Page 89 of It Should Have Been Me

“Whoa, wait, hold up. That’s not how it played out. Cat wanted to tell you before you got here. Why do you think she kept calling you? But once you were here...we didn’t want our mistake to...to ruin the wedding. And no, I did not get a kick out of it because I would’ve rather told you the truth than see you anywhere near her.”

Tommy sucks in a breath as a sign that I may be toeing the line, and JP confirms it when he shoves me again.

“You didn’t want to seemewith her? She’smygirlfriend. You had your chance. It didn’t work and instead of accepting it and leaving it be, you just had to?” He shakes his head before his pain-filled eyes focus on me. “How many times?”

“What?”

“I can forgive her if it was just once.”

I don’t regret pursuing Catalina, and I won’t deny that I want her for myself. If given the chance to do these last two weeks over, I would do the same thing again, but it’s at this moment that I feel genuine remorse for what I’ve done because this dude is about to break down, and I hate that I’m the cause of that.

“Just tell me it was only once and then...and then everything will be okay.”

He looks at me for confirmation and I can’t bring myself to lie, so I just slowly shake my head.

“Twice?”

Again, I shake my head.

“Three times?”

“Just hit me again. Just...just hit me as many times as you want.”

I don’t expect him to take me up on the offer, but he does. Another punch is flung at me, and then two slaps, probably because his knuckles have reached their limit for violence. He groans in pain again, and when he steps back, I turn to the bartender who’s leaning against the bar, watching the whole scene like it’s a Telenovela.

“Can you get me some ice, please?”

JP is breathing hard when I face him again. He stumbles unsteadily, and then his head drops onto my chest. I’m not a hundred percent certain, but I think he may be crying. I look over at Tommy, feeling awkward as fuck because a grown-ass man is weeping on me over the womanI’min love with.

Tommy gestures for me to put my arms around him. “Hug him,” he mouths.

“Fuck no!” I mouth back.

“Just do it.”

I release a slow breath, trying to swallow all my cringe, and one arm slowly goes around his shoulder. I give him a quickthere, theretap before slowly urging him away from me. “C’mon, sit down.”

He sits down, and Tommy and I sit on either side of him. I reach over and pluck the pink handkerchief from Tommy’s suit jacket that’s hanging on the back of the barstool. Toppling a few ice cubes into it, I wrap it up and place it on JP’s swollen hand. Tommy pours us all a shot of rum as he throws a comforting arm around JP’s shoulder.

“You’re bleeding, too,” he says, pointing to the gash on my eyebrow.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” I sigh heavily because this is a total cluster fuck. “Look, I’m sorry that I pursued Cat?”

“No, you’re not.”

“Okay, I’m not...but I am genuinely sorry that you had to get caught in the middle of this. I wasn’t trying to humiliate you by befriending you. If I had to be totally honest, I was trying to hate you. I still am. But you make hating you damn near impossible with your French charm and philosophical views on life.”

He nods, taking a slow sip of the brown liquor. “Catalina told me that those are my best qualities.”

“They are, but trust me, you and your qualities were the furthest things from my mind when I picked Cat up from the airport. I wasn’t thinking about trying to make a fool of you. I was only thinking aboutme...and can you blame me? I’ve been in love with this woman since I was eighteen years old. We wereengaged, man. We dated for three years...four and a half, if you ask her, and I was in no way ready to let that go.”

“Then, why did you?”

I shrug, taking a sip of the bitter liquid. “I didn’t want to end it, but...but she, uh, she didn’t want to come back home. She still doesn’t. She wants more out of life, much more than I can give her, and nothing I can do is going to convince her to stay.”

“Tell her you’re with child,” JP responds with a straight face. He says it like a joke but there are undertones of genuine anger in his voice. “God knows you’ve slept with her enough to make that plausible. And a baby always prolongs a failing relationship.”

I chuckle. “That’s a solid plan. She might figure out the truth in nine months, though.”

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