle of Budweiser. 

He wasn’t terrible company, patiently listening to you talk about the weather and how much you missed San Diego and your current hyperfixation on the baby goat that lived on the farm next door to your sister’s place. It has three legs, so they built her this tiny prosthetic, so she can walk properly. They named her Tres, as in Tres Leches, get it? Isn’t that the most adorable fucking thing you’ve ever heard in your whole entire fucking life?

You tried to ignore Adam-Adrian’s audible sigh of relief when you got up to grab another round of beers. Maybe you’d get yourself something stronger. Or maybe you’d find a good enough excuse to call it a night, and you would’ve, you really, really would’ve if you hadn’t bumped your shoulder into none other than Mr. Cowboy McDreamy himself. 

He’d swapped the Stetson for a washed-out baseball cap. Jaw hard and stubbled, nose a long slender slope in the lights reflecting off the dancefloor. 

“Hey there, Shortcake.” His quirk of a smile that aged him backwards.

Shortcake.

It wouldn’t have worked anywhere else, with anyone else, but you were a lightweight two beers in, and you liked the way the light hit his eyes, clear blue, like a drop of rain on a car window. 

You would’ve said something cheeky, something about having funny ideas—but he cut you off: “He sure seems like a good time.”

Tipping his chin towards Adam-Adrian slouched in the booth like a lonely sapling. 

You didn't like the way he'd said it. You knew men like Rhett Abbott, and you knew what happened when you let them into your life. “You know what,” you said, “he is, actually. Not that it’s any of your business.”

Rhett’s eyebrows lifted once, then smoothed out. “Okay.” He took a swig of his beer. “Got it.” Like something had been settled between you two.

· · ❁ · ·

The third time you saw Rhett Abbott, your sister’s husband, Jonah—Like the actor! Oh, and the book! Ha-ha! (which had gotten old the first time he’d said it)—took you out to the rodeo grounds. 

You and your sister had grown up in San Diego, amongst beaches and high-rises and palm trees lining manicured promenades. A place of juice cleanses and electric scooters. Men riding bulls in an arena had seemed unthinkable to you; something arcane, something forgotten. 

The rusty roofing of the grandstands shaded the crowd from the setting sun, its light disappearing behind the mountains, the endless sprawl of the valley. Everyone was buzzing, solo cups swishing beer, kids pressed up against the railing. A glossy nimbus of girls in cowboy boots and jean shorts chirped drunkenly one rung below. Every once in a while the PA crackled with the rumbling voice of the announcer, “Aaaaand here we go, folks! Big Joe out the gate, looking strong. Ah! Look at that spin, folks, right in the pocket—”

As a middle-school teacher, Jonah was forever sweet and excited about anything. Even bull riding, it seemed. He explained bull ropes and suicide grips, rattling down the names of the upcoming bulls in the pen. “—okay, so there’s Rotten Dynamite, rankest motherfucker you’ll ever see. Then there’s Terminator. Oh! And Iron Dome! We love Iron Dome. Blind in one eye, bucks like a whipcrack. Heard Rhett’s riding him tonight—”

Everyone knew Rhett Abbott rode bulls. The framed picture of him and his dad hung above the bar at The Longhorn, the two of them triumphantly holding up a big-buckled belt, the hard set of their twin jaws. People in Wabang rode bucking horses and lassoed cattle, wore their hats to the pharmacy and the supermarket, and hauled feed on their way to church. Old buildings still had hitching posts that cracked and blistered in the sun, like in a Western.

Rhett riding bulls wasn’t a surprise—but seeing it was. 

When the chute slammed open, you imagined something inside the crowd opened with it. Iron Dome, with its roiling beastly body, black as a hole in the floodlights, thundered into the arena. Dirt spraying. Crowd shouting. Rhett’s slender body meeting each jerk and heave and lunge, face hidden beneath the wide brim of his Stetson. The crowd surged forward all at once, a wild energy shuttling through it like a wave. Jonah hollered next to you, pumping a fist into the cool evening air. 

Five seconds, six seconds—

Seven point one. 

Rhett's body bending back, bow-tight, arm flung as high as the kick of the bull’s hind legs. Fused in perfect symmetry, their golden ratio like something painted. 

You flinched when Rhett’s arm snagged on the rope, and when Iron Dome finally lashed him off, and he went flying into the dirt—whatever had settled between you two, all at once, unsettled itself.

· · ❁ · ·

During the biggest fight you’d ever had with your sister, she’d called you a human hand grenade with the propensity for blowing up your life more than you could afford to. Which…okay, fair. 

People never expected you to be difficult or complicated or messy. You didn’t look it. Most of the time you didn’t even act like it. Until you slipped up, and slipped up some more, and then the slipping up turned into something big, and the big thing turned into something unstoppable.

Your mom had been the only one to describe it right, she’d understood, and in a moment of rare clarity that tore through the molasses of her medication, she’d whispered it to you like this: 

It comes in waves—until eventually the tide stops receding. 

You’d arrived in Wabang with a duffle bag, wearing a rumpled sundress and hiking boots.

Jonah had picked you up from the bus station with an excited grin and a too-tight hug. Maya had made you chicken and waffles, like when you were kids.

Back then, she'd made it whenever Mom was at her worst, when she was passed out for days, barricaded in her room like a pharaoh in a tomb. Chicken and waffles usually meant things were shitty and couldn't get much shittier. It also meant you'd skip school and spend the day at the mall down Fifth, where the sun slanted through the glass dome in the food court, made it all hot and damp like a terrarium, and the two of you would pretend to be salamanders lazing on the bench by the churros stand, T-shirts covered in cinnamon and sugar and delight. 

Wabang felt like those afternoons in the mall. Wabang was supposed to be the place where you got better.

You stuck to your routine, you made your bed, you ate enough and drank enough, you slept and woke on time, you went to work, you stuck to beers and cigarettes, you read and wrote and you fed the chickens in the garden, you always came back home. 

One afternoon, sitting on the porch staring out at the endless bowl of the valley, Maya handed you the keys to the bakery. “I want you to open up the shop. Four-thirty AM on the dot. You think you're up for it?”

“Are you kidding?”

Tomorrow was going to be a day so big, even Jonah was stopping by to help. They’d prepped the order for the wedding on Willow Ridge all week. Maya had even pulled an all-nighter the day before. It was a big deal, and she trusted you enough to be a part of that big deal. 

Trusted you enough to be a part of this life that she'd built so far away from the mall down Fifth, from mom—from you.

Smiling carefully, you reached for the keys. Maya snagged them away, narrowing her eyes. “Don't eat all the frosting, you little shit.”

“Not making any promises.” 

She tossed the keys and you caught them.

You felt like a saint anointed, like someone had tapped a sword to your shoulder, and you glowed with it, and your sister was so beautiful in the sun, and you’d said thank you, and you’d promised you’d do good. 

You’d be good. 

Maybe you deserved to celebrate being so good.

It was a Friday night after all, and you were bored and maybe a little sad, and maybe you were exhausted from following all these rules you were trying to build your life around. And so you rode the rusty bike Jonah had dug up from the bowels of their garage all the way to The Longhorn. And what started with a beer, ended with a bottle of whiskey and a joint on the back of someone’s pickup. Tame in comparison to what you'd once done on a Friday night, or on any night, really.

So it was fine, right? It was going to be fine. 

There was a girl with a shiny blonde mane and pink-chrome nails, her deep, lovely croon when she called you “—so fucking pretty, baby girl.” You missed feeling like this. You missed saying yes and yes and yes, bursting from it, unstoppable. You might’ve kissed her, but you weren’t sure, you might’ve wanted to marry her, which sounded about right, and you wanted to tell her this, to confess it to her and hold her soft pink-chrome-tipped hands...

The next thing you knew, you woke up next to your bike in the flatbed of a pickup, in a driveway you didn’t recognize, in a part of town you weren’t familiar with.

Head pounding, throat sore. Five missed calls from your sister. It was Saturday. It was noon. 

You were still drunk when you reached the green-and-pink awning of Sweet Pea’s, its buttery cream trim like frosting. Inside, the bakery was buzzing with a barrage of patrons on the sunniest Saturday Wabang had seen in weeks. At the counter, Maya didn’t speak to you. Instead she sent you straight to the back where you threw up once in the sink and once in front of the convection ovens. 

“Give me the keys,” Maya ordered, and you patted yourself down, before you remembered you’d stuffed them into your boot. She told you to go home, that she didn’t want to see you today. Jonah promised that everything would be fine, that Maya just needed a minute. Get cleaned up, he’d said. It’s gonna be okay, he’d said. But he hadn't looked so sure.

You hadn’t been good.

You hadn't been good at all—

Head throbbing more than it had before, you dragged your shitty bike through town. You rode until the sparse sprinkling of houses turned into open fields, pastures flat and endless. You struggled down a lonely dirt road, sweat spilling down your back, your chest, your face, stinging your eyes, you were hot, you were so hot, and your arms shook from the rattling of the uneven ground.

The road stopped abruptly at a rusty fence. You dropped your bike and climbed through the wide gaps between the bars. Marching through the field that stretched on forever, an ocean’s worth of it, green, dry, pricking at your bare legs, the afternoon sun battered you like judgment. You kept wading forward until you couldn’t get yourself to, until unceremoniously, with the theatrics of a very hungover and very disgraced saint, you collapsed into the shade of a lonesome tree. 

You were sure then that you’d reached the end of the world, that you were so far away from anything and anyone, and that here, like this, finally, no one would hear you.

When was the last time you cried?

Covered in sweat and dirt, possibly still drunk and possibly still high, key-less, wretched, useless, melodramatic, sobbing, gasping for breath. 

It comes in waves—  

“Look, I don’t mean to bother you, but this here’s private land.”

You’d heard it too late. 

The horse, the gentle pelt of its hooves in the field. It’s puffs of breath. A man’s low murmured, easy, girl. 

You refused to open your eyes, feeling like a child, as you flopped onto your side to turn away. 

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. 

“You doin’ alright?” His voice softer then. 

“I’m fine,” you murmured into the grass. The buzz of a bug on your cheek. You slapped it away. 

“Are you hurt?”

“No, just—” sunbathing? contemplating? “—having an existential crisis. I’m almost done.” 

A sound like a huff or a scoff, a swallowed-down laugh maybe. 

“Do you need me to call someone?” 

“Just give me a second.” Pressing your hands to your face, you took long breaths, waiting for that big bawling bone-pelting agonizing throb of exhaustion to settle down. “Okay,” you finally said. “I’m finished.” 

Turning towards him, there he sat, high upon his noble steed like a cowboy in a story. With his brows scrunched beneath his Stetson, he was a man fully unprepared to stumble upon some sobbing wildling on a Saturday morning.

You weren’t sure if he recognized you. You didn’t care. You’d lost your capacity for public shame a long time ago. 

“Right. I’ll leave. Uh—sorry.” You got up, wobbling there like a newborn calf, shaking out the damp hem of your dress, before heading down the path you’d trampled into the grass. 

“Wait,” he called out. “Do you want me to bring you back?”

The thought of getting on a horse made bile rise in your throat. You weren’t going to risk throwing up a third time. 

“No, thank you,“ you shouted.

He followed you all the way back to the fence, the steady trot of his horse in the distance. You felt his stare across the field, hot and strange on the back of your neck as you peeled your bike off the road and headed home. 

It was the fourth time you’d seen Rhett Abbott, and you’d prayed it was the last. 

· · ❁ · ·

“Hey there, Shortcake.”

God didn’t like you very much apparently.

You swallowed, hunching lower behind the display case where you were restocking the cardamom cinnamon rolls.

Rhett was tall enough to lean over it. “You feelin' better?”

So he had recognized you. 

Standing up straight, you cleared your throat. “All my demons have been temporarily exorcized, thank you.”

“Hm.” He huffed a laugh, that quick smile of his that made him all boyish. “Reckon I should try that sometime.”

“Well, I highly recommend hysterically crying on someone else’s property. It’s very cathartic—”

“That you, Rhett?” Maya shouted from the back.

“Yes, ma’am.” He straightened. 

“Just gimme a sec, I’ll grab your mom’s order.” 

You busied yourself with wiping down the countertop before your sister caught you fraternizing with the one person in Wabang that needed to be left un-fraternized with.

The two of you had only recently regained some common ground, and part of that truce was the unspoken rule that you please, please, please not obsess over the wrong people.

Rhett Abbott wasn't wrong per se; he just wasn't very right either.

Rhett’s shadow spread across the counter as he leaned over the display case again, close enough you caught the waft of his cologne, the unbearable blue of his gaze. You swallowed. His attention trailed down your throat. When he smiled again, it was soft, it stayed there for a while. His voice low then, “There’s a rodeo tonight. You should come. If none of us break any bones, we'll head to The Longhorn.”  

You stared at the spot where the worn collar of his denim jacket pressed into his neck.

“I’ll think about it.” You said it to that spot. 

“Good.” He said it to your mouth. 

Good. 

You’d found out long ago that there was one word that could make you do anything for anyone. 

Just one word—and you were piled in the truck bed of Rhett’s Chevy Silverado, squeezed against the cab with some of his old friends from high school, your legs slung over the lap of a woman who’d known Rhett since kindergarten and who had the sweetest gap-toothed grin you’d ever seen in your life. You told her so, and the gap between her teeth seemed to grow with pride. 

Driving down the winding roads of the valley, the cool air snapping your hair into your eyes, the hem of your dress fluttering, you tipped your head skyward. Before Wyoming, you’d never seen a sky so black. The nights here hit harder than anywhere else. 

You cackled when Gaptooth helped you press the hem of your dress down before you flashed the whole truck, laughing harder when she offered a pull off her cherry-red vape. With the smoke citrusy and sweet in your mouth, you turned towards the driver’s seat, your cheek mashed against the flaking metal edge of the truck bed. 

Rhett was driving. You watched his long tan arm lean out the window, fingers tinkering, playing with the wind. The soft swirl of hair. The faded bull skull tattoo on his forearm, flashing there in the beam of the headlights.

You wanted to reach out, mirror every turn of his wrist, trace the swell of a vein—

His arm went limp. You realized too late he was watching you in the side mirror.

That buzz in the back of your head, down your chest, places below.

You didn’t look away once. 

· · ❁ · ·

At The Longhorn, everyone scattered, some fighting their way to the bar, others pulling each other to the crowded dancefloor. 

“What’re you drinkin’, Shortcake?” The voice was too high to be Rhett’s. It was another rider from before. (Lloyd something-something; four point three seconds on a bull named Napoleon, which was fitting considering Lloyd was as tall as a water dispenser.)

“Uh.” You hastily checked the meager cash you’d stuffed into your boot. “Whatever five bucks will get me—”

“It’s on me.” The rough twang of that familiar voice as he leaned over you. You could still smell the dirt on him, the sweat. “Shortcake.” Rhett shot Lloyd a sharp smile, and you had to physically restrain yourself from rolling your eyes.  

(You bought yourself your own cider with your own five bucks.)

The rest of the night went on easy. Crowd thick enough you kept drifting away from familiar faces, before meeting them again in the line to the bathroom. Hopping from table to table, clinking bottles and shuffling cards, until Gaptooth pulled you to the dancefloor, where girls in boots and baby-tees taught you how to line dance. “Shake those hips, San Diego!” And so you did, and life was at its sweetest, and you didn’t have to think about the last couple of days or the last couple of years or how Maya had stopped asking where you went at night. And you spun and spun, spun wildly, and thought only about a blue pair of eyes watching you beneath the wide brim of a Stetson.

Oh God, how you’d missed this feeling. 

He found you much later; outside, at the back entrance, unlit cigarette between your lips, crouched on the ground with your back against the wall. You were in the process of yanking a boot off, tipping it upside down in the hopes it would produce your lighter. Had it fallen out on the dancefloor? 

“Need a light?”

Rhett leaned one hand against the wall, presumably still a little lopsided from facing off a two-thousand-pound bull a couple of hours ago. 

“One sec,” you said, yanking off your other boot, revealing a couple of coins and a tube of lipgloss. You looked up at him, his lighter already in hand. You smiled. “Yes, please.”

Rhett huffed a laugh. You wondered what his full laugh sounded like, big-bellied and unbridled. Did he tip his head back from so much delight? 

Leaning against the wall with a stifled groan, Rhett carefully slid to the gravel, knees popping. He landed on the ground with a thud. “Shit. Ow.”

“Careful”

“Think that’s too late for me.”

“That bad?” you asked.

“Surprisingly less terrible than last time.”

“Who would’ve thought a bull named Bonecrusher would go easy on you?”

“If by easy, you mean he made me see God a couple of times, sure.”

You snorted, before popping your cigarette in your mouth and waiting patiently for him to light it for you. He huff-laughed at that too. Apparently he was easily amused.

His hand, big and dry as a baseball mitt, came up to shield the flame from the wind, and for a moment all you smelled was him. The earth, the acrid sweetness of sweat slicked across skin for too long. Like you’d been tucked into him, an animal in his burrow. 

You couldn’t look at him like this. You hummed with this feeling. The brim of his hat bumping gently against your forehead. When the flame caught, you leaned away and took a long, long drag. “Thanks—” You cleared your throat. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

The two of you sat there for a moment, drenched in the red halogen glow of a neon sign. You, crosslegged, playing with your necklace, pressing the pendant to your mouth; him, with one long leg stretched out, the other hiked up for his forearm to lean against, fiddling with his Zippo. You stared at a couple making out against a car. He stared at the men smoking by the bins. 

You both spoke at once:

“Why do you—” 

“Why were you—”

“Oh. Sorry.” You blinked. 

Rhett pointed his Zippo at you. “By all means, ladies first.”

You snorted again, offering him your cigarette. He hesitated, like he hadn’t expected it, but you were still humming and the night was cool and life was still at its sweetest, and when he took a drag, stubbled jaw working, it felt like you could get away with more than you should. 

“Why does everyone say you choose the rankest bulls on purpose?” you asked. 

Rhett seemed to give it some serious thought, tugging his hat back to look at the sky. He handed you the cigarette. Then, “‘Cause I’m convinced I have something to prove. It’s either that or a real shit attempt at self-sabotage. Sometimes…it’s both.”

His honesty made something inside of you open. 

”Why were you crying the other day?” 

Taking a drag from the cigarette, you gave it some serious thought too. Then, “My sister’s giving me a second chance. I stopped getting those a long time ago, so I’m just trying really, really hard not to fuck it up. But I kind of suck at not fucking things up. I don’t know, it’s…” You took a breath, trailing off. 

“Complicated?” he said.

“Excruciating.”

“Sounds about right." Rhett hummed in agreement, looking at you from the corner of his eye. “You’re in luck. You’re speaking to the Abbott Family Letdown. So.” He gave a silly flourish with his hand. 

“Oh.” You sat up in mock-surprise. ”Why didn’t you say so? Always a pleasure to meet a fellow embarrassment.” You popped the cigarette back in your mouth and stretched your hand out. He shook it with a laugh. The squeeze of his thick fingers, warm and dry. 

“We could start a support group,” he said.  

Reaching your hands above your head, like you were hanging a banner: “The Disappointment Club,” you mumbled around the cigarette. 

When Rhett Abbott laughed, really laughed, when he shook with it and his shoulders did a little shimmy, he did indeed tip his head back from so much delight. 

You laughed with him. You wanted to press two fingers down the Adam’s Apple that bobbed up and down his throat. You were so close the brim of his hat bumped against your head again. You told him everything then, told him about the keys and the girl and the back of that pickup. “—and so Maya had to cancel multiple orders and pay it out of her own pocket. Plus, it was, like, the pastor’s daughter’s wedding. So I’m assuming God was cataclysmically displeased.”

“God’ll forgive you for a couple of fuckin’ muffins.”

“A couple of muffins? Those were toasted pear-and-almond tartlets with a frangipane center and a cardamom crumb topping.”

“Frangi-what-now?”

“Exactly.”

“Trust me, it ain’t that bad. One time I got so drunk in the barn I forgot to latch the gate, and we lost forty head in a night. Took me days to herd them all back together, and my dad didn’t let me into the house until they were all accounted for.”

“If we turn this into a competition, we’ll be sitting out here all night.”

He turned then. His slow crooked smile. “Sounds like a good time to me.”

You didn’t know how long you sat there, talking. Your cigarette stub forgotten on the cool asphalt. The parking lot was empty now. Even the neon sign seemed to have dimmed.

Whatever had unsettled between you two, unsettled itself so completely you fell wide open. He could’ve reached right inside, he could’ve thrown something in—

Was it so wrong to look at him like this and hope, with a desperation that might’ve killed you, that he wouldn’t look away?

· · ❁ · ·

Friendship. 

Could you call it that?

It felt a lot sharper, had more blowback. 

Rhett liked to describe it as your little two-man support group. “Hottest club in town,” he’d say. Which wasn’t particularly funny, but it was stupid enough it made you snort every time. 

Time was no longer governed by phases—no more mornings, noons or nights, no more suns or moons—instead, you found yourself adhering to Rhett Abbott’s reliable rhythms.

Your days started when the tiny bell above the shop door rang, and the brim of a worn Stetson swung up to reveal that surprisingly tender face. Maya had her suspicions about Rhett stopping by the bakery almost every day like clockwork: “There’s only so many errands he can run…and do you really think Cecilia Abbott eats that many toffee-nut buttermilk muffins? Woman must be enormous by now—”

You felt like a puppy, Pavloved, scrambling to the counter every time the shop bell trilled in the quiet. On the days he didn’t come in early, you usually met him on your lunch break. You were notoriously terrible at making sure you ate properly, and so he’d bring you a sandwich, or take-out, and you’d eat on the back of his Chevy in the parking lot, legs dangling from the truck bed, kicking up every time he made you laugh. Rhett made you laugh the way you’d forgotten to, that startled smack of a cackle, like you still couldn’t believe that there was someone who made you topple over from so much fucking glee. 

Your favorite days were the ones he was off work early, and he’d come pick you up, toss your bike onto the truck bed—“Get in, Shortcake, we’re going on a trip!”—and he’d take you to the lakes or a town one valley over or the mountains, show you Wabang, show you Wyoming. He showed you the delicate difference between yarrow and hemlock when you trekked through the forests.

“Wow, dude, real Bear Grylls energy,” you’d said the first time he’d started a fire on a bed of pine needles. 

“That’s the most California thing I think you’ve ever said.” 

“Wait until I start talking about the way they stack vegetables at Erewhon.”

He grunted a laugh. 

“Do you miss it?”

“The vegetables at Erewohn?”

“Home.”

It took you a moment. 

The thought of your sister’s and Jonah’s sweet storybook house, with their porch covered in sun catchers shaped like honeycomb, their little brood of chickens in the garden, how the thought of it all moved through you on reflex. But Rhett hadn’t meant that house or those people or this place.

“I don't know, sometimes.”

Sometimes being here makes me forget to miss anything at all. 

You forgot to miss the most at night, when your days came to an end at the rodeo or The Longhorn. When Rhett sloppily swung you across the dancefloor, the smell of beer and sawdust and the distinct spice of his cologne. Rhett was fierce, he was momentum, he was unstoppable force in a place full of immovable objects. You wanted to hurtle away with him, wrap yourself around his body, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, chin to chin—take me places. 

Did he know he did this to you? 

Did he know how easy you were?  

That when you chose someone like this, you fell into them, and everything and everyone else fell away? 

You didn’t pay attention to Lloyd’s weird come-ons, didn’t care about the girls that crushed around Rhett after he tumbled off another bull, or the way he always seemed to sidle up to you whenever anyone tried to buy you a drink.

You were singular, soaking up his closeness until you felt thick and stupid with it, and all you could do was let him turn you on the dancefloor like a drunken spinning top, his gravelly laughter shaking uncontrollably in your ear. Those lean arms looped around your waist, and your hands slid up the skin of his neck, slick with sweat, to cradle his face.

How those eyes crinkled when he grinned, and how easy it was then to imagine him as a child. The defiant thing with bloodied knees getting into trouble at the edge of town. The Abbott Family Letdown, you thought with so much fondness you could’ve kissed his cheek.

Nights always ended like this: The two of you fused to each other, dancing, or squeezed into a booth, or smoking out in the lot, talking and talking about everything and anything, about the places you wanted to see, and the things you wanted to do, and the people you wanted be. The choices you wanted to make and the ones you really, really wished you could remake. 

Sometimes you didn’t speak at all, and you just sat there and stared at each other, as if to say: Out of all the places in the world, this is where I find you.

· · ❁ · ·

You loved the rainy season, loved those humid afternoons you’d sit on the back deck at Rhett’s place.

He’d fixed up the Abbott's old bunkhouse with Perry, a small cabin at the edge of the forest where ranch hands used to stay back in the day. The two of them had worked on it for a year, and you knew Rhett felt a sense of pride whenever he talked about it, running his hands along the smooth timber walls with a kind of care that felt personal. He and Perry had carved their names like kids into the bottom of the front door, and Rhett knocked the tip of his boot against it every time he left the cabin. “For luck,” he’d told you once, and he’d looked a little sad. 

His was a place of wide gridded windows and Navajo rugs. It was surprisingly sentimental, filled with keepsakes and old furniture from his parents or his grandparents, the kind of place that looked like it had been here from the start, as enduring as the soft in-line of a favorite coat.

You liked the traces of him here, the mundanity of them; aftershave and painkillers in the medicine cabinet, forgotten mugs of coffee left on window sills and counter tops, his belts, his toppled boots by the door, his packet of Camels by the sink, his dad’s old CD collection—The Black Crows, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan—a small army of Amy’s arts-and-crafts projects sprinkled atop shelves, family photos tacked to the refrigerator.  

Out on the back deck, your eyes trailed over the rocks set in a neat row on the railing. You sat in a wicker chair, listening to the rain pattering against the tin roof, the cradle of pine all around. 

You’d had a long day at the bakery, and Rhett had had an even longer day herding cattle out of the west pasture, which had started to flood from all the rain.

He sat on the deck with his legs stretched out and his back against the railing. In a T-shirt and jeans, head knocked back, his baseball cap pulled low.

He’d closed his eyes a long time ago. Had he fallen asleep?

“Stop starin’,” Rhett mumbled, eyes still closed. 

You snorted, caught. Ears going hot, you dug your cheek into the weave of the wicker, clenching your eyes closed like a child when he opened his. Your tell-tale grin. His low chuckle.

You felt young with him sometimes. Like you didn’t have to pretend the way you did with Maya, constantly trying to prove that you weren’t the useless little sister floundering through life.

It was easy with Rhett, you could be honest. And you had all these big feelings and these even bigger wants, and they were shameful, complicated, and they ached, and you knew this need all too well, had felt it with every crush you’d ever had, never knew what to call it or how to say it, or how to have it be done to you. You didn’t just like people; you disappeared into them.

And with Rhett…

You wanted to crawl after him on your hands and knees, feel his big, big hand grab you by the hair, pulling and pulling, your teeth sinking into the worn leather of his belt.

Open up, Shortcake.

You swallowed. You pulled your knees to your chest. You wanted to close yourself like a box. 

“You want the talking stick?” Rhett asked with one of his huff-laughs. 

The talking stick was silly.

You didn’t know when it had started; something to do with support groups and their strange rituals, and you’d said it as a joke once at the bar when Rhett had looked like he wanted to say something but was holding back. You’d handed him your soggy coaster and said, You want the talking stick? And he’d taken it with a smile loosened by relief. 

You shook your head. “No, thank you.”

“You sure?”

“Super.”

“Because if you ain’t taking it, I will—”

“Oh god, if you’re going to start talking about that bull rope paste again, I’ll suffocate myself in the mud.”

“First of all, it’s called rosin. Second of all, ouch.” He looked genuinely offended. “And you better make your mind up quick, ‘cause I’m gonna start listing my favorite ones. Also, did you know you have to heat it just right? Otherwise it’s like pulling taffy—”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had the kind of sex I really want to have,” you finally said. Blurted, really.

You thought of what your sister had called you once: a human hand grenade.  

The distinct click of Rhett snapping his mouth shut, teeth on teeth. The rain pattered on—and you knew you had to as well, you had to get it out quick before you stuffed it all back down.

“And I’m scared I’ll never have it because I’m too chickenshit to tell people about the kind of sex I want to have, and, it’s nothing crazy, it just—it’s…a feeling? And like, some people just aren’t into it, but I haven’t slept with enough people to really know if that’s true or if I’ve never bothered to get close enough to someone to actually tell them or to know if that really is the kind of sex that I actually want, because I’ve never had it, I just know that I want it, and what if I tell the next person that’s the kind of sex I want and then I don’t like it at all…what then?”

You’d closed your eyes again, vibrating, the blackness vibrating with you.

“What kind of sex do you wanna have?” Rhett’s voice was so low you barely heard him. 

Breath catching. You opened your eyes. You stared at his hands.

You pantomimed tossing the stick over your shoulder. “Lost it,” you mumbled.

I'm sorry, you wanted to say but you couldn't get yourself to.

Even though you weren’t looking at him, you knew Rhett was thinking, trying to figure out if he could push you or if he wanted to wait it out, if he should pave it over with conversation, or if he should stand up to grab a beer. Because in the end, you were friends. And you did know him, and he did know you. 

Rhett settled for something that broke your heart a little. “You know, you can talk to me. Right? About anything.”

You swallowed, nodded. 

“Want a beer?” The soft familiar crack of his knees as he stood. 

You were too scared of the things you’d say if you had one. Shaking your head, you said, “Water, please.”

· · ❁ · ·

Something shifted after that. It felt tectonic, structural. There was this muscle inside of you strung so tight. It waited. Agonized for relief, for a thumb to rub along its tendons and help it unravel itself.

It was different that morning, and you were curled in the tub, shower head pressed close—down there, right there—and you needed so much, and his name spiraled through you endlessly, oh god-oh god, eyes squeezed shut tight enough the whole world cracked open. You came so hard you felt helpless in it, loosened from yourself, your mouth finding your forearm, your teeth finding your skin—

You’d bitten down hard enough Rhett traced a finger over the swell when you met him later that day. “What happened?” His voice too low. Unfamiliar.

“Hurt myself at the bakery,” you lied. 

He huffed. No laugh. He didn’t believe you. 

Whatever had started to shift, didn’t stop its shifting. It infiltrated your conversations, or rather lack thereof, until both of you felt like you were fumbling through something that used to be easy.

Rhett stopped coming into the bakery, rather opting to drive you home whenever you had to close up shop on your own, even if it meant he had to leave the ranch early to drive all the way to town and back. There was an energy around him, especially at the bar when he was a couple of drinks in. 

You were used to Rhett Abbott quietly watching over people, making sure no rowdy tourists messed with the regulars, or that the Tillerson boys left Perry alone on the rare occasion that he did join you two at the bar, or looming over you whenever some guy slid up to ask for your number, his blunt: Can I help you, man? 

There was something about him, like maybe there was a muscle inside of him too, strung too tight for too long, waiting...

The first time Rhett got into a fight in front of you, something incomprehensible roiled in your stomach.

It had started innocently enough. You knew Lloyd liked calling you Shortcake, and you’d never paid it any mind; he was a touchy drunk the girls tolerated, each meeting his relatively tame come-ons with an eye-roll and a middle finger. But he’d had too much to drink that night, and his hands had sloppily snaked their way around your waist to pull you to the dancefloor. “—no, seriously, I’m good, Lloyd. Like, I’m running for evil mayor of that town in Footloose. I’m done—”

“Come on, Shortcake, for me?”

“I said I’m fucking good, Lloyd.” His arms tightened around you, breath bloated with liquors unknown. “You can let go now.” 

You saw Rhett too late, shoving his way through the crowd. You lifted your hands like you were trying to reprimand an incoming cyclone, “Rhett, don’t—” 

Leaning in close to slur something in your ear, Lloyd was oblivious to the fact that Rhett's shoulder was about to collide with the back of his head.

What proceeded was a burst of juvenile male posturing that consisted mostly of huffing and shoving, like two big pigeons clucking at each other over soggy bread on the sidewalk. But when Lloyd whacked Rhett’s hat off with an accidental swing, the next thing you knew, a fist met a cheek, and a knee met a groin—and you cursed God for ever making you this hopelessly attracted to dick. 

· · ❁ · ·

“Please don’t do that again,” you told Rhett much later, sitting next to him on his couch, pressing a bag of frozen peas to his head. “Not for me, okay?”

Rhett sat slouched beside you, the big bend of his back, as he stared at the scuffed knuckles of his right hand. 

“I’m a big girl. I can deal with Lloyd, for Christ’s sake. He’s, like, three feet. He’s a human step stool.”

“He was touching you—”

“People touch me all the time.”

“Not like that. I didn’t…I don’t want anyone else to fucking touch you like that.”

You tossed the peas into his lap. 

He looked at you then, face hazy in the dim lights of his living room. 

Anyone else…

It echoed in your body, over and over, traveled all the way through you.  

“Pretty sure that’s up to me,” you said. 

With a sigh, he pressed the bag of peas to his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m—sorry. Okay? Sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing it until…Yeah.” He took a breath. “I’m a shitty drunk.”

“That makes two of us.” Shifting, you grabbed his arm to help him up, catching him when he swayed with a groan. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed, Bazooka Man.” 

Rhett let you guide him to the bedroom, the same way he’d let you drive him home in his truck. It did things to you, knowing you could wrangle this big cowboy down the hallway and into his bed, without him putting up a fight.

You liked when he listened to you—and you knew full well there weren’t many people he listened to in the first place. 

“Gotta admit, I got him good though,” Rhett murmured when he stumbled into bed, that stupid little grin of his, the one that made his canines flash.

You snatched the peas to smack him with it. “Stop,” you warned. “You kneed him in the ballsack, you trigger-happy fuck. Are you proud of yourself?”

“I hope his sperm count plummets.”

You couldn’t help your laugh, and he couldn’t help his. 

This, you could handle. This was the Rhett with the crooked smile and the lopsided gait, his intense boyishness that made you wonder about how he got each scar on his body.

With this Rhett, things were easy, almost routine, and you felt lulled into the practiced rhythm of it, unthinking; helping him unbutton his shirt, before yanking off his boots, his jeans, the way you had countless of times after he’d been bucked off a bull hard enough he’d returned to the cabin in a tourniquet and his head foggy with medication. 

On the first night you’d driven him home from the hospital, he’d told you that he didn’t like letting anyone help him like this, and you’d reached over the stick shift to wipe the hair from his forehead, and something about the way he'd leaned into it had made you so unbearably sad.  

You didn’t know when you snapped out of it, crouched before him, about to grab his boots to bring them to the door—when you finally looked up.

His silhouette was black against the glow of the bedside lamp, eclipsed by it, he loomed above you in shadow. Your chest cramped up with a feeling you’d tried so hard to push away.

In your head, you were careless.

In your head, you let his boots fall to the hardwood floor. You crawled to him on hands and knees, and you nuzzled his bare knee, the soft hairs there, the lean muscle of his thigh, ran your nose to the spot where the checkered cotton of his boxers bunched just so. I need. I need and need and need—

“You can’t do that to me, Shortcake.” Rhett’s voice rumbled in the quiet. 

“Do what?”

“Look at me like that.” His voice felt like a finger below your chin, tapping it up.

“Like what?” All breath. 

Rhett didn’t answer. His head tipped to the side. You imagined yourself from where he sat, imagined his shadow was big enough it swallowed you whole.

This was a Rhett you didn’t know. 

The bed creaked as he leaned forward. You didn’t breathe, didn’t move a muscle, when his fingers ghosted along the edge of your jaw. Your breath hiccuped when you felt a gentle tug on the corner of your mouth, and you realized he’d loosened a single strand of hair from your lips. The heat humming there, humming through you.

“Are you ever going to tell me?” he said. 

Your confusion must’ve been obvious, because he spoke again: “Are you ever going to tell me what you want?” 

What I want? 

It was such a simple answer.

It shamed you how simple it was. 

In the dim light, you stared at the vein roped along his forearm. You wanted to trace it with your tongue, with soft grazing teeth, wanted to lap up the salt and tang of his skin, gather it all in your mouth, take the sweetest littlest bites.

You wanted to lean all the way in, kiss the inside of his palm, that starburst scar from when his glove had once ripped during a bull ride. You imagined then, taking the thick pad of his thumb into your mouth, letting it press into your tongue until you bit down, until it reached all the way in. Until you writhed from it. 

With a frustrated huff, you tipped forward. Your forehead bumped against his knee.

You didn’t know what to do with yourself anymore.

You could’ve wept when you felt strong fingers carefully run down the curve of your skull. The cuff of nails scraping along your skin. The sound it made.

He held you like this: your head cradled in his big, big hand.

You knew Rhett understood something about you in that moment. 

You felt young, skinless, unsure in your body. None of you felt grown. You were all baby teeth. You were a tiny stack of bones that shook.

“You’re okay, darlin’,” Rhett said it with so much tenderness you made a shameful sound low in your throat, and your nose pressed into the scar that ran up the center of his knee.

What you would’ve done to kiss it then, just once, to lave it in spit, with your eyes screwed shut and a hand between your legs, there, down there—

· · ❁ · ·

Your biggest secret was this: You’d let anything be done to you if it was just done sweetly enough. 

Your relationship with intimacy had always been complicated.

You knew what you looked like to men; you were the young desperate thing to be flung face-down and taken, filthy little whore, you asked for it, you want it like this, right? You want it like this— 

The few times you’d had sex, that assumption had left you shaking in the bathroom after, still drunk or high or both, wiping cum off your face or scraping it out of yourself, rubbing the tacky film of it between your fingers until it got grainy. 

The shame of it all, the shame of your body glaring back at you in the mirror like a creature unknown. Because you had wanted it like that, but not really, and you hadn’t known how to say it right, or maybe they hadn’t listened, and you hadn’t blamed them for it, except you had. Most of the time you blamed yourself, an archaic miserable reflex that seemed to define every aspect of you being a fucking woman. 

When you thought about what you wanted, sometimes all you were left with was a feeling.

You thought of big sure hands helping you out of your shoes, unlacing one, then the other. You thought of your hair being washed and your mouth being fed and your cheeks being kissed, one at a time.

It was so embarrassingly sexless.

All you wanted was to know with a kind of relief that you could let go now, that it was going to be okay, and that for a blissful fucking moment, you didn’t have to be yourself anymore. 

You could just want. 

You could be all of your wanting at once and nothing more.

· · ❁ · ·

“Mornin’.”

You didn’t open your eyes.

A low chuckle from above. “I know you ain’t asleep.”

With a tired groan, you cracked one eye open, then the other. Rhett had changed into a T-shirt and sweats. He’d showered, hair still damp and curling at his neck.

He was staring. You knew why. Your dress lay puddled on his living room floor. 

Still hazy from sleep, was it so terrible to let yourself be looked at like this? The worn cotton T-shirt you’d snatched from Rhett’s drawer riding up your stomach as you stretched.

You caught the bob in his slender throat. He was pretty like this, you thought. A patch of sunlight spilled across the side of his face, eyes a tremendous shock of blue. He smelled like his deodorant, his aftershave. His hand so close to your face all you’d have to do was open your mouth. 

“You feeling better?” you said, voice frayed with leftover sleep.

A night on Rhett’s couch always left you a little discombobulated. It was deep and wide, all buttery brown leather, the kind you sunk into as if lazing in a palm.

Your gaze climbed from his hand up to his bare arm, from his throat to his freshly shaven jaw. You were so tired you couldn’t hide from him.

You fell all the way open.

His hand twitched like maybe he’d reach out. 

But you two were good at this game. Especially sober, in the daylight. 

Rhett cleared his throat. “Making breakfast. You hungry?” His attention wavered on your mouth. 

You swallowed. He tracked it.  

“Starvin’,” you drawled in some faux-impression of him, in the hopes it was silly enough to lighten the mood.  

He chuckled. “Starvin’, huh? Okay, cowboy.” He grabbed a pillow and whacked your thigh, “Giddy-up,”  before heading to the kitchen, limping slightly.

Had he not taken his painkillers?

“How do scrambled eggs and pancakes sound?” he tossed over his shoulder.

“Uh—Heavenly?” 

“Okay, calm down, they’re more for me than for you.”

“Liar. If I weren’t here, you’d have a cigarette and a Bud Light.”

“If I didn’t make sure you ate properly, you’d be having orange juice Captain Crunch three times a day.”

“It’s delicious?”

“It’s deranged, is what it is.”

You laughed, more out of relief than anything else. This was normal. You could deal with normal. 

Not bothering with putting on your dress, you dragged yourself to the kitchen in nothing but his T-shirt and your underwear. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight—you’d weathered the occasional hangover on his couch wearing less—but something about this felt different. There was too much inside of you, and after last night, you didn’t know how to look at him without thinking about the way he’d called you darlin'.  

You managed to sit through a painfully normal breakfast—radio on, mundane small talk—and even though it wasn’t Captain Crunch with orange juice, it would do (a mumbled statement that earned you a balled-up paper towel to the head).

You helped clear the table after, before heading out to brush your teeth. When you returned the radio was off, and Rhett was stooped over the sudsy sink, placing a plate onto the drying rack. You hoisted yourself onto the kitchen table and watched as he washed his hands, slowly, methodically, staring out the window like he was thinking. 

“You want the talking stick?” you said. 

Rhett huffed a laugh, bracing his hands on the edge of the sink, looking down, looking up. His wide back expanded as he took a breath. You almost expected him to shake his head when he finally spoke: “Who bit your arm?”

You blinked. “What?”

“I know what a bite mark looks like.” Of course Rhett Abbott would know what a bite mark looked like. It almost made you laugh, the ridiculousness of it. “Are you getting into fights I don’t know about? Or is Maya—”

“Oh God,” you pitched forward, “no, of course not! Biting’s not her style. She prefers dish towels.” You were joking but Rhett wasn’t laughing.

This whole moment felt unreal. You hadn't thought about it in days. The bruise was already healing anyway, yellow and mottled and absolutely not worth being contemplated on.

You raked through yourself for another answer, something stupid enough, something unbelievable: Tres, the three-legged goat? The wonky convection oven at the bakery? A rabid child on the street—

“Are you ever going to tell me?” Rhett gripped into the sink so hard his hands paled from the pressure. 

The question surprised you.

You remembered how he’d asked you that the night before.  

It made the same frustrating weight sink onto your chest. You squeezed your eyes shut and opened them again, vision splotchy. Staring at the tender swirls of hair gathered at the nape of Rhett’s neck, you took a breath and you said, “It was me.” 

You watched as the color blotted back into his hands. 

“I was in the shower,” you said. Then, “I was...thinking of you.”

Remembering then how his finger had traced along the tender swell of the bruise just hours later, in the bar, in the red lights, and how you’d secretly hoped he’d press down to make it ache, make you remember how much you’d wanted him, in that moment, in the bathtub surrounded by the splotchy shower curtain, the tiles painted in dried suds, like Venus in her shell, shaking open, shaking apart. 

I was thinking of you.

You closed your eyes when Rhett finally turned. Sitting on the kitchen table, legs dangling over the edge, you kept yourself still. You listened to his breath ragged and strange in the quiet. A warble of birds outside. The creak of the floorboards as he came to you. 

His closeness was a cloud bank rolling in, suddenly all around, the smell of him, coffee and deodorant and soap. Your face lifted on instinct. Eyes still closed, you basked in the heat of his breath pouring across your forehead, your cheeks. 

I was thinking of you.

All of you sighed open. 

And you waited for him in that blackness, until you felt the distinct prickle of skin on skin, a knuckle maybe, a single finger running down the inside of your forearm, down, down, before it reached that tender spot. 

He pressed. 

Your eyes snapped open. Sunlight turned that blue stare into something startling, electric. 

As if moving through a trance, your hand settled atop his still on your arm, finding his thumb and digging it into the bruise even harder. That dull ache turned sharp, shot right through you.

Eyes twitching, mouth opening. The sound you made.

Rhett looked at you like he’d never seen you before. 

Letting go of his hand, you reached for him, digging your fingers into the hair bunched at the nape of his neck, and you pulled him close, pulled him all the way down. Your forehead rolled against his, your nose mashing into his skin, mouth open, waiting, wanting so fucking much. Pleasepleasepleaseplease—

Rhett stopped you with a thumb on your bottom lip. You couldn’t even feel ashamed for spewing out the most pathetic huff. Filthy little whore. Your jaw loosening, tongue darting out to taste him, to dig your teeth into him just a little. 

But Rhett slid his thumb away, pressed it like a gentle warning into your cheek.

“Do you want this?” His voice cracked right in the middle. 

You nodded, nose bumping against his a little too hard. 

“Speak up for me—”

“Yes.” 

“Good,” he said, he smiled small. You wanted to bite at it, make it bigger. “You say the word and we stop, okay?”

You nodded. He waited.

"Okay," you said.

“We’ll go slow. Yeah?”

You nodded again, numbed to everything except for him. “Yes, please.”

Rhett groaned, leaning into you so completely your mouths almost collided. “God, you kill me with all your please-and-thank-yous. You’re so good. You wanna be good for me?” He said it like he was testing something. And your chin nudged forward, body bending towards him, and whatever he was looking for, he found it in the way your legs fell open all the way.

Gripping into the back of your knees, he dragged you closer, his thighs sliding between yours, and you sputtered a breath when you felt the hot press of him against all of you.

“Yes,” you breathed. 

“You are, darlin’. "

Darlin'

"Fuck, you are. You don’t even know how damn good you are.” His hands sliding back up your side, your throat, gripping your jaw to tip your face towards him. Your fingers fumbling to hook into his forearms. You felt as though all you were doing was holding on.

Letting him lead. Letting him keep you like this.

He made you wait. Ran the tip of his nose almost soothingly along the bridge of yours. Lips taunting, that terrible shudder of closeness that escaped you every time your mouth tried desperately to meet his.  

You thought of the way he ran his hand along the flank of his horse, patted her once, twice. Easy, girl—

Maybe you hated him for it. How much he undid you. How he had you sitting there, soaking in it, vibrating inside all of your unbearable catastrophic fucking need like he had you leashed. 

“Please,” you finally mouthed into the heat of his breath. And his eyes flashed. And when you were ready to plead just one more time, without an ounce of shame left, his mouth collapsed against yours. 

It surged through you like a spinal tap.

Drawing out, deeper, digging all the way in, tongue and teeth, the smooth jut of his chin.

Your hands were everywhere, unsure of what they wanted to grab hold of first, like a woman drowning; in his hair, on his jaw, scraping down his wide shoulders, sliding up the heat of his neck—Here and here and here, let me touch you right here. 

Rhett’s hands stayed bolted to your jaw. You felt like he was the only thing keeping you upright, like you’d unspool if he ever let you go. 

You were a wanton thing, wincing into his open mouth. A constant drool of need. And you were hot. God, you were so hot. You couldn’t breathe with how hot you were. Yanking at your shirt, you just wanted it off, off. Rhett nipped at your bottom lip once, and then he was smiling. Was he laughing? Like he was catching on, like he took such pity on you. Your teeth clacked against his. You couldn't keep your shit together. You couldn't think, you couldn't think...

“I want—” You tugged at the shirt until his hands joined yours. “I want all of it off.” You sounded drunk, like you were listening to yourself from one room over.

“Okay. Okay, darlin’, I got you.” And he did. He helped you peel the shirt off, but it snagged on your elbow, and your face was stuck against threadbare cotton, and you laughed, because what the fuck? Here you were, going crazy on Rhett Abbott’s kitchen table. 

You were still laughing when the shirt finally came off, laughing harder when Rhett tossed it over his shoulder and it landed on the coffee maker.

He was smiling above you, the morning light painting him soft and perfect as he combed the hair out of your eyes.

You wanted to run your fingers over his face, read him like braille.

It was a foreign realization that, now, here, you could. You could do so much. You could have all the things that had piled inside of you, one on top of the other. All of your fucking wanting, it felt bigger than your body. You were so full. And it was just the two of you, and this was Rhett, and it was all going to be okay, it was okay to let go of him and to lean back, push the leftover coffee mugs to the edge of the table, to let Rhett huff a strangled laugh when one of them thunked to the floor, like he couldn’t believe that he was here like this, with you.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered, staring down at you 

A hand traced where your body met the table, like he was cutting along the shape of you, skin sliding against yours as he traveled up and up, past each dip of your ribs, your arms, shoulders, up the hollow of your throat to your collarbone, to that dip right in-between, where the pendant of your necklace rested.

He pushed it in just a bit, and the pressure made you arch, made you mad with it. “Fuck, look at you, baby."

Baby.

You were baby. 

“No one’s ever taken care of you, huh? You poor thing.” His lilting condescension left you gaping. “Remember what you told me? You’ll tell me what you want. You’ll tell me, yeah? How do you want it, baby? I’ll take such good fucking care of you.”

He leaned over you, ghosting his mouth over your jaw, kissing you there, so unhurried. “Where do you want me?”

Everywhere.

You swallowed, shaking your head, eyes screwed shut. 

Fucking everywhere, all at once, all the time.

You make me want so much it pushes out everything else. 

He chuckled into your neck. “Gotta tell me, baby.” Sucked at your skin with tongue and teeth. His T-shirt hung low enough it grazed over your nipples. You arched into him.

He hummed. “Here?” His thumb tenderly traveled up the swell of your breast and tapped against your nipple. Breath hitching, you shook your head.

“What about here?” His mouth pressed a wet kiss to your clavicle. No. Going lower, kissing a path to your other breast, breath gathering over it. You closed your eyes when he looked at you.

“And here?” His tongue like a small flame over your nipple, laving at it so softly, round and round, the wet sweep making you dizzy. Losing yourself in it. Chest bowing up into his mouth, arching so high it hurt. 

He bit down once. You whined. Shook your head again, not there. 

On and on it went:

Here? Mouth on your sternum. And what about here? Hands grabbing your waist. A soft scatter of kisses around your belly button. Biting into the soft flesh of your tummy until it kicked a laugh out of you. No, stop, stop. Okay, okay. Here? He fed your fingers into his mouth, the warm glide of his tongue, snag of teeth when they caught on your knuckles. And here? Baby, what about here? Spit on his chin as bent down to lave at each hipbone—No, no, no.

Here? Traveling lower and lower to kiss the top of a thigh, then inside of it with a drag of his tongue.

Your body hiccuped once and hard with need. 

Rhett moved around you with the same intensity he had waiting in the chute at the rodeo, holding something back, containing it. You wanted to slam it open, wanted him thrashing and sweating and tossed around, you wanted and you wanted, you wanted so much. 

Maybe he took mercy on you, or maybe he’d run out of patience, when he finally—finally—parted your legs. That pained sound of his. That sweet little oh. “Fuck. You’re so wet. You need it that bad, hm?"

You were nodding again. "Yes—" Could he tell how hard you were nodding?

You heard the distinct drag of a chair on the hardwood floor, and you could’ve laughed at the ridiculousness of seeing him sitting at the kitchen table, the very one you’d just had breakfast at, now covered in the sprawl of your naked body, soaked and aching, your thighs parted for him, right foot resting on the back of the chair. 

Rhett must’ve caught on because he laughed, tipping his head against your leg, kissing your calf. You hissed when he nipped at you there. “God, I could—” Groaning into your skin. “I could take a fucking bite out of you it's not even funny. Jesus.”

With his arms hooked around your legs, his kisses traveled up the inside of your thigh. You watched, open-mouthed, slack-jawed, as his dark swirl of hair traveled between your legs. 

You’d fucked yourself to the thought of this. 

“You want it here, baby?” He nosed at the elastic of your underwear, warm breath pouring over you. 

You nodded so hard your head knocked against the table. You were swimming in it. The whole world swimming with you. “Yes, please…” 

His murmured curse.

Your desperate whine.

Before finally, a kiss to your cotton-covered clit. 

It made your whole body still.

“How you do you want it?” he mumbled it against you. Right there. Down there.

You knew he wasn't expecting you to answer, but your needing felt vicious like this, burned in the back of your throat, and you thought:

Messy.

And with a shame that bloomed hot and red across your chest, you realized you'd pleaded for it out loud, voice like a frayed rope one pull away from snapping. 

Rhett's lashes were long and dark as he looked up at you. He huffed a laugh.

Something about it sounded very, very mean. 

He gave your clit another quick kiss. And then another and another, longer this time, until his mouth opened, tongue flattening against the center of you. You felt him gather spit, felt the hot gush of it. How he grabbed the elastic of your underwear to stretch it across you so tight it made your clit thrum, holding you there, strumming his thumb up and down, playing with it. “Look at this.” Before giving you a quick pat, once, twice—the peeling wetness of it in the quiet. “Fuck, baby—”

Before you had time to gather enough breath, Rhett buried his face into you, mouth mashing against you there, right there. Taking big bites. Spit and tongue and heat that drooled right through you. He groaned, pressing in deeper, the wide pad of his tongue nudging your clit, over and over, working you like this, until you were soaked enough a string of wetness followed when Rhett finally pulled off your underwear.

He flung it across the kitchen, uncaring, and you heard it land somewhere on the floor with a slop.

You were completely naked then, and he stared down at you like he wanted to be everywhere but he knew he had to make a choice. 

It made your brain light up. It made you writhe when his palm pressed a smooth circle over your aching core, before cupping it once and hard, holding you like this, holding all of you at once. “You’re so perfect, baby. Look at you being so perfect for me.” His endless reserve of nonsensical drivel, slow and honeyed and drawling, like he was pouring it into you. 

You wanted more, you waited for it, legs opening wider, wider.

A breath, then—he spit on your hole.

It felt fucking preposterous.

And then his mouth was on you again. Without that barrier of cotton from before, everything was raw, wetness wetter, pressure harder. His tongue, spongy and hot against you, teeth scraping across your clit. Pulling in a deep mouthful. You felt it everywhere when he moaned. His head shaking once like something gone rabid.

One of his hands dug into your stomach, the other crept up the front of your throat, digging for entrance when it reached your mouth. You let him in, his thick fingers pressing into your tongue. 

“Spit.” He said it right against your clit, before sucking. 

You’d caught the undertone: You want messy? I’ll give you fucking messy—

You grabbed his wrist, laved at his fingers, until you felt a dribble down your chin, and before you could get lost in the pressure of something thick and foreign in your mouth, he pulled his hand back, smearing the mess over your aching hole. Thumb flicking fast—before stopping. You punched out a pitiful cry. 

“You want my fingers, hm? You think this sweet pussy wants my fingers?”

You knocked your head into the table so hard your ears rung, yesyesyesyesyes. Nodding and nodding and nodding and nodding. 

You were so open and so wet, he easily breached you.

Full of him. You were full with him.

His fingers curled against that spongy rippling spot inside of you, that spot that gave way completely. He pressed down on your stomach, hard, and you keened, elbows digging into the table, your hands hovering, twitching in the air. 

Rhett was strong enough to keep you from moving too much. You blamed all those damn bulls. His body moved on instinct, meeting each buck and squirm of you. He’d told you once that it was never about anticipating the next move, it was about response, action-reaction, it was all reflex when he was on that saddle. 

You couldn’t keep still, hips jerking, lurching wildly beneath him. You were everywhere. You were fucking dynamite. But he pressed you down, fingers working inside of you with that steady unbreakable rhythm. His tongue on your clit. The filthy sounds of it dripping into the kitchen, all the lapping, the squelch of his fingers, your wet keening sobs. You let him fuck you and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you like this. Your hands finally tearing in his hair. Feet fumbling to find the back of the chair for leverage, trying to ride his face, his fingers.

Don’t stop, you thought so hard it charged through you like voltage. Please, “Don’t stop—” 

His hand on your stomach splayed wider, pressed down, gripping into you—and you realized he’d felt your body tense up faster than you had. 

Something about Rhett feeling you were about to come made your vision blurry. His body meeting yours at every turn. 

You said his name then. He groaned something into you, but you couldn’t hear it over the pulsing in your ears. Chest arching, legs buckling around his head. 

You came in complete and utter silence. 

Eyes screwed shut, dropping into blackness.

You thought you might've reached the bottom of something.

It was so perfect you wanted to cry.

The slow drag of his tongue coaxed you back slowly. His fingers had slipped out, now tracing soothing wet circles on the inside of your thigh. You couldn’t believe Rhett's head was still between your legs, mouth lazily lapping up the mess. You gently pushed him away, clit too sensitive for more. 

Rhett blinked, bleary-eyed. He looked wild. Hair a mess, face ruddy and wet. Covered in you. 

“Holy shit..” His voice was nothing but a low rasp.

Holy shit.

The chair jerked back as he stood again, roughly wiping his face on his T-shirt with such habitual boyishness you couldn’t help but reach for him. Delirious, gooey-warm. You were kissing him and kissing him, kissing him all over. You could taste yourself on him. 

"Did so well for me, baby." He murmured in between kisses, smiling slow. "So fucking good." His hands gripped your head, turning you this way and that like he was checking in.

You couldn't do anything but nod. Your legs felt gummy as you wrapped them around his hips to pull him close. His hardness ground right against you.

Rhett hissed. Eyes squeezing shut. Nodding his head almost absentmindedly when you hooked your fingers into the waistband of his sweats to pull them down. 

You felt hungry with it. Insatiable.

Rhett’s cock was heavy and full as it sprung free, the glossy-pink tip swollen with all his aching. Your mouth went numb, filling with spit, with how much you wanted to taste him, slide him all the way into you until you stopped breathing.

But Rhett was shaking his head, no. “I won’t last, baby—” Raw enough it almost felt like he was the one pleading with you now. 

You didn’t want him pleading.

You wanted him to feel good. All you wanted was for him to feel good.

Without a word, you wiped a hand through the wet mess between your legs, all his spit, all yours, all your cum, the terrible gush of you, and you spread it over him in a slow filthy pump. He was so big, you stacked one hand over the other.

Rhett tipped forward, his jaw slack, transfixed as he watched your hands move over him. “Hah—fuck me...” One wet deliberate slide after the other, his hips bucking forward.

Next time, you thought, you'd have him all the way inside of you. You could almost imagine it when Rhett leaned over you, caged you in with shaking arms. His mouth buried in your throat, licking a hot strip to your ear, slurring more of his sweet nonsense, so fucking good, baby, oh my god, baby just like that, fuck fuck fuck—

He was thrusting into your hands so hard the table kept jerking back, hitting the window sill. The little ceramics there rattling. One fell to the floor. The back of your head knocked against something hard enough it left you dazed, and Rhett's bumbling hands came up to cradle you there, soothe you through it. Fuck, you good, baby?

He was so perfect it killed you, he fucking killed you.

You kissed him, breathed straight out of his mouth. All you wanted was to make him come for you. Come for me. Please, please.

And when he finally did, when his hips met yours in a wet cuff, when he groaned into your mouth, broken, out of it—he spilled hot onto your stomach.

Forehead to forehead.

Breathing heavy.  

You felt the wet drag of his spent cock run from your stomach down to your pubis, where he patted it against your clit, once, like some nasty little parting gift, like a promise.

You kissed him one last time before you collapsed onto your back.

For a moment, neither of you said a word. You watched each other. Eyelids heavy. You realized you were breathing in time.

Out of all the places in the world, you thought.

Somewhere in the thick of it, you ran a finger through the puddle of cum on your stomach. Cool now. Spread it across your tongue—acidy, bitter. 

The taste of him.

You wanted to disappear into it. 

“You’ve gotta stop or you’ll actually kill me,” Rhett groaned, leaning in all the way. He gently grabbed you by the jaw, kissed you, wet and open-mouthed, the slip of his tongue going deep. “You’re so good,” he murmured against your lips. "You're so good..." Giving you one sweet peck, then another. 

And you were still stuck in your daze, sitting at the bottom of this thing that felt vast and everywhere. Sunlight poured through the windows, cradling you in the warmth of your afterglow.

Before you could feel ashamed for it, you let it slip: “thank you, daddy.”

And Rhett looked at you like he'd received an answer to a question he hadn’t known how to ask.

· · ❁ · ·

Afterward, Rhett piled you into his arms and carried you to the bathroom.

You thought distantly of all the other times you’d had to clean yourself up alone.

Rhett was dense and fumbling after “coming my damn brains out, Christ.” But he was trying his best to be slow with you, helping you into the shower.

The two of you swaying like drunkards in the hot spray of the shower head.

You were so tired.

You’d been holding on to something so deeply for so long, it was knocked loose now, it was open like a wound. You imagined the water rushing in, clearing it out until the blood ran clear.

While you both rinsed yourself off, Rhett’s mouth found you every once in a while. It felt like he was making sure you were still there. Pressing a kiss to your temple, the top of your head, a scatter of them on your shoulder. 

Once even, he lifted your hand and kissed the inside of your palm with such tenderness you wanted to die.

· · ❁ · ·

“What now?” Rhett murmured into your damp hair. 

You were on the back deck, curled in his lap on your favorite wicker chair. Sunlight splintered through the trees as it hit the floor. A patch of it warming your bare feet.

It had taken you a while to climb out of the daze, find your way back to your body. Slowly, slowly, mind un-blurring until you felt coherent.

Your voice was a dry rasp when you finally spoke. “Do you think people should be fucking members of their support group?”

“Okay.” Scoffing, Rhett jiggled you in his lap. “Fucking? Really?”

“Fine. Fraternizing.”

He shot you a withering look. It made you snort. 

You knew he was right.

Whatever you’d done on his kitchen table, it had left something big inside of you. It felt important. 

“Who would’ve thought Rhett Abbott was such a closet romantic,” you mumbled, delighting in the way he rolled his eyes. 

Leaving it at that, you curled back into his chest, lazily lifting a finger and tracing along the soft slope of his nose, down his Cupid’s Bow, each curve of each lip.

Look at you—so surprisingly tender.

He opened his mouth to nip at your finger.

“We’ll go slow,” you whispered, echoing the words he’d said to you before, with such reassurance it felt rooted deep.

“Alright,” he murmured, nodding, letting you press your finger to his jaw to make him look at you. “Slow. I can do slow.”

You couldn't help your grin, thinking about all the things he'd done to you in his kitchen just an hour ago. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

He quirked a mean smile, pinching your side until you laughed.

Like this, you didn’t feel difficult or complicated or messy.

Your laughter spiraled as you tipped your head back from so much delight. 

You let it shake through you.

You let it shake through the tin roof and the wicker chair and the rocks on the railing and the sun and the pine trees and the grass and the dirt and the valley that rolled all the way to your sister's house, the very place you'd started calling home the second your duffle bag hit the welcome mat.

And finally, you let it shake through him, sitting there, washed in shards of sunlight—looking at you like you were the easiest thing to love. 

[sebsxphia]

possibility.

rhett abbott x reader.

￫ summary: maybe you and rhett could make this work.

￫ word count: 753.

￫ warnings: mentions of pregnancy, pregnancy tests, tiny bit of angst and fluff.

￫ authors notes: i experienced something similar recently. putting it down in writing helps :) enjoy! please note, i understand that this topic is sensitive, therefore i’m not using my taglist for this fic. my main masterlist can be found here! 💌

“I mean…”

You delicately twiddled the test between your fingers. The electronic writing reading, ‘NOT PREGNANT’ glared up at you, and you felt your heart sink slightly with disappointment. You quietly mourned the life you had envisioned for a moment.

Since you had realised that you were over two weeks late, you had battled with this idea in your head for the last two days.

You daydreamed about telling people and pictured their reactions. Your stomach got small fluttering butterflies when thinking about Rhett decorating a spare room. You thought about this very scenario, right here in the bathroom, of Rhett crouching beside you, as you both awaited the results with baited breath.

Every way that you looked at it, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world right now.

You and Rhett had been together for over three years. Two years ago, it wouldn’t have been right, but since then you’ve both toyed with the idea of spending forever together. For the past year, you’ve been saving for your own home together. Last week you contacted the local estate agent to move ahead with these plans. By the time you would have moved in together, your nine months would soon be up.

“…It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world right now.”

Rhett replied in a beat. “I agree. It wouldn’t.”

His response made your face light up. You quickly shot a hopeful look at him, your heart rising with relief that he too thought the same as you. “Maybe two years ago…”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t have been right. We talked about it, I remember. But now, wi’ the house ‘nd everythin’…” Rhett was so eager to agree with you.

It came from a place of wanting to reassure your racing brain (because he could see in your eyes how you were pacing around in your head) and because he too, was just as giddy at the same prospect.

“It could work. It could work, right, Rhett?” Your gaze widened at him, as you internally double-checked that he was onboard with you and this exciting opportunity.

“Yeah, darlin’. Absolutely.” He nodded with a hopeful smile matching your own, his eyes crinkling up in the corners, in familiar lines. He pressed his forehead against yours and you stayed connected like that for a moment, letting the telling silence wash over you both.

You were both pulled out of your little world when you heard Cecilia’s voice booming up the stairs.

“Rhett?!”

“Yea’, Mom?!” He hollered back.

“Dinners on th’ table.” Her voice faded away as she hurried back to the kitchen.

“Be there in a minute.” He half heartedly called out, knowing that she was already gone.

He brought his head back to yours and placed a tender kiss on your forehead. His hands found yours in your lap and his thumb rubbed those little reassuring circles over your skin.

He broke the silence once more. “C’mon, let’s go eat.”

You had forgotten for a moment that you were still sitting on the toilet with your underwear around your ankles. Rhett slipped them up your legs as you let out a quiet snicker.

Once you were fully dressed again and that the pregnancy test had been buried deep enough into the bin, he drew you into a close and loving embrace, in the small and quiet space of the bathroom. You could hear his heartbeat thrum rhythmically under his cotton t-shirt, as he held your head against his broad chest.

“Can we talk about this more later, baby?” You mumbled against the fabric, trying to burrow yourself deeper into him.

“Sure, my darlin’.” His large hand smoothed over the back of your head, with careful reassurance. “You got baby names ready, or somethin’?” He lightheartedly joked with a chuckle.

You pulled back to look at him with snorted laughter. His lips had quirked up into a playful grin.

This was a side of Rhett that anyone was rarely privy to. He was humorous and so deeply loving. Any laughter that came from him sang like a sweet serenade to your ears.

This was the Rhett that you wanted to share a home with, share a child with, and share the rest of your life with. When you would go downstairs to eat dinner with his family, a large portion of him would shut off. You wanted to see him be whole.

But this moment, in this small and rickety bathroom, gave you a glimmer into a blossoming and loving life with Rhett.

[houseofaegon]

WEST COAST ╱ RHETT ABBOTT X SURFER!READER SERIES

"down on the west coast, they got a sayin' "if you're not drinkin', then you're not playin'" but you've got the music in you, don't you?"

+18 MINORS DNI 𓏲  ◟ ♡ ˖ ࣪  explicit sexual content, alcohol consumption, strong language and profanity, angst and emotional conflict, jealousy, possessiveness, homesickness, aggression and confrontations, boy next door vibes, strangers to lovers. california girl meets western cowboy, each chapter will have specific content warnings.

SUMMARY: You're pure Malibu, a California girl at heart—sunshine, surfing, and saltwater running through your veins. Riding waves has always been second nature, but riding horses in dusty Wyoming? Definitely not your thing. When your family trades the California coast for the ranch life in Wabang, Wyoming, you clash immediately with the small-town culture and the cocky bull rider next door, Rhett Abbott. He’s brooding, possessive, and infuriatingly attractive, making you question everything you thought you wanted. Suddenly, you're caught between two worlds—ocean tides and dirt roads, California beaches and Wyoming nights, torn between homesickness and the magnetic pull of Rhett’s touch. They say home is where the heart is…but what happens when your heart belongs in two places at once?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: this fic does not follow the main plot of outer range so it can be read without having watched the series, there are no spoilers. this is mostly an alternative universe per se. my brain's been working 24/7 non stop after i wrote my first rhett fic, so i had to comply to my deepest darkest desires and write a series for him. oops?? it's gonna be a short series, only 5 chapters!! thank you for giving west coast a chance. this series was such a joy to create and plan—the angst, the drama, the tension!!!! it's really an emotional rollercoaster and it had me screaming and crying the entire time. i can't wait to dive in and share this story with all of you. i hope you like it. i'm head over heels for rhett abbott and i can't get enough!!! love always, your friendly neighborhood cowboy lover, bri.

WEST COAST SERIES ╱ CHAPTER ONE: SURFER TURNS WESTERN. CHAPTER TWO: MALIBU MEETS MIDWEST. CHAPTER THREE: COWBOY CASANOVA. CHAPTER FOUR: ROUGH TIDES. CHAPTER FIVE: FEELS LIKE HOME.

"ohh, baby, ooh, baby, i'm in love"

𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐅𝐀𝐄𝐆𝐎𝐍 © 2025. DO NOT STEAL, REPOST, OR COPY THIS STORY TO TUMBLR, WATTPAD, AO3, OR ANY OTHER PLATFORM. Moodboards and dividers made by @houseofaegon DO NOT repost or reuse without credit.

TAGLIST: add yourself to my taglists!!

[creatchie8]

Rodeo Queen

Summary: As a two-time Rodeo Queen and a skilled barrel racer, you are asked to be a guest judge at the Amelia County Fair. You learn quickly it is going to take more than your charming personality to gain the respect you deserve

Pairing: Rhett Abbott/Rodeo Queen!Reader

Warnings: Minors DNI! Oral (F receiving), unprotected pinv sex, a tiny angst, alcohol consumption, light bondage

A/N: I wrote this instead of working on my finals, it was an idea I just couldn't shake. I am obsessed with the idea that Rhett folds for any strong independent woman

Word Count: 5,000ish

As you walked out of your trailer, a crisp breeze hit your face. Much to your relief, it cooled you down significantly, the space heater in your trailer running the whole time you were in there getting dressed and doing your makeup.

Your sister, also known as your ‘personal stylist’ insisted it was much too cold out for it to not be on. Even when you assured her it was only fifty degrees outside. 

Now here she is walking beside you in a giant puffer coat while you try to tune her out and focus on calming yourself down. No matter how many rodeos you went to, how many speeches you gave, how many parades you've rode in, all of it still riddled you with anxiety. 

It did not help one bit that everyone in the ‘Riders Only’ prep area was gawking at you. You did stick out like a sore thumb.

Decked out in a gorgeous scarlet button up, adorned with detailed black beading along the collar and cuffs and matching chaps over your bootcut jeans. Atop your head sitting a black wide-brimmed cowboy hat. 

Though, the most glaring of all would have to be your pearly white sash, dark cursive letters writing out ‘Canyon County Queen’. 

Nearing what you assume to be the other royalty court, you look extremely overdressed. Silently, you curse your sister for suggesting this outfit. 

“That’s Miss. Amelia County over there, Alexis is her name. Taylor is Miss. Junior-” Your sister starts, whispering in your ear before you wave her away, already stopping in front of the two girls. 

Politely, you introduce yourself and your sister, shaking hands with them. Taylor immediately lights up with recognition, giving you a toothy smile as her braces glint in the stadium lights. Alexis is equally as nice, more quiet and reserved compared to her younger counterpart. 

It didn't take much waiting near the green utility gate before handlers approach the four of you with horses. 

“Is this one mine? Oh thank you- gosh he’s handsome!” You gush to the man bringing a stunning bay with white markings on his face towards you. You shake his hand (if being a rodeo queen has taught you anything, it’s how to give a good handshake) and take the reins from him. He introduces himself as Bill, the man who you had emailed earlier this month when you were looking for a horse to ride this weekend. 

“Do you have your phone? Give me your phone, it’s almost call time.” You hear your sister behind you say, already reaching for your back pocket as you spin around to face her.

“Here-” You take it out of your jeans and roll your eyes playfully, “Don’t be bad while I’m away.” You chide and kiss her cheek before slotting your foot in a stirrup and hoisting yourself up on the huge horse with minimal help from the handler. 

“His name is Merlot, my daughter’s horse.” Bill explains, rubbing the palm of his hand over the horse’s neck before a younger man comes up and hands you the American flag pole to hold. 

“Well, be sure to tell your daughter thank you. She’s a very lucky girl.” You grin down at him before being called over to where the gate opens up to the arena, following Alexis and Taylor. 

An older woman with a very professional demeanor greets the three of you before briefly explaining the game plan, arranging by flags with you last to enter. Merlot shifts beneath you, stepping back as Alexis’ horse flicks him in the nose with her tail as you wait for the opening music. 

Soon enough, some random rock song plays and you are off, pressing your heels firmly into Merlot’s sides to urge him along with the other horses.

You grip the wooden pole and his reins tightly, plastering the biggest smile on your face as he enters an energetic gallop. Your body rocks with the power of his strides, the roar of the decently sized crowd making your body buzz with excitement as he takes you in a circle around the ring.

“And last but not least holding the American flag, Idaho’s very own Canyon County Rodeo Queen! First claiming her title in 2023 and again in 2024, this two time winner hails from Wilson, Wyoming. A skilled barrel racer and coming from a long line of pros, we are lucky to have her as a guest bull riding judge tonight!” The announcer roars through the crackling intercom system. Your palms prickle with the thrill of it all, coming to a stop and facing the audience with Alexis and Taylor on either side of you. 

Carefully you transfer the reins to your other hand, waving to the crowd and blowing an air kiss to them as he finishes reading the bio your agent sent. You can feel Merlot’s back legs lock as you sit there half listening to the announcer, his warmth and heavy breath beneath you draws your full attention away from the national anthem. You watch as his ears twitch and you pat his neck reassuringly as Merlot pulls on the reins. 

With the anthem done, you take him back through the gate, keeping a smooth trot till you find Bill and the young man with him. They help you dismount, your boots kicking up dust as you land, thanking them again and venturing back to the trailer where you have no doubt your sister is. 

-

You do have to admit, without your chaps on it is kinda cold out here. Only a few steps out of your trailer you turn on your heels and sprint back inside, your sister already calling after you. You return with a heavy brown bomber jacket on your shoulders, fixing your hair as the two of you make your way over to the judge’s station. 

It’s more modest than you are used to, just a folding table with chairs pressed against the fence on the opposite side of the opening gate. A darker skinned man sits there with a pen in hand, ordering the scoresheets. 

“You must be David Acothley. I’m-” You start, extending your hand towards him.

“Miss. Canyon County herself, pleasure to meet you.” He interrupts, taking your hand. His eyes are like warm chocolate, inviting you in as he gestured to the empty seat beside him. You turn back to your sister and bid her goodbye as you sit, taking your stack of the sheets. 

“You sure you know what you're doin’?” He asks, handing you a pen.

Internally, you roll your eyes and cringe. Your previous positive thoughts about him disappearing into annoyance. 

“Yup.” 

And you refuse to make anything but curt small talk with him the rest of the night. 

-

“Now up is Wabang’s very own hometown hero, Rhett Abbott! Let's show some love to our local boy!” You hear over the speakers, the crowd quite possibly going crazier than when you were announced. You see a tall man enter the chute, his hair was longer, neutral brown in color. Number eleven was pinned to his back, the paper looking small compared to his wide shoulders. 

With a sharp nod, the gate springs open and the massive beast bursts from its containment. Powerful muscles rippled under its dull black coat in an attempt to kick Rhett off. The arena is full of motion, the bull’s thick hooves tearing up the ground. 

He’s not keeping his heels up. You think to yourself, pen tapping on the paper. The eight seconds seem to last forever, nearing the end his rhythm is off, already slipping to the left side before his time is up. 

His control is way off.

As soon as his body hits the ground you scribble on your sheet. 

Fourteen for the bull, sixteen for Rhett. 

When you glance over at David’s sheet, seeing that he scored the bull seventeen and Rhett twenty-one, your opinion might not be very popular then. The runner takes the two of your sheets before you can even comprehend and runs it to the announcer’s booth to display it on the board, a total of sixty-eight. 

You can hear the crowd’s disappointment echoing through the arena and your eyes flick to the now standing cowboy. His face was turned to the screen, angled towards you. Rhett was quite handsome, you could tell even yards away from him. A strange feeling of warmth and a flutter in your chest took hold of you. So distracted you almost didn’t catch the look of dismay in his face before exiting the arena. 

- 

Music played over the speakers, the random podunk dive bar you were at was lively with people. Some of the barrel racers took pity and invited you to go drink with them. You jumped at the chance, eager to leave the trailer you had been in for the past two days. 

You had never changed so fast, scrubbing off your stage makeup and reapplying a more natural, minimalist look as a few girls stood in your trailer out of the cold. Trading your dressy button up for a branded quarter zip you finally blended in with the rest of them. 

You were already recognizing some of the men you judged, unable to recall their names as they slid up next to you to talk to the girls you were with. A few chatted with you, asking how the Canyon Night Rodeo scene was and if they should go next year. You were excited to talk with them, telling them all about qualifying and next year’s dates.

Playing pool with your newfound friends nursing a beer which had long gone warm, you feel a firm tap on your shoulder. Setting down your drink on an empty nearby table, you turn, tipping your hat up to see better.

Above you stands a tall, broad man. You recognized him after a few blinks. Rhett Abbott, Wabang’s Hometown Hero. 

“Hey Rhett, finally sick of Cowfish?” Joked the woman standing across the table from you.

“You know it, Sandy. This is a better bar anyways.” He responded, still looking at you with smooth blue eyes. His chin was scruffy, facial hair dark compared to his freckled skin.

“Sure it wasn't cause they kicked ya out?” She ragged, pulling giggles out of the rest of the girls, but he ignored her. 

Rhett was crossing his arms, swaying the tiniest bit. Curious, you cocked an eyebrow, wondering if he was drunk. It was like his shoulders were straining against his long sleeve carhartt, the blue sleeves hugging his biceps. 

“Hi Rhett, I’m-” You start, trying to make this whole situation less awkward, you could feel your friends staring holes in your back.

“I know who you are.” There was no malice, or really anything in his tone, just calm and steady as if he wasn't tapping his fingers almost nervously against his biceps.

When you got back to the trailer, you were going to pull your hair out. Interrupted again, it was like no one really cared who you were beyond the frills and white sash, even when you were wearing street clothes. You swore your eye twitch as you tried to muster up a smile that probably looked like a grimace. 

“What’s with my score?” He asked, just as if he was wondering why the sky was blue.

“Your score? What do you mean?” You laugh, glancing back at the rest of the girls before going back to Rhett. You had scored so many men that you barely even recall who topped the chart and was going out tomorrow night. 

“You gave me,” He huffed out a laugh and shook his head, “a fourteen and a sixteen. David told me.” 

This time, you did roll your eyes. Why did this David guy have so much beef with you? You didn't even know each other. That’s probably why no guy had stayed longer than to pick your brain on how to get ahead in the sport. Who knows how many guys he told about their less than desirable scores. 

“Listen Rhett.” You stated, stepping closer to him and straightening your shoulders, not eye level to him but tall enough so it didn't feel like he was intimidating you. You were close enough to smell him, salty and earthy with a hint of smoke, like he had a cigarette earlier. 

“I don't know what David told you, but I only give scores that people deserve. I have no prejudice against you or any other bullrider here. I’m just doing my job.”

“Do you have the qualifications to judge?”

Now that stung. It stung worse than when your childhood horse Oswin kicked you off and you believed for weeks that you broke your ass. Faintly, you could hear the barrel racers talking behind the two of you, the sound of them playing pool long gone. The kind part of you tried to reassure yourself that he was just some poor drunk, to just ignore him. 

“Do you know who I am? And don't say ‘Rodeo Queen’ cause that's not my name, buddy.” You snarked, planting your hands firmly on your hips. You await his answer, raising your eyebrows in question as he opens his mouth and shuts it with a click, looking down at his boots. 

“Right. So next time you wanna talk to me about scores, how ‘bout you address me by name and we can be civil.” You turn back to the pool table and grab your beer, taking a long swig and cringing at the warmness of it. 

“Just cause you're some legend’s daughter doesn't give you the right to judge hard, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart? 

Spinning right back around, your skin burns with animosity. You step up to him again, toe to toe. Even as he stumbles back you step forward again so you are basically nose to nose. Strange electricity crackles between the two of you as you press the lip of your bottle into his chest.

“Okay then, how ‘bout this. Your control is way off, and by the way you hold yourself,” You look him up and down, taking in his stance, and fuck, why does this dickhead have to be hot, “I suspect it has something to do with your core. That’s what's causing you to start slipping off the bull early and why your feet can't stay up.” You practically hiss, refusing to back down without a fight. You didn’t come this far to bow down to a shitty bull rider with an ego. 

Then something happens, and you swear you might be hallucinating. In Rhett’s clearly drunken state, you could've sworn the side of his lip twitched up in a smirk. It only lasts a second and you chalk it up to the dim bar light. It still makes an odd ache between your legs, realizing you two had been sharing breath and his eyes were fixed on your lips. 

Not wanting to waste a good night on an ignorant man, you step away and call over your shoulder, “And if I remember correctly, you still made qualifiers. So I'll see you tomorrow, Rhett.”

-

And you did see Rhett that next night, it was almost like he made sure of it too. 

He just so happened to be right near the entrance gate when you were mounting Merlot for the opening ceremony, chatting with who you assumed to be his friend. 

Rhett tipped his hat forward in a greeting, pulling a glare out of you. And now you have to listen to your sister gush about ‘that mysterious man’ and how pretty he was right up until you galloped away into the ring. 

Pretty fucking annoying. You think to yourself, and stew for the rest of the evening. 

You don't dare say a word to David when you join him to judge, now hyper aware of every time he looks over at your paper. Not that you cared at this point, tomorrow you would be driving back to Idaho never to think about Wabang and its residents ever again. 

Taking a deep breath as you hear Rhett’s name get called, you bite the inside of your cheek as he slides into the chute. The bull thrashes once, the sharp bang echoing through the arena, not even giving Rhett enough time to tie himself on. 

Out of the gate he looks better, maybe he actually listened to all the things you told him last night. He’s stiffer though, which does help him keep his feet by the bull’s shoulders but it interferes with his rhythm. He was too focused on staying upright, causing him to not be able to move with the bull. 

The bell sounds and he falls, feet slipping on the dirt as he tries to get away. 

He was significantly better than last time, but far from perfect. 

Sixteen for the bull, eighteen for Rhett.

Curious, you look over at David’s sheet. A twenty-one and twenty-two, which makes a total of seventy-seven. You don't even bother watching him find out what his score is, you just arrange your papers and get ready for the next guy. 

-

You're fiddling with the generator outside your trailer when you hear your name called out behind you. Getting up, you brush the dust off your jeans before turning around and locking eyes with the last person you want to see. 

“So you finally figured out my name, huh?” You ask and kneel back down to the generator, praying he leaves. You hear his boots move closer to you, stopping inches away from your crouched form. There was hardly anyone still here, most of them out celebrating or sleeping in their trailers. 

“Listen, I wanted to apologize for the way I acted last night. My momma raised me better than that.” Rhett admitted softly, “A couple of us are headed to the bar in a little and I was wonderin’ if you'd join us?”

“Thanks, but I doubt I’m welcome. I reckon David has told everyone how badly I fucked them by now.” You huff, and Rhett’s silence is all you need to hear. 

 Standing up and turning around, you stumble back with how close Rhett is, narrowly bumping right into his chest. You cross your arms and notice that he’s just in his button up, striped and blue, he looks infuriatingly good. 

“Have you also come to question me about your score?” You ask, it's cold enough that your breath creates steam in the nighttime air. 

“What? No I- I came here to apologize.” He furrows his brows, shoving his hands in his pockets. His admission to defeat makes you huff in annoyance. 

“Really? You're not the tiniest bit curious why I scored you the way I did?” You pressed. 

“Okay well maybe I am. But that was an afterthought to the apolo-” Rhett starts, taking off his cowboy hat and running his fingers through his hair. Hair that you wanted to touch, hair that you desired to feel the texture of. 

“You were too stiff this time. Yes, your legs were up which earned you some points but it's not all about that.” You interrupt, gesturing to the arena, “Now, because of your vest I couldn't tell if it was mostly in your stomach or back, but-” 

“Oh so you're the expert now?” Rhett grumbled, looking to the sky. 

“Yes, actually, I kinda am. You have to be more than a pretty face to win a Rodeo Queen title.” That same funny feeling leaped into your throat as you argued with him. And although you were outside, it felt as if the atmosphere was shrinking even though you had all the room in the world to back away. 

“I’d like to see you ride a bull then.” 

“Oh trust me, I can ride a bull.” You quipped, turning away and walking towards the stairs to your trailer. But before you could climb the first step, a strong hand grabbed you by the elbow and pulled you back. You make a soft umph sound as you hit his chest, and the next thing you know his warm lips crash against yours. 

It was a sharp contrast to the cold outside, the heat increasing as you kissed him back, wrapping your hands around the back of his neck and pulling him in. Rhett walks you backwards so your body connects with the side of the trailer, the freezing metal zipping through your decorative button up. The sudden temperature change draws a whine from your chest, only halfway emerged before Rhett swallows it up, his hands pulling your waist in close. 

You pull away for just a moment, Rhett now kissing your jaw and nearing your neck, “Inside-” Is all you manage to get out before he’s biting at your neck, his cowboy hat knocked off his head and now resting on the ground. 

Pushing him away, you bite your lip. Although your red lipstick said it was smudge proof, it somehow ended up leaving a light sheen of pink smeared over his mouth. He follows you inside, tossing his cowboy hat on the couch as you lock the door. 

“Wait, isn't your sister staying here too?” He asks in a hushed voice, as if she could jump out at any moment.

“Yeah, but she’s out.” Is all you can say before crossing the short distance between you two and kissing him again. It doesn't take long to get you both out of clothes, your pearl snaps coming undone easily to reveal your lace balconette bra, your jeans already unzipped by Rhett’s wandering hands by the time you pushed open his own shirt.

You were mesmerized by his bareness, Rhett’s torso perfectly displaying softness and pure muscle. Your stomach flips as you look down to the bulge in his blue jeans. Catching his hands trying to pull your own jeans over the swell of your ass, you take him to the small bedroom, if you could call it that. 

You push him to sit on the bed, sheets still messed up from this morning. Stepping back, you push your jeans down, kicking them and your boots behind you. Rhett impulsively reaches out, hooking a finger into your thong before you smack his hand away. 

“No touching.” You chide, watching him nod like a big, dumb puppy. His obedience causes the inside of your thighs to tingle, his eyes almost looking sorrowful as you reach behind yourself and unhook your bra, tossing it to join your jeans. 

In just socks and panties, you step between his jean-clad thighs, running your fingers through his hair and kissing him. He tentatively touches his fingertips to your sides, so light you could barely feel them. They inched their way up your body before stopping before your breasts, pausing for a moment then swiping his thumbs boldly over the underside of them. 

Catching his wrists, you push his hands down and away from you, halting your kisses. 

“What did I say about no touching, Rhett?” You firmly scold, watching his eyes widen  and his cheeks grow impossibly redder, the flush continuing down to his chest. 

“Take off your pants.” You command and let him go, watching as he jumps up and kicks off his boots, nearly tearing off his pants and boxers. His cock slapped against his lower stomach, the thick head a deep purple with the lack of attention. You start to wonder how far you can take this, break down this cowboy you hardly know.

“Get to your knees.” You say simply, watching as Rhett pauses only for a moment before dropping with a soft thud to the linoleum. His nose is basically touching the fabric of your thong, his warm breath fanning over you. Dropping your panties you tangle a fist in his hair and spread your legs a bit, pushing his face closer. 

It doesn't take much convincing before his hands are on your thighs, urging them further apart. His tongue parts you with ease, a moan already rattling in your lungs. He laps at you like a man starved, stubble chafing your inner thighs as his brow furrows in concentration. 

With his eyes closed you can see a few small freckles marking his eyelids, though you only notice it for a second until he sucks your clit in his mouth, your vision going blurry. It doesn't take long till you are pulling him away by his hair, a string of drool connecting his mouth to you as he parts. You don't even notice how bad your legs are shaking till he loosens his grasp on them. 

Your hand cups his jaw, thumb running over his swollen pink lips before you nod to the bed, unable to speak. He clambers up to the bed, his knees popping as he stands. Crawling over his naked body, you straddle his narrow hips and pin his hands above his head, kissing down his neck. You suck a sneaky bruise under his collarbone, feeling him wiggle under you. 

Looking up, you try to find something to restrain him with. The only thing nearby is your sweater resting on a pillow, and surely that won't do. Then you remember a certain something hanging from the wall behind you. 

Getting up and snatching it from a nail in the wall, you return to your earlier position with your silky white sash in hand. Rhett looks up at his hands as you tie them together with the fabric. And you know your sister will be screaming about it later but you really can't find the mindset to even care right now. 

Gently, you trail your manicured fingernails down his wrists and then his biceps, all the way down to his chest and torso till you wrap a hand around his thick cock, smearing the head through your dripping folds. You can feel his breathing quicken as you lean down to whisper in his ear.

“I'll show you how to ride a bull.”

And his gasp when you sink down will forever be one of the sweetest noises you will ever hear. His fists clench as you lower yourself slowly, your nails biting into his ribs. You pant till you're lightheaded, the stretch almost too much. Fully seated, you let your head fall back and a long whine escaped your throat. No matter how many times you blink, it’s still blurry, the ceiling nothing but a flat plane of color. 

“God- you’resofuckin’beautiful-” Rhett praises you in one breath, his muscles getting twitchier the longer you wait to move. You grind down on him, his pubic hair just the right amount of friction to rub your swollen clit on. 

Lolling your head back up, you bite your lip, raising yourself up a few centimeters before dropping back down, testing the waters. The sting is glorious and you can hardly keep your eyes open. Rhett struggles against the sash, clenching and unclenching his fists as you tentatively ride him. The cursive letters are all wonky, pulled tight against his wrists. You could bet money the tip of his dick was pressing hard against your cervix as you struggled to take him whole. 

You can already feel sweat gathering in the pits of your knees, a sheen covering Rhett’s flushed chest as he panted and groaned, begging for more. The drag of his cock filled you to the brim, making you unable to take a breath when you were fully seated. You move your hands to his chest, thumbs brushing over his pink nipples before leaning down and sucking one into your mouth, pinching the other. 

“Please darlin’ I- ohh…” Rhett whimpered, skin stretched thin over his chest and showing his ribs and he squirmed under your touch. His pleading tone made your pussy clench, a swell of ecstasy shooting you right in the chest.  

You take pity on him, sitting up and quickening your pace as you steady yourself on his chest. The bed rattles under your motion, the mattress squeaking with effort. You can feel his hips canting upwards in an attempt to meet yours. 

Slowing, you lean back and plant your hands firmly on his thighs behind you. The new change in position already has you keening, the head of his dick pressing into something that causes stars to burst behind your eyelids. A spot that you could never quite reach with your fingers  when you were masturbating, a spot that has you choked up and gasping as you ride him. 

Riding him recklessly, you feel a familiar pressure build in your lower half. You steady yourself on one hand, the other massaging your clit to bring you closer and closer. The two of you have locked eyes, half-lidded yes, but all you need to communicate as words die on your tongue. Your cheeks are burning, hair sticking to your forehead while beads of sweat run down your spine. 

“Rh-Rhett… I’m gonna- I’m gonna-” You start, lips tingling as you fail to finish your thought. He was already nodding, a fist grasping at the pillow above him and you genuinely thought he was going to shred it. 

The balloon inside you pops violently, so much so it has you bordering on dizzy and sick. A wet gush dampens your inner thighs and all of Rhett’s lower stomach, the frantic slapping of his hips on your ass turns increasingly wetter. It takes everything in you to hold yourself upright, gasping for air as your vision tunes in and out. 

Catching yourself on his chest as you fall forward, he lifts his thighs and pounds into you like a jackhammer. Faintly you can hear him crying out your name like a prayer, as if it would be the only thing that could save him. His motions grow sloppy till he stops, the feeling of his hot cum pumping into you like a mini orgasm and zapping you back to life. 

Your throat was sore from crying out, nose burning from hyperventilation. Placing soft kisses on Rhett’s warm neck, you blindly reach up and somehow untie him. His wrists are red and bordering on raw from struggling. The fabric is wrecked and stretched thin, the letters no longer spelling out your status. 

It gets thrown off the bed in exchange for kisses from Rhett. With his hands finally free he cups your breasts and gently tweaks your nipples, smiling against your mouth when you whimper. 

“Don't leave for the bar.” You murmur against his plush lips, his cock still inside your cum-filled pussy.

“Wouldn't dream of it.” He mumbles in return, rough hands smoothing down your bare back and making you shiver. 

Maybe you will return to Wabang after all. 

[fishfooddude]

Drunk Baby

Rhett Abbott x Reader

You’re spending time with Amy and Cecelia one night while Rhett and Perry are out. Rhett comes home a little too drunk and a little horny. Cecelia gets Amy out of the room, and Perry asks if you can handle his brother. You’re annoyed by his behavior but get him upstairs in one piece.

Outer Range Masterlist

My Directory

“What’s that one’s name?” you asked, gesturing to a brightly colored cartoon character dancing across the screen. Amy laughed and told you for the third or fourth time. You nodded and grabbed your phone from the floor to check Rhett’s location. He and Perry had gone to the bar that night after finishing their ranch work. It wasn’t too late, but it was getting closer to Amy’s bedtime, and Perry had promised to read her a chapter of Charlotte’s Web.

“Are you okay, honey?” Cecilia asked as she walked into the living room, her bathrobe tied tightly around her waist. You nodded and set your phone down again. She nodded, “Amy, get to bed.” 

“But Dad isn’t home yet,” Amy whined as she sank onto the couch. You frowned and offered her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Amy groaned and reluctantly got up from the sofa.

“How about I read to you, Ams?” you offered as you followed her lead to the stairs. Amy nodded eagerly. As you were about to go upstairs, the front door swung open, revealing a glassy-eyed Perry and a stumbling Rhett. “Oh lord…” you mumbled, “Ams, how about you go upstairs.” Amy looked between the three of you. 

“I can read to ya, baby, com’on.” Perry hung his jacket on the coat rack as Rhett looked at you like he was about to pounce. Perry clapped his hands, “Com’on Ams. Get upstairs.” Amy nodded and walked upstairs. Perry shot you an apathetic look before following her. The two of them were half way up the stairs when Rhett pounced, making you yip.

“You’re so pretty…” Rhett mumbled as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. You shook your head and tried to push him off of you only for Rhett to wrap his arms around you even tighter. “Why you tryin’ to get away baby?”

“Rhett you’re drunk, let’s just get you upstairs.” you scolded as you tried to wiggle out of his grip.

“With you?” he cooed as he squeezed you tighter. You nodded and Rhett exhaled against your hair, “I love you baby.”

“I love you too my big drunk baby. Let’s get you to bed.”

[callsign-swan]

Buying flowers shouldn't have made him nervous. But it did.

He stood in the shop, trying to put together a bouquet. When the girl in the shop finally took pity on him and began picking the flowers for him, he was damn grateful.

The bouquet looked out of place in his truck. He placed it down carefully, made sure all of the petals were in place before he drove towards your place.

Rhett didn't know what he was doing. His last relationship had been an utter mess and he wasn't sure how to rebuild himself, wasn't sure where to go from there.

When he met you, he was terrified. You were everything he had ever wanted, were what he thought he'd find in Maria.

But Maria left him when he needed her most. It completely fucked him up.

You rebuilt him. Slowly and carefully, with tenderness and care that he hadn't experienced before. Certainly not with Maria.

That was why the flowers. Because Rhett wasn't used to showing this level off affection. But, for you,he was gonna tried.

He pulled up outside of your place. For a moment, he sat in his truck, took a moment before he grabbed the bouquet and started towards your front door.

Rhett Abbott was pretty fucking in love with you. The way your eyes lit up when you pulled open the door, the way you cradled the bouquet so gentle.

"Lemme put these down so I can kiss ya."

Yeah, he was in love.

[mustyrosewater]

𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐞𝐚

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐧𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐚 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3,138

𝐀𝐎𝟑

𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: when she went missing, disappeared without a trace, it was almost like a deep seated black hole found it's way into rhetts chest, as he recalls all his time spent with her admist trying to find answers, the deep seated energy of the cursed lands they live on come apart to make way for lovers to find each other again.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: supernatural elements, reader haunting the narrative except this time its literal, mentions of implied violence, implied native american mythology if you squint, rhett is going through it and doesn't know to to do it without being self destructive.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: so part two is here a day earlier than promised because i finished it sooner than i thought, the love shown for part one motivated me greatly so thank you so much for that! i think we might have two more parts to this at absolute best, but i hope you enjoy part two. reader has implied native ancestry, but not heavily.

It had never been his place to question the mysteries of the earth, even as a child, when his mother would tell him to stay away from the treeline after the sun went down, not to look out the windows at night unless you wanted something to look back at you. Even if he put little belief into her superstitions, he could at least respect her wishes.

The night played tricks on the eyes, the shadows moving around always seemingly dancing across surfaces with a mind of their own, enough to drive any sane man to a level of insanity.

When he’d met her, it had seemed she held a bounty of superstitions just the same, yet when she’d explained it to him from her place sitting atop of his waist on the cramped single bed in his bedroom, his hands finding their place along the soft skin of her thigh’s, a bemused smile on his face as he allowed her to ramble away about the folk tales she claimed had been passed down in her family for generations.

She’d told him about how her folk had been out in these mountains for almost as long as the mountains had existed themselves, weaving her words out like a poem or a song, painting a picture of bloodied battles and old traditions long lost to history.

Her family traded in their old ways for crosses and churches, explaining that it was simply the way things were, old languages were lost in exchange for testaments and eventually everything was lost to time. 

He could tell by the way she spoke about the land that the connection ran deep, that unlike the other folk in this town, there was a deeper understanding that even she didn’t truly understand half the time. 

Sometimes she’d ramble to him about how sometimes she could have sworn she’d hear things walking around her house at night, couldn’t help but feel like there was something protecting her; she’d joke that maybe it was the spirits of her old ancestors, or maybe that she was just listening too hard to the silence at night and creating sounds that weren’t really there. 

It was always around that time that he’d pull her into his arms, telling her she didn’t have to worry about anything in these mountains while he was around, when he’d place soft kisses on the crown of her head and take in the scent of her that could bring him into pure serenity.

As he recalled the memory now from his place at the dingy bar he was currently in, he stared down at the brown liquid in the glass before him, the pain of the memory only urging him to drink down the whiskey he’d been served before he found himself tearing up in front of all the other patrons.

With her cross now hanging from his neck, hidden under the red tartan button up, he stood from his place at the bar and turned to leave.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if she jumped int’ the wrong fella’s truck and ended up dead in a ditch somewhere.” 

There was a cruel laughter shared inbetween the words, his ear practically pricking at the sound of the group of men at the bar sharing their sentiments with each other.

He didn’t want to believe they were talking about her, wanted to tell himself there was somebody else, but he couldn’t deny himself as he stood and listened, eavesdropping as they continued further.

“Ones like that, goin’ out lookin’ for a little fun, only to end up in a shallow grave.”

“Just wish she’da ended up in my backseat instead, could’a given her something better than a mouthful a’ dirt an’ worms.”

The smoker’s laugh following what the man had said was making rhett’s knuckles turn white with how tightly he was gripping his coat, his heart starting to gather up the pace of a race horse as he turned and stalked over to where the man was sitting, his back facing him as he gripped the fat fuck’s shoulders, pulling him to the ground so hard that his friend’s hardly had time to react before rhett was laying punches against the mans face.

He couldn’t see anything but red, the idea of this monster thinking he could have even come close to being within her eye sight, to talk about the daughter of a grieving mother in such a way, rhett could only thirst for as much pain being inflicted on this man as possible, so that he might feel even a fraction of what rhett was going through, that he might understand what it is to truly lose something and be helpless, be too late.

It hadn’t taken long for the man’s friends to intervene, dragging rhett away from the bleeding man, yelling profanities and raging like a wild animal; he could hardly even fight back against the strength of multiple man as they dragged him out of the bar and into the asphalt parking lot.

The hit’s they laid on him were brutal, blood coming out of his mouth as he hit the asphalt, assaulted by the plethora of kicks and punches till he couldn’t rise from the ground anymore, until his breathing brought nothing but fire against his lungs.

He can feel his coat get thrown to the ground in front of him as the men leave, only able to feel his rage and adrenaline pumping as he turned onto his back, blood pooling from his nose and mouth which he turned to spit onto the concrete. 

Rising slowly, his vision was blurred as he tried to gather himself, unable to do anything while he sat through the pain all over his body, shutting his eyes tightly as he attempted to get a handle on his breathing. 

Even with the pain coursing across his skin, the fire in his lungs, he could still have recognised that same smell of soap and perfume anywhere, the smell of her. 

Maybe he was dying, maybe the punches and kicks had done enough damage for him to finally just lay down and die; he could only lay back and slowly accept any small mercy to the pain he was currently suffering through.

Even when he feel’s the soft hand running against his face, he doesn’t open his eyes, her phantom touch doesn’t bring any pain, even when it’s pressed against the already swollen cheek that would no doubt bruise heinously.

“Why are you doing this to yourself angel.” Her voice is so subtle it almost blends into the wind itself, a whisper above the sounds of everything around him, yet even as quiet as it is, he would always have been able to hear the songbird that she was over even the loudest of commotions. 

Just as fast as he feel’s her touch, takes in her scent and hears her voice, it’s as gone as soon as it came, almost as if she was swept up in the wind. 

The sudden absence causes his eyes to open, realisation hitting that he was still there in that same parking lot, his head whipping in all directions as he sat up, convinced that her touch had felt so goddamn real there was no way that she wasn’t kneeling beside him right then and there.

-

It had taken him well over twenty minutes to get back into his truck, an even further thirty seven minutes to drive home at a snails pace using the eye that wasn’t already starting to swell up.

Even with his headlights illuminating the first road back to his home, his limited vision was providing a much harder drive than he would have liked, the pain in his rib now leaving him with only one hand to drive his truck.

Whatever it had been before in the parking lot, whatever it was that had touched him and called out to him in the darkness, he couldn’t find it in him to embrace the possibility of it being anything other than a head injury, his mind playing tricks on him over the sounds of the wildlife.

He couldn’t admit to himself that there might have even been the slightest chance that it was you, because only then would he have to admit what he didn’t want to believe was true.

Almost as if the universe was listening to him, as if it had heard his unwillingness and was now intending on getting it’s cruel revenge back onto him, it seemed to come in the form of a coyote in the middle of the road.

As it’s shape came into view, he had at least the good sense to hit the breaks, expecting the animal to simply scatter across the road, yet to his confusion, it continued to stare across at him, the glaring yellow eyes of the animal seeming to focus in on his own.

He couldn’t help but be unsettled by it’s gaze, his stomach seemingly growing into a dark pit of dread, his mind recalling her own adverse reaction to coyote’s, the way she’d told him to be wary of them, claiming that they were trickster’s that got enjoyment out of creating turmoil.

-

Even now, he could remember when the day was ending, when he’d been running his hand across her back, finger tips dancing across the soft skin on her shoulder as she laid there in his bed, eye’s shut but a soft smile on her face none the less.

The setting sun allowed for enough of an overcast in his windows to bathe them in a hue of orange light, almost like the room itself was glowing, casting itself across her in a melody of colours that made her look similar to the stain glass portraits of the saints in her church. 

They’d always talk about so many things when they had this time together, on the rare occasions that her parents wouldn’t have been expecting her back till later, when he’d been able to come get her in his truck, and they’d get to spend these precious moments in each others arms.

“Saw a coyote the other day.” he mused softly, his gaze not leaving her at all as he spoke, allowing his vision to wash over her peaceful figure. “Damn thing nearly made me crash.” he laughed softly, recalling the way he’d had to swerve his truck on the way to her house to avoid hitting it as it ran across the dirt road.

“Mhmm.” her soft hum told him that she was listening, even with her sleepyness already beginning to take over. 

He heard her repeat a word he didn’t understand, a language foreign to him; his silence telling her well enough that he didn’t understand. 

Stretching out her arms, she allowed herself a soft groan as she adjusted her tired muscles, moving herself across the sheets so that her chin was resting his chest, her arm placed inbetween them to keep her head up.

“Trickster spirit.” she clarified, her eyes now trained on him as she nodded her head matter a factly. “My father used to tell me not to look them in the eye’s, or they’ll lead you to your demise.” she spoke, sounding as though she herself even didn’t place a huge amount of merit on the story. 

“That true is it?” he responded to her, his voice slightly croaked as the pair evidently grew more and more tired, sleep on the horizon for the both of them. 

Rather than humor his answer, she leaned forward, capturing his lips as she shut her eyes once more, letting his hand run across her cheek, the rough callous’s on his hand against her own soft skin, the pair of them decided to soak up what ever time they had with each other for the night in each others arms. 

-

His recollection of the memory had him even more disturbed by the creature’s gaze on him, the way it’s eyes seemed to move far too intelligently for an animal, almost feeling like he was being analysed, studied.

It wasn’t until he could hear his heart ramming in his chest that he even realised just how terrified he found himself by the creature, feeling his anxiety kick into fight or flight, his body seeming to respond in a way that signalled an unknown danger from the animal. 

Whether it was a smart move or not, he didn’t care; but his only instinct was to hit the gas, his truck lurching to life as he shut his eyes, willing his own body to stop looking into the coyote’s eye’s, preparing himself to feel his truck bump as the creature was torn under it’s wheel’s, only to feel nothing but smooth road as he sent the truck forward.

Opening his eye’s back up as he settled back into a more reasonable speed, the sound of the skidding wheel’s silencing itself, he spared only a moment to look in the rear view mirror, expecting to find a carcass lying on the dirt.

What. the. Fuck. 

To his utter astoundment, the animal still stood, it’s head turned to watch as he peeled away.

Allowing himself only a moment to look back, he reminded himself to look forward at the road, his anxiety and dread seemingly beginning to clear the further and further he became, as if the larger the distance between him and this coyote, the safer he became.

-

Finally arriving back at his home, swinging open his door after stumbling across the parking lot of his apartment building, the comfort of his own home was barely that, his sense still practically on fire, his own heart still beating with a sense of uncertainty.

The encounter with the coyote had felt as if it had left an imprint on his very soul, the way it’s eye’s had glowed against his headlights, the image was still burned into his brain, seeing it each time he closed his eyes, an inescapable curse placed on him.

His own exhaustion had only left him able to stumble over to his bed, the cotton sheets no doubt catching some of the dried blood already starting to settle over his face, yet rhett could find no room to care about it, only allowing sleep to overtake him like a wave of ocean water.

- 

It was the dripping that woke him, a sound so miniscule against the silence, and yet loud enough to have his eyes snapping open, a dull echo against his ears as it continued it’s slow and incoehsive rhythm.

Even from where he was laying, he could it was emerging from the small hallway in his apartment, the kitchen at the other end being the only light that was creeping across the walls. 

He knew the sink had always been faulty, no matter how many times the landlord had sent over handyman to fix it, as well as the times rhett had tried to fix it himself, it persevered, dripping almost every night to the point he’d become accustomed to the sound. 

Whether or not he was even completely awake yet he didn’t know, yet he rose from the bed anyway, only allowing himself a quick glance at his alarm clock as he approached the hallway, the red glowing numbers showing him the time.

4:02 AM.

Just as quickly as he’d taken notice of the time, his head had turned to the entrance of the hallway, his blood running cold within the span of miliseconds, his body going still as he felt his hands beginning to shake.

The dripping was so loud now to the point it almost felt deafening, his eye’s were wide as he stared across at the figure in the hallway, the kitchen light casting a shadow which left him unable to make out any details other than the dark silhouette before him.

The figure was drenched, dripping wet as a puddle settled on the floor underneath them, there was nothing but silence, the only sound audible in that moment being the ever present dripping, falling off of the shadowed figure and onto the floor.

How long he stood there in a terrified silence he didn’t know, it could have been seconds, minutes or even hours, he wasn’t sure, all he could feel in that moment was white, hot terror.

In an instant, the shadow moved faster than his eyes could comprehend, advancing on him from the hallway in seconds as darkened hands wrapped around his throat, sending both of them to the ground.

Yet rather than the feeling of the linoleum floor of his apartment, rhett suddenly found himself thrust under water, the hands holding him under, their grip so strong on his throat that it burned his lungs, his own hands trying to grip at the figure’s wrists, his vision now blurred as his head was held under the water.

As his eye’s did open, his obscured vision painted a picture of daylight above the water, the figure no longer a being of shadow, now the blurry image of what he could recognise to be a man holding him under.

Almost as quickly as it had happened, rhett suddenly commanded the strength to wrench himself up and out of the water, commanding his lungs to breathe in deeply.

Yet now here he was, sitting in the same bed he had fallen asleep in, his lungs gasping in the breath’s of air he’d been fighting for only seconds ago, his heart was hammering to the point it felt like it would burst out his chest any second, the sharp pain in his throat feeling just as real as it had in his dream.

But if it had been a dream, he had no answer for the way his lungs burned as if they’d been deprived for air, why he could have sworn his head and face had felt only slightly too damp to only be sweat.

As his mind ran with questions, he could only find himself quickly jumping from the bed, almost sliding on the floor as he made his way to the entrance of the hallway, his eyes landing on the spot where that same figure had been.

Trying to rationalise with himself had worked so far, each and every occurrence thus far had been something he’d been able to explain to himself, convince himself that his grief had begun to play tricks on him, that his injuries had caused him to hallucinate voices and smell’s that weren’t there.

But as he knelt on the ground, and placed his finger onto the puddle that still remained where the shadow had stood previously; the way that the water itself seemingly reeked on the creek near the church.

He could find little room left in his soul for any further rationalisation.

[thecowboyfiles]

￫ Description: Rhett takes you to a busy store and you start to slip.

￫ c/w: This contains age regression

￫ a/n: I know sex is what sells on this website but I really miss caregiver!rhett. no use of y/n, no pronouns, again contains non-sexual age regression

Being so far out of town and on a ranch, you don't run into too many people. That's how you both like it, a slow quiet life just you and the Abbott family.

Going into town was always a bit of an experience. It wasn't a big city by any means, but it was always busier than you expect. The hustle and bustle of the feed store almost males you dizzy. Does every single farmer in Wabang need to feed their animal on the exact same day?

You follows behind Rhett, probably looking like a lost puppy. You wish you were holding his hand, but he was on a mission, walking through the Aisles with so much purpose that you didn't even try.

When Rhett finally stops, inspecting a bag of bull feed, presumably making sure it's the right one, the pull of littlespace is much stronger than it should be. You bring your thumb up to your mouth but still have the sense of where you are and stop yourself from shoving it straight into your mouth like you want too. Instead, you try to satisfy the need by chewing on the nail.

Despite Rhett's preoccupied mind - he notices this little tic. " You feelin' small, bug?" he asks lowly in your ear.

You nod, too fuzzy to use your words and still chewing on your thumb nail.

"Okay, okay. Daddy's just gotta get a few more things and then I'll take you home. Can you be Daddy's big Bug Until we get back to the truck?"

It was almost as if Rhett wanted you to slip, refering to himself in the third person. You could feel tears stinging ar your tired eyes and that flood of emotions that always seemed to come with slipping into littlespace. "I wanna go daddy. I wanna go home." That slight whine and quiver in your voice is what makes Rhett put the bag back and squeeze your hand.

“Alright Darlin’ we’re going.” He assures, holding you close. To hell with the animal feed, it can wait, or Royal can go get it his damn self.

——

tagging @sebsxphia because I know how you feel about Rhett and Bug. 🥰

[redhoodi]

Takes one to know one | Rhett Abbott/Reader

Rhett couldn’t play your games anymore, he needs you to know he lost.

word count: 1.5K warnings: none

note Find this fic on AO3 #hi haven’t written anything or been kissed in a long time. Sighs. Anyways happy yearner Rhett for those who celebrate. Mentions of God and subtly comparing love to religion. English isn’t my first language btw, hope you like it ^_^ !

While the moonlight couldn’t compete with the white lights turning the rodeo into a spectacle, only his reddening face looking at the ground once his eyes find you in the crowd. He fixes his hat before raising for your challenge, he licks his lips thinking it would distract you from noticing a smile on his face.

It was your favorite game, lowering your head, rising your eyebrows along with the corners of your lips and nodding once just to let him know you see him. That he’s doing a good job at not letting you see how his hand grips on his waist, how his breathing weights on his chest when you’re locked on his eyes.

You wore a tight long-sleeved shirt which color could be stained with wine and it wouldn’t show a difference. Dark red, maroon, Rhett knew about colors. It’s the type of detail it would make you compare it to a certain wine brand or his bruised hands after riding. Type of detail that doesn’t escape your ability to continue chatting. He shouldn’t be thinking about this. Semi-finals had caught him on a cold night. Bull was rougher. His mind could’ve lingered a little longer on the top if it weren’t for the red lipstick painted on your face. The lights started to dim, and people began to fade.

Rhett’s questioned where would you go after this on the tip of his tongue but he was betrayed by his own body the moment he had you only meters away from him. People walking around your bodies like a river softening stones. His shoulders falling once your steps got you closer to him. He froze, keeping in mind the way your father whispered in your ear before the rodeo. He caught your mother’s disapproving eyes staring up and down and calculating just how much of a man he was that couldn’t measure to be even remotely deserving of capturing your eyes. He waited on you to make a move. Not as tough as people made him out to be.

Some say you reap what you sow. And your little eye game riled up his mind beyond forming any coherent word as you got closer. Maybe it was the moon dancing over the side you brushed your hair behind your ear. Maybe his breathing finally stopped and he had you confused with an angel all those years ago.

His clothes stuck to his body from the sweat, bringing out his broad shoulders and tightening around his chest. You swallowed, keeping posture before trying to meet his eyes but he was nowhere to be found. His gaze wandered the floor below and his fingers trailed his brown leather jacket. Boots tapping the dry sand he stood above, there wasn’t any escape and doe eyes stared at you caught on the brightness of your presence.

Then your greetings came as a whisper. Pride on his mouth was spit to the ground before he did something he’d be scared not to regret.

“Not bad,” you insisted as a wry smile adorned his face. As his features could be detailed closer and the skin below your nose tarnished hot from his breath. It was only a matter of time before he got so close he could see behind your façade. Shivers went down your spine steading you to the ground. Focusing on his eyes and the dim light reflecting distracted you from noticing them tracing your mouth. Pink painted his nose and cheeks as the wind blushed his face.

“Expected more” he recited with a low voice, while the grip on his jacket tightened. The results were enough for next round and the thought circles his mind as birds preying, he had been just enough, not good nor great. He swallows the thought before taking a pause to let the mix of hay, sweat and vanilla fill his lungs. The last scent makes him travel to the first and only time he had enough audacity to dare his nose trail the skin below your jaw. A grin lights his face remembering, like yours when it happened.

The kind of games that you played with him worked too well. The small balancing of your torso in place, waltzing to yourself before him, impatient. Something was between you two for years since you’ve started as a nurse in town. You faking you didn’t know what you were doing when you licked your lips staring him with a frown, confusing and intoxicating. It started to poison him the moment he saw you standing on the bleachers tonight. Losing temped him.

There hadn’t been a day now where the thought of tasting you wasn’t the only thought in mind. His family played dumb. Misplacing a plate on the fridge when he caught a bird outside the window that you told him about its legs automatically clamping on branches when they sleep so they don’t fall, his smile only raised concerns to his mother that he was slowly losing it. When you wore a dress tight on your torso and loose on your hips, cut a little above your knees, spotting him staring and smiled, making him miss the door on the store to end up on a wall, Perry only laughed. Now, jeans hugging your legs, arms behind your back, acting all innocent for him, his stupid causing a grin on you.

“Stop that” only making you frown from his stern shaking voice. “What are we doing?”

“What do you mean,” you tilted your head. Amusing yourself with the idea of riling him up without even a touch. The saintly woman you ought to be couldn’t let herself enjoy knowing the effect you had on him. He never stood a change under your voice, your gaze. Delighted by the desperate sight of a man finding little interest in praying to God, pleading to you.

“You know what I mean, sweetheart,” he held his fingers close to your waist, never quite reaching. “Once we do this, I don’t want nothing else”

He was tortured by your ever addicting laugh. Rhett should grab you but his hands stood still, he never waited on permission but any word from you could bring him to ruin. Anger filled his cheeks red trying to find the joke of of having him wrapped around your fingers.

“I want you,” consumed by the loss of his mind, surrendering himself to you. His hands began to shake in place, once you lowered your head to see them. Frowning further.

“What about Maria?” it came as a whisper again, tainted with mistrust. The first time he didn’t hear a gambler tone, or followed up by a topic changing the leading of the conversation as he caught you doing when he tried to flirt with you out front. He did once, thought he could get you easily. Then he got to know you and learned you loved proving people wrong about their expectations of you. It only made you stronger than smoking. He was the one frowning now, searching for the confident foe he made you out to be.

“What about her?”

“You’ve been in love with her since forever,” you reached for his fingers with yours, not reaching his palm. “When she looks at you, you’ll be done with me”

“Was a high-school crush,” he holds your fingers to lead them to his chest, not trying to hide the trembling of his hands. His heart raced on your palm and his eyes traveled from your golden rings adorning your hands to your eyes focusing on him. “I can’t anymore, I know I ain’t much. God’s honest truth that is. But I want all of you”

Rough voice against your tender lips. The tip of your noses lightly finding each other. Your eyebrows relaxed once under his eyes and the pressing of your lips goes unnoticed by the shadow casted from his hat. He takes it off with his free hand, when the right still steadies above your own. Daring to brush his thumb to bring you back. You begin to move your head softly. His head rested on the right side of his neck now, almost bowing.

“I should kiss that grin out of your face,” you manage to say and what kind of man was he to stop you.

“Should’ve done it sooner” before resting his hat on your head and reaching for your ear between his index and middle finger and allowing his thumb to play around your smiling cheek. He sighs when he realizes your free hand reaching for the back of his neck and bringing him closer.

“I hate you” was the last thing he heard before your lips greet his. Slowly finding your way against his mouth. He could taste the lipstick before you opened your mouth to taste his tongue.

The sweetest con often comes in the idea of an indefinite place of faith by someone else’s hands. His, bruised in purple and green with scratches he often downplayed their severity to calm you down, rough and slightly dirty fingers traced a path on the edge of your cheeks. The Rhett Abbott from everyone’s eyes could be careless, couldn’t be more different than the one whose hands slightly tremble when holding your face. You pretend not to notice how he crumbles from touching you, how his eyes tempest blue underneath your gaze.

-

© redhoodi 2025 my writing is prohibited from any replication consisting of reposting, copying, translating or profiting, on any platform regardless if credit is given.

[enyalius]

we ran from midnight (i)

i. the past

After nine years, Rowan Yao returns to Wabang to take care of his aging mother. The girl Rhett Abbott thought he'd buried in his memories comes back a self-made man.

tags: rhett abbott x transmasc oc. angst. slow burn. estranged childhood friends. yearning, pining, all that kinda stuff. rhett abbott comes to terms with his bisexuality. author's note: happy pride month! where are all the gay boys that love lewis pullman? make some noise, will you - it's a bit lonely on this side!

cross-posted on AO3

Rhett nurses his third Bud Light with a bitterness reserved for men who’d had their pride ground into the dust.

The Handsome Gambler is half-empty tonight. Not too many folks wanted to drink near the guy who could barely even last eight seconds on a bull. Most of the noise in the bar came from the cowboys who actually made it on the scoreboard, the ones with the big and shiny belt buckles and obnoxious laughs.

Maybe his dad was right. Maybe he was drawn a bullshit bull. Twister bucked like the goddamned devil was digging spurs into its ribs. Rhett’s certain he twisted his wrist on the fall — that’s another trip to urgent care tomorrow morning, if he could be assed to wake up early enough.

Or maybe Rhett needs to accept he’s washed up and past his prime. Perry told him he’d ‘hit it next time’, but Rhett’s been doing this for a whole decade. He’s not sure if he has any more next times left in him.

He used to dream of Cheyenne like it was the promised land, his one-way ticket out of Wabang. Now it feels farther than ever. Is cattle herding at the ranch all he’s meant for?

He rubs at his frown lines with the heel of his palm and forgets, too late, that it’s the bad wrist. A soft hiss slips through his teeth. Then a voice cuts through the noise of the bar, low and amused.

“I don’t remember you ever sulking this much, Rhett.”

Rhett’s jaw clenches. He turns, slow and deliberate. There’s a man next to him leaning against the bar, wearing a black denim jacket over a white tee, the sleeves pushed up his forearms. Dark hair and almond-shaped brown eyes that he doesn’t bother looking at for too long.

Jin Callahan, Rhett deduces hastily in his tipsy state. Holly Callahan and Paul Yao’s boy. They’re the only half-Asian family in Wabang, hard to miss around these parts. Holly, born and raised in the town, attends the same Bible study group as Cecilia. Their family used to come over for dinner, back when Rhett’s mom still did Sunday roasts after church.

Their two kids, Jin, and their youngest daughter, Rowan, were always around. But Rowan moved away with her dad long ago, after Holly and Paul divorced. Rhett remembers them in half-misted childhood memories. It’s a lot easier that way.

At Jin’s remark, he scoffs and rolls his eyes, lifts the bottle to his lips. “Shouldn’t you be sipping wine with your wife in… Italy, or whatever? Your honeymoon got cut short?”

Jin tilts his head and smiles a little. “...Wow. Do I really look that much like him now?”

Rhett furrows his eyebrows at the remark. His eyes sweep over the man again, slower this time. Then his stomach hollows out like the floor just gave way, and all the alcohol drains from his system in an instant.

“Rowan Yao?”

Standing in front of him like it’s nothing.

Rowan, who snorted when she laughed and sat with her legs spread apart like a man, who roughhoused with the other boys without a care. Rowan, who had trouble fitting in with the other girls, and always preferred denim overalls and jeans over the dresses she’s forced to wear on Sundays.

Before Rhett can take it back, he’s already said her name out loud.

…Her? No, that’s not who’s standing in front of Rhett now. That don’t sound right.

Rowan notices the stare, the stalled recognition. With his hands in his pockets, he shrugs, like he’s used to confusing the people around him. “Yeah. Been a while, I know.”

That’s one way to put it.

Rhett’s mouth goes dry; suddenly he feels like he’s thirteen again.

“I–I, uh…” he wants to punch himself. “I thought you were in Chicago.”

“I was. Jin asked me to take care of Mom while he’s out, so… Here I am. Got back here just a few days ago.”

Rowan’s voice is deeper. Her His shoulders are broader. Hair short. Jaw shadowed with stubble. But her his smile’s the same, lopsided and dimpled like Rhett remembers from summer afternoons at the ranch, barefoot and laughing, wrestling in the dry grass until Cecilia called them in for dinner.

He has that same spark in her eyes. Tawny, firelit. Like at any time he’s going to rag on Rhett for something he did or poke all the spots he’s ticklish, just like she used to.

Rhett clears his throat. “Oh, yeah. My mom’s mentioned Holly a few times. Said it’s been getting pretty bad lately? Repeats conversations within the minute, forgets people’s names.”

Rowan nods along. “She thinks I’m Jin most days, or even Dad. I just play along, I mean, I look like this now, after all.” he breathes out through his nose, a hollow and rueful noise as he gestures towards himself. “It’s rough. And that’s just the half of it.”

Rhett looks down at his bottle, thumb scraping the blue label. Holly, like most older women in Wabang, didn’t take shit from anyone. She never let anything slip by her – not at church, not in town. She always brought baked goods and the latest town gossip to the dinner table.

Rhett was always a bit scared of her. He can see exactly where her kids get their strong personalities. But to have a mind like hers unravel so quickly…

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he responds, “Can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like.”

“It’s fine,” Rowan shrugs, “Well, it’s not, but… you get it.”

At one of the corner booths, a group of bull riders let out a burst of laughter. Rhett grimaces at the noise.

Rowan jerks his chin towards the door. “You smoke?”

“Sometimes.”

“Good,” Rowan huffs and pushes off the bar, already moving. “Come back out with me. I can barely hear myself think in here.”

Rhett hesitates. His thumb smooths over the picked out label, then slides off the stool and follows suit.

The air outside is cooler than Rhett expected. Dry. Still. The kind of stillness that makes everything louder: the buzz of the fluorescent light above them on the roof trim, the crunch of gravel beneath their boots, his own pulse, steady and loud in his ears.

It’s a quiet that breaks him open and demands veracity. He’s not sure if he can take it.

Rowan tosses a glance over his shoulder as they step into the parking lot, as if to make sure Rhett hasn’t run off yet. He leans against the log siding of the building and fishes a Marlboro pack from his jacket pocket, thumbs one loose and holds it out for Rhett.

He takes it, lets it hang between his lips, unlit. Rowan lights his own first, cupping the flame from his zippo lighter against the cool breeze. The orange glow softens his face, catches in the edge of his jaw.

Rhett’s trying to turn his gaze away but then Rowan steps closer, just at an arm’s length. It’s close enough that Rhett has to hold his breath as Rowan brings the lighter to the end of his cigarette.

He must not be as casual as he thinks he is, because he can feel Rowan’s inquisitive gaze on him. “Relax. I’m not gonna bite,” he mumbles with a low, husky chuckle. Husky. Something Rhett never thought Rowan’s voice would sound like.

The lighter flicks back to life again. Rhett dips his head and draws in, smoke filling his lungs, hot and biting. Rowan’s eyes are trained on Rhett. He quickly pulls away from the flame before he can cough and make an even bigger fool of himself.

For a while, they smoke in silence, standing side-by-side in the parking lot. Their cigarettes burn slowly between lips, between fingers. Ash falls upon the gravel like snowflakes. Rowan flicks his zippo open and shut in a languid rhythm.

Click-click.

Click-click.

“So, how long are you back for?” Rhett asks.

Rowan shrugs. “However long Jin and Mari are in Europe for. Can’t be more than four weeks.”

Click-click.

“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d still be here,” he adds.

“Where else would I be?”

“I don’t know. Cheyenne, or Casper. Maybe even Texas.”

Rhett chews the inside of his cheek. Smoke spills from his mouth and he can only pray that all his thoughts go out with it. He shrugs and snorts without much humor. “Well, if you saw me out there tonight, you’d know why.”

“No, I saw,” Rowan laughs, “The bull was bucking before the pen even opened. I don’t think it was all on you.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I ate shit in front of half the county.”

“You’ll get ‘em next time, cowboy,” Rowan nudges his shoulder gently against Rhett’s, echoing Perry’s words from earlier. “I’ll cheer for you on the next one.”

Click-click.

Now it’s Rhett’s turn to stare. He watches the curve of Rowan’s throat when he swallows, how he purses his lips with each puff of smoke. The air is still heavy with all the things Rhett has to relearn and unlearn about the brand new man standing next to him.

“You remember when we used to wrestle out back behind your dad’s barn?” Rowan says with a small laugh, “You got mud in my hair and my mom got so mad at you.”

Ah yes, one of the moments that made him terrified of Rowan’s mom for years. The corner of Rhett’s mouth twitches slightly and he hangs his head low as though to conceal it. His smile widens nonetheless. He shakes his head and says, “Oh, my God. You kept overreacting about it, too. Made it so much worse.”

“I was in the hot tub for almost an hour before dinner, and I could hear Cecilia telling you off outside the bathroom.” Rowan continues. The smoke leaves his lips while he laughs.

“And you tackled me first, by the way. Then when I returned the favor I got in trouble.”

“Oh, c’mon, you liked it. You had fun.” And there it is again, that mischievous glint in Rowan’s eyes. The same one he had when they were kids and about to do something stupid.

Rhett rolls his eyes and takes a long drag to keep himself from smiling too hard. It doesn’t help. Something warm creeps up at the back of his neck. He flicks away the ashes on the end of his cigarette.

The lull that follows doesn’t feel as oppressive anymore.

Click-click.

“Everything was just easier back then. I think about it a lot.”

I don’t, Rhett thinks. I try not to.

He doesn’t know how to respond to that, so the silence stretches until it becomes uncomfortable yet again.

Then Rowan shifts in front of him, blocking the breeze. The smoke curls and trails into the air as the cigarette dangles between his lips. He smirks and holds his arms up defensively. He resembles those tough guys in street fight movies. “What if we tussled, right now? For old times’ sake.”

Rhett blinks and stares at Rowan dubiously. That’s the furthest thing from what Rhett wants to do at the moment. “What?”

“What if we tussled right now?” Rowan repeats, “C’mon. You used to pin me every time. Thought you might want your ego back after tonight.” He gives Rhett a series of playful air punches to the chest, making dumb sound effects with each blow.

“I heard you the first time. No, I’m good.”

“Scared you’ll lose?” Rowan teases.

This time, Rhett’s tone is sharper. “I said no, man.”

Rowan doesn’t stop, doesn’t listen. Before Rhett can step aside, he finds himself grabbed by the shirt collar and shoved back against the wall. The log siding hits Rhett’s back with a thud. He braces instinctively, and a dull pain sears through his bad wrist. The cigarette falls from his hand and lands between their boots.

Rowan’s smoke rolls, hot and suffocating between them. Rhett doesn’t dare to breathe it in.

They’re close, too close. Rowan’s hand stays pressed against Rhett’s chest with a surprising amount of strength (yet another new thing Rhett is learning about him), but not firm enough to keep Rhett from breaking free if he wants to.

“You always act like you’re afraid of me.” Rowan grits out. The cigarette on his lips bobs with every word.

He gets a strained whisper in response. “I’m not.”

“Then what is it?”

He doesn’t have an answer. He stands there, unmoving. He swallows thickly and notices Rowan’s eyes trailing at his Adam’s apple.

Eventually, Rowan figures that getting Rhett to admit anything is a futile effort. He sighs and steps back like letting go of a live wire, hands in a placating gesture. He flicks the last of his cigarette away. It arcs through the dark like a meteor and lands with a hiss in the gravel.

Click-click.

He snaps his zippo shut with a metallic finality. Tongue in cheek and biting himself back from saying anything else.

“...I’ll see you around, Rhett.” he tosses one last look over his shoulder and heads for his car.

Rhett doesn’t move, still braced against the wall. He only allows himself to breathe after the headlights sweep the lot and Rowan’s car fades into the distance. A pathetic, shaky sigh.

The weight on his chest lingers after Rowan is gone. He tells himself it’s the drinks. It’s the shitty ride. The wrist. Just a shit night all around.

Whatever makes it all go down easier.

[NEXT CHAPTER]

[withahappyrefrain]

8 or 58 for Bob or Rhett! ❤️💕

Thanks!! The list is excellent.

I went with number 8 for Rhett!

Rhett didn’t know why his mother insisted on getting a dog. It wasn’t as if they didn’t already have several ranching dogs. 

“It’s different! They essentially work for the ranch, they’re not a pet.”

So he wasn’t surprised when Ceceila brought home a cocker spaniel puppy. She would never go for a rescue, which is what Rhett wanted (as if he had a say). 

And Rhett certainly didn't have a say when it came to taking care of Bella. As the puppy grew, so did Rhett’s responsibilities. Amy lost interest when the dog was no longer puppy sized, and Cecilia got more involved in the church as a way to deal with the shitshow that was her eldest son. 

Which is how Rhett found himself driving Bella to the dog park. Because when the only shit to do is drink and watch bull rides, Wabang lost their minds over the new pet friendly park that was thirty minutes away. 

“Is it that important she goes?” Rhett mumbled when Cecilia told him of his new afternoon plans. 

“Of course! She has friends Rhett. And Bella will be so sad if she doesn't see her friends, won't you, pretty girl?” she cooed to Bella, who was currently sitting on the couch despite Royal saying that's exactly where he didn't want the dog to sit. 

But it was nice to break the monotony of his day. Plus, it meant going to the outskirts of Cheyenne, which was still more developed than Wabang. Hell, he could even stop by Taco Bell on the way back, a rare treat. Bella could have a bowl of their potatoes, just without all that fake cheese sauce. His ma would kill him if she found out she let Bella eat such ‘trash food’, as if her cooking was any better. 

So there he was, making his way towards the enclosed area, Bella tugging away. 

“Hey, quit it!” He grunted, already regretting this. Rhett had half a mind to just go to Taco Bell now but then Bella let out that whine, the one that tugged on Rhett’s heartstrings. 

He wasn't a monster, despite what folks insisted. 

“Alright, alright. We’ll go in. But just for a little bit and you better behave yerself,” Rhett instructed before opening the gate. 

Bella trotted in, immediately going up to several dogs to sniff. 

Rhett found himself a corner where he could keep an eye on the dog, but was away from other people. He felt out of place with his hand me downed Caharrat jacket and worn boots. There were several people in the park who he found cute, but like hell if he was going to go up and talk to them. 

After Maria left for the second time, Rhett imposed a ban on dating. At least for a while. After all, there’s only so many times a cowboy can try his best and get his heart broken in the end. 

So instead, he watched Bella, who had now found herself a friend. Out of all the dogs in the park, Rhett found this one to be the cutest; caramel color coat with black fur surrounded their nose, expressive ears that were just a little too big for their body and a tail that went one hundred smiles per hour. Had to be some type of pitt mix, given their bicycle seat shaped head, which was perfect for pets. That was the kind of dog Rhett would want. 

Bella seemed just as interested as Rhett, walking with the dog. Well, actually, more like following. He saw the other dog continuing to look back, seeing if Bella was still there. 

“Hey Bella, quit it!” Rhett grumbled. Not that she listened. Great. His first time here and Bella was going to get them kicked out. 

“C’mon Bella,” Rhett walked over to his mother’s dog, hoping he could just pick her up and take her home. 

But the other dog had different plans. As soon as they saw Rhett, their tail wagged furiously as they came up to him, practically begging for pets. 

Rhett Abbott was not a monster.

“Hey sweet girl,” He kneeled down, allowing the dog to seat themselves in between Rhett’s legs, “Is Bella bothering you? You want me to tell her to stop?”

The dog put his front paws up on Rhett’s thigh, gaining access to his face. Her breath wasn’t the greatest, but with a face like that, how could he be mad?

“I swear, she comes here for the people, not the dogs,” A sweet voice said. 

Rhett looked up, only to have his breath taken away by you. You, who were without a doubt, the sweetest person Rhett had ever seen. 

“Hey Bella girl!” You cooed, kneeling down to give Bella some pets, “I know you want to play, but Noodle is a covid puppy. She just wants pets.” 

“Well, Bella needs to learn how to listen. Least she could do,” Rhett replied as he continued to pet Noodle, who was determined to lick the side of Rhett’s face. 

“You must be one of Cecelia's sons?” Oh god. What had Cecelia already told you? His chances were already ruined before he could even start. 

“Uh yeah. ‘M Rhett,” he reached out to shake your hand, trying not to focus on how soft your skin felt. 

“Oh! The bull rider!” You exclaimed. If that was all Cecelia had told you, Rhett was never going to complain (out loud) about his mother’s cooking ever again. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” He barely got out, his cheeks heating up. 

“I also hear you’re the best Uncle to Amy,” there was a grin on your face, your eyes never leaving his. 

“Well, I’m her only Uncle,” Rhett mumbled, failing to realize the joke. 

Luckily you found it pretty cute. Along with the way he was so loving and gentle towards your dog. 

“It’s okay if Bella continues following Noodle around. Noodle doesn’t mind, especially if it’ll help her get more pets,” you assured, gently squeezing Rhett’s hand to remind him to let go.

“The spot I was in has a good view of the whole dog park….if you want me to keep an eye on them.” Why would you want to stand next to him, God, he was so stupid and-

“I would love to join you, if that’s alright!”

Oh. 

[seeyalaterinnovator]

The Halocline - Rhett Abbott x Reader

Summary: Reader gets roughed up a bit, Rhett comforts her

Warnings: reader is the victim of violence, descriptions of wounds, descriptions of a panic attack, no spoilers for outer range

Word count: 1.9K

Authors note: My friend sent my a requests with rhett abbott saying "Hey, just look at me. Breathe." ... I shamefully finally got around to it.. so here we are...

Keep reading below the cut

The cool Wyoming night air brushed against your exposed skin, each step carrying you closer to the Abbott house. Certainly someone was here, if not Rhett, since he wasn’t answering his phone. You prayed he was just asleep or his phone had died, and that’s why he wasn’t answering any of your calls. The porch groaned under your feet when you hobbled up the steps, up toward the door. 

You knocked once. No answer. It was late, late enough that most of the house would likely be asleep by now, having to get up early tomorrow for chores around the ranch. Cecilia was a light sleeper though, that you could count on. So you knocked again, this time with a little more force. Still no answer.

“C’mon, Rhett!” You cried, voice hoarse from the sobs that wracked your body earlier, raw from screaming for any kind of help that never came. 

Your fist pounded desperately against the screen door, the tinny noise echoed into the open air and died off in the howling wind. There was always someone in the Abbott house, of course except when you needed them the most. “Shit.” You mutter under your breath.

Goosebumps rose along the flesh of your arms, the reddened welts from earlier burning as you sucked in a deep breath and tried to figure out your next move. Tears welled in your eyes as a hopeless feeling settled deep in your chest, but you refused to let them fall, not until you were somewhere safe again. Trembling, torn up hands reach up to scrub at your face as you turned toward the barn. 

You noticed a faint yellow light flickering through the cracked barn door, likely forgotten by someone earlier. It wasn’t the comforting embrace of Rhett, but it would have to do. The barn was far better than trying to walk back to the pit bar to get your car and risk running into Trevor again. God knows what he would try this time. Maybe if you were lucky one of the Abbotts would find you here in the morning when they started their morning chores around the ranch. 

So with a grunt, you slowly made your way over to the barn where you would hopefully hide out amongst the bails of hay. Your footsteps were heavy, weighed down with exhaustion as you crossed into the barn, the dusty smell of hay and motor oil hitting your nose. To your surprise, a familiar form was hunched over the back workbench, a white cowboy hat hiding a head full of sandy brown hair. You nearly could have collapsed from relief.

“Rhett?” You swallowed around the lump in your throat. 

“Sweetheart- what are you doin’ out here so late?” Rhett inquired, turning as he wiped his oil covered hands on an old rag. 

Stood in place, you couldn’t muster the strength to step any further into the light, to expose yourself to the careful scrutiny of his deep blue gaze. The sweet, lopsided smile that pulled at Rhett’s thin lips was discarded quickly, the tattered rag left on the dirt floor when he noticed the tear stained sheen on your cheeks. “Sweetheart? What happened?” His voice was heavier this time.

“I-..” All the air in your lungs dried up, leaving your chest deflated and empty. Paralyzed, your panicked gaze met his as you tried to choke in a breath. No air came though. Rhett saw your chest spasm with the effort of trying to suck in air. Quick to action, his booted feet carried him over to where you stood, though dread took pooled heavily in his gut.

“Jesus-” He gasped, his warm breath puffing out against your battered face. The first thing he noticed now that he was closer was the gash that marred your forehead, a steady trickle of blood trailed down the side of your temple and down your cheek. The second thing he noticed was the smattering of dark splotches that shadowed your skin, likely to be deep purple bruises by the morning. The third thing he noticed was you were without the sweater you always had on at this time of year. The neckline of your shirt was torn, seams ripped and stained crimson. You trembled in your spot, still frozen in place, skin peaked as shivers wracked your body. 

Rhett was quick to shuck off his jacket and drape it over your shoulders and tuck you into the warm fabric. His large, steady hands ran along the length of your arms, trying to rid you of the constant shivering. “Honey- who did this to you?” He kept his tone level, despite the anger that welled up inside him. 

You tried to answer, mouth opening around the Tillerson boy’s name, but all that came was a strained croak. Hot tears fell down your cheeks, burning as they rolled past the areas of broken skin. Hiccups soon took over, and breathing grew even harder. “Oh god!” You say between cries, grabbing a fist of hair and tugging at it hard enough that pain pricked your scalp. Anything to distract you from this drowning feeling that resided heavy in your chest.

With as much tender care as he could, Rhett grabbed a hold of your wrists and detangled your vice grip from your hair. His warm hands came to rest on your flushed cheeks, careful to avoid any area that looked cracked open. His touch was firm and steady as he squeezed just enough, holding your head steady and in line with his. “Hey..” He loosed a breath, barely a whisper as he searched your eyes.

“Hey, just look at me. Breathe.” He instructed in a collected manner, held you steady in his grasp despite thrashing like a bull against his hold. “Sweetheart, breathe for me. You can do it.” Wild eyes met his, and for the first time that night you finally felt safe. At first, your breaths came in frantic puffs, but you focused on trying to force the air from your lungs and exchange it for new air, inhaling deeply and blowing it out on a steady controlled exhale. 

“That’s it, good job. Keep goin’.”He encouraged, leaning in to press a kiss to your forehead, despite the dried blood that flaked against your skin. 

You stayed like that for a while, breathing in and out, until Rhett was satisfied that you weren’t going to pass out on him from a lack of air. Now that the adrenaline had eddied away,  your head throbbed in time with your bounding heartbeat. You winced, shying away from the light once again. “Rhett I-”

“Let’s get you inside and cleaned up, okay?” 

There was no fight left, so you allowed Rhett to guide you into the house and up the rickety steps to the first clearing, where his room was. His hand stayed put on your low back, a calming presence as he pushed you into the threshold of his room and shut the door, careful not to wake anyone as it creaked shut. 

First he pulled off his jacket from your shoulders, blue eyes roaming over your skin. Now that he was in better light, he could see the large welts that covered your arms, and how your shirt was ripped in more than one place. His lips pressed together to keep the questions at bay, now wasn’t the time for an interrogation. He needed to get you patched up and in bed. 

“Come on.” He spoke softly as he took hold of your hand and brought it to his lips before he tugged you toward the bathroom. 

You hovered awkwardly in the doorway, unsure what to do with yourself. That was okay, Rhett knew what to do - probably better than anyone else in this house. His hands peeled away your tattered shirt and tossed it aside. He helped you sit on the countertop before turning on the faucet. The sound of the water filling up the sink was the only noise as you watched him rummage through the closet in search of the well used first aid kit. Rhett made quick work, using a pack of gauze to clean up your forehead so he could assess the damage. He didn’t think you’d need stitches, but he held pressure for good measure. You sucked in a breath, trying to back away from his hand. He muttered a soft sorry while he leaned in and pressed a warm kiss to your forehead. 

“I was at the pit bar.” You mumbled, averting your gaze to your hands which gripped your thighs tightly. “I was just on my way out when Trever Tillerson wouldn’t let me past.” 

The words were heavy on your tongue, like you didn’t quite have the right words to say. Rhett didn’t stop cleaning your wound, needed to keep his hands moving so he didn’t do something stupid like track Trever down and kill him. You knew he was listening though. A muscle in his jaw ticked when you mentioned the name, he knew what kind of reputation Trever had.  “I tried to push past him, told him I wasn’t in the mood for his antics tonight. He didn’t like that.” The tears came softer this time, only rolling down your flushed cheek when you squeezed your eyes shut. “No one else was around, I tried calling out. He-”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it. Not right now.” 

“Thank you.” You sighed. 

Rhett finished cleaning your wound in silence, placing an antibiotic ointment over the open part and smoothed a bandaid over the broken skin. His hands firmly grabbed your hips and helped you off the counter, led you back into the bedroom. He grabbed one of his old t-shirts, knowing how much you liked to sleep in them. 

“Arms up.” He instructed, sliding the tshirt over your head and helped you slide your arms through the holes. He then knelt down before you, sliding off your jeans, his warm hands grazing along your thighs. You grabbed ahold of his shoulder to steady yourself as he helped you step out of the fabric. “There you go.” 

As Rhett stood back up, he looked down at you, his gaze uncertain. A line formed between his brows, his eyes bouncing between your own as if searching through your soul. He whispered a soft ‘c’mere’ and pulled you into his strong embrace. His hands wrapped tightly around your shoulders and tucked you against his chest. You inhaled deeply, smelling the familiar, comforting scent of leather and tobacco he always carried. This was what home felt like. You nuzzled into him, muscles releasing the tension they held onto. 

“I love you.” Those three words felt right, certain even. Despite the night’s events, you knew you would be okay as long as you had Rhett. 

“I love you too, sweetheart.” His pressed another kiss to the top of your head, and then tucked you under his chin. You listened to the steady beat of his heart, slightly faster than it usually was, as it thudded against your ear. 

It would be alright. This was your home. Rhett was your home.

[A/N]- this was inspired by the song The Halocline by Hippo Campus <3

[sebsxphia]

your (my) life with rhett abbott.

rhett abbott x reader.

￫ summary: a life with rhett.

￫ word count: 680.

￫ warnings: mentions of sex, some angst, children and fluff.

￫ authors notes: this is a collection of daydreams i have about my cowboy husband. my main masterlist can be found here! 💌

Rhett is a little awkward and shy. For a burly bull rider, when he first asked you out, his thumb moved between each fingernail to pick at it. His hands were twitching with nerves. From a first glance, he simply looked like a man asking a person out. His hands were by his sides and he stood tall.

His father told him to never look small, even though he made Rhett feel so small sometimes.

When you replied with a beaming smile that you would love to go out with him sometime, his cheeks became flushed with a warm pink, that spread over the tops of his ears and down his neck in a hot flush.

He gets grumpy too. His eyebrows knit together in a firm line. His eyes become stone and his eyelids grow heavy. He’ll focus on one particular spot of dirt on his jeans, not baring to look at anything else. He clenches his teeth tightly together and his jaw becomes firmly set.

But, he stands up for himself and what he thinks is right. However, it comes off as him being defensive and angry when really, he’s only trying to protect the things that he loves most. That being the life you’ve built together on your ranch and most importantly, you and your little baby girl.

Bonnie Abbott was born in the early spring. You spent many days in the summer standing on your front porch, with her in your arms and watching Rhett work not too far from your home. He couldn’t bear to spend long periods away from you both, so he always opted to do work closer to your home during the day.

You would hold her chubby little hand and wave it for her, humming in a sweet voice, “Wave to Daddy, Bonnie!”

You watch as your three ranch cats jump from the rooftops and fences of the barn. Your Anatolian Shepherd, Daisy, sits by your feet and keeps a careful and protective watch over both you and Bonnie. Robin, your Blue Heeler, is always quick on Rhett’s heels and trails around behind him, as he works in the hot and sticky Wyoming summer heat. Rhett whistles sharply between his lips and Robin is always quick to follow.

You still live in Wyoming, but you chose your ranch to be two towns over from Wabang. Rhett wanted to distance himself from his family, but he couldn’t leave them completely. He’s still holding onto this deeply entrenched guilt, that therefore causes him to tether to them.

He’s working on it though. He’s working on himself.

He doesn’t deny his mother and father of seeing his grandchild. You go back to visit when you can, but you normally leave after spending the day there. Rhett can only bear so many hours before the familiar and tell-tale signs of his set frown and tense jaw begin to appear. You still go back for occasions such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are the only two occasions when you, Rhett and Bonnie will stay the night.

His old room is still there. It still comforts him.

You press up against Rhett in his small bed and keep him warm, whilst Bonnie sleeps soundly beside you both in her crib. His room is nearly identical to when he left it, but these small changes with you both now being in there with him, is what gives him the harmony to fall asleep.

You asked Rhett once if he would be gentle with you, as he had your beautiful naked body below him.

“Will you be gentle with me? Please be gentle with me.”

He gave you the love that you so dearly deserved. He calls you his baby, his darlin’, his love.

He is your dream. He is your cowboy, but a man who needs to be wanted. He needs to feel wanted. He gets so much validation from you, in every way. Emotionally, physically, sexually… And you give that to him without hesitation. He’s so over the moon with you. He’s so profoundly and deeply in love with you.

taglist: @beachbabey @tallrock35 @currentlybradshaw @unmistakablyunknown @iloveprettyboysblog @flames-thebitch @randomfandomgirl97 @kmc1989 @swiftsgirlfriend

tagging those who may be interested: @sunblchdfly @sugarcoated-lame @lewmagoo @peachystenbrough @floydsmuse @rhettmotel @mearslot @rhettabbotts @hangmanapologist @withahappyrefrain @castiel-barnes @sandbarbirdie

[houseofaegon]

── ★ ˙ ̟ rhett abbott masterlist

last updated: 6/15/2025

requests are always open! please read rules and guidelines before requesting<3 white lace divider by @uzmacchiato

add yourself to my taglists !!

` ִ ☆゙ navigation rules & guidelines masterlist ֶָ . ࣪ ׅ

♱ adult content

` ִ ☆゙ ONE SHOTS

✷ ─── dead of night ♱

pairings: rhett abbott x bestfriend!reader

summary: you didn't really plan on spending tonight anywhere but in bed, binge-watching true crime and savoring wine. but when your best friend rhett abbott texts you at 1 am asking you to come outside, your comfortable night in turns into a starry, intimate confession beneath the wyoming sky. the lines of friendship blur deliciously into something deeper and hotter—under constellations and blankets on rhett's truck. and he finally shows you exactly how long he's been waiting to make you his.

✷ ─── after hours ♱

pairings: rhett abbott x babysitter!reader

summary: coming soon !! babysitting amy abbott out at the ranch was supposed to be simple—easy money, quiet hours, the occasional home-cooked dinner from cecilia. what started as a favor turned into routine, one that brought you dangerously close to the man you swore you wouldn’t touch. rhett abbott is trouble. older, angrier, and heartbreak wrapped in denim and cowboy boots. he’s been watching you since the beginning—since the first time you laughed at one of his jokes and made fun of his boots. Since the first time you wore shorts that made his hands clench uselessly at his sides. He doesn’t talk much, but when he looks at you, it’s like he’s drowning in the want he won’t admit to. you tease. you linger. you press buttons like you want to be punished. and eventually, rhett breaks. you thought you were just babysitting. turns out, you were asking for this.

✷ ─── red velvet ♱

pairings: engaged!rhett abbott x engaged!reader

summary: coming soon.

` ִ ☆゙ SERIES

✷ ─── west coast ♱

pairings: rhett abbott x surfer!reader

summary: you're pure Malibu, a california girl at heart—sunshine, surfing, and saltwater running through your veins. riding waves has always been second nature, but riding horses in dusty wyoming? definitely not your thing. when your family trades the california coast for the ranch life in wabang, wyoming, you clash immediately with the small-town culture and the cocky bull rider next door, rhett abbott. he’s brooding, possessive, and infuriatingly attractive, making you question everything you thought you wanted. suddenly, you're caught between two worlds—ocean tides and dirt roads, california beaches and wyoming nights, torn between homesickness and the magnetic pull of rhett’s touch. they say home is where the heart is…but what happens when your heart belongs in two places at once?

[creatchie8]

Yellow Soul: Chapter Nine

Tilleul

Chapter Summary: Something is very wrong in Wabang, Wyoming. And you have everything to do with it.

Pairing: Rhett Abbott/Fem!Reader

Warnings: Minors DNI- A lot of angst and yearning, some suggestive behavior, mentioned dead body

Word Count: 8,800ish

A/N: Hey queens... hopefully this chapter makes sense, it has been brewing so long in my head my brain sort of turned into mush lol. Now we are really gettin into it, juicy juicy juicy.

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter - Masterlist

The tires crunched over gravel as you pulled up to the bonfire, headlights cutting briefly through the dark before you killed the engine. The fire was bigger than expected and so was the crowd. Laughter spilled out into the night, a few flickering faces turning to glance as your truck rolled to a stop at the edge of the field, parking among a row of other vehicles. 

You sat for a moment with your hands on the warm steering wheel, the engine ticking quietly as it cooled. The thick denim jacket you wore scratched against your bare arms, stiff and coarse at the seams and heavy on your shoulders. You’d nearly left it at home because you hated the way it felt. But the cold bit through you too quickly in just a shirt to go without it now that the weather was getting colder. 

Now it clung to you like a bad decision you couldn’t take back, as if coming here didn't already seem like a bad decision.

Taking a breath through your nose, you reluctantly opened the driver door. The sharp scent of burning wood rushed in and filled the cab with its nauseating scent and the early autumn chill followed close behind. You crossed your arms, half to ward off the cold and half to hold yourself together, tired eyes scanning the mostly unknown crowd. 

There were more people than you’d expected… far more. Beth had promised it would only be a few coworkers and some friends for a going away party for Mateo. Clearly, Mateo had a very broad definition of “close.”

Some clustered near the fire, others spilled into the shadows. Red cups in hand, talking and laughing in the truck beds of those who needed a front row seat, seemingly not worried what would happen if the flames jumped too close to their vehicle. It takes a lot of internal convincing to slide yourself out of the driver’s seat and close the heavy door. 

You hadn’t even shut the door yet. Once you did, that was it. No going back. No retreat.

The door closed with a heavy finality, and the sound echoed in your chest. But, you didn’t move just yet. The nervous flutter in your chest hadn’t settled. Worn boots crunched on the ground as you shifted your weight. 

All at once, the fire seemed very far away from where you were parked.

But, you spotted Beth. The knot in your chest loosened just a little. She stood near the fire, backlit by the warm glow laughing, relaxed, holding a drink and gesturing wildly mid-story as her long, dark hair whipped over her sweatshirt-clad shoulders. Her presence and sharp laughter cut through the noise, steady and familiar, like a buoy in deep water.

With one hand still gripping the edge of your rough denim jacket and the other shoved into your front pant pocket, you started walking toward the controlled flames, ground giving way to packed dirt beneath your boots. Your breath fogged in the air and the cold still clung to you, but your steps felt a little less hesitant now.

As you approached closer, Beth’s face lit up in instant recognition, excusing herself away from the small circle of people that gathered near her so she could meet you halfway. 

The scent of thick smoke and her usual fruity perfume enveloped you as she neared and eventually pulled you into a hug, kissing your cheek, “There you are! And here I thought you stood me up.” Beth pouted her raspberry glossed lips and you laughed, tension melting from your shoulders. 

“Oops, sorry-” She wrinkled her nose and wiped off her gloss mark from your cheek with the cuff of her sweatshirt. Her eyes were glittery and glazed, like she was already a few drinks in. 

The two of you started walking slowly towards the fire, Beth’s elbow linked with yours as if she was afraid you’d run away. 

“So… Mateo has quite a guest list.” You mumble in her ear, dark locks tickling your nose. She let out an exasperated sigh, stalling a bit before you meshed with the rest of the group.

“Hmmm… yes. Are you mad that I lied to you about the small party thing? Because it really is kind of like a friend who brought a friend who brought a friend thing.” She explained sheepishly, almost animated due to the alcohol she had consumed. 

You barely avoided being backed into by a guy who wasn’t watching where he was going, pivoting just in time as Beth led you toward a navy-blue cooler stationed beside someone’s truck. 

A couple occupied the open tailgate nearby, the woman wrapped in a worn blanket while her boyfriend (presumably) clung to her like they were alone. Quickly, you avert your eyes and crouch near the cooler, letting your fingertips skim the cold water and ice bobbing at the top.

Beth nudged your thigh with the toe of her boot, pulling your attention back to the conversation.

“Oh, no- I’m not mad.” You said, raising your voice over the low hum of chatter. “How could you have known there’d be this many people?” 

Beth exhaled audibly, like she’d actually been holding her breath. Relief softened her face, “Exactly!” She exclaims after her sigh, completely oblivious to the couple on the tailgate as she leans against it, sipping whatever was left in her red solo cup. Her loose attitude makes you snort out a short laugh, your attention drawn back to the cooler. 

The selection was bleak. That’s what you got for showing up late. Shiny cans bobbed in cloudy water, firelight flickering across their dented surfaces. 

Cherry seltzer or pineapple seltzer? Neither sounded spectacular but it had to be better than what was left in the soupy ice. It was like whoever put this cooler together just tossed in whatever they had in their pantry that they were just itching to get rid of. 

Lost in concentration, you never heard the boots shuffling behind you nor the man clearing his throat trying to get your attention. It took an arm and a hand brushing past you and plunging into the cooler to snap you out of your internal debate. His sudden movement mixed up the cans you were looking at, and to your dismay he happened to pull out the cherry seltzer.

A huff pulls from your nose and you whip your head around and up to whoever just stole your drink. Your mouth is open but the words die on your tongue.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Rhett asks, seemingly equally as confused as you are. His hand and can- your can- drips shiny little beads of water that gleam in the fire light. Looking down you notice that a white wrap is covering the majority of his hand, the bandage crawling its way up his forearm.  

Standing up to your full height, you cross your arms defensively, “I could ask you the same thing. How do you know Mateo?” You question absentmindedly as you suddenly realize Beth was no longer at your side, but over back with the people you saw her with earlier. 

The crack and hiss of a can brings you back to the man in front of you, opening the silver tab of the drink with rough, calloused fingers. You bite the inside of your cheek and glare at him as he raises the white can to his lips and takes a long, slow drink. 

Like he was teasing you. 

While you await his response, you become hyper-aware of the couple next to you. 

Were they… surely they couldn't be- out in the open? 

And with a quick glance in their direction your (unfortunate) suspicion was confirmed to be true and they were getting much friendlier than appropriate in such a public setting. 

You turned and walked away, pulse quickening- not out of innocence, but a deep, rising discomfort. No part of you wanted to stick around for that. 

Rhett called your name, but you kept walking, needing space to collect yourself. A large hand grabs your wrist and you stop, turning around to see Rhett. A soft, easy smile made its way to his rosy lips, the color complimenting the flush on his cheeks, the same flush you knew traveled down his neck and chest.

“Hey, you don't have to go if it makes you uncomfortable that I'm here. I'll stay away.” 

That wasn’t sober Rhett talking. Sober Rhett didn’t offer comfort. Sober Rhett didn’t say anything unless cornered. And his thumb- his stupid, calloused thumb- was stroking the inside of your wrist beneath your cuff, brushing your bracelet like it still meant something. 

“No I- didn’t you see those people next to us?” His thumb rubbing soft circles into your skin was driving you mad, and the worst part is you knew he was doing it unconsciously. Like it was second nature to be touching you and giving you butterflies.  

“What people?” Rhett furrowed his brows and looked slowly over his shoulder, trying to figure out whatever you were talking about. 

You couldn't take it anymore. You pulled back from his grasp surprisingly easily and watched as his hand fell slack to his side. You exhaled through your nose, steadying your voice. “Let’s not do this right now. Just tell me- how do you know Mateo?” This time it wasn’t a plea. It was a request for clarity. 

Control.

“Oh, I don't.” Ah. So he was the ‘friend of a friend’, “Why are you here?”

“I’m Mateo’s coworker. Well, ex-coworker now. This is-” Rhett leans closer, much too close for your liking, and turns his ear towards you. As if to say, ‘I can't hear you’, “This going away party.” You explain louder and Rhett nods as if he fully understands you. But the way his forehead creases tells you otherwise. Normally, you’d feel the pull to fill in the blanks. To explain. To make it easier.

But not tonight. You were too tired to keep covering for other people’s confusion.

“D’you want a drink?” You don't think he knows he's yelling, deep voice penetrating your eardrums and vibrating down your spine. You don't think he knows he's leaning closer either. 

Instinctively, your hand shoots out and you press it firmly to the center of his chest, soft green flannel meeting your hand, stopping him before he collides with you. 

“I had a drink.” You pointedly eye the cherry seltzer clutched in his hand. Rhett looked down and laughed under his breath, as if he forgot it was there.

“Here.” He shoves the can close, pressing it to your own chest. Not aggressively, just thoughtlessly like he was mirroring you. Rhett’s knuckles brushed against you in the process, light but undeniable. You hated the way it made your stomach twist, low and molten.

“No, you picked it. Keep it.” Your voice stayed even. 

His proximity pressed uncomfortably close. If he noticed, he didn’t show it. Or maybe he didn’t care.

“Oh come on now. Take it.” His tone is playful but firm, making the hair on the back of your neck prickle. He nudged the can higher- too high now, too close. You dropped your hand from his chest, accepting the drink just to make it stop.

“Thanks.” You muttered, avoiding his gaze.

Rhet looks at you expectantly, blue eyes flicking between your face and the drink. 

You grimace and tilt your head as if to say, ‘really?’ and Rhett just nods almost eagerly. Giving up, you take a sip and shoot him a tight-lipped smile, “There you go. Happy now?” 

Rhett responds with a low hum, a pleased look gracing his handsome features. You felt stuck, pinned under his drunk gaze like a caged animal. You shifted your weight, resisting the urge to fill the silence. Let him sit in it, if he wanted to be near you so badly.

Your eyes drifted back toward Beth, her laughter rising above. She felt a mile away, safe and familiar. 

You bit the inside of your cheek.

“I should head back to my friend.” You said finally, soft but resolute. And before Rhett could reply, before that lazy smile could twist into something more, you turned and left, fast enough to feel the escape in it.

-

Beth’s group was much too close to the fire for your liking. Already you shed your jacket and it was resting on the tailgate of someone’s truck. Even with your jacket off the heat from the flames kissed your bare skin and licked at your face, which felt like you had a one hundred and four fever. 

As if that wasn't enough, you were already one cherry seltzer and two beers deep, the sharp edges of your earlier anxiety had dulled, replaced with a slow, ambient hum in your bloodstream. You weren’t drunk, but you weren’t clear either. Just warm, somewhat floaty. 

Uncertain.

And yet, you kept finding his eyes.

He stayed his distance, grouped up a ways away from you. He looked away again, scratched the back of his neck, and said something to the guy next to him without looking back.

And then… there. Again. A flick of the eyes, half a smile, just barely.

You shifted your weight from one foot to the other, suddenly aware of how overwhelmed you were, how warm your face had gotten. You looked down for a moment, trying to school your expression. Then back up.

He was still looking.

Not in an obvious way. Just enough to say I see you. I still see you.

Your pulse stuttered. You hated how easily he could still do that to you.

Hot and cold. That was Rhett. One night inviting you out, the next keeping you at arm’s length like you were too much to deal with. You never knew where you stood with him, and you hated that too. 

“I’m going on a walk.” You whisper to Beth and she nods absentmindedly, giving your hand a quick squeeze before turning her attention back to the woman she was talking with. 

Yes. A quick hike through the cold autumn air will clear your head. It always does. And maybe it'll sober you up enough to start feeling like you can drive home. 

Jacket crumpled up in your fist, you start to head away from the group and past the fire, walking the opposite way of where your car was parked. 

The crowd was thinning, but there were still enough people where you had to squeeze between groups, muttering apologies the whole way.

As you passed his group, you kept your eyes down, begging to seem invisible to the others as you walked. You slipped away from the light, the noise, the heat, stepping into the cool hush beyond the sparse tree line. 

The ground was dry, soft under your boots, and the dark was full of quiet sounds. Pine branches shifting, their sharp needles gearing up for the cold, distant voices, the rhythmic thump of bass fading behind you. 

The cold had deepened, sharpening the air. The stars were brighter now, pushing through the haze of smoke and music. You shivered, and looking down you could see little raised bumps developing atop your forearms. And although you weren't freezing, you knew it was better to put it on now than get sick from the cold. 

"Hey-"

The voice behind you made you stall, the denim only pulled over one arm. 

You turned. It was Rhett. He stood a few feet back, hands in his pockets, eyes shadowed but familiar with a thick Carhart jacket zipped up halfway. He looked a little unsure of himself, like he knew he was trespassing on something private but couldn’t quite help it. 

You lowered your eyes and continued slipping the rest of your jacket on.

“I didn’t think you should walk out here alone.” He explained. Rhett’s tone was neutral, almost casual. But his eyes searched for yours. 

You raised an eyebrow, “I can handle the woods.”

“I know,” He said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just… still.” 

The flush was almost gone from his cheeks from what you could tell in the moonlight. A silence stretched between the two of you. Not unfriendly. But delicate. 

You could have sent Rhett back. Part of you wanted to. But another part, the bigger part, was oddly glad he’d followed.

You sighed, then turned and kept walking. He fell into step behind you, your feet crunching lightly over twigs and leaves. Your fingers brushed the tree trunks as you passed them, sometimes reaching out to gently stroke the prickly pine needles that got within arm’s reach. 

“Didn't think I’d see you Sunday.” He said after a few moments.

“Didn't think I’d come.” You admit softly, placing a firm palm flat against the trunk of a tree to push yourself upwards on the jutting rock in your path. 

Once up, you wait for Rhett, watching as he does the same. Waiting for him to find the proper footing helps you take a deep breath, crisp air burning the inside of your nose, and it smells like sagebrush. 

Spicy, peppery, and earthy. It reminds you of a simpler time. 

“Do you think you're ready for next weekend? I hear the competition will be tough.” You were already walking back up the trail, further and further from the fire. It was barely a glow from when you started. 

“Can ya give me a break? It’s only Tuesday.” He said, and when you looked over your shoulder, he was smiling. Soft, familiar, teasing like it used to be. 

So he still was a little tipsy. Not that you could judge, it was a miracle you had not tripped over your own feet already and biffed it in the dust. 

“Ah, you're right. Sorry Rhett.” You gave a weak laugh, shaking your head. 

The two of you walked in silence for a while. The small, rational part of your brain begged you to stop and turn back. Why were you still walking? 

Because if you turn back, you'll see him. 

The irrational, yet louder, part of your brain whined. 

If Rhett was concerned by how far out you were getting, he never made it known as you walked along the moonlit trail. Your brain was lulled into a rhythm of listening to his steps married with yours.

Stepstep step… step. Stepstep step… step. Stepstep step… step.

“So… you and Maria?” 

There it was. 

Of all the things drunk you could’ve done- trip over a root, crack your skull open on a rock- you went with that. 

Maria. 

And you would’ve preferred a concussion.

You winced but kept going as Rhett stalled and messed up the soothing rhythm of your steps together. The air shifted with his silence. Now it was all wrong. 

Heavy.

Rhett stayed silent but caught up with you, dragging his feet in the dirt like a kid called in from recess. You almost hoped he wouldn’t respond at all. 

Maybe he’d just fall away, disappear into the trees, and let you walk this off alone.

“Why d’you care?” 

Not the response you expected. You stopped dead in your tracks, nearly causing him to collide with you. He skidded to a halt, too close.

It was like the moonlight had a dimmer switch, because now you had a hard time seeing his expression. But he looked hurt. His trucker hat shaded his face from what little moonlight was left and he looked miserable. Pitiful even. Sad blue puppy dog eyes that searched your face for an answer you couldn't give. 

You stared up at him, mouth parting, but nothing came out. Every reply you ran through sounded dishonest, or worse, desperate. 

“God, m’sorry.” You twisted your hands in front of you, “I don’t know why I-” 

“No, tell me. Why d’you care?” Rhett interrupted, pressing the question further. A deep, dark pit formed in your stomach as you watched him lean against the tree closest to him, crossing his arms as his expression went cold, void of any emotion.

“Jesus, Rhett.” You muttered, voice low and unsteady, “You know I can’t answer that.”

“Then why the hell should I answer you?” His voice rose and you winced at the volume, making yourself smaller as if you would cease to exist if you willed yourself hard enough.

“You don't have to. I said I was sor-” You all but whined, begging him to understand.

But Rhett only laughed, bitter and hollow, and the sound rattled through the trees like something feral, “Oh but I have to. For your sake I have to. Y’know, for some college educated girl you're not very smart.” His words stung like a sharp slap against your cheek, the bite of them ripping through your clothes and leaving you bare, completely naked in front of him. 

You straightened slowly, trying to hold on to something solid… anger, maybe. “That was low.” You said flatly, “Really awful.”

Rhett didn’t flinch. Didn’t back down. The wind picked up between you, snapping at your hair like a warning.

“It’s true. And you know it’s true.” His words took on a mocking tone, “For your whole life you've been doing what other people tell you to do. How to act, how to feel-”

“And you’re the authority on independence?” You snapped, stepping into his space. Your finger jabbed his chest, “You’re so scared of what your folks think, you won’t leave that damn ranch.”

The wind howled through the trees like it was in on the fight. The sky had gone black. No moon, no stars. Just dark clouds and electricity thick in the air.

Rhett grabbed your hand and shoved it away, then took hold of your jacket with both fists and yanked you forward. Your body collided with his, sudden and breathless.

“You need me to tell you one of two things: that I'm with Maria. That I like her and I like her so much that I think we should slap a label on it and wrap our relationship up in a neat little bow.” Rhett leaned closer, his forehead dangerously close to brushing against yours, “Or that we tried. Tried making it work but it just didn't turn out the way we’d hoped and we’re done.”

It was clear he couldn't feel or hear the wind, or saw how the moon was covered with storm clouds. But you could feel his heartbeat against your own, erratic and frenzied. Faintly, you could hear the rumbling of thunder over your panting lungs.

“Rhett, listen to me.” You whispered, panic blooming in your chest. Another roll of thunder groaned above, closer this time, “You hear that?” The scent of pine and fire clung to his clothes, and the storm was so close now, close enough to taste.

But he wasn’t listening. Not really. His voice steamrolled through yours.

“Either way you need me to put you out of your misery because you can't do it yourself. Because you can’t make up your damn mind. You can’t even form your own thoughts about you ‘n me without help.”

You nodded, not even sure why. You just wanted him to see you. But he didn’t. Not yet. 

Rhett doesn't even notice, he doesn't even notice the first little drops of rain plinking on the brim of his hat and the little taps the water leaves on the rocks and dirt. 

“I’m serious.” You tried again, voice straining, “It’s about to storm-” You tried to reason, grabbing fistfulls of his jacket near his chest to try and shake him out of the trance he was in. 

Yet the movements and pleadings are half-hearted as you start to process his words. But before you had time to form a coherent judgement of what he was saying, he was already interrupting your thoughts.

He barreled on, “So you want the truth? Here it is: I don’t know what’s going on with me ‘n Maria. It was easy when you weren’t here.”

His voice cracked.

“But now you are. And I don’t know if I can trust you not to…” He swallowed hard, “not to leave me again.”

There it was.

The last of his armor peeled away, piece by piece, until all that remained was the man you once knew. Heart in hand, afraid to give it away again.

You were panting warm breath into each other's mouths, seemingly both processing every sentence that was uttered between the two of you. 

It hit you, sinking deeper and deeper until you realized what you did. Six years ago you left him. You left Wabang, your family, his family, everything. It was easy for you to leave because you took nothing with the exception of your luggage. 

Six years ago you left a twenty year old Rhett to pick up the pieces, to do damage control of what you destroyed in your wake. 

Rhett endured every one of Perry’s outbursts, the outbursts you didn't hear of because you kept your distance. Rhett was the outlet of his family’s frustrations because of you. And all he could do was silently suffer, because no one knew he lost you too. 

“Rhett, I-” Your voice broke on his name, “I never-” 

A crack of lightning split the dark sky, searing white through the pine trees. 

You yelped, flinching hard as thunder chased it. Loud and violent, rolling straight through your chest. The clouds above broke open without mercy, unleashing a curtain of rain that drenched you both in seconds.

“Shit,” Rhett swore, instinctively drawing you closer. His hands slid from your jacket to your waist, gripping tightly, like holding you would somehow shield you from the downpour.

But it was too late. You were already soaked through. The cold water clung to your skin, your clothes heavy and sticking to every curve. Hair plastered to your cheeks, eyes blinking through water, you twisted in his grasp, jacket clutched uselessly around your shoulders.

“Fuck, where…” You turned in a frantic circle, trying to orient yourself. The bonfire was too far, there was no way you'd make it back without slipping or getting lost in the dark. Another streak of lightning tore across the sky, followed by a violent rumble of thunder that echoed through your ribs.

But where the fuck would you go instead?

“The rock!” Rhett shouted, barely audible over the roar of rain.

“What?” You yelled back, shoving soaked hair out of your eyes.

But he didn’t answer. He grabbed your wrist and took off, hauling you after him. Mud sucked at your boots and the trail blurred beneath the veil of water. You stumbled behind him, heart hammering, lungs burning, too breathless to speak and too afraid to stop.

He veered off the trail suddenly, ducking into the dense trees, branches slapping at your arms and snagging your clothes as you pushed through. Then, out of nowhere, you saw it.

The rock.

Not a rock, really a boulder. Tucked deep between a cluster of old pines, the base hollowed out by erosion and time. A natural alcove, just deep enough for shelter.

You didn’t know how Rhett had seen it, maybe he’d known it was there all along, but in the haze of rain and noise and panic, it looked like a miracle.

He dropped to his knees first, ducking beneath the overhang, then turned to pull you in with him. You scrambled after him, collapsing onto the damp earth, your back pressed to cold stone, water dripping from every part of you.

The storm raged just beyond the mouth of the shelter, wind lashing at the trees, rain hammering down on pine needles and leaves in a relentless drum.

But inside the hollow, it was dim. Quiet by comparison and close.

Too close.

You could barely catch your breath.

You sat with your knees pulled up, jean jacket wrapped tight around you, watching water trickle down the slope just a few feet away. Soaked to the bone. 

Rhett stayed close to you, sitting with his elbows on his knees. He hadn’t said a word since pulling you off the trail. His hat was off, sitting a bit away from his form, hair matted to his forehead.

The silence gnawed at you, “I’m sorry.” You said quietly, your voice nearly lost beneath the soft rumble of distant thunder.

Rhett didn’t turn to face you. But you saw his jaw clench, the flicker of breath in his chest. Breathing hard like the sprint had taken more from him than he’d admit.

He wiped a hand down his face and leaned back against the rock, “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make it sound easy.” His voice was hoarse. You nodded hesitantly, dropping your chin to your knees as you looked out of the mouth of the shelter. Rain was still pelting the ground in front of you, humidity creeping its way closer to the two of you. 

“I’m not asking for a pass.” You mumble into your knees, “I wasn’t trying to leave you behind. I was just… running. From everything.” Your heart clenches as your mind walks you through old memories, the fear you remember the most being when you found that ring in Perry’s duffle. 

How scared you felt that you might end up trapped forever. 

Rhett sighed through his nose, head leaning back against the stone behind him. The rain was softer now, more like mist than fury. The sound of it filled the spaces where words couldn’t go.

The sudden zip of his Carhart drew your attention back to him, watching with curious eyes as he shrugged it off and tossed it into the dirt next to him. You lifted your head off your knees as he then started to unto the buttons on his dark green flannel.

“What are you doing?” You asked hesitantly, furrowing your brows as he struggled with the last few buttons near the bottom. 

“You're freezing. And your teeth chattering is makin’ me annoyed.” Despite the way he phrased it, there was not an ounce of venom in his voice as he pulled the flannel off and held it out to you. 

Gently, your fingertips came to your mouth, surprised that your teeth were chattering quite violently. 

Your heart caught somewhere between shame and something else- something soft.

Once you accepted the flannel, Rhett was already pulling the Carhart over his shoulders. You followed after him, sitting up on your knees to have more room. Your jean jacket made an audible plopping noise as you dropped it to the ground, the heavy fabric soaked through with rain. Already you felt warmer with it off, even warmer now with something dry covering you up.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw his face turn to you. You ignored his gaze, settling back down beside him, a little closer than earlier. 

Finally, you glanced over at him. His jaw was tight. His eyes wouldn’t meet yours.

“I meant it, you know.” You said, voice low, “I never meant to hurt you.”

His eyes flicked to yours, then away again, like looking at you too long would cost him something.

“You still did.”

You nodded slowly, “I know.”

The silence stretched again, but something inside it had shifted. The fight had burned off into something softer, quieter. Wounded still, but not sharp.

You moved a little closer, not touching him, just enough to close the space between your words and his silence. The rain outside grew louder again, a burst of wind driving it sideways against the rock. Instinctively, you reached for him, fingers brushing the roughness of his soaked jacket sleeve.

He flinched, barely. But didn’t pull away.

“I missed you.” You whispered. And it was true. The truest thing you had ever said in your entire twenty-nine years. 

So true, it ached. 

His voice came out rough, “I don’t know if I can let myself miss you. Not like before.”

“I’m not asking you to.” Your fingers found the cuff of his jacket, holding on like he would run, “But I don’t want to lie to you, either.”

He looked at you then, really looked. Water still clung to his lashes, his cheeks flushed from cold and emotion both. He looked like someone trying not to drown.

And then, slowly, carefully, he reached up and tucked a strand of wet hair behind your ear. His palm grazed your cheek, and your breath hitched.

You leaned into his hand, and when he didn’t pull away, you turned your face just slightly, pressing a soft kiss to the center of his palm.

It wasn’t a kiss full of heat or resolution, it was quiet. Apologetic. A confession in a language both of you still barely spoke. Just a simple brush of your chapped lips to his warm flesh. 

When your eyes met again, he gave you a look you’d seen once before, years ago, under starlight outside of his house: vulnerable and unguarded, scared of the answer.

So when you leaned forward and kissed him, it wasn’t desperate. It was slow and soft. Like you were asking permission with every inch.

And for just a moment, he let you.

He kissed you back. Not deeply, not with abandon, but with the aching weight of someone who hadn’t stopped wanting this, even when he tried.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, his eyes half-lidded.

“I can’t go back to how things were.” He murmured and you could still faintly smell the beer on his breath. 

“I’m not asking you to,” You whispered, “just… stay here. For now.”

He closed his eyes and nodded.

You were about to pull back when he pulled you back in, big fist twisting in the material of the flannel. Rhett’s chapped lips found yours once again, mouth moving tentatively against yours, as if he was asking permission but couldn't find the words. 

Kissing back with the same amount of tenderness, you let your eyes slip close. Slowly, as if not to spook him, you rose up on your knees to get a better angle, back hurting at the way you were twisted. 

Your mouth broke from his for just a second, but Rhett was already chasing you upwards. 

You steadied yourself against his broad shoulders, the pads of your fingers pressing in on his jacket as his hands drifted to your hips, skimming his fingers lightly over your sides. Your heart was pounding and your face was warm, his hands finally finding their place against your hip bones, thumbs pushing under the flannel and shirt to stroke against your bare skin. 

As you continued kissing him, one of your hands slowly moved upwards, cupping the sharp edge of his jaw. His stubble scratched against your cold skin, distracting you from the dirt digging into your knees from below. 

The rain and storm had faded from your memory, the only thing you could focus on now was the way Rhett pulled you into his lap, letting your knees fall to either side of his legs as you settled down on him. 

Those thick thighs slotting between your own, his strong arms pulling you close so your body was flush to his. 

Although it was clear that you wanted each other, the touches were kept tame. 

Still, you were kissing with closed mouths, only little slips of the tongue ever graced each other’s lips. Even your hands were respectful, Rhett’s never going any further than to rest on your lower back under the flannel. 

It was almost like you were seeing who would break first. Who would surrender and beg for more. Not in a teasing way, but in a way that would ruin you for the rest of your life. 

And it was looking like you might wave the white flag first. 

Cautiously, as if you didn't want to draw attention to it, you shifted your weight backwards, ass gently resting on the tops of his thighs. Slowly, you sat all your weight down. A little pang stung your heart at his warmth, skin buzzing with want. 

Rhett breaks the kiss and you freeze, worried that you pushed too far. His eyes are half-lidded when they meet yours, cheeks pink and so are the tips of his ears. 

Faintly, you can hear the rain behind you, but most of all the sharp cold smell of damp earth and pine surrounds the two of you, wrapping itself around you as if to reassure you it’s still there. 

He’s pushing you away, and you let him. 

It starts out as a hesitant nudge against your hips, his fingers wrapping around the flesh there. Then he’s averting his eyes, looking away as he firmly pushes you off of him. It’s not rude, not malicious, and you know that. 

But it hurts nonetheless. 

“‘s’too much.” He mutters once you are back in your own space, a respectable few inches between the two of you. And you nod, because it’s the only thing you can do. 

Leaning against the rock, you sigh through your nose, biting the inside of your cheek. The rain comes in waves, sometimes pelting the ground outside, only for the next minute for it to be just barely there. 

While you waited for it to die down, you messed around on your phone. Texting Beth back from her worried messages, wondering if you were okay. You had to hold your phone out and up, at a funny angle for it to even think about sending the text. 

Then, with your head back against the rock and your eyes half closed, his voice breaks through your almost-sleep, “Looks like it’s faded, lets go.” His tone is sudden and hard, like it was difficult for him to get the words out. 

Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you awkwardly crawl out after him, taking the hand offering to help you up. 

You follow him out into the night, the air cold and damp, heavy with the smell of wet earth. The rain has finally stopped, but everything feels swollen with it. Like the world is holding its breath.

The walk back to your respective vehicles is eerily quiet.

-

You slept hard, too hard. The next morning passed in a blur of paperwork and heavy limbs. You didn’t hear from him at all. You didn’t expect to.

The work day crawls by, slow and gray, a clear sign that the colder months are settling in Wyoming. You scroll through texts you don’t respond to, wash clothes that weren’t dirty, and stare at your own reflection longer than you should in the dirty bathroom mirror.

When the sun starts to dip again, painting the sky in streaks of dull copper and muted indigo, a pressure builds low in your stomach. Like something’s coming, like the quiet is waiting to be broken.

It’s nearly nine when your phone rings. A shrill, confusing sound ripping its way through your dark living room that drowns out the movie you were watching. 

It’s an unknown number, which causes you to hesitate. Probably not a spam call, by the looks of the local 307 area code. Muting your movie, you answer and hold it close to your ear, sinking deeper into the worn couch. 

“Hello?” 

There’s a pause, long enough that has you thinking it just might be a spam call and you debate hanging up. 

The voice on the other end says your name, more like a question than a statement. It’s low and measured, female. 

“Yes, this is her. Who is this?” Your back stiffened as there was another pause. Something dark settled in your stomach. 

“This is Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk with the Wabang Police Department. We’d like you to come in and give a statement.” The static makes her voice unsettlingly scratchy, hard to hear over the crackle. Your pulse flutters. 

“What’s uhm… What’s this about?” You clear your throat and sit up, picking at a loose fiber on the thigh of your sweatpants. 

“There was a body found this morning. Out in the field just past the Old Wind River Highway.”

You already know who. 

Joy continues carefully, “We believe the deceased may be connected to you or someone you may know.” 

Your breath doesn’t catch. You don’t drop the phone. You don’t say anything for a few seconds. Not because you’re panicking, but because you’re thinking. Trying to line up your thoughts, which suddenly feel like they’ve been spilled out of a well-organized drawer.

“I see…” You take in a shaky breath, chewing at your bottom lip, “Would this be able to wait until morning?” Your eyes flick to the watch sitting on your wrist. Now a bit past nine, but you have work tomorrow. 

Another pause. “We’d prefer to speak with you tonight, if possible.”

Glancing towards the window by your stairs, you see it’s rather dark. The kind of dark that has you drawing the blinds in fear you may see something out there that you don't want to. 

“Right. I live out in Lander so I-”

“Whenever you get here is fine. I'll see you soon.” Joy interrupts and ends the call abruptly, like something else grabbed her attention.  

You sit very still, your phone resting in your palm like it might ring again, taunting you as the movie keeps playing. The deafening silence settles again. 

And the movie still plays. It continues through a scene you've seen a million times before, and it makes you wildly uncomfortable. It still plays while he is dead. It didn't stop. You fumble with the remote and turn it off. 

You don't cry. Not because you don't feel anything, but because that feeling is complicated, sprawling, and you don’t have the energy or clarity to follow every thread of it right now.

Maybe you actually don't feel anything. Numb, something protecting you like an extra myelin sheath. 

You stand and move through your apartment slowly, methodically. You gather your things- keys, jacket, wallet. You don't bother changing out of your sweatpants and baggy top. Pausing only once, in the hallway mirror beside your front door.

Your face looks somewhat normal. Maybe a little gaunt. You wonder what they’ll see when you walk into the station. If they'll see just another name on a long list of people adjacent to the mess, or if they’ll see something else.

You leave.

-

The ugly fluorescent lights overhead buzz with quiet aggression, harsh against the ink-black sky outside. You can feel them needling into the base of your skull.

You freeze when you spot him.

Perry. 

His back is turned, shoulders hunched and rigid through a glass-paneled room behind the desk. When he glances over his shoulder, he doesn’t look dangerous.

He looks afraid.

You give your name at the front desk. The officer there barely glances up before waving someone over. There’s no waiting in the room, no pause. They were ready for you.

A younger officer escorts you to a narrow room with a window, the pane taking up a full wall and similar to Perry’s. You surrender your keys, phone, and wallet before stepping inside the open door, a small wooden chair waiting for you behind a matching table. 

The room was warmer than it needed to be, stale and uninviting. You take off your jacket and drape it over the backrest as you sit down. When you sit, you keep your spine straight. Not out of confidence, but because slouching would feel like giving something away.

It takes nearly twenty minutes before Joy enters. Her tan uniform wrinkled like she hadn't had the chance to change since coming into work this morning. Her smile, despite being guarded, is warm as she greets you, shaking your hand as you stand before her. 

“Thanks for coming in.” She says, gesturing toward the seat. “Shouldn’t take long.”

You nod and sit again, this time on the edge of the seat. You couldn't run, the door was already closed. But you just couldn't relax in the stifling room. Joy studies you for a beat. You meet her gaze, calm but unblinking. She’s already looking for cracks.

Forcing yourself to relax, you slouched a little bit, the backrest digging into your ribs uncomfortably. 

“How do you know Trevor Tillerson?” Joy asks as she perches herself on the edge of the table, reaching her arm out to steady herself on the flat surface. 

There it is. His name. 

“We went to high school together. We never really talked- didn't run in the same circles I guess." You explained, picking at a hangnail on your thumb. 

Your heart was pounding.

Joy nodded. You expected her to whip out a pen and some paper to start writing your story down, but she stayed put, long braids trailing over her rounded shoulders, “I understand you saw him last Wednesday, at the bar?”

“Briefly, yeah.” You brushed some hair from your face.

“Can you tell me about that night?” 

Hesitating, you look past her and out the window, keeping your head low. You couldn't see anything but a few plaques on the darker beige walls. 

You’re calculating how much to give her. If Perry’s here, Rhett has to be too. 

“I was feeling sick-” You started, looking back down to your hands, “So I went outside to… puke, I guess.” You were embarrassed to admit it out loud, as if she had not seen a decaying body that morning, “I saw Perry in an argument with Trevor and it was getting heated. Rhett came out and broke it up.”

Looking up, her eyes bore into your soul. Joy shifts her weight slightly, the movement subtle but deliberate. 

“Did Rhett and Trevor get into it?” Joy asked, pressing further. You get the sense that she already knew the answer to that question, the tone of her voice gave it away. It was more like she wanted you to confirm her suspicion. 

You nod, “A little pushing. Nothing serious.” A lie. Trevor’s bloody face resurfaced in your thoughts. You vaguely remember Rhett’s request to keep quiet about what happened when he met you in the street. 

“Was Maria there?”

Nodding, you hummed a confirmation, confused why Maria would be important at all to why Trevor’s body was resting in the morgue. 

“And she went home with Rhett?”

Your brow creases, “No. She left with her friends. Rhett walked me back inside. Then he left with Perry.” Your hands were wrung tight under the table. 

“So you saw the Abbott boys leave toge-” She started, furrowing her dark eyebrows.

You shake your head, interrupting her, trying to get your story straight, “I didn’t see them leave. But Rhett went out to get his truck through the front. Perry was the last one I saw with Trevor in the back.”

Joy’s fingers begin tapping a soft rhythm on the table. Her silence feels strategic.

“Alright. Sit tight. If you need anything, Matt’s outside.”

She’s gone before you can respond. The door clicks again. Heavier this time.

You sit in silence. The minutes pass slowly, marked only by the quiet cracking of your knuckles, one at a time, deliberate. You’re not restless. You’re burning through your nerves in controlled bursts.

When Joy returns, her tone has shifted.

“So were you with Rhett that night?” The question lands on you like a stone to your chest, making your face heat up at the insinuation. Joy knew all about you and Perry, it was hard not to in a small town. For her to even be suggesting that made you sick to your stomach. 

“I went home with my friend Beth Dellucci, I can give you her contact to verify.” The words were gritted out between your teeth, cheeks burning in embarrassment as you lowered your eyes to your shoes. 

“Alright boys! Let's get you home.” An unfamiliar man’s voice tore through the station.

Both your heads snap toward the sound. Joy mutters, “I’ll be back.” Her voice clipped as she left again. Even with the door shut with a heavy sound, you can still hear the faint sounds of arguing between a few people, more doors being slammed shut. 

You’re halfway out of the chair when she returns, this time holding everything you gave the younger officer. 

“You’re free to go. Save the number I called you on. We’ll likely need to follow up.”

You pause, standing up fully, “Why do you keep asking me about Rhett? Am I a suspect?” The words come out quiet, the door still being held open with her foot.

Joy lets out a long sigh through her nose, looking into the empty hallway before back at you, shutting the door so the two of you are alone again, “Because earlier today Maria falsely created an alibi for Rhett and told Matt she was with him.” Her words were hushed, “She admitted that she lied but informed me that you were the last one she saw him with.” 

“But I went home with Beth, Rhett walked me to her.” You tried explaining again. You had no idea what happened after Rhett left to get his truck. 

“Trevor’s body was found in one of the Abbott’s pastures.” Joy’s voice was sharp, stinging. But it was nothing compared to the freeze that gribbed your spine. You felt like you might suffocate. 

“So my question still stands.” Joy continues, seemingly satisfied at your shocked reaction so you finally understand why the Abbotts are so important to this, “Rhett was missing for two very important hours and no one can confirm where he was.”

-

The night air hits you like a slap- cool, sharp, alive in a way the interrogation room never was. For a second, you just breathe. The sky above is full of little stars, and the parking lot glows under flickering overhead lamps, each one casting a pale halo on the dry gravel.

Then you see them.

Perry, pacing like a caged animal near the hood of his old pickup truck, cigarette clenched tight between his fingers. Rhett leans against the passenger door of another nearby truck, arms crossed, jaw tight. And Royal, standing between them like a man holding a tight leash on two fighting dogs.

They see you before you can decide whether to turn back.

Perry’s wild, red-rimmed eyes lock on you, “You.” He spits, taking a step forward, “What’re you doin’ here? Dragging our names through like we’ve got anything to do with it.”

Rhett doesn’t move. His gaze shifts to the ground, but you catch the flick of his eyes in your direction. He knows something.

“Perry…” Royal warns, voice low.

“Joy called me, I didn't choose to come here tonight.” You snapped back, planting your feet firmly to the rocks, “And I didn't drag anyone, I told the truth.”

Perry’s already moving closer, arms flaring out from his sides, cigarette forgotten and burning between two fingers, "You're full of shit. What the fuck did you say about us?” All bluster and rage, but you see the fear under it. 

Bubbling up in every twitch of his jaw.

And although you stand your ground, Perry looks at you. That same dead look he gave you outside the bar. Swaying, looking past your form. 

“That’s enough Perry.” Royal barks at him, dropping a heavy hand upon his shoulder. It causes him to look away from you, relieving you of the hold his eyes had on you. 

“I didn't kill him.” Perry hissed at you, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than you. You stare at Perry, heart knocking against your ribs now. 

He’s not trying to clear his name. He's trying to redirect blame. Push it around like a virus no one wants to touch. And you realize something important.

He’s not scared you’ll think he did it.

He’s scared you know something.

“What did you do to him, Perry?” The words come out soft and bare, raw as you ask him truthfully. 

He lunges.

Not far. Not enough to touch you. But his whole body jerks forward, and it’s Royal’s hand that stops him by gripping the arm of his jacket. Rhett pushed himself off of the truck and quickly crossed the short distance, yanking Perry back from you by his elbow. 

You're frozen in time, watching as Perry pants like he’s just run a mile. Something shifts in his eyes again, realizing something.

Pushing the other two men away from him, he storms back to his truck, slamming the door behind himself. Royal follows reluctantly, muttering something to himself as he climbs in his own truck. 

Rhett lingers, hesitating near you. 

“He thinks everyone’s out to get him.” Rhett murmurs. 

You meet his eyes, “Should they be?”

Rhett doesn’t answer. He just exhales through his nose, gaze dark and distant. Then he walks back to his dad’s truck.

Both vehicles roar to life, tearing away before they've even warmed up properly, the night swallowing them up.

But the question stays with you. 

And you don't feel safe anymore in Wyoming. 

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[fishfooddude]

Cowboy Hat

Rhett meets your friends, and you learn about the rules surrounding a man's hat.

Outer Range MasterList

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“So we’re meeting this Rhett guy?” your friend Valerie asked as you waited in the bar that night for both Rhett and a couple of your other friends. You nodded, looking down at your phone to see if Rhett had arrived. “So he’s a bull rider?” she asked. You nodded again.

You liked Rhett. The two of you had been casually dating for the past couple of months, and tonight was the night you introduced him to your best friends, Valerie and Erica. Valerie was the first one there, as always, so she was grilling you about who ‘this Rhett guy’ was. You and Rhett weren’t officially dating, but after casually hanging out for a couple of months, it was time to evaluate if he was worth pursuing more seriously. 

“Hey! Am I late?” Erica asked as she sat down next to Valerie. Valerie shook her head, “Rhett isn’t even here yet.” she playfully judged. You rolled your eyes at the comment, “He’s on the way.” you clarified, taking a sip from your drink. “Did you know he had a DUI?” Erica asked casually as she waved at a guy she knew on the other side of the bar. 

You laughed, “Yes. I do. We do talk to each other.” The three of you sat and chatted casually. Each of you were a couple of drinks in when Rhett arrived. You waved him over, and he grinned in your direction before coming over.

“Hey,” you smiled at him as he sat next to you casually, putting his arm around your shoulders. He squeezed your shoulder as a greeting, and you started the introduction: “Okay, Rhett, this is Erica, and that’s Valerie. Erica is basically my sister—our moms were best friends and coincidentally got pregnant at the same time. Valerie was my roommate in undergrad, and I just can’t shake her.” Your introductions were met with an eye roll from Valerie and a nod from Erica. “Okay. interrogate.” 

Rhett sat back and answered every question the two of them could come up with. “How about I get you ladies some drinks?” he offered, hoping to get off the topic of his prior sexual relationships. Valerie side-eyed him and watched as he exited the booth, “Didn’t scare ya away, did we Rhett?” Erica challenged, crossing her arms over her chest. 

You nudged her from the other side of the table. “I’ll come with you, Rhett.” You laughed, sliding out of the booth and lacing your fingers in his before he tugged you slightly toward the counter. “Your friends are…” Rhett started before he scratched at the back of his neck nervously. You met his hesitation with a laugh, “I know, Rhett. They’re a lot, but it comes from a place of love for me.” 

Before Rhett could retort, he felt his hat being removed from his head. He turned his head to see a short blonde woman he’d never seen before on her tiptoes, grabbing at his hat. He froze for a moment, unsure of what to do. His gaze shifted to you, and he saw a pensive look on your face. Rhett grunted and moved his head away from the woman, “I’m spoken for.” he said, taking his hat off and placing it on your head. Rhett turned and pulled you away from the woman. You felt the corners of your lips perk up at the action. You stumbled over yourself and slightly fell into Rhett’s side. He noticed and put his arm around your shoulders again, “You okay, pretty girl?” he asked softly. You nodded and put an arm around his waist, “Yeah- yeah, I’m okay.” you confirmed.