Page 60 of This Means War

“Saul can wait.” His face is hard again. “This is more important.” He doesn’t say anything else, just turns and leads a still confused Elliot out the door.

I watch them go, my head spinning in confusion. Is he going to see Josh? For a second, I consider following him, but then I hear the door slam and know I’ve missed my chance. I don’t exactly get around quickly these days. I pick up my phone and pull up Cole’s number, debating if I should call and demand an answer. Then my fingers flip through the screen as if on autopilot and suddenly Josh’s name is in front of me. I scan the last text he sent me.

Thanks for helping make my wedding weekend great,

sis. You’re the best.

No messages since. Cole’s angry at Josh, that much is clear. But as I let my phone drop to the bed and wrap my arms around myself, I don’t feel any anger, just unbelievable hurt.

Chapter 43

Cole

My fury atdiscovering that Josh and Delia have been back in town for four days and haven’t deigned to come visit Lydia carries me all the way to my car and out of the driveway before I realize I don’t actually know Josh’s new address. Figuring it’s the middle of the workday, I decide to head to the Robin’s Nest and hope that he’s there.

Sure enough, as I pull into the parking lot, I see Josh’s familiar black SUV parked near the back entrance. The sight renews any anger that had ebbed over the thirty-minute drive, and I surge out of the car, through the propped-up door, and into the lobby.

“Josh! Where are you?” The words spit out of my mouth as I look left and right, but there’s no answer. Above me I hear the creak of floorboards, so I head towards the sound. I’m halfway up the staircase when Josh’s face appears on the landing above. He’s dressed in paint splattered jeans and an old t-shirt. The smell of fresh paint hits my senses.

“Cole.” His face whitens. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” I echo, letting sarcasm fuel my next words. “I think a better question would be, what are you doing here? Last I heard you and Delia were too busy loitering around bed and breakfasts to bother coming to see your sister in the hospital, but now it looks as if it’s painting that’s keeping you away.”

Josh’s face goes from white to red in a flash, and his posture turns tense. “You’ve got some nerve coming over here and throwing accusations at me after what you did,” he says with steel in his voice.

“Why don’t you tell me what I did exactly,” I retort, ready to just lay it all out.

“You know exactly what you did,” Josh scowls. “You got my sister pregnant, then convinced her to marry you so that you wouldn’t lose your stupid election. Meanwhile you’ve been busy planning your next marriage to the woman you actually love so that once you have this election in the bag you can walk out on Lydia and marry her instead.”

I’m momentarily stunned. “Planning my next marriage to the woman I actually love?” I finally manage to repeat. “Please tell me you’re not talking about Ashley, because if so, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course I’m talking about Ashley!” Josh yells in exasperation. “She told Delia everything, Cole, so don’t even try to deny it. You think it was easy staying away from Lydia while she was in thehospital? It wasn’t! But thanks to you, I can’t see her right now. Not when seeing her would mean I either have to be a part of the huge lie you’ve told her or be the one to have to tell her the painful truth–that she’s just Ashley’s placeholder. I hate that I’m going to have to watch her get hurt by you all over again, just like ten years ago.”

All the fight drains out of me. “Ten years ago? What’re you even talking about?”

Josh scoffs. “You don’t remember. Why would you? It’s not as if that night affected you anywhere near as much as it did her.”

“Josh,” I take a step closer, “what night? I’m lost.”

“The night of your going away party, when we played spin the bottle and you wouldn’t kiss her.”

My mind travels back to that night, how the bottle had spun around and landed on Lydia. “You mean when she was 13 and I was nearly 18? You can’t tell me it was surprising I said no. She was barely a teenager, and I was about to head to college. Not to mentionyouwere there. No way would you have been okay with me kissing your kid sister.”

“I know,” Josh nods, “and Lydia knows that too. But you were a jerk about it, Cole. You suspected she liked you, but instead of being sensitive to her feelings you shot her down and spun the bottle again. A decent guy would’ve kissed her on the cheek and let that be that, but instead you gave her the once over and rejected her with two words that followed her around for the next four years: yeah…no. Everyone at her high school knew that story, Cole, and she got made fun of for it all the time. She was the ‘yeah…no’ girl.”

A different memory is surfacing in my mind as he speaks. That night at the hotel, when Lydia said those very words to me after I made my first move. I’d thought she was just trying to prove she’d been right about me not having a chance with her, but Josh’s story suggests she was trying to throw those words back in my face. Suddenly I understand her hostility to me when I first saw her after all those years. It wasn’t the fact that I’d squirted mustard on her blouse. No it had to do with my rejection of her ten years before.

“And do you remember which girl you kissed instead of Lydia?” Josh goes on. “Ashley, Cole. You kissed Ashley instead of Lydia.” His voice rises in anger again. “So forgive me if I’m a little pissed off that you’re getting ready to hurt Lydia all over again with the same woman!”

I’m frozen on the stairs, trying to figure out what to do or say next. Pain is wrenching through me at the realization that I’ve caused Lydia so much hurt. I came here to wring Josh out for hurting her, but now all I feel is guilt over the enormity of the pain I’ve caused her. I want to run back to Lydia and tell her how sorry I am. Tell her that I love her and our babies, and I can’t wait for the four of us to be a real family. But if I tell her all of this, then I’ll also have to tell her about my proposal to Ashley and how she, and consequently Josh and Delia, seem to think that once I’m elected mayor, I’ll drop Lydia and marryAshley. If I don’t tell her, Ashley surely will, and then Lydia will get hurt even more. Will she believe me when I tell her that’s definitely not my intention?

Round and round my thoughts go, with no clear answer, until finally Josh speaks again. “Do you have nothing left to say for yourself? Are you even going to try and deny that once you win the election, you’ll drop Lydia for Ashley?”

I snap to attention. “Of course, I’m going to deny that,” I cry in frustration. “I have absolutely no intention of ever leaving Lydia! I can’t believe you think I’d do something like that in the first place. We’ve been friends for practically our entire lives, Josh. I would’ve thought you would think a little more highly of me.”

“Ashley told Delia what she said to you after you proposed.” Josh crosses his arms across his chest. “Some crazy crap about how you needed a practice marriage before she’d marry you. Then, more recently, how you told her that Lydia was that practice marriage and asked her to wait for you.”

And just like that my anger is back. How I ever could’ve thought Ashley was someone I wanted to marry is beyond me. “C’mon, Josh, you believed that? I’ll say it again, we’ve been friends our entire lives, and you really think I would use your sister that way?”

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