Page 130 of Playing With Secrets
“Jami, I know I’ve done just as many things that have hurt you. Probably more over time.” I press off his chest.
We face each other and know it’s time to talk about how I’ve impacted both their lives.
“Dori, I can forgive you for everything. I have forgiven you. If you can’t give that to yourself, I’m not sure how we make it through this because you’ll always be wondering if you could’ve done something differently than you did.”
“I know and I’m working on getting there. But here’s the thing you need to understand. The intensity of what I feel for you pulls me to you. It always has. You’ve said it yourself. We have an intense magnetic attraction.”
“That we do.”
I place my hand on Jami’s heart. “You have me no matter where I am in this world. It’s always been you.”
“You don’t know how happy that makes me hearing that.”
“You own my heart, and it’s taken me a long time to figure that out. It’s beyond anything tangible. It has a life of its own.”
“I feel that way too.”
“Good, so please don’t doubt how I feel about you when I struggle with how Hunter will be affected by this. I still care deeply for him and feel awful I’m going to hurt him.”
Jami puts his hand over mine. “I know. Your compassion is one of the many things I love about you. You don’t have a true mean bone in your body.”
A warm smile grows across my face. “That’s sweet of you to say.”
“You love hard, so I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. Just promise you’ll talk to me about it so I don’t get in my head and think you’re second-guessing yourself.”
“I promise I’ll talk to you about it, but I might need a day or two to get it figured out in my brain before I do. Can you handle that?” I intertwine my fingers with his.
“Yeah, I can do that for you.” His phone buzzes, so he glances at the screen. “That’s odd.”
“What?”
“I just got a message from Jonah.” Jami’s face screws up and he shakes his head. “He never reaches out this late. Let me call him real quick.”
“What did his message say?”
“He just asked me to call him.” Jami presses a few things on his phone and then puts it to his ear.
“Hey, Jonah. I just got your message. What’s up?” Jami turns to me and shrugs.
His forehead crinkles together as he listens to Jonah. “How can that be? Everything was running smoothly the last I checked. I haven’t assigned anyone to that part of the app, so there’s no reason it should give you an error message.”
He listens for a minute. His eyes squint and he huffs. “Give me a second and I’ll check it out on my computer.”
He hits the mute button and stands. “I’ve got to help Jonah with something. It seems there’s a glitch somewhere. Make yourself at home and I’ll be down as soon as I figure this out.”
“Take your time.” I blow him a kiss as he walks away.
I rest my head on the back of his couch and think about how I want to break the news to Hunter. My stomach twists and swirls guilt around. Acid eats at my insides.
I get up to burn off some of this anxious energy. I place my hands on the back of my hips as I wander around Jami’s apartment. He hasn’t given me a full tour, so I go from room to room.
As soon as I enter his bedroom, the lights flick on. It startles me, causing me to peek over my shoulder. A framed picture of us on his dresser comes to my attention. I pick it up.
His arms are around my shoulders as I lean against him, taking a selfie. We’re both facing the camera. We’re soaking wet, standing in the meadow with Mount Sopris in the background.
“Holy shit. Where did he get this?” I search my brain, trying to remember if he had his phone that day.
If he has this photo of us, he must have had it. I put it back in its spot and go upstairs to find him.
