Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Jules hasn’t trapped him, and I seriously doubt she has any inclination to try and force the man into a relationship. She knows him nearly as well as I do. Expecting that of him would be ridiculous.
They aren’t going to have a happily ever after. They’ll end up in a very mature co-parenting situation because despite Brooks’s philandering ways, he’d never turn his back on a child. He’ll step up and be the man he needs to be.
At thirty-five, Jules is more than capable of being a single mom. She’s established, has a great job, and is successful at anything she attempts.
The kid is lucky to have the two of them.
Me, on the other hand? I’m going to be miserable for years to come, watching them be a success at parenting. I don’t imagine the bitterness I’m feeling is going to dissipate anytime soon or even ever.
But am I willing to stay pissed at a man who was just doing what he does with a woman I have no claim to?
In my mind, I think that I can stay mad forever, but I know that’s not the case. A mature man wouldn’t lose the closest connection he has because a woman got in the way.
A true best friend wouldn’t fuck the woman you’ve been obsessed with either.
I shake my head, taking a deep breath because even though it’s true, I know I can’t be the bitter person. That would be too easy, and I’ve never been one to take a direction just because it was easy.
Maybe I can settle with accepting and not hating, but I can’t see ever getting back the same friendship I had with Brooks. This betrayal runs a little too deep to not leave bone-deep scars.
As the sun starts to set, cooling the concrete of the buildings I’m walking around, I come to the conclusion that I need to speak with Brooks. He needs to know what I’m feeling, what his actions have broken inside of me. I’ll leave him with that information and then have a long discussion with Deacon. I can’t stay in this city. I can’t stand around and watch Jules’s belly grow with Brooks’s baby a week at a time at my parents’ house. I can’t risk the chance of running into Beth, only for her to be stupidly excited about her best friend having a baby. I sure as hell can’t be a witness to that child being born into the world as my best friend smiles happily on, watching his child grow in the arms of a woman that I had always imagined would be mine.
It’s too much to ask of anyone, and if Deacon isn’t on board with me working from another city, then maybe it’s time to give the job offer from the Department of Homeland Security real consideration. They’ve been scouting me for the better part of eighteen months, and Washington DC, really isn’t all that bad.
Brooks isn’t back at the office when I return. Jude and Quinten look at me like my dog just died, but they don’t say a word when I make my way back down the hallway toward the elevator. I could easily sit on the couch and talk it through with the two of them but doing that would only mean putting off the inevitable.
I have to say my piece, and then I have to get the hell away from all of it.
The drive back to the building I live in is so familiar, I almost wish it was a new experience. If it were, I wouldn’t spend the entire drive running through my head every outcome of what’s about to happen.
It could end up a confrontation, but from the look on Brooks’s face when he announced he was going to be a dad, I know I could clock him in the jaw, and the man would just stay there and take it. The reality of what he’d done was on full display when he looked at me. The guilt and shame told me he was just as disappointed in himself as I was in him.
It’s possible he’s had time to lock all that shit down, because there’s also a good chance that he’ll joke the way he always has where Jules is concerned, either unknowing or uncaring of how it affects me. That would probably still lead to me hitting him in his smug face.
After climbing out of my truck and entering the elevator in the underground parking of my building, I almost chicken out. I almost press the button for the seventh floor rather than the eighth, but at the last second, I steel my spine, knowing I have to follow through.
He looks wrecked when he opens the door. His hair is a mess, and even the sweats he’s wearing look like they’ve been through three rounds in the boxing ring.