Page 54 of The Regrettable Mistake

“You think their date is going as rough as ours started out?”

It took Steph a minute, but when she saw the couple sitting in that spot she smiled and then turned back to me. “I really was about to ditch you that day.” She laughed then. “God, you were awful. I don’t know what possessed me to stay.” She shook her head and then her smile slipped a little. “No, I do remember. I thought, here is a man who is botching an entire date because his son is home sick and he wants to be there. I wanted to get to know the man who would do anything to be there for his child.”

We both sat silently thinking of that day before Steph took my hand in hers. “I get it. It took me a long time to not think of you as a monster for using me the way you did.” I tried to interrupt her, but she wasn’t having it. “No, it’s your turn to listen. The signs were always there. My brother pointed them out early on in our relationship. You don’t get to shoulder all the blame. It seems we were each living in our own deluded worlds. For a time, it worked. Let’s face it though, it was a house of cards all along waiting to crumble in on us because we got into that relationship for all the wrong reasons.”

“No, you got into it for the right reason. I was the idiot who couldn’t see past my plan.” It was my turn to laugh at myself. “You should have left me there that day. I almost left the restaurant when I got up to go to the bathroom. Not because of my son, either.”

“Then why?” Steph asked after I was quiet too long.

“I knew. That day, watching you get fed up with my bullshit, you were mesmerizing even then. I knew it would be difficult not to fall for you Steph. You think I fooled only you with our relationship, but that isn’t true. I was fooling myself the whole time, until that night,” I tipped my head toward her belly. “That was the first time I allowed myself to acknowledge that you didn’t just crawl under my skin and make a home there. I invited you in at some point. It was the fear of what would happen if you found out that I hadn’t always felt that way that made me respond to the text Julia sent me. It was my fear of destroying our relationship with the truth that caused me to go and destroy it anyway.”

“This is what I have a problem with,” Steph stated as she swirled her finger around indicating my face. “It looks like you’re being real with me right now, but I’m having trouble trusting my instincts.”

“I promise that I am being genuine. I knew from the beginning that it would be hard to not fall in love with you. I’m no longer sure why I felt the need to build those boundaries around our relationship. It was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

Our order was placed on the bar then, so I grabbed it and stood up with my opposite hand out to help Steph from her bar stool.

“Let’s get this back to your place, so you can eat it before the craving changes.”

She laughed at me and it felt like I was floating on a cloud as the beautiful sound wrapped around my heart and squeezed tight.

CHAPTER 19

Steph

Spending time with Ollie outside of the doctor’s appointment was probably a bad idea. Scratch that. It was most assuredly a bad idea.

He had a way of getting under my skin and filling me up with all the warmth and feelings that had been dormant for months. I didn’t want to give him the power to seduce me into believing his every word again. He had a powerful way about him. When my husband spoke, you wanted to listen, to believe him. It was why he was so good at business. It was probably why he hadn’t gone bankrupt in the wake of the on-going Jia scandal. I wasn’t the only one who fell for his charms. I was just the one person who needed continual reminders that it wasn’t good for me to do so.

When we finally rolled into my driveway, I saw Ollie’s eyes widen and his jaw drop. “You bought this place?”

“Yes, why are you so surprised?”

“I’m not surprised so much as…” He shook off whatever thought he’d been about to express and it made me irrationally angry.

“As what?” I snapped.

His head shot around so that our eyes met. “You don’t understand. When this place was first on the market a few years ago, I looked at it. I wanted this to be the place where we built our family, but it was a little far out of town and I didn’t want you to have to commute to the other side of town for work all the time, especially in the winter when it snows.”

“Oh,” I whispered. “Well, I loved the house the first time I saw the listing, but in person it was so much better.” I hesitated with what I was about to say and then chastised myself for it, considering I’d just snapped at him for the same thing. “I’m glad you didn’t buy it back then.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t stomach staying in our old house. I’d hate for that to have happened with this one. This place truly is a dream.”

“Are you going to take me inside and show me around?”

“Maybe. First, I’m going to take you inside and straight to the kitchen, so we can eat because I’m starved.”

I wish I could say I gracefully hopped out of the car then, but in reality it probably looked more like the thirtieth cramped clown finally getting to exit the car they’d been stuffed into. Everything ached and my body was cumbersome in places that made moving difficult. The problem with that was every time I got used to it, the damn thing grew some more. My belly, boobs, ass, thighs… Pretty much my entire being ballooned on a near daily basis and made me have to readjust for the new weight distribution.

After we ate, I walked Ollie through the house. “This is exactly like I thought it would be,” he commented for what had to be the fourth time when we made our way through each room.

“I bet Den loves this room.” The smile on his face as he took in what I’d done for our boy made me grin in return.

“He loved it. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you about it.”

“I think he’s afraid of either hurting my feelings or breaking your trust. He doesn’t tell me much about being here besides the fact that he loves you and your new house.”

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