The Boy I Married [hold]

18 | Pristine Condition

"Okay, well I'm going to set us up with a reservation for dinner tonight. I'm so excited you guys are back and I want to know everything about Barbados."

Pattie exchanged a few more words to us and then disappeared behind the door. She wouldn't buy his story about everything being alright because the devastation spread on his face was the clear give away. He looked like he'd been hit with a semi truck.

"I want to talk to him. Man to man. Without you being there," he demands. Talking him out of that wasn't even possible because I already knew that he wouldn't just let it go. I guess that would be a good thing if the situation weren't so tragic.

"Justin, I don't think that's a good idea. You shouldn't do it. He already feels bad enough as it is. He's grieving the loss of his son and his wife. Me deciding to partner with him and buy Balzac's was the only thing that stopped his father's legacy from crashing and burning. That was the last piece of him he had. What I'm getting at is he doesn't need his business partner's husband coming up there and beating the shit out of him for a choice that lies fully on me. My commitments were to you and only you."

"So you except me to just pretend that the guy didn't fuck my wife?" He questions, standing from the bed again. His breathing was almost as potent as a freight train. "That doesn't sound right, Brooklynn and you know it. Confrontation might not sit well with you, but I'm not sweeping this under the rug. It's not happening."

Justin grabbed my phone from his bed and unlocked it. I didn't try to reach for it because he was going to do whatever he wanted to do.

"No, it's Justin. Her husband," he said sternly. "I want to invite you out to dinner tonight. Brooke and I just got home from our trip and my mother made us reservations at the finest restaurant in town and I want you to join us. Wear something nice and I'll shoot you the details. Yes. Ok, I'll see you there," he ended, tossing the phone down on the bed.

The room filled with silence a while longer until Justin's attention shifted back to me. His eyes filling with tears once again. I hated seeing him like this.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the vasectomy," a cry falls from his mouth before he wipes the tears away again and clears the lump from his throat. "I'm sorry that it took you sleeping with one guy to get pregnant and you could never with me. All of this is my fault. I forgive you for your infidelities and I mean that. I won't use it against you or hold it over your head in future arguments. I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you the way I should've been when Aria died. It was me who made the pledge to be there for her as a father and still I somehow managed to fuck that up too."

He doesn't give me a chance to say much before he walks over to his room door.

"I'm gonna go shower and get changed for dinner. We'll take my car and mom can take hers in case she wants to leave before us. Be ready in an hour," he finalized, walking out of his bedroom.

The lump of emotions still lingered in the back of my throat, almost choking me. This night would most likely be the end of my marriage and the end of whatever could've come out of this new coffee shop and I had to face that reality. I stood from his bed and made my way home to get myself changed into something acceptable for the restaurant.

>>>

"So Jacob, my daughter here tells me that she adores your coffee shop. Before they moved away, they spent every weekend at that place," Pattie excites, looking to me with a big smile on her face. "When I found out she had decided to invest in the property, I immediately knew that it would be in good hands. I promise you that choosing to partner up with her is going to pay off."

"Yeah, I've noticed that. Before my father passed, it really was the local hotspot. I wish things would've stayed that way but everything good must come to an end one way or another. I'm just glad she decided to walk in there when she did. I was moments away from completely giving up on it."