Page 30 of The Regrettable Mistake

Two – Her belly was slightly rounded in a way it never had been before. I stared at it in awe until she seemed to notice that Caleb hadn’t given her an answer yet and I didn’t appear to be paying attention.

“Your belly popped,” I said.

She immediately dropped her arms, so her flowy shirt covered up the evidence of her pregnancy. I hated myself for speaking because it meant she took the view away from me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew she had to be pretty far along already since it had been almost close to four months since we were together last, but it didn’t really register until now. That meant we only had four or five months left to get things ready. I wasn’t sure exactly how far along my wife’s pregnancy was because she’d never shared that information with me. Worse, I hadn’t even thought to ask the damn question.

“Well?” Steph questioned with the tap of her foot. Caleb grabbed the back of his neck and hung his head, but couldn’t bring himself to answer. For the first time all evening, Steph’s eyes drifted to mine. “How about you? Can you enlighten me as to why your best friend always seems embarrassed for me whenever you call me Precious?”

“Steph, the meaning behind that endearment has changed for me over time.”

“Well, it never changed for me. It always meant something sweet and special, but I can see that it was just another joke at my expense that I missed, so get it out in the open, Ollie.”

The other three men in the room stood there with differing emotions on their faces. Steve was rightfully pissed, Caleb was red with embarrassment and looked like he wished the floor would open and swallow him whole. Hutch had a smug smirk on his face as he arched his eyebrow at me in challenge. The bastard knew it wouldn’t go well for me.

“When we first married, Caleb made an off the cuff remark about how sweet and precious you were. After that, I called you Precious because you were so damn clueless about everything. It was “precious” that you were so innocent and,” I really hated to say this last part, but I did it anyway. “Gullible.”

Steph nodded and kept a stoic look on her face as she glanced at each of us. “So, it was always a joke about my naivety and not an endearment. Got it.”

“No, Steph. I told you that changed. You felt how it changed the last time…” I cut myself off there because I wouldn’t talk about the one time I made love to my wife during our marriage in front of the others.

“Yeah,” She chuckled. “Finish that statement, Ollie.” When I didn’t add to it, she did. “The last time we had sex.”

“Made love,” I corrected.

Steph shook her head. “No, it was never that. So, you want me to believe that something changed after that time and that your false endearment meant what it should have all along then, right?” I nodded because the words were stuck somewhere in my throat, lodged around the big ball of self-loathing that was stuck there.

“Yep, well, considering that was almost four months ago now, and it was the last time you touched me because you were too busy fucking your ex-girlfriend, I think we’ll write that one off as another lie.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Well, this precious girl wouldn’t know the difference, would she?”

Steph stomped off toward the stairs then.

My fucking heart was shattered at hearing that. The problem is, she wasn’t wrong, but she should have been. I should have protected her innocence. My wife had never been jaded by the world around her until I scarred her heart and made her question everything. My dalliance with Julia wasn’t even close to my first failing as a husband. My offenses continued to stack up and the weight of them always seemed to land on Steph.

“I know you don’t have any reason to believe me about anything, but I need you to know that I really have been working on saving my company and helping the district attorney prove his case against Julia. If I’d know these issues existed, they would have come first.” I sighed when she didn’t even turn back to acknowledge what I’d said. “First thing tomorrow, I will go to the bank and find out why you never received a card, because I did order one along with checks that had both of our names on them.”

I pulled the bank app back up on my phone and held it out for her to see, but again she didn’t bother looking, so I held it up for her brother to look at. “Your name has been on the account the entire time. I didn’t lie about that. I guess I dropped the ball and never made sure you had what you needed, but Steph, you never told me you didn’t have access to it. I would have fixed it long ago if I’d known.”

Finally, she glanced back and offered a single nod before she looked away again. “You never told me when your next appointment is. I’d really like to-”

“It was earlier today.”

“You were supposed to tell me.”

“I haven’t heard from you in two weeks. You said you’d fix everything the last time we spoke. Everything has gotten worse for me while nothing came from you but the silent treatment. Why in the world would I bend over backward to invite you to my doctor’s appointment when your presence would have meant a bigger issue there, and you can’t even call to make sure everything is going okay here?”

I turned a glare on my best friend in response to that. “You said to give her space for a couple weeks while we worked on everything. I thought that was her request that came through that asshole!” I stabbed a finger in Hutch’s general direction.

Steph began to laugh, startling the rest of us. “God save me from men who are supposedly working with my best interest in mind. I’m going to bed. All three of you can see yourselves out.”

“We need to see proof that you are taking the financial aspects of the prenup seriously.” Hutch stated once my wife made her way upstairs. It was good that he kept his voice low, so I wouldn’t have to break his damn jaw.

“Obviously, she’ll be taken care of,” I groused.

Hutch chuckled in that dark way that was absent of any real humor. “You’ve done such a bang up job of it for your whole marriage that you’ll have to forgive me for asking to see proof of those efforts.”

“I knew you were using my sister from the start, so I’m not as shocked as she is by the ‘precious’ bullshit, but I thought she was at least being taken care of for her trouble. I figured, if nothing else, she would have a hell of a nest egg in her savings account whenever she finally realized what you were really about. You fucked her financially too, though.”

---