Page 70 of Not Before Game Night
“Jayne… hey there.” I greeted her with a polite smile.
“Hey, Cole. Good to see you.” She nodded.
I’d always thought she’d looked like a cross between Reese Witherspoon and Jamie King. It was a combo of the way she looked and the expressions she made.
The woman was beautiful, and just like when I last saw her, I tensed because I knew what her man got up to when he wasn’t with her.
“You too,” I replied. “Looking for Denver?”
She pulled in a short breath. “Yeah, I am. I …” Her voice trailed off, and when a tear ran down her cheek, I knew something was wrong.
“What’s up?” I asked and bit the inside of my lip. The intensity of her gaze deepened, and the expression she wore was one I’d seen too many times on my own mother. It told me she knew about the cheating.
“Cole… I’m sorry to come here in such a mess.” More tears streamed down her cheeks, and I felt like shit. She grabbed a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes with it.
“It’s okay. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“Cole, I beg of you, please tell me the truth. I know you guys have some unwritten code among you, and what happens behind closed doors or whatever stays secret, but I can’t live like that. I saw something yesterday, and I know what it looked like, but my heart doesn’t want to believe it.”
“What did you see?” Now I felt like an asshole because right before I’d met Vanessa to go to the party, I’d gone to pick up my dry cleaning and saw Denver in town with Brittany Tate.
They would have looked like a normal couple sitting around a table outside Starbucks, simply looking like they were out to get coffee if I didn’t see him secretly fondling her tits when she leaned over to kiss him.
“I saw him with another woman. She was getting in his car, and they kissed.” Another bout of tears came, and her shoulders started shaking. I rested my hand on her shoulder for reassurance, but it didn’t help.
“My heart wants to believe it wasn’t him,” she added. “Like I saw someone who looked like him, but yet, I know it was Denver. Cole, it was him. Tell me, please, have you… ever seen him hanging around other women? You know, like that? Screwing around.”
Oh fuck. She was right that there was a damn unwritten code, but there came a time when you had to acknowledge right and wrong. I was the rebel, and I never followed the fucking rules. Written, unwritten, or otherwise.
I wasn’t a damn liar either.
She looked at me, and I knew she knew the answer even before I said it.
“Yes,” I replied. “Yes, Jayne. I have seen him.”
She bit down hard on her bottom lip and wiped away more tears.
“I’m really sorry,” I added, releasing her. “I really am.”
“Thank you for being honest with me.”
“He doesn’t know what he has,” I told her.
She shook her head. “He didn’t know what hehad. I’ll see you around. Thank you.”
I watched her go, and her words clung to my mind. Denver didn’t know what he had indeed, and I wouldn’t make the same mistake.
I knew what I had with Vanessa, and it was more than just asking her to be my girlfriend.
I loved her too, and it was time I told her.
Chapter 20
Cole
* * *
It was a beautiful night.
