Page 81 of Second Chance Wedding
“I…” Cole inhaled and groaned. Would he have been able to put the journal backwithoutreading it when it held the key to that time? When he couldn’t answer the question he asked, “Is there anythingelseyou need to confess to?”
“Here’s your sampler and all the fixings,” the waitress said, sliding up on Cole’s left. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks,” Cole said without looking at her.
“Well, you boys enjoy, and I’ll check back on you in a while.”
“Thank you,” Ben said politely.
Cole grunted that the boy remembered his mannersnowrather than earlier before he’d snuck out or when he’d found the journal or before he’d stolen the limo. “Well?”
“No. Just the journal.”
“You get that those are private, right?”
Ben’s expression shifted several times as emotions played out.
“Mom started writing in it when she began college. Talked about her classes and meeting Quinley. The journal was part of an assignment, I think, so it wasn’tallprivate.”
“Stop making excuses,” Cole said. “You did it. So own it.”
“Fine. I read it,” Ben said without apology.
“And she wrote about your dad?”
“Not at first. She wrote about how she’d gotten sick in a class and hurled at the back of the room. How tired she was and how glad she was to get away from the Taylors. The classes she liked and the ones she didn’t.” Ben paused. “She said she missed you. A lot. And she wrote a lot of prayers for you to be kept safe.”
Cole paused at the news and then swallowed the bite of food in his mouth. Ana hadn’t known how bad he’d taken the news, but she’d still prayed for him. That meant a lot. “She did, huh?”
“Yeah. She was really scared for you. Anyway then she realized she was pregnant, and that’s when she talked about my dad and who he was. She wrote about…how much she regretted hooking up with him and stuff. Some of the pages had water on them, like she’d cried, you know, when she wrote them.”
“That was probably hard for you to read.”
Ben nodded, his head down, shoulders slumped.
“Ben, you know your mom can regrethowsomething happened without regretting the results, right? She loves you more than anything. She might regret her actions that night at the party, but she doesn’t regretyou. You know that, right?”
Ben’s face turned red again, and he blinked rapidly at Cole’s words. Obviously Ben and his mom needed to talk about some things. Important things.
Ben’s father hadn’t wanted to be a dad, Ana’s parents had been upset and distanced themselves over the years, or Ana had distanced herself from them. Either way, the result was the same.
The people who should have been there for Ben hadn’t been, and the kid felt it. Lived it.
A guy got up to sing next, and as he ended his song, a couple walked into the area with two children in tow.
Applause broke out among a crowded table at the front due to their arrival, and the man ate it up. He called out to a few people as he impatiently ushered his group through the tables to where the larger group sat.
Cole’s mind flashed to Ben’s words about his father being an egomaniac and given the guy’s dark hair and build, Cole turned to Ben in question.
Sure enough, Ben had paled to the color of milk and looked like he was going to hurl up the food he’d just scarfed down.
“I’m guessing that’s him?”
Ben nodded, never taking his gaze off the man.
The guy left his wife and offspring to fend for themselves while he hopped up on stage and grabbed the mic like a talk show host. He told a few jokes, egging on the crowd before the music kicked up a few notches and he belted out the first few lines of a popular song.
Cole had to give him props because the guy was a good singer. But Cole hoped Ben saw the way the guy ignored his toddler when the little boy got away from his mother and scrambled on stage, reaching up for his dad to hold him. The guy kept singing instead, glaring at the child for disrupting the show and motioning for his wife to do something, even though she had her hands full with a baby to look after.
