Page 10 of Resolving Rumors

“Please, Vic.” It was my turn to sigh, though not as dramatically as he had done moments ago.

“Fine. We can talk. At the table though because, no offense, but I can’t stomach the thought of you in my bedroom anymore.”

“Fucking hell, woman.” Devin turned back to plate our food as I walked off to the dining table not sure what to do with the jumbled thoughts and questions that clogged up my brain. What were we supposed to talk about at this point? Was there anything that could be said to fix things? I doubted that, but I still deserved better than “I was jealous of your date” as reason to throw our whole relationship down the tubes for someone else.

I sat the head of the table, so that even if Devin tried to sit by my side, he would still be a little further away than if we sat directly beside one another as we used to do. Maybe it was petty of me, but in all honesty, it was more about keeping my distance to preserve my sanity. My heart could only take so much closeness to Devin. I still loved him even as I hated what he’d done to us. I also understood that while he was the one who made the decisions he did that put the final nails in the coffin, it was my desire to keep us a secret that built the damn thing to begin with.

“Here,” Devin stated as he pushed a full plate with silverware on it in front of me. He set his down on the table and then ran back to the kitchen. When he got back he had coffee for both of us. He took the seat to my left and pulled his chair as close to the end of the table as was possible without sliding around and practically sitting in my lap.

I took a tentative bite of the western scramble he made. My stomach wasn’t exactly up for it, despite the audible grumbles it started to make the minute I smelled breakfast cooking while I was still in bed. While my mind tried to process the fact that Devin was there, in my house, and made me breakfast, the rest of me was still stuck in a weird stage of grief for the relationship we once had. Logically, I knew he wasn’t dead, but our breakup felt like something permanent.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve said that and it changes nothing.” I glanced up into those confused brown eyes of his and laid my fork back down on my plate. “I understand that you are apologetic, maybe even regretful, but it doesn’t change anything about the situation. You married another woman. Even if she is pregnant with your baby, and I thought it was possible to forgive you, there is no getting around a marriage.”

“There is when it doesn’t mean the same thing as it does for everyone else.”

I reached forward and grabbed his hand to hold up between us. "In case you forgot, you married someone else. Not only are you married to the woman, but you seem awful proud of the fact, considering you're wearing a ring that symbolizes it. If it was all smoke and mirrors, you wouldn't have that on your fucking finger.” I pointed at the circle of metal that my eyes had been drawn to repeatedly since I realized he was in my house.

He reached over, took the ring off, and threw it somewhere across the room. "That shit doesn't mean anything to me. She doesn't mean anything. I doubt it is even my fucking baby.”

"There was a chance that it was your baby, though, since you married her so quickly." The accusation left me on a whisper, but he still heard it.

"All I know is that I was pissed you were on a date with someone else. I got tore the fuck up drunk and she was there getting wasted right along with me." He sighed deeply. "When I woke up, we were in bed together and I honestly don't remember how I got there or what happened that night. I was so blitzed.” Those last words came out sounding almost like a plea for me to understand.

“When I saw her naked in the bed with me, I threw up," Devin admitted. I kind of knew the feeling because I wanted to throw up after hearing that, too.

"What was she doing at your house that night?" I asked.

"She knew you had a date and apparently Brody was out for a guy's night with her dad, who bragged to her about them going to see some strip show."

I cringed. "That's just too much yuck to even process."

He nodded. "That's why we were drinking and commiserating."

"You do realize that you go out on dates with the woman you ended up married to all the time, right?”

"That was different. You didn't have to worry…" His voice trailed off when he realized how stupid that sounded.

"Yeah," I huffed. "Nothing to worry about there. It’s not like you knocked her up, or at least slept with her naked, and then married her without even being good enough to warn me beforehand. Instead, I had to hear about it after the fact, when I came to your house unannounced. And still, it wasn’t because you managed to tell me about it. I busted you talking about yoursweet little family with your brand new wife. Sure, I can see where that was totally different."

"Fuck!" Devin yelled as he turned his back on me.

"I get that I have some share in the blame for how this happened, because I never should have trusted a home wrecker in a million years."

"She's not a home wrecker." The fact that he jumped to her defense , and so quickly, pissed me off.

"Right, because she's not carrying a married man's baby and she didn't marrymyboyfriend behind my back after sleeping with him. No, she doesn't meet the definition of home wrecker at all. The truth will come out eventually about whose baby that is and people are going to be hurt. She doesn't care!” I yelled the last bit at him before I moved past Devin to grab some tissue from the bathroom. When I came back out he stared at me, as if waiting for the rest of whatever I’d been saying. So, I gave it to him.

“She smiled at me when she welcomed you into her waiting arms as I took off that day. And you went willingly. Why wouldn't you? You were alreadyherhusband wearingherring by then! Now, she's taken extra efforts to make sure you never talk to me again. She literally blocked me from calling and messaging you while diverting your messages to me somewhere else. That's a whole other level of fucked up, and you know it! Yet, you have the nerve to stand here, in my home, and defend her to me?"

"She's my wife," he whispered.

"Funny, just a few minutes ago, you said none of that meant anything."

He hung his head then. "I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here, Vic. I already married her. She's pregnant. Whether its my kid or not, I can't really do anything to upset her at the moment because it might cause issues."

"Well, isn't that convenient. She gets to play happy family with you for the entirety of her pregnancy, and then it will be her postpartum, sleep deprived state that keeps you on the hook. Before long, you'll fall in love with her baby and she'll realize that her real baby daddy isn't going to leave his wife or tell his best friend what a fucking creep he is. I thought it was bad that we were seven years apart, but that man is literally her godfather. He was there to help change her diapers and now she's having his kid.”

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